Fresh and evolving ideas from the collision of Situational Crime Prevention and Design

1. Striking Sparks: Fresh and evolving ideas from the collision of Situational Crime Prevention and Design Paul Ekblom Design Against Crime Research Centre Central Saint Martins College of Art & Design www.designagainstcrime.com www.designagainstcrime.com/web/crimeframeworks

2. What’s coming up • Tour of Design Against Crime • The challenge of Design Against Crime • Lessons from current research • How to do DAC • Implications for theory and practice of situational crime prevention and Problem-Oriented Policing

3. What is Design Against Crime? DAC uses the tools, processes & products of design to work in partnership with agencies, companies, individuals and communities to • prevent all kinds of crime– including antisocial behaviour, drug abuse/ dealing and terrorism • promote quality of life & sustainable living through enhanced community safety through designs that are 'fit for purpose' and contextually appropriate in all other respects

4. Implementing DAC • Getting designers to Think Thief and • Getting crime preventers to Draw on Design

5. Scope of Design Against Crime Not just defensible buildings and locks • Secure products • Security products • Security components • Security features/ furniture • Secure systems • Secure information • Security communication/ art • Secure clothing • Secure places/ environments Design is about processes, not just products!

6. Inherently secure product – Vexed Generation/ Puma

7. Security Product/ Security Communication

8. Security Features/ Furniture/ Accessories

9. Security Communication

10. Security Communication/Art

11. Secure Place: Maiden Castle

12. Hi-tech solution

13. Lo-tech solution Note that here, security derives from combined features of product and place

14. No-tech solution Just the right mindset at the right time – think vandal!

15. Scale of DAC

16. The challenge of DAC: toasters don’t fight back

17. Helping designers think thief – Developing & building capacity for DAC • Mindset • Clear definitions – tools for thought • Knowledge for interventions • Knowledge management – capturing & replicating good practice and supporting innovation without stifling creativity • Anticipation

18. Wrong mindset for design: failure to think thief A receptacle for grime? Or a tool for crime?

19. Failure to think drug user

20. But don’t go over the top with crime…

21. Danger!

22. So think thief, but remember:design should primarily be user-centred • Don’t let the abuser-unfriendly tail wag the user-friendly dog! • Try to develop frameworks that apply to users as well as offenders/ abusers

23. Lessons from current research

24. A productive clash of cultures • DAC Research Centre, JDI, Huddersfield ACC and Loughboro have been discussing/collaborating on a range of projects – both practical and conceptual • Bringing together the agendas, discourses, methods and knowledge of design and crime science/criminology • This has been stimulating a lot of new ideas, and quite a few arguments - striking sparks off each other

25. Discipline + creativity Science progresses not just through research & theory but through development of clear definitions and frameworks – tools for thinking and communication So much for the chemistry of crime!

26. Clear definitions and frameworks Conceptual problems in Situational Crime Prevention that need resolving before we can progress – 2 illustrations • Project MARC – crimeproofing electronic products at design stage to ensure their security level matches their risk of theft • Experts had difficulty judging security… • Clash between Functional & Technical languages • Valid means of unique identification of product • BIOS password, Cable-lock • Terminology was unclear – eg 4 different meanings of vulnerability • DAC-JDI 2006-8 – Bikeoff – developing standards & guides for design of secure bikes/ bike parking • Using Conjunction of Criminal Opportunity framework to organise enquiry into security… • ambiguous – what does ‘environment’ mean exactly? • not dynamic enough • not user-oriented enough – too abuser-focused • not attuned to the way designers think

27. Clear definitions and frameworks Responses • Post-MARC – What do you mean, is it secure? 2007 • Suite of interlocking Definitions of risk, security, vulnerability, susceptibility etc • Acknowledge different Discourses, & deliberately move between them • Ongoing – Bikeoff design standards and guides • User dog now wagging abuser tail • New concept of the Caused agent • Bring in dynamics – mix CCO with Scripts • Clarify Discourses of design intervention • Ongoing – Grippa – design/evaluation of anti-bag theft designs • Tormenting designers with frameworks to articulate and reflect what they are doing to tackle theft – including Definition of theft/ theft prevention • Tinkering with TRIZ – inventive Solutions

28. Criminogenic Probability Criminocclusive Criminally harmful Harm Criminally harmless To product To user To 3rd party Crime propagation Defining Risk Crime risk

29. Risk and the rational offender’s foraging agenda • Classically – Risk, Effort, Reward – but grown a bit lazy • Risk is involved in each: • Probability of harm (arrest, victim resists, fall thru skylight, guilt/fear) • Probability of excess effort • Probability of losing reward – failure • Should we be relabeling/ refining the calculus – eg • Probability/size/nature of harm • Opportunity costrelative to alternative choices (not just offend : don’t offend), • Benefit • And…how do real criminals make choices? • Be aware of the convertible currency issue – I can risk more harm to get a bigger reward; I can forego reward to save effort and risk

30. Discourses • Many ways to describe preventive interventions – no single best one • Functional – purpose – serving user, crime reduction • Performance – purpose + target criteria • ‘Reverse-functional’ – frustrating offender’s purpose eg disrupting plans • Problem-oriented – specific problem in specific place • ‘Ideal Final Result’ – solution-orienteddescriptions in terms of all the functions and/or performance criteria – more later • ‘Reverse-causal’ – the causes the intervention aims to remove, weaken, divert • Mechanistic – how the intervention is supposed to work • Technical/structural realisation of intervention through a practical method • Constructional/instructional – how to manufacture, implement, install method • Delivery – targeting of interventions (eg ‘primary, secondary, tertiary prevention’) • Mobilisation – how to get people to implement the intervention – eg publicity • Which are suitable for which stage of the design process? • Which are suitable for standards and guidelines for practitioners?

31. Properties Physical, informational, psychological, social… Described in functional terms – linking to human purpose, & causal terms – to human motivation Space Movement Manipulation/force Perception/prospect Shelter/refuge Understandability Information Motivation/emotion (territoriality) Competition and conflict Structural Features Nodes Paths Barriers Screens Enclosures Furniture Signage Movable contenteg Vehicles People’s bodies Containers Features & properties of environment that help or hinder offenders/ preventers - contributing to revamp of CPTED

32. Perception and Prospect – how do properties and features of environment influence Vision for Surveillance? Sightlines Who/ what can be seen from where • Structural features affecting this property of environment: • Bends, screens, barriers, recesses, enclosures • Content affecting this property: • Human/vehicular presence, plants, containers Light Intensity, colour, contrast, direction/glare, fluctuation etc • Structural features affecting this property of environment: • Barriers, surfaces - reflectivity • Content affecting this property: • Vehicle lights, trees/shrubs, containers Background Discriminability – camouflage etc • Structural features affecting this property of environment: • Surfaces - pattern • Content affecting this property: • Vehicle lights, plants, containers, litter

33. Who we are designing for - Humans as caused agents • Parallel discourses for offenders (abusers), preventers, promoters (users): • Perception, emotion, motivation are caused • Simultaneously, we are rational-ish, goal-oriented, causing • Links to • Wortley’s 2-stage precipitation& opportunity model • risk/effort/reward + provocation in 25 techniques of SCP – but goals as much as decisions • Wikström’s agency model • Ekblom Rich Offender idea

34. Tackling crime problem with Clarity and Contradiction : One that Jane Austen missed • Defining user requirements • Defining theft problem • Analysing causes of problem • Defining solution • Realising/ inventing solution

35. Defining Bike Parking for designers • Have to define the desired function of the designed environment or product, as clearly as the undesired consequence • Parking is… • Approaching destination with bike • Leaving bike acceptably close to destination • Avoiding loss/damage to bike, injury or nuisance to self and others during period parked • Returning to collect bike • Pedalling off without undue delay/inconvenience

36. Defining Theft problem for designers • Be problem and context specific… not just theft, but theft of bikes… in short/ long stay parking facilities • Theft is… • The Illegitimate permanent possession of the target object, information, services etc • The illegal transfer event or process that brings the illegitimate possession about; which may lead to a further transfer in sale of stolen goods (another offence) • The criminal intent of the offender – ie the act is goal-driven, not inadvertent, based on a misunderstanding or caused in any kind of involuntary way. • The stealthy nature of the transfer (in contrast to robbery)

37. Analysing causes of theft problem 1 Conjunction of Criminal Opportunity framework – development of Routine Activities Theory – breaks criminal event into 11 causes, matched by 11 intervention principles. Basically: • Agents – Offender, Preventers, Promoters • Predisposition, motivation, perception, resources • Entities – properties, features, combinations, configurations • Target (eg bike) • Valuable • Vulnerable • Setting (environment, enclosure) • Motivates offender – lots of attractive bikes; demotivates preventer? • Favours offender over preventer

38. Analysing causes of theft problem 2 • Dynamics of interaction among these causes – agent view • Decision making/ pursuit of goals • Scripts • user: seek, see, park bike, leave, return, find bike, use it • abuser: seek, see, release bike, take bike, escape, sell • Script clashes – contradictions • Surveill v conceal • Exclude v allow entry • Wield v resist force • Challenge v plausible response • Surprise v warning • Pursuit v escape… • Clashes can flip at each stage of script - eg CRAVED: • Concealable criminocclusive at seek stage; criminogenic at escape • Apply CCO at each stage of scripts/clashes to identify interacting causal elements which need to be manipulated or created

39. The challenge of designing interventions:Troublesome Tradeoffs Can we design secure products without jeopardising their main purpose and without their being • Inconvenient? • User-unfriendly? • Ugly? Effective but hideous & clunky engineering solutions • A threat to privacy? • Environmentally unfriendly? • Unsafe? • Too expensive?

40. Boosting inventiveness to cut crime whilst respecting the tradeoffs • TRIZ – a theory of inventive principles • Based on analysis of oodles of patents • 40 generic Inventive Principles • 39 Contradiction Principles – the sharper-expressed the contradiction, the easier the problem to solve • Lookup tables – what inventive principles solved what contradictions in past? • Analysis of evolutionary trends of invention (solid > segmented > flexible > field) – look for what’s likely to appear next, to limit search for new solution … maybe evolutionary trends in offender countermoves/ perpetrator techniques?

41. Defining theft solution • Key to theft prevention is some kind of discriminating function between user and abuser in the script clashes, creating or enhancing an asymmetry in what they have (key), what they know (code), what they are (ID), what they do…ultimately over value, and access to value • Ideal final result: (TRIZ) Want a bike stand simultaneously: • Economical • Easy to manufacture/install/maintain • Aesthetic • Effective at supporting bike • Easy for user to employ • Hard for abuser to remove bike • Hard for abuser to damage • This focus on solution is interesting contrast with Problem-Oriented Approach which focuses on… problem

42. Realising theft solution • Alter causal properties of entities in crime situation, adding features, combinations and configurations … • Alert, Inform, Motivate, Empower, people as preventers • Demotivate offenders (cause) and disrupt their scripts (agent) • The above stated in a way to maximise design freedom in designing intervention and resolving tradeoffs/contradictions whilst customising to context • Fixed and/or standardised designs are vulnerable to adaptive offenders and social/technological changes • Over to science, technology, engineering and design – interleaved intelligently with understanding of psychological and social processes that set the context

43. Delivering cost effective and sustainable Crime Prevention: How to alert and motivate designers and empower their performance? Design Decisionmaker Designer Manufacturer Marketer Product x Distributor Product x Purchaser Non-Crime Prevention goals - competing or conflicting Product x Installer Product x User/ Service Provider Performance of product Product x Disposer Reducing Crime by Design - a Succession of Performances Crime Prevention via product design

44. An invention too far? Secure underwear

45. Striking Sparks: Fresh and evolving ideas from the collision of Situational Crime Prevention and Design Paul Ekblom Design Against Crime Research Centre Central Saint Martins College of Art & Design www.designagainstcrime.com www.designagainstcrime.com/web/crimeframeworks