Paul Ekblom

1
Fresh and evolving ideas from the collision of
Situational Crime Prevention and Design
Striking Sparks

• Paul Ekblom
• Design Against Crime Research Centre
• Central Saint Martins College of Art Design
• www.designagainstcrime.com
• www.designagainstcrime.com/web/crimeframeworks

2
Whats 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 dont 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 dont go over the top with crime
21

Danger!
22
So think thief, but rememberdesign should
primarily be user-centred

• Dont 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
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
Defining Risk
Crime risk
29
Risk and the rational offenders 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 cost relative to alternative choices
  (not just offend dont offend),
• Benefit
• Andhow 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 offenders
  purpose eg disrupting plans
• Problem-oriented specific problem in specific
  place
• Ideal Final Result solution-oriented
  descriptions 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
Features properties of environment that help
or hinder offenders/ preventers - contributing
to revamp of CPTED

• 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 content eg
• Vehicles
• Peoples bodies
• Containers

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
• Wortleys 2-stage precipitation opportunity
  model
• risk/effort/reward provocation in 25 techniques
  of SCP but goals as much as decisions
• Wikströms 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 gt segmented gt flexible gt field) look for
  whats 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
  doultimately 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
Reducing Crime by Design - a Succession of
Performances
Crime Prevention via product design
44
An invention too far?
Secure underwear
45
Fresh and evolving ideas from the collision of
Situational Crime Prevention and Design
Striking Sparks

• Paul Ekblom
• Design Against Crime Research Centre
• Central Saint Martins College of Art Design
• www.designagainstcrime.com
• www.designagainstcrime.com/web/crimeframeworks