Over the next three years, the Design and Technology Alliance will bring industry, the public sector, designers and crime prevention experts together with victims of crime. Backed by £1.6 million from the Home Office, new design-led ideas will be prototyped and exhibited to showcase the UK's world-class innovation and demonstrate their market potential.
Led by Sebastian Conran, the Alliance draws on design expertise and business knowledge to develop and promote crime-reducing innovations in products, services, regulation and in the everyday environment. The Alliance also works to identify incentives for business to design out crime and advise on what consumers want.
The three year programme, co-ordinated by the Design Council, will work with industry experts to tackle five areas where design can help to prevent crime:
Finding and applying specific design solutions to reduce problems such as bullying, fighting and petty theft in schools.
Led by: Sir John Sorrell, Chair of the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment and the Sorrell Foundation.
Developing innovations in technology, services and product design which help make personal electronics more crime-proof.
Led by: Joe McGeehan, Director of the Centre for Communications Research at Bristol University.
Embedding design-led crime reducing approaches in the planning and construction of housing.
Led by: Ken Pease, forensic psychologist and visiting professor at University College London.
Finding design-led approaches to reduce the harm caused by alcohol-related antisocial and criminal behaviour, especially assaults in pubs and clubs.
Led by: Jeremy Myerson, Professor of Design Studies at the Royal College of Art.
Helping businesses to use design to minimise the crimes which victimise them, their customers or employees – such as shoplifting and other forms of retail theft.
Led by: Lorraine Gamman, Professor of Design Studies at Central St Martins.
The Design and Technology Alliance aims to:
- Generate positive design solutions to specific crime and disorder problems, based on an understanding of the methods used by offenders
- Advise on strategies for the wider implementation of these solutions
- Inspire designers to produce positive design solutions (through commissions, awards
and publicity)
- Identify potential threats, solutions and opportunities presented by new technologies
- Raise consumer awareness and increase demand for secure and attractive products
- Demonstrate the business case for Designing Out Crime by showing that it increases sales by adding value
- Raise the profile of Designing Out Crime within industry, placing it at the core of corporate social responsibility.
In more depthFind out more about
Designing Out Crime, a major project for the Design and Technology Alliance