A new strategy against crime

Time to rethink the way we take on crime?

With the theft of everything from mobile phones to bikes costing the UK billions, it’s time designers led the fight against criminal behaviour, says Lloyd Bradley

A bike gets stolen every 70 seconds in the UK. It’s a statistic Adam Thorpe, associate director of the Design Against Crime Research Centre, fully understands. One day in 2004, he came out of his office at Central Saint Martins College of Art to find his £120-worth of locks dumped on the pavement by the stand where his bike should have been.

Fast forward a year and the production line is rolling on Puma’s anti-theft folding mountain bike, brainchild of Thorpe and design partner Joe Hunter. Part of Puma’s Urban Mobility range, the bike frame’s front down-tube was replaced with cables, which double as a lock. Should a thief cut them, the bike will collapse. Puma workshops only fit new cables once ownership has been verified.

The designers approached the project’s demands from an unusual point of view, using one criterion to intrinsically facilitate another; the concept doesn’t scream ‘security’ at the top of its lungs, is supported by a manufacturer and is available in the shops at a reasonable price.

Puma initially contemplated dropping the security feature. Thorpe convinced them otherwise: ‘They felt it wasn’t cool to be obviously worried about having your bike nicked, and it would damage the bike’s appeal. I told them if they took it off, it would be the biggest mistake they could make, as what really isn’t cool is going outside to jump on your bike and it not being there. Now the bike’s in its fourth generation [of production].’

The Home Office has launched the Design and Technology Alliance to make such success stories commonplace. Made up of designers, psychologists and criminologists, and involving the Design Council, University College London (UCL), the Metropolitan Police and the DAC Research Centre, the Alliance’s contribution to crime prevention is to raise awareness of how design can be used against crime and stimulate innovative thinking among designers, businesses and civil servants.

‘We’re here to stir up the waters,’ says Professor Gloria Laycock, of the Jill Dando Institute of Crime Science within the UCL. ‘The current Home Secretary [Jacqui Smith] sees design as part of addressing crime, and now it is embedded in the crime strategy.

‘We are trying to get everybody to think about design, not just of products but of environments, services and legislation. Offenders are looking for opportunities: designers should be designing the world so those opportunities don’t exist. Or as few of them as possible.

This isn’t always straightforward, as industries are designing lovely things that are attractive, and to make you want to buy them they make you want to touch them. Then for exactly that reason, somebody nicks them. We have an acronym, CRAVED: Concealable, Removable, Available, Valuable, Enjoyable, Disposable. If it fits that, somebody’s going to pinch it, and design should be aware of this.’

According to Sebastian Conran, who is leading the Alliance, part of the struggle is getting the manufacturers involved. ‘Using the design process and protocol to resolve crime issues is really the agenda here, and the issue of actually designing things which will have crime prevention embedded in them is quite a big ask. Most of the desirable products that are stolen are made outside the UK, which makes it harder for us, as the Alliance, to influence global products. It’s not just a cost issue as, mostly, added cost per unit would be minimal. It’s more a case of why should they?’

The perception of crime is a big consideration. Many fear that by increasing security in any noticeable way, they are simply flagging up danger and associating it with their product. A case in point is a coffee-shop chair designed to keep a handbag safe – a product of the DAC Research Centre.

‘We tested a design with a slot on the back of the chair to put the bag’s handles in, but customers and the police didn’t like that because it was too easily out of sight,’ explains the Centre’s director, Dr Lorraine Gamman. ‘So we looked at the concept of defensible space and applied that to the body, where the most defended space is the genital region. We put the slots in the seats of the chair. It means you’re effectively sitting on your bag and you will be immediately aware of somebody you haven’t invited getting too close down there.

‘But women continued to hang their bags on the back of the chair, so we rounded it off and they weren’t able to. They were pushed into trying out the slots on the seat. We took the chairs round Covent Garden and venues said they’d put some in but wouldn’t call attention to them, because they didn’t want customers thinking they had a crime problem. So we couldn’t really find out if people were using them because they chose to or because there were no other seats.’

Offenders are looking for opportunities. Designers should ensure opportunities don’t exist

The story may yet have a happy ending: DAC is currently in discussion with Danish furniture-maker Dan-Form about manufacturing the chair as part of the company’s contract furniture collection aimed at cafés, bars and restaurants. Major chains linked to the Metropolitan Police-backed Caféwatch anti-crime initiative in Westminster have also expressed an interest.

The designers have to balance crime prevention with the need not to create an atmosphere where the fear of crime is pervasive. Professor Laycock says: ‘The easiest thing to do to make your home safe would be to put in big bars and bolts and a big wall around it. But it would look like Fort Knox and all you would do is think about getting burgled and be really scared all the time. The fear of crime becomes much greater than the reality of crime.’

Paul Stephenson, deputy commissioner of the Metropolitan Police and an Alliance member, agrees and echoes Laycock’s concerns: ‘It will always be a challenge to strike the right balance, in particular the fact that the perception of crime in an area is often significantly greater than the reality. Our Safer Neighbourhoods programme was designed in part to close this reality gap. I think we have learned over the years to be more creative and practical in our thinking.

‘The best, and sometimes most effective, crime prevention interventions and features are those that are so well designed and integrated into the building or product that they are imperceptible to the owner or user. The handbag hook under a pub table can be a convenience. Most people would be unable to tell if a glass was toughened or not, and the deadlock and immobiliser on your car? That’s just there – you don’t think about it.’

Some designers and academics have the cynical view that certain companies are happy to reap the rewards from high crime levels. Ken Pease, visiting professor at Loughborough University, maintains: ‘If one of your children has their phone nicked, of course it’s traumatic for them, but the bottom line is you’re going to buy them another one more or less straight away. Where’s the incentive to make phones more secure?’

Conran believes such an incentive has to be an economic issue: ‘It’s the retailers that have the clout in those areas. If we can get the Carphone Warehouses of this world to insist on secure products, because that will have an economic effect, something might get done.’ He has a valid point. Just over 10 years ago, when car theft was rife, the Home Office published the UK Car Theft Index, a league table of British car stealability. Because no manufacturer wanted to be high on this list, every in-house design department went security-crazy: engine immobilisers, central locking and steering locks became standard and car theft fell by more than 50% in a decade, largely through design.

The Home Office has already acted to discourage mobile phone theft. The industry agreed – and has met – a target of ensuring that stolen phones were blocked across all networks in the UK within 48 hours. And the industry’s Mobile Industry Crime Action Forum (MICAF) has led a collaborative effort to render it pointless to steal mobiles, blacklisting them and making it harder to reprogramme them. Unfortunately, phones are, to use Laycock’s term, CRAVED, with some top-of-the-range models worth a third of their weight in gold, and thefts still cost the UK millions each year.

Designers have always achieved remarkable results by producing innovative products which identify a particular crime-busting need and meet it head-on. In the UK, ultra-violet lights have headed off drug use in public toilets and anti-sit spikes deter groups of youths congregating in residential areas. Clothing tags have alerted security staff to shoplifters for many years, but newer versions also release a dye to render stolen items useless when removed from the store. In parts of the US, simply replacing metallic road signs with plywood alternatives reduced firearms incidents – they don’t make a satisfying ‘clang’ when they are shot at.

The future involves the Government working hand-in-hand with design and industry. Conran sees the Alliance’s work as ‘less one big problem, more a thousand little problems’ and a matter of approaching each one individually and with flexibility and common sense:

‘Sometimes it’s not a matter of trying to stop the crime but stop off the avenues for the criminal after the crime. Marking things doesn’t make them physically any more secure, but it greatly reduces the thief’s chance of being able to sell them, and means if he’s picked up for something else, a dodgy phone or stolen bike will be easily identified.

‘Or look at stopping the opportunity for one crime by preventing another crime. There were 33,000 car number plates stolen last year in the UK. Some of these are put on other cars used in committing a crime – not paying at a petrol station, avoiding the congestion charge and so on. If number plates were redesigned so they shattered when incorrectly removed, it would cut that particular crime rate, which would lead to a fall in others.

‘What if phones were designed with matched chargers that you couldn’t replace without proof of ownership of the phone? If you can only charge my phone from the charger I’ve got at home, why on earth are you going to steal it?’

The police are already on the case. Deputy commissioner Stephenson says: ‘The challenge is to influence business before a product becomes a problem. Initiatives such as the Design Alliance can only help here, building trust and confidence around ‘product confidentiality’ issues.’

As Professor Laycock says: ‘We’ve known for a while what needs doing. Designers are more than capable of delivering the products that are well designed and will increase people’s feeling of security. It’s just a matter of getting them to do it.’ 

Crimebusting designs

Design has already had an impact on crime, through a number of initiatives across the world

Theft-proof radio

Kenwood took the concept of a detatchable faceplate for car radios a step further with its D Mask system. When turned round, the faceplate resembles a plain black panel – to a thief, it seems there is no radio in the car.

Airport seating

New plastic and metal airport seats discourage slashing and graffiti and also prevent pickpockets from robbing users through the gaps between seats. 

Subliminal security

The huge stone lettering spelling out the club’s name at Arsenal’s Emirates Stadium is an anti-terrorist barricade which can withstand a 60mph impact, as will the symbolic cannons outside the ground.  

Safety-conscious chairs

The chair designed by the Design Against Crime Research Centre puts valuables out of reach of criminals. Having featured in a high-profile Museum of Modern Art exhibition in New York, it should be coming to a high street near you soon. 

Stronger glasses

Toughened drinking glasses have five times the impact resistance of normal ones, and when broken shatter into tiny pieces – rather than the jagged edges traditionally used in assaults.

Fingerprint-enabled phones

Korea’s Pantech scored a world-first with its GI100 phone, which recognises its owner’s fingerprints, instantly shutting off unauthorised access if stolen. Each finger can also operate a different speed-dial, removing the need for any form of key presses in most basic functions. 

A new alliance against crime

The Design and Technology Alliance is about making designers more creative than criminals. It aims to keep industry, and the public, one step ahead of perpetrators, using innovation and education and raising awareness about the part design and technology can play in combating crime.

The process began with the 1999 launch of the Design Against Crime research programme; 2005 saw a research centre established at Central St Martins College of Art and Design. In September 2007, the Design and Technology Alliance was launched by the Home Office to bring practical design skills to crime-fighting. It has key areas to concentrate its work in, including schools, alcohol-related crime and ‘hot products’ (mobile phones and laptops).

‘Through the new Design and Technology Alliance, we are leading a drive to design out crime so that the iPhones and satnavs of the future are worthless to thieves,’ says Home Secretary Jacqui Smith.

‘Now is the time to put crime prevention at the heart of business decision-making rather than an added extra. I want to see crime prevention on the corporate social responsibility agenda, and for business to recognise that this is about innovation in design and not negative images of locks, bolts and bars. The message to get across is that crime prevention needs to be built-in, not bolted-on.’ 

The evolution of a bike stand

With 52 bikes stolen every day in London, students at Central Saint Martins – home of the Design Against Crime Research Centre – were observed over a six-month period locking their bikes to standard ‘Sheffield’ or U-stands. The study recorded 180 different ways to lock a bike. The most common, and most insecure, was a single lock around the crossbar and top of the stand. The centre set out to design alternatives.

Yellow stickers on the stand’s top advised against single-locking and suggested two locks through the bike and around the uprights. Insecure locking practice – and theft – fell dramatically.

Introducing a new M-stand removed the top rail, and the temptation to lock the crossbar to it. Facilities for low locking were provided and two locks encouraged.

Bicycle theft from the new stands is practically non-existent. After development in conjunction with leading manufacturer Broxap, a number of designs are to be tested by Camden Council. All can be viewed at www.bikeoff.org. 

Design against crime

A journey through time

Hard facts and historic innovations from the anti-crime frontline, and the fictional heroes putting them into practice.

The Victorian faith in progress extended to a belief that crime was falling. The majority of recorded crimes were petty thefts, and UK murder rates were low compared to much of Europe, although the press tended to sensationalise high-profile cases. In the 1850s and 1860s, this caused panics about ‘garrotting’ and street robbery.

Sherlock Holmes
Arthur Conan Doyle’s detective first appeared in 1887. Famed for his deductive reasoning, his use of forensic techniques – such as analysing cigar ash and finding clues in victims’ hats – was ahead of his time.

Penny Red stamp
The 1841 Penny Red replaced the Penny Black, which was in use for just over a year. The red cancellation ink used on the Black could be washed off and the stamp reused. The Red featured permanent franking ink.

The 1920 Firearms Act, the first serious restriction on guns, was inspired by governmental anxieties about unrest among the working classes. Car crime, including theft, made up nearly 60% of all crime by 1939.

Miss Marple
Agatha Christie’s sleuth embarrassed the professionals with her ability to solve crimes by drawing on her knowledge of human nature, gleaned from life in the village of St Mary Mead.

Police boxes
Mainly used to report crimes on the phone, the future Tardis was also used by officers to stow suspects for later collection, so they could keep chasing accomplices on foot.

With crime rates on the rise, the Met reported staff shortages. Traffic regulation became a major part of police work.

Dixon of Dock Green
This cheerily popular series followed an East End police station troubled only by low-level crime.

The credit card
Launched in 1950, the credit card ended risky person-to-person cash transactions but led to the rise of consumer fraud.

Despite national prosperity, crime rates shot up. The Stolen Motor Vehicle Squad was introduced in 1960, while drug squads towards the end of the decade responded to the new breed of recreational user.

Hawaii Five-0
The catchily themed US series first aired in 1968, going on to follow Detective Steve McGarrett and his team for 12 years in their pursuit of secret agents, criminals and shadowy Mafia syndicates plaguing the sun-kissed Hawaiian islands.

The breathalyser
After its introduction in 1967, police no longer had to force suspected drink-drivers to stand on one leg or walk in a straight line.

The Misuse of Drugs Act defined drugs offences for the first time. Car theft remained high – the Ford Escort (known as the ‘takeaway’) was notoriously easy to steal.

The Sweeney
Taking its name from cockney rhyming slang for the Flying Squad, The Sweeney was the first British TV series to show police officers as fallible and willing to break the rules – or the odd front door.

Riot shields
First used in Lewisham, south London, and followed by extra-strong protective helmets as riot control became increasingly important.

DNA profiling and other forensic techniques became commonplace. Football hooliganism blighted many towns.

Miami Vice
Following undercover detectives James ‘Sonny’ Crockett and Ricardo ‘Rico’ Tubbs, this show became an instant hit. Most episodes focused on drugs, prostitution and corruption, and ended with a shootout.

Entryphone safety
The Safe Neighbourhoods Unit warned against reliance on technology in residential security systems. It pointed out that phone-entry systems in multi-storey blocks often broke down or were overridden and argued for a facility for human intervention.

UK crime rates peaked in the mid-90s, with a murder rate more than twice that of the 1960s. Electronic and internet crimes become a major problem.

NYPD Blue
First aired in 1993 and followed the personal and professional dilemmas of Manhattan police officers.

CCTV
Camera surveillance took up three-quarters of the decade’s crime prevention budget.

While overall crime levels have fallen by about 17% over the past 10 years, fear of crime has risen.
Anti-social behaviour and town-centre drunkenness became tabloid concerns at the turn of the century.

Life on Mars
Detective drama meets science fiction: waking up after a car accident to find himself in the year 1973, DCI Sam Tyler adapts his modern approach to policing to the Sweeney-style methods of the local force.

Chip and PIN
The introduction of PIN transactions made it more difficult for stolen cards to be used. Card fraud fell by almost a third in the six months after it became compulsory in the UK. 

Article first published in Design Council Magazine, Issue 4, Summer 2008