Abstract
Twenty years ago, Ronald V. Clarke edited the first volume of what would become a series of Crime Prevention Studies that discuss the theoretical and empirical research on the subject of reducing crime opportunities. Design Against Crime: Crime Proofing Everyday Products is Volume 27 of the Crime Prevention Studies series, and it was edited by Paul Ekblom who also authored 4 of the 12 chapters in the book. Ekblom spent the early part of his career as a crime prevention researcher in the United Kingdom Home Office and later transitioned into academia. He is now a psychology professor and the associate director of the Design Against Crime Research Centre in Central Saint Martins College of Arts and Design at the University of the Arts in London, England.
Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED) is a multi-disciplinary crime prevention approach that focuses on the environmental conditions that provide opportunities for crime. While most implementations of CPTED have traditionally taken place within a built environment, this approach has recently also been applied to product design. Even though design against crime in the physical environment has received considerable attention and support for over 20 years, the initiative to design products against crime (DAC) was launched until 1999 and since then it has lived through periods of growth followed by periods of dormancy. Currently, the DAC initiative has a solid foundation in the United Kingdom (Design Against Crime Research Centre at Central Saint Martins College) and in Australia (Design Against Crime Research Centre at the University of Technology Sydney). In fact, the researchers responsible for producing most of DAC research in the last 14 years are now affiliated with these two research centers.
This book provides an argument for the development of an interdisciplinary field of study that brings together design research and practice with crime science. It contains 12 chapters that together provide a good introduction to the design against crime process. The book presents the theoretical basis and the process used to evaluate and design products against crime, followed by several examples of how the DAC process can be, and has been, successfully employed to investigate and prevent specific crime problems. After the introduction, which is Chapter 1, the second chapter, also authored by Paul Ekblom, is the heart of the book. In this chapter, Ekblom provides the theoretical foundation for incorporating crime science in the design process by introducing and explaining what he refers to as the security function framework (SFF). In Chapter 3, Wootton and Davey describe the DAC evaluation framework, which assesses the crime prevention strategies that are considered when designing a product. The authors argue that since designers are being asked to consider crime issues when developing a product, their final work should be evaluated and the findings should be used to guide future research and design activities (p. 59). This is an important point because regardless of how superior a design is, if the consumer does not use the product then it will be ineffective at reducing crime. Therefore, evaluations are an essential part of the process. In Chapter 4, Rachel Armitage shows how crime prevention scientists and designers can assess a product’s risk of theft at the design stage.
Chapter 5 was an interesting addition to the book. Using the cap-and-trade systems for emission control, Graeme Newman presents a hypothetical case to reduce cybercrime using credit card fraud as an example. He asserts that by thinking of crime as a pollutant, society may be able to encourage businesses to design against crime by incentivizing them to do so. Although the idea discussed in this chapter has some limitations, it offers an interesting way of thinking how the market may be used to get businesses to participate in reducing crime.
Chapters 6 through 10 are examples of DAC in practice. In Chapter 6, Thorpe, Johnson, and Sidebottom address the problem of bicycle theft by evaluating seven bicycle stands designed to improve cyclists’ locking practices. Chapter 7 presents a case study of how the DAC process was used to design a counterterrorism trash bin, and Chapter 8 is an example of how DAC can be used to design packaging with the intent of alleviating counterfeiting problems. In Chapter 9, Ekblom and his research team put the SFF to the test and describe the process they used to design the Grippa Clip, which was developed to reduce the risk of handbag theft in restaurants and bars. Although the final product design appears to be quite simple, this case study clearly shows that the process of identifying a problem, working out a solution, designing a product, and making it a reality is long and complex. In Chapter 10, Sidebottom, Guillaume, and Archer illustrate how DAC can be used to prevent handbag theft in supermarkets using as an example the development of a store shopping cart safe. This chapter also demonstrates problem solving in practice when all of the key stakeholders (i.e., community members, police personnel, and business owners) participate in the design process.
In Chapter 11, Gill and Clarke revisit Clarke's hot products research, which identifies the features that make products attractive to thieves, and they assert that while the illicit market of fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) is a good example of hot products, it is their disposability (i.e., ease with which a product can be sold) that makes them a significant attractant to thieves.
As a result of this finding, Gill and Clarke introduce the new acronym AT CUT PRICES, which more accurately describes the characteristics that make FMCGs attractive to thieves. The authors argue that understanding these features may be helpful for designers evaluating a product’s risk factors. Finally, in Chapter 12, Ekblom discusses the multidisciplinary nature of designing products against crime and how designers and crime scientist can and should work together to reduce crime.
Overall, the book is well organized, clearly written, and a good contribution to the crime prevention studies series. The book is a valuable resource because it provides the reader with a rich overview of the theory and process used to design products against crime. I would recommend it to anyone with an interest in the topic of design against crime or crime prevention in general. The information will prove especially useful to crime prevention specialist, police practitioners, research scientist and students interested in design, crime science, and criminology.