Designing Out Crime: Building Safer Communities Through Shaping National and International Policy and Practice
Submitting Institution
University of HuddersfieldUnit of Assessment
Social Work and Social PolicySummary Impact Type
LegalResearch Subject Area(s)
Medical and Health Sciences: Public Health and Health Services
Studies In Human Society: Criminology, Policy and Administration
Summary of the impact
Research undertaken by Armitage and Hirschfield and colleagues from the
Applied Criminology Centre (ACC) has made a significant contribution to
crime prevention through environmental design (CPTED). Emerging from a
wider programme of study in the field of environmental criminology,
research completed at the University of Huddersfield since 2004 into
`designing out' crime has been incorporated into national and local
planning policy and procedures and has influenced international urban
planning. This research has underpinned the UK Association of Chief Police
Officers' (ACPO) success in extending the designing out crime initiative,
Secured By Design (SBD), to 350,000 homes, and in reducing burglary
rates by more than half in housing designed to this standard.
Underpinning research
The case study fits into the Institute for Research in Citizenship and
Applied Human Sciences research area of Understanding and Responding to
Crime (see REF5). It exemplifies impact derived from informing the
development of complex interventions aimed at tackling difficult social,
welfare and health problems, and providing policymakers with analyses
which they use to drive policies (see REF3a).
Research into burglary patterns and into the effectiveness of
anti-burglary measures by the University of Huddersfield's Applied
Criminology Centre (ACC) has informed efforts by the UK and other
governments, local authorities and the police to reduce rates of
residential burglary. In the 1990s, research led by Hirschfield, then at
the University of Liverpool, broke new ground by applying crime hotspot
mapping techniques to UK burglary data. Drawing on this work, he led a
consortium including the University of Huddersfield which was awarded
£1,100,000a by the Home Office to evaluate their £25,000,000
Reducing Burglary Initiative. Hirschfield moved to the University of
Huddersfield from Liverpool in 2004, bringing with him two research staff
and three grants. This consortium secured a further £600,000b
to evaluate the crime strand of the New Deal for Communities. Since 2001,
Armitage has undertaken a decade-long programme of influential research
which culminated in the publication of her book on crime prevention
through housing design in 2013c. Research findings which have
impacted upon policy and practice, include evidence of the crime reduction
benefits of the SBD scheme, recommendations for improving the scheme, the
production of a crime risk assessment mechanism specific to residential
housing, and more recently, adapting these measures to allow for cultural
and climatic differences. Over £200,000 for research on designing out
crime has been obtained since 2001 from diverse sources, including local
authorities, the Home Officed, ACPO and Abu Dhabi Urban
Planning Council. Armitage led several projects which assessed the impact
of residential design on crime and evaluated the effectiveness of ACPO's
SBD scheme. Designing out crime involves changes to the design and layout
of residential housing such as limiting
access, maximising natural surveillance and ensuring that car
parking is within the boundary of each property. Consideration for
what may appear to be, from a non-criminological perspective, minor design
changes, can reduce a property's vulnerability to crime. ACC researchc
showed that properties located on through roads were targets for 93% more
crime than those on a true cul-de-sac (without connecting footpaths).
Maximising natural surveillance also limited crime, with properties
overlooked at the rear experiencing 38% fewer crimes than those not
overlooked.
Assessments of the programmee conducted by Armitage have found
that homes built to the SBD standard were subject to 34% less crime and
about 60% less burglaries than those not built to this standard, and that
the additional costs are recouped by reduced crime in less than two years.
This original, rigorous and extensive study analysed police recorded crime
statistics, self-reported crime and feelings of safety for over 1000 homes
across West Yorkshire, controlling for factors such as age of property,
tenure and location. This research was the first to establish the benefits
of such a scheme. A subsequent evaluationf led by Armitage
confirmed these findings, showing that a non- SBD property is almost four
times more likely to experience a burglary than an SBD property. This
follow-on study established the robustness of the research, and
demonstrated that the identified crime reduction benefits had been
sustained over a ten year period. In 2007, Armitage was commissioned by
Greater Manchester Police to investigate the feasibility of embedding
designing- out-crime within local authority planning and policing
practices. In 2009, the Home Office and Department for Communities and
Local Government (DCLG) commissioned a further project to explore the
potential for designing out crime initiatives at national level in
relation to the possibility of establishing a National Crime Prevention
Service.
References to the research
a Hirschfield, A. (PI and leader of Consortium of Universities of
Huddersfield, Liverpool, Hull) Evaluation of the Reducing Burglary
Initiative in North of England. Home Office, September 1999 - March
2002 (£1,155,500).
b Hirschfield, A. (PI and leader of Consortium of Universities of
Huddersfield, Liverpool, Hull) Evaluation of New Deal for Communities:
Crime Theme. Office of Deputy Prime Minister. September 2001 -
September 2005 (£595,500).
c Armitage R. (2013) Crime Prevention through Housing Design: Policy
and Practice. Palgrave Macmillan: Crime Prevention and Security
Management Book Series.
d Armitage, R. Residential Crime and Design. Home Office and
CABE. October 2009 - June 2010 (£69,827).
e Armitage, R. Secured by Design Refined. Home Office. April -
September 2001 (£22,000).
f Armitage, R., and Monchuk, L. (2011) Sustaining the Crime Reduction
Impact of Secured by Design: 1999 to 2009. Security Journal. 24
(4), 320-343.
Details of the impact
Conclusions drawn from studies into designing out burglary are detailed
in a series of UK national policy documents which contain recommendations
to build new homes to the SBD specification. Compliance with this standard
has resulted in 350,000 SBD homes being developed in the UK and,
consequently, a reduction in burglary rates of about 60% in homes designed
and built to this standard. Our ACC research is referenced throughout the
Home Office/DCLG's Planning Guidance document Safer
Places: The Planning System and Crime Prevention1,
published in 2004 and guiding current practice. The nineteen references to
the work undertaken by the ACC are used as evidence of the crime risk of
individual or combined design features within residential housing, and
support the recommendations contained within the guidance. A senior member
of the Home Office Designing Out Crime Unit has indicated that Armitage's
work shaped this guidance, which was cited as good practice in two of the
UK government's subsequent Planning Policy Statements which local
authorities are required to follow when building new homes. The
testimonial2 clearly outlines the beneficial impact of the ACC
research: "The work undertaken by Huddersfield was used to shape the
guidance set out in Safer Places — which in turn was then
referenced as a source of good practice in other documents. For example
Safer Places was referenced as a source of government policy aimed at
promoting better quality of place in the then Government's strategy on
World Class Places (2009); and was referenced in Home Office evidence to
the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee's evidence check on
lighting (also 2009). In 2010 both Safer Places and Secured By Design
(SBD) were referenced as sources of additional information on crime
prevention in the DCLG publication: Guidance on information requirements
and validation". Both Safer Places and SBD were highlighted
in 2010 as crime prevention measures in DCLG's Guidance
on Information Requirements and Validation for Local Authority
Planning Departments. This document required local authorities
to take SBD into account when submitting Design and Access Statements. The
Home Office continues to act on Huddersfield's research into designing out
crime. In 2010/11, they drew on ACC figures demonstrating lower burglary
rates in SBD developments2 as "indicative data to use in
modelling when shaping thinking about home security". This testimony
also emphasises the importance of the ongoing impact of the research: "Last
(but most certainly not least — we continue to work with both Design
Council/CABE and with DCLG on how best to promulgate and promote your
most recent research findings and case studies".
The ACC research was presented as evidence by the Homes and Communities
Agency to support the recommendation that all Housing Association
properties should meet SBD standards. This evidence was first used in the
Housing Corporation's standards specification, which remained active until
April 2008. The research, similarly, informed the Design
and Quality Standards3 that superseded it. These
standards, again, contained a recommendation that homes should be built to
the SBD specification. The research was referenced in a currently active
English Partnerships guidance document. It cites Armitage's findings (page
10) as evidence of the need for regeneration projects to follow SBD
principles, and has been adopted as the building standard for developments
where the Agency has a land interest. It was also referenced in Home
Office evidence to the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee on
street lighting safety2. A letter
published in The Times (23/10/13), written by Armitage and signed
by 69 national and international experts, has challenged current
Government proposals for relaxing SBD standards.
The ACC research demonstrating the effectiveness of SBD has been key to
ACPO's drive to advance SBD nationally as an evidence-based policy. In
2010, ACPO released a report
on using Design and Access Statements to reduce crime through SBD, citing
our 2009 research, with a comment on page nine about the importance of the
ACC work led by Armitage on Designing Out Crime). ACPO used Armitage's
research as the evidence base for its Parliamentary Memorandum submitted
to the Department for Communities and Local Government in 2008, which
argued successfully for SBD to remain within the Code
for Sustainable Homes. Subsequently, the Director and General
Manager at ACPO commented4 that it "was rare not to make
some reference — main or in passing — to the work by Dr Armitage" in
his many presentations, interviews and publications on designing out
crime. He also stated that "The results of the work by Rachel Armitage
have been used in the practical application by crime prevention
practitioners, builders, security industry manufacturers and planning
officers for whom the day to day work denies the time to research the
subject deeply. We are linked to around 300 police practitioners
throughout the UK all of whom work from our material to promote CPTED
and SBD and all have copies of the SBD research". This testimony
acknowledges the key role of the ACC of first bringing SBD into the policy
agenda and helping to drive forward eventual large-scale implementation: "When
Rachel Armitage undertook her research into SBD in West Yorkshire this
was the first truly independent test of the SBD theory and practice. The
second piece of work with Leanne Monchuk took account of the technical
developments in the project and reinforced the benefits. Following each
piece of research Rachel was able to present the findings in a clear,
detailed way which identified the range of benefits and answered logical
questions about gentrification, displacement and crime switch. These
points were not obvious in the original project. She and Leanne have
presented to national police CPD training audiences and to regional and
commercial events. The work has been quoted in many other reports and
publications and has been taken as read in the rationale for
publications such as Safer Places — the planning system and crime
prevention." The Director of ACPO estimated, as mentioned in this
testimony, that at least 350,000 houses have been built to SBD standards
since 2007. The ACC research both provided the evidence which motivated
implementation of this approach and shaped the detailed specification of
its standards. Similarly, the National Policing Lead for Crime Prevention
provided a letter5 in August 2013 stating that staff "working
in the field of Designing Out Crime constantly use your [ACC] work
to justify changes they make to developments, creating `safer' places
for our communities to live". He considered this contribution to
housing and crime reduction policies to be particularly important in
difficult economic times: "In times of recession, where governments and
organisations are constantly striving to cut costs, it is comforting to
know that evidence provided by you and your fellow academics makes a
compelling case to continue using effective security to make our
communities more socially sustainable".
The ACC research into the link between housing quality and crime has been
used to revise the Building for Life housing award. The author of the
standard has stated6 that the re-write reflected their learning
from Armitage's research: "In practice, the research was used by
Design Council [formerly CABE] to inform the revamp of Building
for Life. Building for Life is the most widely used design quality tool
for residential development in the planning system in England and has a
user base of local planning authorities, design consultants and house
builders".
As well as shaping national and international policy (see below) on
designing out crime, the ACC research has had widespread impact on the
practices of local authorities and police forces. For example, Thames
Valley Police used Armitage's research to support its 2010 Compendium
of Crime Prevention and Reduction in The Planning System7.
Thames Valley Police have stated that Armitage's research was instrumental
in providing the evidence which led to them increasing the number of crime
prevention design advisors in the force from four to ten in 2008, and that
the Compendium remains at the forefront of the team's policies and
procedures, with police and local authority planning departments
frequently referring to these principles within their policy and practice.
Similar testimonies have been received from other areas of the UK. Leeds
City Council requires that all doors and windows meet the SBD standard, in
Designing for Community Safety: A Residential Design Guide which
remains their key policy document on planning for crime prevention. One of
the authors has written to Armitage acknowledging the importance of
Armitage's research in securing this policy requirement for housing in
Leeds. The West Yorkshire Police's Architectural Liaison Officer for Leeds
has stated that Armitage's research was quoted at "almost every meeting
I attended both locally and nationally". In addition, West Yorkshire
Police confirmed that ACC's research was instrumental in increasing the
number of Architectural Liaison Officers across the police force. Armitage
has continued to sustain strong engagement with policy- makers and
practitioners, by disseminating briefing notes commissioned by ACPO, the
Home Office and the Design Council, through media articles, and by means
of the publication of a position paper for the Independent Commission for
the Future of Policing (The Lord Stevens Commission) which has highlighted
the risk to crime prevention of moves towards deregulation within the
planning system. The ACC continue to contribute to the national debate on
architectural design during a period of austerity and deregulation. For
example, their work was cited in an article8
in The Guardian newspaper and in the online journal Inside
Housing. The Guardian article detailed some specific
beneficial impact of the ACC research as follows: "Police and
architects sometimes have different ideas about how to design out
antisocial behaviour. Cul-de-sac has become a dirty word among
architects, who fear that antisocial behaviour happens where it cannot
be seen, while police insist — backed up by a 2010 report from the
University of Huddersfield — that cul-de-sacs are less prone to crime
because they offer fewer escape routes".
The international importance of this research is evidenced by the role of
the ACC in developing Abu Dhabi's planning guidance to ensure that
properties are designed to consider crime prevention. In 2011, Armitage
was commissioned by the Abu Dhabi Urban Planning Council to develop planning
guidance9 specifications for crime prevention. The
manual, informed by her research, outlines the design principles required
for development within Abu Dhabi. The ACC received £19,000 to fund this work,
completed in 2011, from Abu Dhabi Urban Planning Council. The
international impact of ACC research into designing out crime is also
highlighted by citation of Armitage's work as evidence in the Parliament
of Victoria Inquiry into locally-based approaches to community safety and
crime prevention. Armitage and co-workers are cited 43 times in this report10.
The Executive Officer of the Drugs and Crime Prevention Committee of the
Parliament of Victoria11 has testified that: "One area of
academic research that was constantly drawn on in undertaking the
Inquiry and writing the Final Report was that of Dr Rachel Armitage at
the University of Huddersfield".
Sources to corroborate the impact
1 Memorandum
from Association of Chief Police Officers Crime Prevention Initiatives.
Memorandum 45, Commons Select Committee, 2008.
2 Factual statement 1 by senior member of the Home Office
Organised and Financial Crime Unit.
3 Design
and Access Statements: How to Use them to Prevent Crime. (ACPO
Secured by Design, 2010).
4 Factual Statement 2 by the Director and General Manager of
ACPO.
5 Factual Statement 3 by the National Lead for Crime
Prevention.
6 Factual Statement 4 by author of Building for Life 12
housing award.
7 Thames Valley Police. The
Compendium of Crime Prevention and Reduction in The Planning System.
8 Article
in The Guardian newspaper, 1/12/2011.
9 Abu
Dhabi Safety and Security Planning Manual (2011).
10 Victoria, Parliament Of (2013) Inquiry
Into The Application Of Safer Design Principles And Crime Prevention
Through Environmental Design.
11 Factual Statement 5 by the Executive Officer of the Drugs
and Crime Prevention Committee of the Parliament of Victoria