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Design Against Crime

Summary of the impact

The Design Against Crime research initiative provides leadership in the field of design-led, sustainable practice in crime prevention and community safety, demonstrating the following impact:

  • Supporting crime prevention and community safety in the UK and Europe, through action research partnerships with; police forces, voluntary sector organisations, planning authorities and local and national governments
  • Using innovative design thinking to develop models, methods and solutions for improving crime prevention and community safety, through partnership and creative engagement with stakeholders and end users
  • Shaping the European research agenda for design-led crime prevention through collaboration with key experts and practitioners.

Submitting Institution

University of Salford

Unit of Assessment

Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory

Summary Impact Type

Legal

Research Subject Area(s)

Studies In Human Society: Criminology
Studies In Creative Arts and Writing: Other Studies In Creative Arts and Writing

Designing Out Crime: Building Safer Communities Through Shaping National and International Policy and Practice

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.

Submitting Institution

University of Huddersfield

Unit of Assessment

Social Work and Social Policy

Summary Impact Type

Legal

Research Subject Area(s)

Medical and Health Sciences: Public Health and Health Services
Studies In Human Society: Criminology, Policy and Administration

Situational crime prevention policy and practice

Summary of the impact

Research produced by UCL's Department of Security & Crime Science (SCS) and Jill Dando Institute of Security & Crime Science has been used in the UK and internationally to shape policies and guide practices using situational methods to prevent crime. Working closely with police forces, crime prevention practitioners and policy makers, SCS staff have provided evidence, expertise and advice to support particular crime prevention initiatives and approaches to crime prevention more broadly. The impact of the research is demonstrated by acknowledged contributions to policy, policing and crime prevention practices, and to fighting the specific crimes of bike theft and internal child sex trafficking.

Submitting Institution

University College London

Unit of Assessment

Social Work and Social Policy

Summary Impact Type

Legal

Research Subject Area(s)

Studies In Human Society: Criminology

Challenging perspectives on crime and crime policy

Summary of the impact

Critical public policy debates on the likely effect of reductions in police staffing levels and on understanding the implications of crime patterns have been informed by findings from research conducted at the University of Birmingham by Dr Siddhartha Bandyopadhyay. The novel research contributed to raising public and practitioner awareness and understanding of the possible impact of cuts in police staffing, whether or not "prison works" and in explaining the apparent paradox of a fall in recorded acquisitive crime during a recession. These findings, which often challenged political perspectives and conventional wisdom, were initially publicised by an independent think-tank, Civitas, and followed-up in national press articles (one of which generated approximately 450 reader comments) and presentations to stakeholder agencies including central UK Government.

Submitting Institution

University of Birmingham

Unit of Assessment

Economics and Econometrics

Summary Impact Type

Legal

Research Subject Area(s)

Studies In Human Society: Criminology

Crime drop, security and victimisation

Summary of the impact

Research in this Unit at NTU has:

(a) Changed the way victimisation is conceptualised, measured, and reported within official crime surveys;

(b) Transformed the methodological evaluation of the impact of security devices upon crime and repeat victimisation through the introduction of multi-level statistical modelling as opposed to bivariate cross-tabulations which constituted the state of the art prior to her work.

Professor Tseloni's research has directly informed the methodological training of crime survey analysts (including those working on the Home Office British Crime Survey), and contributed through the dissemination of Home Office guidelines to the day-to-day crime reduction practices and responses to crime of police forces in England and Wales.

Submitting Institution

Nottingham Trent University

Unit of Assessment

Social Work and Social Policy

Summary Impact Type

Legal

Research Subject Area(s)

Studies In Human Society: Criminology
Law and Legal Studies: Law

Peterborough Adolescent and Young Adult Development Study (PADS+)

Summary of the impact

PADS+ casts light on the causal mechanisms for crime, highlighting how the interaction between people and settings leads to acts of crime. As a result PADS+ has advanced the scientific basis on which policing and criminal justice strategy and crime prevention policies can be formulated in the UK and abroad. Three types of impact are claimed: (1) initiating a move away from a broad-brush risk factor approach to the explanation and prevention of crime towards a focus on key causal factors and mechanisms; (2) being recognized and utilized by policy makers; (3) contributing to social science education nationally and internationally.

Submitting Institution

University of Cambridge

Unit of Assessment

Law

Summary Impact Type

Legal

Research Subject Area(s)

Studies In Human Society: Criminology
Psychology and Cognitive Sciences: Psychology

Improving police practice and reducing the incidence of crime through mapping and analysis

Summary of the impact

Research on spatial patterns of crime at UCL has influenced police practice and has informed policy and its implementation in countries including Australia, Canada, UK, and USA. Our research has challenged conventional wisdom amongst police and policymakers about spatial patterns of crime. Working directly with police forces and through our continuing professional development training, we have spearheaded the use of crime mapping and forecasting methods in practice. Implementation has led to documented reductions in crimes such as burglary of between 20-66%.

Submitting Institution

University College London

Unit of Assessment

Social Work and Social Policy

Summary Impact Type

Legal

Research Subject Area(s)

Studies In Human Society: Criminology

Mrs. Peabody Investigates: Enhancing Public Understanding of German, European and International Crime Fiction

Summary of the impact

Dr Katharina Hall's blog Mrs Peabody Investigates (http://mrspeabodyinvestigates.wordpress.com/; henceforth MPI) has been fostering public debate on German, European and international crime fiction since January 2011. Beneficiaries include readers, authors, translators, publishers, critics and bloggers in 130 countries. With over 220,000 hits and 2,500 comments, MPI has been featured on BBC Radio 4 and is linked to by BBC Online, crime blogs, and publisher/author websites (C10). Providing a distinctive service of academically-informed reviews of high-quality crime fiction, MPI is regarded in the industry as 'a ground-breaking blog that is transforming readers' understanding and appreciation of international crime' (The Times crime-fiction critic).

Submitting Institution

Swansea University

Unit of Assessment

Modern Languages and Linguistics

Summary Impact Type

Cultural

Research Subject Area(s)

Language, Communication and Culture: Cultural Studies, Literary Studies
History and Archaeology: Historical Studies

Design thinking

Summary of the impact

Design thinking has benefited the economic performance of business and particularly the creative industries, changed awareness of design in everyday life, and informed public policy. Users and consumers have benefited from wider understanding of the genesis of products and services and effects on their quality of life. Design thinking research has been instrumental in forming a new business sector that provides design thinking expertise as consultancy. It has changed the processes of designers and design practices, and fed into UK design education policy. Design thinking has crossed discipline boundaries; for example framing new methods and processes in software engineering.

Submitting Institution

Open University

Unit of Assessment

Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory

Summary Impact Type

Technological

Research Subject Area(s)

Built Environment and Design: Design Practice and Management
Education: Curriculum and Pedagogy, Specialist Studies In Education

Inclusive design

Summary of the impact

The i~design research programme, which has been running in the University of Cambridge Department of Engineering (DoEng) since 2000, sought to understand population diversity in order to better inform design decisions for mainstream everyday products and services. Impact from this programme, since 2008, includes: skills embedded in companies through direct training of over 280 designers and design managers from industry; direct involvement in the improved design of more than 10 new products and services that have gone into production; educational resources for teaching Design and Technology trialled in nine secondary schools; over 800 wearable impairment simulators sold; and extensive web-based guidance, methods and tools for inclusive design accessed in over 170 countries.

Submitting Institution

University of Cambridge

Unit of Assessment

General Engineering

Summary Impact Type

Technological

Research Subject Area(s)

Information and Computing Sciences: Information Systems
Built Environment and Design: Design Practice and Management
Education: Specialist Studies In Education

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