Design out Crime

Liane HartleyPrincipal Socio-Economic Consultant

Capita Symonds

Liane HartleyPrincipal Scio-Economic Consultant

Designing - Out-Crime:An Integrated Approach

Relationship between environment & criminal behaviour

• Every crime occurs in a particular place.• Crime “scenes” are a form of non-verbal communication• Preserved and reconstructed • Tell a story about what took place there

Designing-Out-Crime Approaches

Three main schools of thought

• Defensible Space

• Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED)

• Situational Crime Prevention

Defensible Space

• “Eyes on the Street”

• Visibility & Activity

• Self-policing

• Natural Surveillance

CPTED

• Design to “See and be seen”• Use of building designs and layouts• Use of cues and triggers to prevent crime• Increase risk of detection and apprehension

Situational Crime Prevention

• Design cannot solves these problems alone• Supported by measures to prevent crime in the first place• Social cohesion and community safety• Understand the dynamics of place• Context is everything!

Importance of “Ownership”

• Deprivation and poor quality social housing • Communal ownership?• Neighbourhood Dissatisfaction• Loss of control over space• Crime goes unchallenged

Designing-Out-Social Problems?

• Development in a vacuum?• Design for specific local conditions• Everyone deserves good security• Social sustainability• Understand how people interact

with buildings and spaces

Section 17:

• Section 17, of the Crime and Disorder Act (1998) states that a local authority:

• “without prejudice to any other obligations imposed on it to exercise its functions with due regard to the likely effect of the exercise of those functions, on and the need to do all that it reasonably can to prevent, crime and disorder in its area.”

• They are urged to consider the likely effects for example of planning decisions on local crime and disorder.

Making Places that Work for us?

• Design is a physical solution to a defined problem• Place-Making• Unique identity and meaning• Crafted by local experiences and social interaction

Integrated Design Solutions

• Divorcing design and everyday life?• Build in community processes• Minimise need for intervention – polices itself!• Not rocket science – common sense approach

Community Safety Statements

• Unique Capita Symonds approach• Designed to enhance the planning process• Considers social/economic/

environmental context of design• Intelligence-led

Case Study: Mixed Use Development

Case Study: Mixed Use Development

• Site covered 4.58ha and included the demolition of redundant brewery buildings.

• An outline planning application to provide:• approximately 24,250m2 of floor space (of which 2,285m2 will be retail)

• approximately 640 dwellings (of which 25% will be affordable)

• approximately 600 parking spaces (487 underground spaces)

• new public spaces and a play park• student accommodation

Socio-Economic Issues

• Overwhelming number of working age young professionals• Low proportion of families and older people• Majority of households are 1 or 2 persons.• High levels of cohabitation without dependents.• Low skills levels, high unemployment in neighbouring wards

Local Community Safety Issues

• Street crime, drinking and violence associated with the area

• Not deemed a family friendly area?

• Issues around permeability and opening it up to pedestrians

• Dangerous subway adjacent to site

• Student accommodation could attract anti-social behaviour

Recommendations

• Redesigned access points into the main blocks.• Recommended 24hr warden to manage student housing• Relocated crèche facility to the family housing areas.• Lighting strategy to attend to significant recessing• Recommended windows on the blank • Improving the pedestrian access to the city centre• Reconfigured underground office car-park

Added Value

• Use design and investment to help the public sector achieve goals for creating sustainable communities

• Impact of designs go beyond the red-line on a site plan. • Get this right and embedded as a normal response • Designing-in the micro-level cohesion

• Strong communities that resist and prevent crime & ASB.