THE INFLUENCE OF STREET LIGHTING.....

[laser_jock99]

.......ON CRIME AND FEAR OF CRIME

http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20110218135832/http://rds.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/prgpdfs/fcpu28.pdf

This report, on street lighting, crime and fear, breaks fresh ground. Earlier work

has been limited to short-term investigations of small areas, or even individual

blackspots. The research presented here, which was carried out in the London

Borough of Wandsworth, deals with the criminological impact of some 3,500

brighter street lights. The timeframe for ‘before’ and ‘after’ comparison was a full

twelve months in each case, while the total database comprised over 100,000 crimes

reported to the police.

The team from the University of Southampton who carried out this research

concluded that, as deployed on a broad scale, better street lighting has had little

or no effect on crime. In their words, “the dominant overall conclusion … was of

no significant change” On the other hand, they did find that the improved street

lighting was warmly welcomed by the public, and that it provided a measure of

reassurance to some people - particularly women – who were fearful in their use

of public space.

Here's something a lot of people would like to sweep under the carpet. A government report concluding increased street lighting has little or no effect on crime levels!

[TheThing]

The yellow text is criminal though. Impossible to read on the white background of Tapatalk.

TheThing

[laser_jock99]

The yellow text is criminal though. Impossible to read on the white background of Tapatalk.

TheThing

How do you read the white text?

[nmoushon]

How do you read the white text?

HAHA! This made me laugh.

[Monty]

Wait a minute, this report says improved lighting has not reduced crime but does make the residents feel more secure. Surely that's telling us that the residents while feeling more secure are probably being less vigilant?

Sorry, I forgot to say what a great find, this is really useful stuff.

[JamesF]

I think what it says more than anything is "people are irrational". But that's hardly news

James

[umadog]

This is not news. The problem is that nobody believes it.

[glowjet]

At one time for a short period we had no lights at all, we kept calm and carried on. Then when it returned it was mostly Dusk to Midnight, as electromechanical switching was involved, then with the advent of the PE cell, we changed over to Dusk to Dawn, and as lighting technology improved so the lights got brighter and more efficient till we reach the stage we are at to-day. IMHO most of it has been overkill. As a retired Lighting Eng technician for a local authority much of modern lighting is wasted and illuminating the night sky through bad lantern design, it is only now that pressure is being brought to bear that this problem is being addressed. As far as the general public, especially the elderly, you can understand that having a brighter environment to live in they don`t want to lose it, it is I am afraid the sign of the times, with most crime being carried out to feed drug habits. I have a theory that if it was legislated that all security lighting, except in sensitive areas, was sensor controlled and a scheme be introduced so that all could benefit, with financial assistance where necessary, Perhaps then all residential area lighting could be switched back to Dusk till Midnight, saving the country massive amounts of energy. But that could bring its own problems, as Astronomers enjoying the new dark skies and in the middle of an imaging session from his own garden, would probably want to do something terrible to his next doors cat which keeps activating the security lighting

John.

[Carbon Brush]

Thank you for posting the report.

Before commenting properly, I will take time to read the report fully.

It may be that directing councillors and council officials to the report may help our 'case'. Obviously we can't expect these people to wade through the report ini t's entirity, so they will need pointers to the important and relevant parts.

[Capricorn]

]Here's something a lot of people would like to sweep under the carpet. A government report concluding increased street lighting has little or no effect on crime levels!

Are you asking for more street lighting?

You have referenced a report saying that increasing lighting (more then the present?) has no apparent effect on crime.

Great if the idea was to spend money and double the lighting.

Would have thought that you wanted to decrease the degree of lighting, and the reference extracted does not say what effect that has.

You are cherry picking information and presenting it incorrectly.

The evidence that more lighting does not decrease crime is not the same as decreasing the lighting will also not increase crime.

The evidence is that people feel more reassured with better lighting. So they will want the street lighting maintained. There is a lot more general public the astronomers, so the term outnumbered comes in to it.

Also it mentions crime, it does not mention road safety.

Someone not being seen and getting hit by a car is an road traffic accident (as the person killed in MK was), and therefore not I guess covered by the results. Have the people at Southampton selected the data?

The question then is has the number of accidents gone up?

[laser_jock99]

Are you asking for more street lighting?

You have referenced a report saying that increasing lighting (more then the present?) has no apparent effect on crime.

Great if the idea was to spend money and double the lighting.

Would have thought that you wanted to decrease the degree of lighting, and the reference extracted does not say what effect that has.

You are cherry picking information and presenting it incorrectly.

The evidence that more lighting does not decrease crime is not the same as decreasing the lighting will also not increase crime.

The evidence is that people feel more reassured with better lighting. So they will want the street lighting maintained. There is a lot more general public the astronomers, so the term outnumbered comes in to it.

Also it mentions crime, it does not mention road safety.

Someone not being seen and getting hit by a car is an road traffic accident (as the person killed in MK was), and therefore not I guess covered by the results. Have the people at Southampton selected the data?

The question then is has the number of accidents gone up?

I'm not sure if you have missed the point here? The Wandsworth Report documented 100,000 reported crimes over 24 months. The broad conclusion being that statisically crime rates remained at similar levels even with brighter street lighting installed in parts of the Borough. Sure the residents 'felt' safer, but the additional lighting didn't actually 'make' them safer. Therefore there was no obvious benefit from the brighter lighting. The crime rate stayed level- and that was the point of posting the link on SGL. There are people on here that might find the evidence of this study useful.

No proper study has yet been made of Part Night Lighting and it's effect on accident rates or crime figures. The fact that one young man in Milton Keynes got run over at night is a truely awful thing and we all hope it's an isolated incident. Hopefully a university somewhere has been commisiond to make a similar long term study of the effect of Part Night Lighting on both crime rates and accidents. This would be much more relevant to the current situation we find ourselves in where councils are dabbling with part night lighting schemes to save money and then having to back pedal when the 'knee jerk' press and irrational councilors get on their case. I think we would all like to know the true statistics about Part Night Lighting- preferably before all the schemes in place and planned get scrapped. If it really did increase crime and led to a large increase in road accidents then I don't think anyone here would support it.