Design

Design against crime

Design is about creating desired products, places, procedures, services and systems by a focused, creative, iterative process. At one level, design is about identifying and reconciling different requirements (perhaps from diverse stakeholders or dutyholders); at another, re-examining the original brief and perhaps reframing it.

Crime is about conflicts of interest and behaviour between offender, victim and perhaps the state, in which legal rules are broken.

In the case of Design Against Crime, the aim is to create designs which favour the user/potential victim interests whilst thwarting the offender – user friendly, abuser unfriendly; and are proportionate to risk, i.e. do not engender ‘paranoid products’ (Gamman and Thorpe 2007) or those that are ‘vulnerability-led’ (Durodié 2002).

The experience underlying the design pages derives from involvement in various practical projects on design, including ones on bike theft, graffiti, prevention of theft in bars, and reducing loss from self-checkouts in supermarkets. Some (security toolkits) have involved graphic and communications design. Most of these projects have been undertaken with the Design Against Crime Research Centre, (now Design Against Crime Research Lab), Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London, usually also involving the Department of Security and Crime Science UCL, or the Applied Criminology and Policing Centre, University of Huddersfield. Broader collaboration has also involved the former Designing Out Crime Research Centre, University of Technology Sydney.

Foreword – Ken Pease

Chapter 1. Introduction – Paul Ekblom

Chapter 2. The Security Function Framework – Paul Ekblom

Chapter 3. Embedding Crime Prevention within Design – Andrew Wootton and Caroline Davey

Chapter 4. Making a Brave Transition from Research to Reality – Rachel Armitage

Chapter 5. A Market Approach to Crime Prevention – Graeme Newman

Chapter 6. Designing against Bicycle Theft – Adam Thorpe, Shane Johnson and Aiden Sidebottom

Chapter 7. Designing a Counter-Terrorism Trash Bin – Rohan Lulham, Olga Camacho Duarte, Kees Dorst and Lucy Kaldor

Chapter 8. Packaging against Counterfeiting – Lorenzo Segato

Chapter 9. Reducing Bag Theft in Bars – Paul Ekblom, Kate Bowers, Lorraine Gamman, Aiden Sidebottom, Chris Thomas, Adam Thorpe and Marcus Willcocks

Chapter 10. Supermarket Carts to Reduce Handbag Theft – Aiden Sidebottom, Peter Guillaume and Tony Archer

Chapter 11. Slowing Thefts of Fast-Moving Goods – Martin Gill and Ronald Clarke

Chapter 12. Conclusion – Paul Ekblom

Practice projects

A range of practice projects, conducted by the Design Against Crime Research Centre, University of the Arts London, have drawn on a strong combination of design and crime science. These include the Grippa clip, Bikeoff, Graffolution and Self-Checkout loss reduction:

However, other ‘desire’ requirements included economy, self-evident affordance, robustness, ease of installation, maintenance and cleaning, visual appeal, stackability, and more. This meant that the design actually had to be high-performance.

The original plan had been to evaluate the impact of the Grippa clips on crime (with UCL Security and Crime Science) but despite good progress, the host bar company pulled out.

Lessons were nevertheless learned for:

• Design (e.g. through applying the Security Function Framework – Ekblom et al. (2012) covers Grippa )
• Evaluation methodology (how to plan prototype production numbers with statistical testing power in mind – Bowers et al. 2009)
• The challenges of implementation and involvement – see this presentation and Ekblom (2012e) on Involvement failure.

Graffolution Research Outcomes – Transport Environments presentation 2015

Graffolution case study template using 5Is framework 2015

Self checkout loss reduction

This project, for the international ECR Retail Loss Group, sought to reduce loss at self checkouts (SCO) – whether by deliberate theft or for other reasons.

‘In this unique applied research study, academics and designers partnered with four of ECR’s Retailer members to immerse themselves in the self-checkout experience, understanding from the perspectives of the shopper and self-checkout supervisors, their journey from entry to exit, and their design challenges and frustrations. Whilst some Retailers have taken strong design approaches, the design-research nevertheless found SCO machines ‘plonked’ wherever they can reasonably fit, and shoppers not always sure how to use the machines or smoothly navigate the SCO environment. In response to this problem context, the design researchers adopted a human-centred design-led approach and formulated key insights to reframe the challenges at self-checkout. Then generated a range of concepts, most of which amount to sketches of possible incremental design changes that might help reduce retail losses and improve customer and staff experiences.

‘Research findings overall suggest that there are no silver bullet design solutions for the complex challenges faced at SCO and instead an ecosystem of low-tech and high-tech design solutions will have a role to play in reducing customer frustrations and improving flow at self-checkout. While improved machine solutions (including future capacity for AI computer vision technology) can address some existing challenges, the key takeaway from this report is to show how refreshed “design thinking” approaches and small design interventions can make a big difference. The report highlights simple design methods that can be adopted and low-tech concepts that can be adapted and tested by Retail partners to improve upon a range of local problems, suggesting improvements that take a human-centred focus. It urges Retailers to engage with design thinking and offers a detailed explanation of concepts from crime prevention to better understand design context at SCO to help improve customer experience and reduce retail losses.’

Publications and presentations

Design Against Crime generic publications

These are invited chapters in various compendium volumes, largely covering similar ground but with different emphases, as described.

Design Against Crime generic presentations