Design Against Crime Research Centre


DAC is a socially responsive, practice-led research centre located
at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, University of the Arts London

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DAC is in the 'Design Week Hot 50' 2009

Design Week 05 February 2009
While crime has reduced in the past decade, technology and society has evolved, creating new crime challenges. Design, therefore, has an important role to play in preventing crime and reducing criminal activity.

Design Against Crime is an initiative that was first launched in 1999. The Design Against Crime Research Centre was set up in 2001 by director Dr Lorraine Gamman. It received designation status in July 2005, becoming permanently based at Central St Martins College of Art and Design. DAC aims to challenge designers into creating products, services and environments that factor security into their work and make it visually pleasing, as well as crime-proof.

DAC is independently funded, but is recognised worldwide. The Australian government is, for example, working with a local design school, investing £1.4m into a similar programme, following the DAC initiative.

In a separate move, the Home Office and the Design Council are collaborating on the Designing Out Crime programme. In November 2008, Home Secretary Jacqui Smith agreed £1.6m backing for the Design and Technology Alliance, headed by Sebastian Conran, to develop innovative design solutions against crime over the next three years.

The programme breaks down into five areas: reducing bullying in schools, led by Sir John Sorrell; making 'hot' products more crime-proof, led by Joe McGeehan, director of the Centre for Communications Research at Bristol University; embedding crime-reducing approaches to housing, led by forensic psychologist Ken Pease; reducing alcohol-related crime, led by the Royal College of Art's Professor Jeremy Myerson; and minimising crime against businesses, led by Gamman.