Design Against Crime Research Centre

At the heart of the entire suite of frameworks is this set of working definitions of crime, crime prevention, crime reduction, crime control, security and community safety.

A first attempt to develop an integrated and rigorous suite of definitions initially relating to the theft-centred risks attached to domestic consumer products, and counterpart security properties, but more widely applicable.

This definition seeks to portray a considered understanding of the concept of partnership, developed principally through expert discussions at the Council of Europe. The focus is on what partnership is for why it adds value to crime prevention and community safety activity. It also sets out a comprehensive and explicit picture of the key dimensions of partnership to organise what we know about it, when it is needed and how best to implement and evaluate it.

A knowledge-management framework for capturing, assessing, synthesising, transferring and replicating good practice in crime prevention, and setting out a process model for doing crime prevention which is a detailed equivalent of SARA and relates to the Iterative Process of design.

Strictly part of the Involvement process in the 5Is framework, this sets out a generic procedure for getting particular people or institutions to take responsibility for effectively and acceptably preventing crime/improving safety.

The CCO framework, equivalent to the Crime Triangle but more detailed, supplies a map of 11 immediate causal pathways of criminal events covering both offender and crime situation, serving to integrate theories of crime causation; and to do likewise for crime prevention, by identifying 11 counterpart principles of intervention. Variants apply to organised crime and to terrorism.

A recent development of CCO which incorporates dynamic concepts such as crime scripts (eg seek, see, take, escape, sell), explicitly attempts to link with design and seeks to balance user and offender perspectives.

A presentation exploring these ideas in depth is available here.

CPTED is a familiar field of crime prevention practice; this is an ongoing attempt to update its concepts and procedures and link them more closely to developments in architecture, design and crime science, including the other listed frameworks.

While CCO covers causation and prevention of crime in general, the Misdeeds and Security framework is an aid to forecasting which maps out the generic types of crime risk that may be associated with a particular kind of new technology or design of product, place, procedure or system; and the counterpart opportunities for prevention.

These related activities contribute to a systematic 'futures-oriented' approach to crime and its prevention, community safety and crime-proofing of designs, whether the timescale is next year or next decade.