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Crime Survey Home ) News 1 About Ulllls ) Products 1 Services ) Knowledge Base) Contact 1 RegIster ) ~ THE QUEtIl'$ AWAIDS FOUH'....I$E: INIIOVATION 210' Page 1 of 3 i) Urbis Knowledge Base +CD_ Switch ant Survey Reveals Relighting Reduces Delinquency The Spring 2001 edition of Switch On highlighted the monetary benefits that an improved street lighting scheme can provide by showing that the financial savings to be made hugely outweighed the monetary costs. In this second article, based on the findings of Dr Kate Painter and Professor David Farrington in their paper for the British Journal of Criminology 'Evaluating situational crime prevention using a young people's survey' the subject is explored further. The main result is that the Self reported delinquency (SRD) survey of young people showed that offending decreased in the experimental area compared to the control area, corroborating previous results obtained in the household victimisation survey. The SRD survey showed that the biggest decreases were in violent acts after dark and in non-violent acts in the daylight. In agreement with the main result, fewer young people in the experimental area were stopped or told off by the police after the improved street lighting. These young people thought that the crime problem had decreased more in the experimental area, and fear of crime after dark also decreased more in the experimental area. The most surprising result is that victimisation of crime did not decrease more in the experimental area than in the control area. The qualitative data suggested that, whereas crimes by young people decreased, pestering of young people by older people did not decrease. Possibly, the improved street lighting inhibited offending by younger people against older victims but not offending by older people against younger victims. Improved street lighting was very popular with young people. When they were asked in the before survey to say what three things would most improve the quality of life on their estate, the most popular answers were more police, better lighting and more leisure facilities. Since young people were concerned about crime and disorder caused by truculent adults and drunken youths, they wanted more security, not less. During the 'before' household victimisation survey, each adult respondent was asked if any young person aged between 12 and 17 lived at the address. If a young person was identified, permission to interview that young person was sought. Altogether, 307 young people were interviewed in the before survey (140 in the experimental area and 167 in the control area). In the after survey, in the following year, an attempt was made to re- interview the young person seen in the before surveyor altematively interview another young person at the same address or next door. Altogether 170 young people were interviewed in the experimental area and 164 were interviewed in the control area. Each face-to-face interview was completed without the parents present and took about 60-90 minutes. The young people were asked first about offences and antisocial acts that they had committed and secondly about their experiences as victims of crime. In the 'before' survey, they were given cards describing antisocial acts and sorted them into those they had ever done and those that they had never done. The young people then had to read out the number on each card to the interviewer, so they never had to talk explicitly about these acts. Therefore, there was no possibility of their being overheard. The young person was told that the interviewer did not know what was on the cards and that all the responses were anonymous and confidential. In the after survey, they sorted acts into those they had committed in the previous 12 months and those they had not committed. It was emphasised to the young peopie that they should only report incidents occurred on their estate. A similar card sorting procedure was used to report victimisation. http://www.urbislighting.com/switchon3 _6 .php3 7/30/2002