Outdoor Lighting and Crime - Amper

that allow substantial light spill. 82 The economic and environmental costs of making,
installing and operating these floodlights are far from trivial. That the few ultimate
beneficiaries probably include criminals adds some Schadenfreude. More follows from some
insurance companies insisting on the presence and use of security lighting as a policy
condition.
Melbourne participates in Victoria’s ‘Pride of Place’ program. At least at night, its most
obvious feature is the floodlighting of public buildings, trees, and structures such as bridges,
road decorations and high voltage transmission pylons. 83 Generally, the lights are upwardly
aimed. Authorities responsible have asserted that a secondary benefit of the lighting is to
reduce crime, including vandalism and graffiti. 84
5.7 SEEING SECURITY IN A DIFFERENT WAY
The new hypothesis provides some insight into lighting and crime interaction at small scale.
Consider a situation where local residents complain about troublesome teenagers
congregating under a particular streetlight. 85 Typically, the local authority would respond by
putting in a brighter light, which might now be seen as reinforcing the attraction of the site as
a miniature lighting hotspot and conducive to more crime. Opposing factors including
attention from the police will help the gang to move on in due course, but people will be
inclined to believe that the brighter light has banished the gang to darker places. This
reinforces what everyone ‘knows’ about light and crime. Doing nothing would eventually
lead to the same result by ‘regression to the mean’. It now appears that this result might
happen more quickly by dimming or removing the existing light, which would hardly ever be
done in present practice.
In Australia, it is an offence punishable under the Trade Practices Act 1974 to misrepresent
goods or services in trade, and comparable constraints are in place in some other countries.
Outdoor light fittings that have ‘security’ in their description and services advertising
‘security’ lighting carry the implication that the goods and services are intended to prevent
crime and increase the feeling of safety. There is a need for a mandatory accompanying
warning that security lighting goods and services generally do not prevent, deter or reduce
crime and may increase it.
82 Virtually every instance of floodlighting tends to disrupt the street lighting designer’s
attempts to achieve evenness of illumination, possibly increasing fear of crime and ultimately
contributing indirectly to the crime rate.
83 Apparently the floodlight colours were intended to be changed in step with the four
seasons but this has not been followed completely. For example, at least some of the power
transmission pylons have been uplit only with violet (for winter) since the beginning of the
program.
84 Wylie (1999) is a good summary of conventional countermeasures against graffiti. It
includes a statement about the supposed benefit of changing a light-coloured dimly-lit wall to
brightly lit dark paint! This was dubious advice even when it was written; now it appears to
be highly counterproductive.
85 This is described in the quotation at the end of Section 3.3.
95