Outdoor Lighting and Crime - Amper

9. CONCLUSIONS
Crime appears to be an excessive lighting problem as well as a social problem. This does not
negate existing knowledge of crime causation but adds to it. In the long run, it seems that
every outdoor source of artificial light will contribute indirectly to the social conditions that
foster crime. Every undraped window that allows the outdoor escape of indoor light adds to
the problem. Each source, from streetlights to lasers, needs to be considered for reduction or
outright removal according to set priorities. If continued presence of artificial light outdoors
is essential for purposes of undisputed value such as personal identification, wayfinding,
mobility safety, reading, feeling safe, and probably traffic safety, substantial reduction of
intensity should still be considered. Overall, outdoor ambient light flux and lighting energy
use both appear in need of capping to limits that will often need to be well below existing
levels.
Nothing in this work should be interpreted as suggesting that lighting for mobility safety or
limiting the fear of crime is unimportant, or that there should be any reduction of effort on the
social approach to drug abuse and crime prevention. This study does NOT support the notion
that cities and towns should be ‘shut down’ at night by turning all the lights off.
9.1 LIGHTING AND ENVIRONMENT
Copious artificial light at night has transformed civilisation in little more than a century.
Proliferation of outdoor lighting continues virtually without constraint or regard for the
adverse cultural, biological and environmental consequences of the wasteful lighting practices
that surround us all at present. Its present exponential growth on a global scale is
unsustainable, but stakeholder industries continue to foster this growth. Increasing
knowledge of the accompanying adverse environmental effects now justifies large overall
reductions in outdoor lighting and much more effective containment of stray light outdoors.
Excessive light at night can adversely affect health, safety, quality of life and ecology.
Artificial skyglow caused by waste light travelling above the horizontal is increasingly
obliterating the natural spectacle of the night sky, an aesthetic loss for everyone, an ever more
serious problem for the world’s astronomers, professionals in remote observatories as well as
amateurs in suburban back yards, and a partly avoidable substantial waste of energy.
Lighting seems to be regarded as an indicator of progress but governments typically neglect to
monitor its growth, let alone control its excesses and adverse effects. In Australia,
compliance of outdoor lighting with the Kyoto Protocol would require decommissioning of
well over half of the installed fittings and no new installations, or an equivalent continuing
cap on fossil-fuelled energy use. Other countries appear to need similar reductions and
restrictions.
9.2 LIGHTING AND CRIME EXPERIMENTS
New terminology is defined to improve understanding of existing outdoor lighting and crime
studies and to assist the formulation of new studies:
• Direct effects of lighting may aid or hinder criminal acts at night.
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