Outdoor Lighting and Crime - Amper

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Northfield in northwestern Massachusetts turned off most of their street lighting for budgetary reasons. Each year thereafter, the police chiefs in both towns reported no increases either in traffic accidents or crime as a consequence of the lighting reduction (NELPAG C12 1995). This was still the situation two years later (NELPAG C14 1997). Since then it has been reported that “numerous other towns in Massachusetts have turned off their lights with no increase in crime or traffic accidents” and that the Boston suburb of Lexington (pop 28 000) had turned off every second streetlight out of the original installed total of 3600. Complaints were resolved by turning individual lights back on. The complaints had virtually stopped by the time that the number of streetlights left off had been reduced to 1300 over several months (Green 1997). About 40% of the original number were still not operating ten years later in year 2000, and the Town of Acton had applied a similar money-saving constraint with a 20-year moratorium on additional streetlights (MMA 2000). Lexington has also consolidated various other existing outdoor lighting constraints into a single bylaw (Bowyer 1998). 3.2.3 Europe Because upward waste and used light could provide precise information to bomber aircraft about the identification of targets at night during World War 2, the Blackout was imposed in Britain from 1939-09-01 to 1945-04-30, although a relaxation to ‘dim-out’ conditions was allowed in the last six months. Before that, shutters, black paper, cloth or paint had to be used to block the egress of light from all windows and skylights. Severe penalties could be imposed even for small light leaks. All streetlights were turned off. Vehicle headlights were fitted with slit apertures. Even the glow from a lit cigarette outdoors was regarded as a contravention. People complained bitterly that the Blackout saw crime rocket, especially petty crime such as pocket picking and the raiding of vegetable patches. Crime did increase but people exaggerated (HSHF 2002). No evidence has been found by the writer to indicate that the imposed darkness rather than the stringency of war was responsible for changes in the amount or type of crime. Crime is now known to increase in the vicinity of military camps (Goodman 2002), and there were a great many of these present in Britain at the time. More recently, Pearce (1995) claimed that in West Sussex (UK), police found a reduction in crime rate when streetlights were switched off after midnight. Crime has an urban concentration (eg Graycar 2001). Details for a part of London (Camden Community Safety Partnership 2001) indicate that the concentration varies with the type of crime and the nature and function of the built environment. It has been widely accepted that the built environment has an influence on crime, but the Auckland experience in 1998 appears to indicate that the presence of light at night is more important. Not much information is to hand about other parts of Europe. It is known that power failures affecting outdoor lighting have occurred. Nations and large regions have had street lighting curfews after 11 pm or midnight for decades in the past. Van den Burg (2000, pp 34-39) contains some information about public and sports lighting curfews in The Netherlands. There is scope for some useful research in relation to crime and changes in street lighting hours. Likewise, the recent introduction of outdoor lighting controls in nearly half of the 25
Italian regions and in Czechia will provide further opportunities for studies of the social effects, including the usefulness or otherwise of differentiation into direct and indirect effects. 3.2.4 Great Northeast Blackout of 1965 BHP (2000) and Cooney and Stone (2002) described the power failure (outage) that affected eight states in the north-eastern parts of USA and Ontario province of Canada from about 5- 30 pm Eastern Standard Time (1730 EST) on 1965-11-09. New York City’s blackout was the longest, up to 13 hours in parts. There were many minor traffic accidents, presumably because of the failure of traffic lights, but no catastrophes or disastrous fires. There were no crime waves or looting sprees. Crime rates in the region were actually well below normal. In New York City, “… criminals stayed home” and there were only 96 arrests all night (Newsweek 1977, pp 18, 24). The usual number was about 600 arrests in 24 hours (Corwin and Miles 1978, p 60). Haas (2002) from Connecticut, reported: “I remember that blackout quite well. The whole northeastern grid blew out and we were left without power for three days. Reporters indicated similar stories about crime throughout the CT area -- the statistics dropped dramatically for violent and non-violent crimes during a period when the race riots were common in the northeast. The following month (the original) Life Magazine did a several page spread on NYC telling how not having any electricity brought everyone closer together during times of crisis... The most profound thing I recall was how detailed the full Moon looked to the naked eye when it was near the horizon. It was amazing and lots of fun living by candlelight for this 12 year old kid at the time. We had absolutely no trouble seeing outside at night either, thanks to the Moon. Similar reports of no crime during blackouts occurred again during the Los Angeles earthquake in the mid-1990s when electricity supply lines were severed. Living on Earth did a feature story on Torrance Barrens preserve in Canada in 2000 that mentioned this event and told of people in LA being terrified by a strange grey cloud that split the sky in half. Many people thought it had something to do with causing the quake, but alas, it was only the Milky Way they were seeing -- our stellar back yard in the Universe. A link to that audio and related text appears in the Articles section of the LiteLynx List for anyone interested in reading it.” [See LiteLynx (2003).]” The following event times for New York City were obtained from USNO (2003). For 1965-11-09: Sunset 1643 EST Moonrise 1712 EST End of Civil Twilight (Sun depression 6°) 1712 EST End of Astronomical Twilight (Sun depression 18°) 1817 EST 26
Page 1 and 2: OUTDOOR LIGHTING AND CRIME, PART 2:
Page 3 and 4: The new hypothesis suggests that pr
Page 5 and 6: ABBREVIATIONS, CONTRACTIONS AND GLO
Page 7 and 8: ns not significant NSW New South Wa
Page 9 and 10: 4.2.2.1 A graphical approach.......
Page 11 and 12: 9.12 SKYBEAMS AND LASER DISPLAYS...
Page 13 and 14: If there is some substance to the b
Page 15 and 16: 2. GROWTH IN LIGHTING AND IN CRIME
Page 17 and 18: e at risk when community and enviro
Page 19 and 20: A decade of satellite measurements
Page 21 and 22: 2000). Regardless, there are often
Page 23 and 24: Intent in two of the source documen
Page 25 and 26: Unlike the situation in England and
Page 27 and 28: proportional to the amount of outdo
Page 29 and 30: Zealand (Not shown in figures) Popu
Page 31 and 32: the crime is much less feared by mo
Page 33 and 34: “We are not aware of any school d
Page 35: The Auckland central business distr
Page 39 and 40: summer’s worst heat wave and in t
Page 41 and 42: For 1977-07-04: End of Civil Twilig
Page 43 and 44: which unreasonably disturbs the sle
Page 45 and 46: 4. MAKING SENSE OF THE EVIDENCE 4.1
Page 47 and 48: much as 60 % of the emitted light a
Page 49 and 50: Marchant (2003) pointed out that th
Page 51 and 52: level will be linked to clock time
Page 53 and 54: Curve E is the simplest form of var
Page 55 and 56: night, plus the relative change ove
Page 57 and 58: • spatial extent also ranging fro
Page 59 and 60: Crime tends to increase as a reacti
Page 61 and 62: Causal Variable TABLE 2. Apparent S
Page 63 and 64: unreliable, and funding for further
Page 65 and 66: What would be helpful now would be
Page 67 and 68: 5. THE HYPOTHESIS AND FURTHER EVIDE
Page 69 and 70: Isobe 2003) with the same observati
Page 71 and 72: TABLE 3. World Cities: Upward Light
Page 73 and 74: TDU = 0.15 S + 0.5 A + 0.1 V. The t
Page 75 and 76: necessary but not sufficient condit
Page 77 and 78: TABLE 6. Population, Crime and Upwa
Page 79 and 80: On the assumption that roads and pa
Page 81 and 82: eliably positive slope with data un
Page 83 and 84: 5.2.3.7 Summary and discussion of r
Page 85 and 86: eflectance have changed the relativ
Page 87 and 88:
Country TABLE 8. Crime Rate and Upw
Page 89 and 90:
5.3 DISCUSSION OF THE CRIME AND LIG
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eventually in overall crime rates i
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objectionably large reduction, part
Page 95 and 96:
no reason to suppose that ambient l
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oads were lit adequately for pedest
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Because of concern about the upward
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that major cross streets occur at i
Page 103 and 104:
Overall, the tests indicate that dr
Page 105 and 106:
TABLE 11. Drugs Crime and Light at
Page 107 and 108:
6. ENVIRONMENTAL ASPECTS 6.1 ADVERS
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1999). Year-round summer-length dur
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yet ratified under the Kyoto Protoc
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One further problem needs to be rai
Page 115 and 116:
Even with adequate notice it might
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markedly greater if there is substa
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at night, not only dim light but lo
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A Technical Report on the topic (IL
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ambient light. Commercial competiti
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with lighting for an aging populati
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If excessive lighting and lighting
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outdoor use of searchlights, skybea
Page 131 and 132:
If funds are available for crime pr
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the first place now have to accept
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installation and usage of artificia
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Section 5.2.2 needs to be replaced
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8.5 ANOTHER VIEW There is an extens
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9. CONCLUSIONS Crime appears to be
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There appears to be no compelling e
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account for the strong positive cor
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aimed lighting used for advertising
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10. RECOMMENDATIONS The following r
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c. Support competent investigations
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14. REFERENCES Notes following refe
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BJS (2002a) Key crime and justice f
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http://dipastro.pd.astro.it/cinzano
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Dawson, D. and Reid, K. (1997) Fati
Page 161 and 162:
Fennelly, L. J. (1996) Security sur
Page 163 and 164:
Harder, B. (2002) Deprived of darkn
Page 165 and 166:
IDA IS35 (1997) Billboards. Informa
Page 167 and 168:
Klein, A. G., Hall, D. K. and Nolin
Page 169 and 170:
Martinez-Papponi, B. L. (2000) Scie
Page 171 and 172:
NBI (2002) Integrated Energy System
Page 173 and 174:
Pearce, F. (1995) Declaring a curfe
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in the Nurses’ Health Study. Jour
Page 177 and 178:
UNESCAP (2002) Developments in the
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FIGURES FIGURE 1. SKYGLOW AND CRIME
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FIGURE 3. SKYGLOW AND CRIME IN USA
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PERCENT FIGURE 5. USA BURGLARIES BY
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UCR CRIME RATE % FIGURE 7. UCR CRIM
Page 187 and 188:
FIGURE 9. UCR CRIME AND UPWARD LIGH
Page 189 and 190:
FIGURE 11. CRIME RATE AND UPWARD LI
Page 191 and 192:
FIGURE 13. CRIME AND UPWARD LIGHT E
Page 193 and 194:
Log 10 (ILLUMINANCE, lux) FIGURE 15
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