Outdoor Lighting and Crime - Amper

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“… crimes against people on or around public transport have almost doubled in the last five years.” “[These] crimes mostly occurred on trains and railway stations… “ “… commuters’ fears are compounded by the unwelcoming appearance of the stations, many of which are covered in graffiti, empty or smashed bottles and other litter.” “Stations are often isolated and users must walk under tracks, through dimly lit [sic; typically they are lit to about 80 lux!] tunnels, to get to surrounding streets.” “Sometimes there are dodgy characters around, even during the day.” “I know how dark it is here at night, so I never come here at night on my own.” “… to the platform, where the light cast by the yellow lamps is grainy and dirty…” “Many of the violent assaults were the result of gangs congregating at railway stations…” This material is consistent with the lighting, commerce and crime hypothesis. The problems described are similar to those experienced in many other rail systems (eg Easteal and Wilson 2000). Current plans to deal with the problem include even more lighting! 5.6.2 Light and crime in the inner city 5.6.2.1 Growth in crime A numerical example from the real world can be used to illustrate more of the issues raised in this work. In central Melbourne, crime increased by 24% from 1997 through 2001 (Vicpol 2002b), while Melbourne skyglow luminance increased by about 32% in the same time. If this observed exponential rate is sustained, it would take a little over 17 years in all for skyglow to increase by 3.375 times, the mean increase in lighting applying to the papers in the Farrington and Welsh (2002a,b) meta-analysis. Assuming for this discussion that, in the absence of any extraneous influences, the 1997 to 2001 lighting and crime relationship would hold for another 13 years, the accompanying crime growth over the 17 years would be an increase of 2.5 times. To put this in context with the measure used in the meta-analysis, it is equivalent to a cross-product ratio of 0.4. For the whole state of Victoria, the total number of crimes was about 15 times that in central Melbourne to begin with. In the absence of data for outdoor lighting growth across the state, ie assuming that the lighting growth rate in the rest of the state is as for the central city, the cross-product ratio for 17 years would be about 0.7. The difference from 0.4 reflects the slower growth of state-wide crime compared with that of urban crime, inter alia. The crossproduct ratio for suburban crime could be expected to be somewhere in between 0.4 and 0.7. Comparing this with the suspect cross-product ratios for Dudley and Stoke-on-Trent studies, 1.44 and 1.72 respectively, a first-order correction to the monetary savings prematurely derived in Painter and Farrington (2001b) might well consist of simply changing the sign to get the cost instead. On this indication, putting taxpayer money into brighter lighting looks to be very costly indeed for everyone. 87
Because of concern about the upward trend in city crime, the City of Melbourne adopted a ‘Strategy for a Safe City’ in 1999. Despite the writer’s detailed advice to the contrary, lighting ‘improvements’ were included as measures to reduce lawbreaking ranging from rubbish dumping to illicit drug activities and violence. Many of these more and brighter lighting changes were already in progress. Building facades along a major street were lit under an incentive scheme involving the City and a power company, and illuminated signage was encouraged (Vodanovich 1998). Footpaths (sidewalks) were more brightly lit with a street luminaire specifically designed for this purpose. 73 White-light metal halide lamps were fitted. Without justification, these were claimed to produce a safer, brighter environment than the high-pressure sodium lamps they displaced (Vodanovich 1998). The existing Citysubsidised alcove-lighting scheme of 1996 was continued, and street and laneway lighting were increased in parts of the Melbourne central business district. The increases in lighting and energy usage for lighting were also part of the City’s documented ‘lighter and brighter’ outdoor lighting strategy and included in its greenhouse gases strategy. 74 The increased lighting was not mentioned when press reports released toward the end of 2001 indicated that substantial increases in street crime were continuing to occur in Melbourne’s central business district street crime. No publicity was given to this apparent failure of the lighting and safety strategies and the lighting has not been returned to its former level. The Drugs and Crime Prevention Committee of the Parliament of Victoria saw the lighting improvements uncritically as a positive factor in crime prevention. Its report (DCPC 2001) contains numerous references to lighting for crime prevention despite the fact that the original version of the present work submitted to the committee in May 2000 provided evidence that lighting is ineffective for crime deterrence. That document is not referenced in the report. With notes in italics added by the writer, DCPC (2001) stated that: “The proportion of crime attributable to Melbourne City [which extends from the north side of the Yarra River] has gradually declined, while Southbank [at the south 73 This luminaire type was installed in large numbers within the City of Melbourne, including parks where their glare is particularly unpleasant. Unfortunately, they have a substantial proportion of upward waste light. Most of the waste light emission is at angles below 45° elevation, maximising the effect in causing skyglow for a given amount of waste energy. 74 The irony of all this is that the Astronomical Society of Victoria had been lobbying the City of Melbourne for over a decade to adopt a lighting strategy to limit artificial skyglow. The Society made many suggestions such as a ban on tree lighting, restrictions on decorative floodlighting, and compliance of lighting energy use with the Kyoto protocol. Most of these were not incorporated. Instead, the approach tended to follow desires such as increasing the ‘play of light on water’ and using light to increase customer attraction to the retail area. The already excessive growth rate of city lighting energy usage thereby actually increased further while being reported as complying with the requirements of the Cities for Climate Protection program, which effectively allows much more growth than that agreed for any country, including Australia, under the Kyoto Protocol. Apparently no change has since been made to this lighting strategy and no statewide lighting strategy is in place or being developed despite a change of state government in 1999 to one professing a strong commitment to the environment and the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. Note that Australian participants in Cities for Climate Protection found that street lighting accounted for almost 50% of corporate authority emissions of greenhouse gases (Sonntag-O’Brien 2000). 88
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OUTDOOR LIGHTING AND CRIME, PART 2:
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The new hypothesis suggests that pr
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ABBREVIATIONS, CONTRACTIONS AND GLO
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ns not significant NSW New South Wa
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4.2.2.1 A graphical approach.......
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9.12 SKYBEAMS AND LASER DISPLAYS...
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If there is some substance to the b
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2. GROWTH IN LIGHTING AND IN CRIME
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e at risk when community and enviro
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A decade of satellite measurements
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2000). Regardless, there are often
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Intent in two of the source documen
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Unlike the situation in England and
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proportional to the amount of outdo
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Zealand (Not shown in figures) Popu
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the crime is much less feared by mo
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“We are not aware of any school d
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The Auckland central business distr
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Italian regions and in Czechia will
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summer’s worst heat wave and in t
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For 1977-07-04: End of Civil Twilig
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which unreasonably disturbs the sle
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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
Page 91 and 92: eventually in overall crime rates i
Page 93 and 94: objectionably large reduction, part
Page 95 and 96: no reason to suppose that ambient l
Page 97: oads were lit adequately for pedest
Page 101 and 102: 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
Page 109 and 110: 1999). Year-round summer-length dur
Page 111 and 112: yet ratified under the Kyoto Protoc
Page 113 and 114: One further problem needs to be rai
Page 115 and 116: Even with adequate notice it might
Page 117 and 118: markedly greater if there is substa
Page 119 and 120: at night, not only dim light but lo
Page 121 and 122: A Technical Report on the topic (IL
Page 123 and 124: ambient light. Commercial competiti
Page 125 and 126: with lighting for an aging populati
Page 127 and 128: If excessive lighting and lighting
Page 129 and 130: outdoor use of searchlights, skybea
Page 131 and 132: If funds are available for crime pr
Page 133 and 134: the first place now have to accept
Page 135 and 136: installation and usage of artificia
Page 137 and 138: Section 5.2.2 needs to be replaced
Page 139 and 140: 8.5 ANOTHER VIEW There is an extens
Page 141 and 142: 9. CONCLUSIONS Crime appears to be
Page 143 and 144: There appears to be no compelling e
Page 145 and 146: account for the strong positive cor
Page 147 and 148: 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
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Fennelly, L. J. (1996) Security sur
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Harder, B. (2002) Deprived of darkn
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IDA IS35 (1997) Billboards. Informa
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Klein, A. G., Hall, D. K. and Nolin
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Martinez-Papponi, B. L. (2000) Scie
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NBI (2002) Integrated Energy System
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Pearce, F. (1995) Declaring a curfe
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in the Nurses’ Health Study. Jour
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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
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FIGURE 9. UCR CRIME AND UPWARD LIGH
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FIGURE 11. CRIME RATE AND UPWARD LI
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FIGURE 13. CRIME AND UPWARD LIGHT E
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Log 10 (ILLUMINANCE, lux) FIGURE 15
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Outdoor Lighting and Crime - Amper

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