outdoor lighting and crime, part 1 - Astronomical Society of Victoria

Ramsay and Newton (1991) [96] reviewed the literature and concluded that better street
lighting had little if any demonstrated effect on actual crime. Nevertheless, fear of crime did
diminish with brighter lighting and there was considerable public faith in lighting as a crime
prevention measure. In interviews of over 300 experienced burglars, lighting was virtually
not mentioned as a deterrent. In interviews with 45 street robbers, conditions had been dark
in only about one eighth of all the offences, time of day was regarded as unimportant and
only two robbers actually mentioned darkness as a contributing factor. There was a similar
lack of concern about lighting in the choice of location for robbery. In interviews of nearly a
hundred car thieves, only one mentioned unlit parking places as assisting the theft but nearly
a quarter of the total mentioned seclusion. In both sets of interviews, being seen committing
the crime was not of much concern to the offenders, as bystanders were considered generally
to take no notice or to take no action.
Atkins, Husain and Storey (1991) [3] conducted a large and apparently thorough relighting
study in Wandsworth, a London Borough. They found that the brighter lighting did not
significantly change the relative proportion of day and night recorded crime, but interviews
indicated that people in the relit areas did feel safer at night.
In a Glasgow neighbourhood, Nair, Ditton and Phillips (1993) [71] studied the effect of
relighting the area surrounding the homes of respondents together with other environmental
and security changes. They found “little improvement in victimisation or fear of victimisation
could be documented” and “It is more likely that improved lighting is no panacea for
all ills, and may only be effective under certain conditions”.
Tilley and Webb (1994) [109] mentioned expenditure on increased lighting as an anticrime
measure in the UK but they found no evidence to justify this in the towns they studied.
Barker and Bridgeman (1994) [5] described an attempt by British Telecom in 1985 to
reduce public telephone vandalism by fitting 24-hour lighting to the booths. The immediate
result was the loss of 2000 light globes a year. Barker and Bridgeman provided a bibliography
for guidance in the use of security lighting and other measures to prevent vandalism,
but there is nothing in their report to justify use of lighting for this purpose.
Fisher (1997) [37] described features of a paper by Painter (1994a) [79], given at a conference
of the Institution of Lighting Engineers. Relighting of streets increased pedestrian
usage by males and by females. In three schemes, usage of relit roads and paths had increased
between 34 and 101 %. Beneficial effects of relighting on crime were also reported
for a housing estate in Dudley, UK.
Eck (1997) [31] summarised Painter (1994b) [80]:
“She examined lighting improvements on two separate street segments and a
footpath, all located in ‘crime prone’ areas within London. Pedestrians were
interviewed before and after the lighting improvement. All interviews were
conducted after dark and were completed within 6 weeks of the relighting. No
interviews were conducted in control areas. Substantial reductions in robberies,
auto crimes, and threats were reported in two sites (86 percent, 79 percent).
These crimes were eliminated in the third site, but the number of crimes before
relighting was small so this could have been the result of other factors.”
The size of the reductions will be of interest in connection with Section 5.2 below.
A score on the Scientific Methods Scale was applied to papers reviewed in the Sherman
et al. (1997) [102] report. The score depends solely on the experimental design, and no
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