Designing Out Crime

Designing Out Crime - designing in community safety

Safer north devon The role of the Police Architectural Liaison Officer:

This role was developed as a result of Section 17 of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 which placed a statutory duty on local authorities which requires them to do all they reasonably can to prevent crime and disorder.

Able to advise on:

Designing out opportunities for crime.
Designing out fear generators (that help create a fear of crime).
Design out opportunities for community conflict.
Design out areas that lend itself to unacceptable behaviour.
Design out opportunities for anti-social behaviour.
Design in community safety.

The opportunity for crimes would include predominately domestic burglary, but assaults, harassment, damage, and drunken behaviour can also be deterred.

With permeability and large estates there is potential for problems with anonymity, casual intrusion, unacceptable and anti-social behaviour.

Community conflict arises when families with unruly youths or who have excessive alcohol driven volatile social lives, have disregard for neighbours.

Areas that are closely looked by the Architectural Liaison Officer

Entrance Route	Skate boarder s/ BMX bikes	Footpaths
Cylce paths	Defensible Space	Casual intrusion
Shrubs/trees	Routes serving developments	Street lighting
Communal Spaces	Vehicle Parking	Perimiters
Housing layout	Fear of crime	Utilities
Standard of doors	Standard of windows	Public open space

Community Conflict - rowdy youths/ drunk adults etc.

Dwelling boundaries

Use of rumble strips, change road colour / texture

There are different areas of priority depending if commercial, domestic, dwelling, educational, health, roadways, or just public open space.

The level of advice is given following a crime analyses of the immediate area of the proposed development, together with a review of anti-social and unacceptable behaviour in the surrounding area.

The expertise comes from recognising that a huge amount of community conflict, quality of life issues, and crime is directly linked to a poor design.

It will only be victims of these incidents and responding Police Officers that will recognise the potential for these opportunities, they are NOT necessarily obvious other wise they would not have been designed in that way in the beginning.

Once areas of potential conflict have been identified it very quickly becomes obvious to the Architects why those concerns have arisen.

It takes minutes to redesign small areas to prevent issues that will adversely effect quality of life, however once actually built it is virtually impossible to resolve some of the conflicts designed in.

Requests for consultation must take part prior to the budget being set, not necessarily because advice will raise your design costs, on the contrary it frequently saves a considerable amount of money.

There are occasional conflicts with highways, an early consultation can identify those conflicts at the earliest opportunity allowing resolution prior to planning authority being sought.

There is a standard called Secured by Design that can attract central Government funding. Full details of those standards can be found on:

www.securedbydesign.com

The pepper potting of affordable housing on occasions caused community conflict within a new development, it is considered essential to ensure that the standards of these dwellings are robust and achieve Secured by Design status, and the extra potential for community conflict is designed out and addressed at the planning stage. A Glasgow Social Housing estate of 1000 homes reduced their forced entry burglaries by 78% in a 12-month period by achieving this standard. Manchester City Council has made SBD a condition of planning on housing developments.

The local Police Architectural Liaison Officer is a certified CCTV assessor able to give advice on bids, operational requirements, Judges rules - evidence of identification, data protection, and crime statistics.

For more information contact John Knowles BEM (The Police Architectural Liaison Officer for North Devon and Torridge Districts) please ring Barnstaple 01271 – 335351 or write to the Architectural Liaison Officer, Barnstaple Police Station, North Walk, Barnstaple, Devon, EX31 1DU

Or e mail John.knowles@devonandcornwall.pnn.police.uk

John Knowles was a Police Officer for 25 years and a Crime Prevention Officer for 10 years, undertaking ALO work for the past six years.

The service is confidential and free to every one.