City centre crime: Cooling crime hotspots by design

Wootton, Andrew B.; Marselle, MR

Abstract

City centres present particular challenges to the police. Crime prevention techniques that make the city centre safer would reduce the burden on the police. One such technique is Design Against Crime that uses effective design to prevent crime. The City Centre Crime project, initiated by the Manchester Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnership (CDRP), is a holistic, ‘human‐centred’ investigation of the relationship between the urban environment and crime, with the aim to devise and implement practical design interventions to reduce crime and anti‐social behaviour. An area of Manchester city centre was identified by the CDRP as containing a significant number of crime ‘hot spots’. A design‐led, top‐down research approach was employed to understand the local context and to devise appropriate design interventions. This paper describes the research approach employed to generate targeted interventions to prevent crime, and discusses the advantages of this approach for place‐based crime prevention analyses.

Citation

Wootton, A. B., & Marselle, M. City centre crime: Cooling crime hotspots by design. Presented at British Criminology Conference, University of Huddersfield

• Presentation Conference Type: Other
• Conference Name: British Criminology Conference
• Conference Location: University of Huddersfield
• End Date: Jul 11, 2008
• Publication Date: Jan 1, 2008
• Deposit Date: Dec 13, 2011
• Publisher URL: http://www.britsoccrim.org/v8.htm
• Additional Information: Event Type : Conference