16. The Crime Reducing Effect of Improved Street Lighting: The Dudley Project

EDITOR'S NOTE: Until recently, the received wisdom on improved street lighting was that it might reduce fear, but it has little effect on crime (Tien et al., 1979). This view is now changing, largely due to the work of Kate Painter in Britain, In the face of much skepticism (cf. Atkins et aJ., 1991; Ramsay and Newton, 199!), she has produced a series of studies suggesting that the crime prevention benefits of street lighting have been underestimated. Each of her studies has sought to improve an the methodology of earlier ones. In this latest study, written for this volume with David Farrington, she avoids the pitfalls of using official crime data by conducting victimization surveys in carefully matched experimental and control areas — two adjacent public housing estates in the town of Dudley. The study produces clear evidence that crime of all kinds decreased significantly in the re-lit estate compared with the control. Moreover, there was little sign of displacement of crime to the control estate. Young people who might have been responsible for much crime on the estates were not displaced to the control estate by the re-lighting. Rather, the improved lighting attracted more young people at night to the experimental area. This might have been expected to produce more crime except that the improved lighting probably increased the fear of apprehension. It is common to criticize situational measures for their harmful social effects, but this study