Nick Tilley

University of London · University College London (UCL)

هـذا الكتـاب مرجـع شـامل للوقايـة مـن الجريمـة وأمـن المجتمـع قـد جمـع بيــن النظريــة والتطبيــق بــأقلام علمــاء متخصصيــن وممارســين لهــم بــاع طويــل فــي علــم الجريمــة والوقايــة منهــا والذيــن يعملــون فــي جامعــات مرموقــة ومؤسســات ومراكــز بحــوث متخصصــة حــول العالــم. وتضــم فصولــه الوافيــة أحــدث نظريــات علــم الجريمــة ومناهجه...

There is growing interest in a public health approach to policing. In Britain, it has attracted major government investment and is advocated as a way to improve understanding and prevention of violence. We largely support efforts better to integrate public health and policing. We do, however, argue in this paper that the current conception of publi...

Knife crime remains a major concern in England and Wales. Problem-oriented and public health approaches to tackling knife crime have been widely advocated, but little is known about how these approaches are understood and implemented by police practitioners. To address this knowledge gap, this article draws on semi-structured interviews and focus g...

Objective Illegal dumping of household and business waste, known as fly-tipping in the UK, is a significant environmental crime. News agencies reported major increases early in the COVID-19 pandemic when waste disposal services were closed or disrupted. This study examines the effect of lockdowns on illegal dumping in the UK. Method A freedom of i...

The transition from ‘Mode 1’ to ‘Mode 2’ knowledge-production has created an explicit focus on research impact which is reflected in the funding and organisation of research, the relationships between research and users, and the focus of research studies. It has also led to efforts to understand pathways to impact, although these studies have so fa...

Knife crime remains a major concern in England and Wales. Problem-oriented and public health approaches to tackling knife crime have been widely advocated, but little is known about how these approaches are understood and implemented by police practitioners. To address this knowledge gap, this article draws on semi-structured interviews and focus g...

While security devices are sometimes maligned they offer probably the most efficient means of reducing crime and criminality. The best security measures activate powerful crime prevention mechanisms and are also elegant, that is, they are ethical and unobtrusive. There is a strong body of evidence that security measures were responsible for the maj...

There is significant evidence demonstrating that when done well, problem-oriented policing is associated with meaningful reductions in crime and public safety concerns. And yet, history shows that the implementation and delivery of problem-oriented policing is challenging, and that police organisations have generally not adopted it and even when th...

While security devices are sometimes maligned, they offer the most efficient means of reducing crime and criminality. The best security measures activate powerful crime prevention mechanisms and are also elegant, that is, ethical and unobtrusive. A strong body of evidence shows how security measures were responsible for the major and prolonged decl...

Objective: Illegal dumping of household and business waste is a significant environmental crime, known as fly-tipping in the UK. News agencies reported major increases early in the pandemic when waste disposal services were closed or disrupted. This study examines the veracity of those claims.Method: A freedom of information request was sent to all...

The history of policing is littered with reform programmes, which aim to improve effectiveness, efficiency and legitimacy. Problem-oriented policing (POP) and evidence-based policing (EBP) are two popular and enduring reform efforts, both of which have generated significant researcher and practitioner attention. There are important similarities bet...

This article analyses and critically reflects on the position of problem-oriented policing within England and Wales. Problem-oriented policing is a framework for improving police effectiveness. Its adoption has consistently been shown to be associated with sizable reductions in a wide range of crimes and public safety issues. However, many studies...

Objectives Research consistently shows that crime concentrates on a few repeatedly victimized places and targets. In this paper we examine whether the same is true for extortion against businesses. We then test whether the factors that explain the likelihood of becoming a victim of extortion also explain the number of incidents suffered by victimiz...

Evidence shows that the application of problem-oriented policing can be effective in reducing a wide range of crime and public safety issues, but that the approach is challenging to implement and sustain. This article examines police perceptions and experiences regarding organisational barriers to and facilitators of the implementation and delivery...

On 15 October, the UK's contactless card payment limits (CCLs) were increased to £100, more than treble the pre-pandemic limit (Peachey 2021). This presents a significant crime risk, as we suggested in January (Farrell and Tilley 2021). Here we review the safeguarding measures that were introduced plus related arguments. We find the safeguards are...

The problem Fly-tipping is a form of antisocial behaviour, where waste material is dumped illegally. Waste can be expensive to clear, damages the environment, offends citizens, and in some cases poses risks for those tasked with clearing it up. What we know about fly-tipping and how we know it The Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (...

The problem Preventing the spread of COVID-19, absent an effective vaccine, depends on changed public behaviour. Securing compliance with recommended changes is tricky. Policing can only play a small part in it. Enforcement in the absence of public support risks distrust and long-term damage to police/community relations, as well as resistance to p...

This paper uses resilience as a lens through which to analyse disasters and other major threats to patterns of criminal behaviour. A set of indicators and mathematical models are introduced that aim to quantitatively describe changes in crime levels in comparison to what could otherwise be expected, and what might be expected by way of adaptation a...

To support the development and implementation of evidence-based crime reduction, we systematically identified and appraised 70 systematic reviews of single crime reduction measures published between 1975 and 2015. Using the EMMIE framework, we find that the quality of reporting on the Effectiveness of crime reduction measures is reasonably strong,...

A ‘local lockdown’ was introduced in Leicester city on 29 June: the city had < 1% of the UK population but 10% of all positive COVID-19 cases the week before. We examine recorded crime in July, the first month. Fig 1 shows the most populous 10 cities in England and Wales. In July, total recorded crime increased more in cities other than Leicester....

Abstract Governments around the world restricted movement of people, using social distancing and lockdowns, to help stem the global coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. We examine crime effects for one UK police force area in comparison to 5-year averages. There is variation in the onset of change by crime type, some declining from the WHO ‘global pand...

Some security devices can be ugly, inconvenient or an infringement on civil liberties. This means that security is a quality of life issue as well as one of crime prevention. Here we propose that, in addition to preventing crime and being cost effective, security should preferably be ethical and unobtrusive, aesthetically neutral or pleasing, and t...

This paper uses resilience as a lens through which to analyse disasters and other major threats to patterns of criminal behaviour. A set of indicators and mathematical models are introduced that aim to quantitatively describe changes in crime levels in comparison to what could otherwise be expected, and what might be expected by way of adaptation a...

According to the Crime Survey for England and Wales, violence fell dramatically between 1995 and 2013/14. To improve understanding of the fall in violent crime, this study examines long-term crime trends in England and Wales over the past two decades, by scrutinizing the trends in (a) stranger and acquaintance violence, (b) severity of violence, (c...

Governments around the world restricted movement of people, using social distancing and lockdowns, to help stem the global coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. We examine the effect of restricted mobility on crime for one UK police force area. One week after lockdown, all recorded crime had declined 41% with variation by type: shoplifting (-62%), theft...

Remembering Herman Goldstein, 1931–2020 This, as will become clear to the reader, is no ordinary academic article. It is a collection of four, short contributions from academics and practitioners on two continents all of whom were touched by one of the greatest of policing scholars—Herman Goldstein. After an obituary from M.S., a friend and colleag...

Security devices are sometimes ugly and psychologically intrusive, inconvenient, infringing on civil liberties, ineffective or inefficient. Such criticisms clarify that security is a quality of life issue as well as a crime prevention issue. Here we propose that, in addition to preventing crime and being cost-effective, security should preferably b...

There has been a steep decline in child arrests in recent years. The Howard League report Child Arrests in England and Wales 2017 attributes this to a Howard League programme of work with police. We show the decline in arrests began well before that programme of work, and conclude the report's claims are unfounded. However, there is strong evidence...

This book presented original and innovative research which has direct practical and policy implications for burglary security. The concluding chapter provides a synthesis of the research evidence discussed in the previous chapters addressing three broad themes: burglary trends and patterns, which security devices work and how and burglary preventio...

This chapter examines the role of security in generating falls in domestic burglary. It begins by briefly outlining some general theories that have been advanced to explain the international crime drop, the basic requirements that must be met by any satisfactory theory and the reason why security improvements comprise the most plausible explanation...

This chapter examines how protection is conferred by different security device combinations. Window and door locks, in combination with security lighting, are shown to be particularly effective, demonstrating the importance of restricting access (by locking windows and doors), simulating occupancy and increasing surveillance potential (using securi...

During the past 20 years, there have been several initiatives, led by the British government, to improve crime prevention by informing policy and practice with research. Two in particular stand out for the scale of the investment: The first was the establishment of the Crime Reduction Programme (CRP) in 1999. The CRP was supposed both to be based o...

Crime problems largely result from opportunities, temptations, and provocations that have been provided to offenders unintentionally by those pursuing other private interests. There is a widespread notion that the state and its agencies can and ought to take full responsibility for crime control and that there is, therefore, nothing that nonstate a...

Inspired by theories of environmental criminology, this paper is concerned with the criminogenic potential of football matches. Do matches generate patterns of crime within grounds and beyond them? If so, over what period and over what distance are these effects produced? Police-recorded data for five football stadia for a 6-year timeframe (2005–20...

In this chapter we develop a theory of security tagging. We draw chiefly on the results of a recent systematic review of the tagging literature, supplemented with evidence from other germane areas of crime prevention. Our aim is to construct a theory that applies across varying retail settings and which can therefore be drawn on to improve decision...

This chapter provides examples of the ways in which victimization surveys have been used in environmental criminology to identify spatial distributions of crime and to test and refine hypotheses that speak to these distributions. It first makes some initial remarks on the variations in victimization surveys, which clearly affect what can be conclud...

Opportunity preceded choice and choice preceded rational choice in the development of situational crime prevention theory. Rational choice was, thus, a post hoc theoretical supplement to the initial realisation that immediate situations furnish key conditions affecting criminal behaviour and that these situations could be modified for preventive pu...

Domestic burglary has fallen significantly over the past 20 years in many countries, but still remains a high volume crime. On top of substantial financial loss and property damage, burglary also leads to high levels of anxiety and fear of crime. The research presented in this book represents the first systematic study of what actually works in sec...

This chapter describes the history of national policy and practice initiatives attempting to reduce burglary in England and Wales since the 1980s. It will highlight the importance of major projects that were found to have reduced domestic burglary as well as lessons learned from approaches that have produced disappointing results.

Background Personal security alarms have been used to try to reduce violence against healthcare staff, some of whose members face relatively high risks of assault. This systematic review focused on the effect of alarms in reducing the incidence and/or severity of assaults. Methods Electronic databases, including Cochrane Library, Ovid MEDLINE(R); C...

The violence associated with football matches has long been acknowledged. In this chapter, we adopt a novel perspective that uses the framework of environmental criminology, whose principal concern is patterns of crime events focusing not on who engages in violence but on where and when violence occurs on football match days and why such patterns m...

During the roughly fifty years following the Second World War, the best evidence we have from recorded crimes and victimisation surveys suggests that the level and rate of crime rose in almost all countries for which data are available. The increases seemed to be inexorable. Then, first in the United States and after that in many other countries an...

Background Retailers routinely use security tags to reduce theft. Presently, however, there has been no attempt to systematically review the literature on security tags. Guided by the acronym EMMIE, this paper set out to (1) examine the evidence that tags are effective at reducing theft, (2) identify the key mechanisms through which tags are expect...

This study measures the effectiveness of anti-burglary security devices, both individually and in combination. Data for 2008-2012 from the Crime Survey of England and Wales are analysed via the Security Impact Assessment Tool to estimate Security Protection Factors (SPFs). SPFs indicate the level of security conferred relative to the absence of sec...

Alley gates are designed to limit access to alleys and the crime opportunities they afford. Informed by the acronym EMMIE we sought to: (1) systematically review the evidence on whether alley gates are Effective at reducing crime, (2) identify the causal Mechanisms through which alley gates are expected to work and the conditions that Moderate effe...

This study examines the role of household security devices in producing the domestic burglary falls in England and Wales. It extends the study of the security hypothesis as an explanation for the ‘crime drop’. Crime Survey for England and Wales data are analysed from 1992 to 2011/12 via a series of data signatures indicating the nature of, and chan...

Technology is one of the most important influences upon crime. It can increase or reduce the supply of crime opportunities, and the effect may be intentional or unintentional. With respect to intentional opportunity reduction, security technology has caused much of the major reductions in crime experienced in recent decades. An important aspect is...

This chapter focuses on situational crime prevention, a method for reducing opportunities for crime by manipulating the immediate environment. It begins by charting the origins and development of situational crime prevention. It then describes how rational choice was later added as the model of offender decision making to underpin situational crime...

The main objective of this study, commissioned by the West Midlands Police (WMP), British Transport Police (BTP), the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) and the UK Football Policing Unit (UKFPU), is to assess whether the current geographic ‘footprint’ within which football clubs must pay for policing services on match days sufficiently cov...

The main objective of this study, commissioned by the South Yorkshire Police (SYP), British Transport Police (BTP), the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) and the UK Football Policing Unit (UKFPU), is to assess whether the current geographic ‘footprint’ within which football clubs must pay for policing services on match days sufficiently c...

The main objective of this study, commissioned by the West Midlands Police (WMP), British Transport Police (BTP), the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) and the UK Football Policing Unit (UKFPU), is to assess whether the current geographic ‘footprint’ within which football clubs must pay for policing services on match days sufficiently cov...

The main objective of this study, commissioned by the West Yorkshire Police (WYP), British Transport Police (BTP), the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) and the UK Football Policing Unit (UKFPU), is to assess whether the current geographic ‘footprint’ within which football clubs must pay for policing services on match days sufficiently co...

The main objective of this study, commissioned by the South Yorkshire Police (SYP), the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) and the UK Football Policing Unit (UKFPU), is to assess whether the current geographic ‘footprint’ within which football clubs must pay for policing services on match days sufficiently covers the costs of match policin...

The number of FBOs in Scotland has been increasing, as has the proportion of FBO applications that are successful. From the introduction of banning orders in late 2006 up to the end of November 2010, a total of 101 FBOs have been issued. The administrative arrangements that underpin the use of FBOs are evolving effectively, and are well supported b...

Evidence based policing continues to be an important area of discussion among police organisations across the world, and parallels are often drawn with medicine as a means to describe how a profession can be enhanced through a commitment to evidence based techniques. The use of the medical analogy in policing does not have everybody convinced, howe...

While written by a proponent of realism, this article argues in favour of a pragmatic approach to evaluation. It argues that multiple sources of evidence collected using diverse research methods can be useful in conducting informative evaluations of programmes, practices and policies. It argues in particular that methods, even if their assumptions...

OBJECTIVES Systematize causal accounts of the introduction and uptake of vehicle security measures during the 1990s in England and Wales, and in turn, assess their sufficiency in explaining widespread falls in vehicle theft. METHODS We construct an individual-based computational model of the daily crime event choices of potential car thieves oper...

There is a wide range of sources that might fruitfully be used in criminological research. This article, by Andromachi Tseloni* and Nick Tilley**, overviews the type of evidence used in research that has recently appeared in the British Journal of Criminology, gives examples of unobtrusive administrative data that have been used in recent projects,...

Let us not assume that there has been no effective and ethical crime prevention. Let us also not assume that current research, beliefs, policies and practices are not open to improvement. This chapter argues in favour of middle-range radical realism as a framework for developing and delivering progressive crime prevention.

This article describes realist evaluation research combining data signatures and theories of causal mechanism as a means of shedding light on why crime has declined in recent years. A data signature is an empirical indicator of how or why something has occurred. The use of multiple signatures – a ‘dish’ – from different angles and contexts can, if...

A key part of the evidence base for practitioners and policymakers includes the costs of interventions and the returns yielded from incurring those costs. However, to date crime reduction work economic analyses have been uncommon and even when undertaken have been partial, technically weak and insufficiently informed by economic theory. This book e...

Abstract This chapter introduces frontier analysis techniques, including data envelope analysis and stochastic frontier analysis. It shows that these can be used by government and individual agencies to supplement traditional economic analysis techniques. It explains how these techniques are useful in calculating a relative efficiency score for ind...

This chapter summarises the major steps used in CBA. It includes a discussion of incremental cost-comparison analysis, the optimal choice of programme and incremental cost-analysis. Nine steps are identified and described: (1) specifying alternatives, (2) deciding whose costs and benefits to include, (3) deciding what costs to count, (4) identifyin...