U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government, Department of Justice.

NCJRS Virtual Library

The Virtual Library houses over 235,000 criminal justice resources, including all known OJP works.
Click here to search the NCJRS Virtual Library

STREET LIGHTING AND CRIME: THE STRATHCLYDE TWIN SITE STUDY

NCJ Number
146262
Author(s)
J Ditton; G Nair; G Hunter; S Phillips
Date Published
Unknown
Length
78 pages
Annotation
A street lighting and crime reduction experiment was conducted in the Glasgow, Scotland, area, and area residents were surveyed to determine whether a list of 20 key problems got worse, stayed the same, or improved after 3 months of improved lighting.
Abstract
Adult household members recorded a total of 12 victimizations in the 3 months before relighting and six in the 3 months after. Children suffered 28 victimizations before relighting and only nine after. Pedestrians reported the same number of victimizations before and after relighting, while car victimizations declined from 23 to 1. Most households felt safe in their homes at all times, and lighting improvements did not change their fear of crime. Adult household members did not change their home security measures over the course of the street lighting experiment. Similarly, pedestrians reported no appreciable differences in their estimated frequency of using specific routes before and after lighting changes. Most respondents, however, felt much more satisfied with the Roads and Lighting Department after relighting, and this was the case more for women than for men. Appendixes include data on officially recorded crime rates and the technical lighting report. 16 references, 46 tables, and 10 figures