Climate change – how crime prevention can help

When I worked for the Association of Chief Police Officer’s Secured by Design project we engaged Professor Ken Pease to consider how crime reduction techniques might play a part in reducing the carbon footprint of a household.  We suspected that it might and Ken came up with the data to prove it.

Our suspicions were aroused by the fact that these brand new SBD certificated homes had the best crime resistant windows and doors and many other good security features and the developments of which they were a part were being designed to deter the thief from even trying.  The amount of crime experienced by an SBD development was substantially lower than new developments not built to the police standards and therefore it stood to reason that SBD was also good for the environment and our country’s carbon footprint.

Secured by Design homes and, importantly, homes that have been properly secured experience less than 50% fewer burglaries than an insecure home, so I’m sure you can see the connection – more secure – less carbon output.

Ken’s estimates at the time suggested that reported crime was causing 6 million tonnes of carbon per year, unreported crime another (conservative) 1 million tonnes and people moving house as a consequence of crime another 6 million tonnes (data from a 2007 report by Abbey National Bank).  To put this into context we’d have to plant 5.3 million trees per year to sequester this amount of carbon!

Armed with this data we started selling SBD not just as a means to control crime, but also to help towards reducing our carbon footprint.

With the publication of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) report yesterday I do hope that our Government are doing everything they can to support the police Secured by Design project, because frankly it’s a no-brainer!

Police Secured by Design project: http://www.securedbydesign.com/index.aspx

BBC News: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-24289500