From the Source to the Mainstream is Uphill: The Challenge of Transferring Knowledge of Crime Prevention Through Replication, Innovation and Anticipation

This paper, in the only long-standing academic series covering situational crime prevention, initiated exploration of the purpose, nature and management of crime prevention knowledge. It arose from my longstanding experience in practical prevention and its evaluation; awareness of failure in government programmes promulgating ‘evidence-based practice’ and interest in research-led demonstration projects; and international interest in ‘good practice’ databases.

Viewing knowledge as a means for improving performance, the paper addresses a paradox: over-exact replication of interventions means poor adaptation to new, and different, contexts. The resolution requires treating replication like innovation: practitioners should copy a design-like 'process' rather than an 'end product', replicating 'generic preventive principles', not detailed 'intervention methods', cookbook fashion.

Social/technological change and adaptive offenders demands continual replenishment of knowledge through ‘evolutionary’ and anticipatory techniques to out-innovate offenders. 5Is closely integrates with the iterative process which characterises practice-led design and linkages are now being developed to guide design practitioners.

The work reported generated a practical knowledge management schema applied within both UK and European Crime Prevention Network (EUCPN), based on my process model, the 5Is (which explicitly realises the arguments of this paper), and my Conjunction of Criminal Opportunity framework. 5Is arose from the Danish Crime Prevention Council’s invitation to develop internationally transferable means for crime prevention practitioners to describe good practice. It was used for successive EUCPN conferences. A version was adopted by Swedish National Crime Prevention Council for filtering/enhancing local applications for funding; 5Is appears on a Mexican public security website. ‘Research Utilisation’ researchers used my typology of knowledge. The international Beccaria project for crime prevention quality incorporated the 5I’s concepts. I have presented 5Is at the European Police College, it is used in teaching Masters students at UCL, and by the Japanese Urban Security Research Institute. A book (Palgrave Macmillan) on 5I’s is in development.

Paul Ekblom

Research Interests

Theory, development, implementation & evaluation of Design Against Crime.

Definitions & conceptual frameworks for knowledge transfer of good practice in crime prevention.

Horizon scanning, incl. crime risk/ impact assessment.

Evolution, arms races, complexity & simulation applied to crime.

Current Research

1.Principal Investigator, AHRC-funded project, with JDI/UCL, to design, implement and evaluate range of security products intended to reduce theft of customers' bags in bars. Based on this, developing concepts and language for describing/specifying security and security weaknesses in designed products, systems and environments.

2. Co-investigator, AHRC-funded project to develop more secure bike parking, including through guidance and standards. Based on my part of this work, recently completed, www.bikeoff.org/2009/01/05/final-report-wpa2-of-bike-off-2/ developing advanced frameworks for supporting crime risk analysis leading to design guidance. Currently discussing development of these frameworks in built environment and anti-terrorist contexts.

3. Currently writing book to elaborate key concepts, details and applications of 5Is framework, an advanced process model for crime prevention, and used in capture, synthesis and retrieval of good practice knowledge, supporting intelligenf replication and innovation. See www.designagainstcrime.com/web/crimeframeworks. Related to this, involved as partner in EU-funded project Beccaria on developing crime prevention training in EU and a range of informal national/international collaborations on knowledge management.

5. Developing new ways of thinking about Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design based on a tighter conceptual/theoretical framework than currently exists.

6. Investigating scope for using graphic/communications design to represent complexity in policy/practice systems such as, but not confined to, crime prevention.