Crime Prevention Training in the UK: a brief review

The Beccaria-Center project 'Professional Training in Crime Prevention' was implemented by the Crime Prevention Council of Lower Saxony, to fill a major training gap across the EU. Partner organisations (including CSM) from 8 EU countries sought to develop a range of scientific, demand-oriented and professional qualification offers for drawing up a training programme and the development of an in-service advanced Masters programme. The contributions to this book document an expert meeting that took place in Hanover in April 2007 within the context of the EU-project.

My own contribution focused on past, present and future trends in crime prevention training over the whole UK, based on intimate knowledge of (and participation in) the history of crime prevention, conceptual frameworks I had constructed to understand the process of crime prevention practice and the quality of its knowledge- and evidence-base, a survey of contemporary UK providers of crime prevention training, and an analysis of the different levels (practitioners, delivery managers, policymakers/administrators, political decision makers, those involved in public understanding and debate, and researchers). The aim here was to compare demand from different sectors with supply of training, to undertake an analysis of the organisation of crime prevention knowledge, to assess quality assurance of training, to make some critical reflections on the state of training in UK, and to suggest some ways forward which are both practical but support crime prevention as a professional discipline with strong connections to research.

Paul Ekblom

Research Interests

Designing products, places and systems against crime, disorder, drug abuse and terrorism, situational crime prevention, conceptual frameworks for integrating crime science, managing crime prevention knowledge and improving practice, evaluation methods, crime, evolution, complexity and design, crime futures. 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.

I became Professor and Associate Director of the DAC Centre in June 2005, and co-manage the Centre. I will be delivering academic papers and publications aimed at driving forward the DAC Research Agenda both at home and abroad. One of the major roles I have concerns making and improving links that will establish new research collaborations for the development of externally funded projects. These links in the fields of crime science, criminology and design will initially focus on UCL (the Jill Dando Institute of Crime Science (where I am currently an Associate and regularly give lectures on Masters courses), Huddersfield and Salford Universities (where I am also Visiting Professor); Loughborough, Cambridge, LSE and KCL. I am a member of academic networks including the EPSRC-funded SERVE and International Crime Science Network; and have contacts in a range of EU funding and potential collaborating institutions in academia, European Commission and national governments. I am an established figure in the worlds of police and crime prevention training, research, knowledge management and advanced practice and am well-placed to develop funding, collaboration and practical research opportunities there (as well as applying this experience to DAC).

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