The 5Is framework

Designed to share know-how and improve performance in crime prevention

Paul Ekblom

Design Against Crime Research CentreCentral Saint Martins College of Arts & DesignUniversity of the Arts London

Implementation failure

• ‘Success stories’ in crime prevention often fail when mainstreamed

• Problem-Oriented Policing continues to be hard to implement to a high-enough standard

Familiar explanations forimplementation failure

• Deficient project management skills

• Limited analytic capacity of practitioners

• Short-term funding

• Over-centralised management

• Unsupportive organisational context

A new explanation of implementation failure

Limitations of how knowledge is captured through impact & process evaluation and how it is managed

These limitations hinder performance of crime prevention at Policy, Delivery and Practice levels

A new explanation of implementation failure

Common underlying themes: • Failure to handle messy complexity of choice,

delivery and action that creating and maintaining crime prevention requires

• Failure to clearly articulate practice • Reliance on cookbook replication – it doesn’t

work

What kinds of knowledge can research & evaluation supply?

Know• about crime problems

• what works to reduce crime/ increase safety

• who to involve

• when to act

• where to distribute resources

• why – symbolism, values, politics, ethics

• how to put into practice

Know-how Process of doing crime prevention 1

Know-how draws all knowledge together

Practitioners need know-how and technical skill to help:

Define the crime/ safety problem

Select intervention methods which

• Are evidence-based

• Are suitable to tackle the targeted crime problems in context

• Fit the priorities and available resources of the responsible organisation/s

Know-how Process of doing crime prevention 2

Replicate the methods intelligently

Innovate where replication is not possible or sensible – eg

lack of adequate evaluations, new contexts, new problems

Every replication involves some degree of innovation

Customisation to context, meeting stakeholder and duty-holder requirements

Followed by monitoring, feedback, adjustment

Know-how Process of doing crime prevention 3

Innovation draws on:

High-level principles of intervention which can generate plausible new ideas where there is no specific evidence base – derived from theory

Details of practical methods whose elements can be recombined in different ways to realise existing kinds of intervention in new contexts, or new kinds of intervention altogether

Know-how Process of doing crime prevention 4

Given the salience of innovation, the ‘design way of thinking and doing’ is important

But to help them to draw on design whilst feeding in crime prevention knowledge, practitioners need frameworks

Know-how Process of doing crime prevention 5

Existing practice guidance & knowledge frameworks for crime preventionProcess – SARA

ScanningAnalysis ResponseAssessment

Causation and Intervention – Crime TriangleVictim/TargetPlaceOffender

Limitations of existing frameworks

SARA is very simple and easy to learn, but:Has insufficient detail to organise knowledge and guide thinking, especially Response stageDoes not distinguish Mechanisms, Principles & Methods

Crime Triangle is also easy to learn, but:Again has insufficient detail/ depth to take practitioners beyond ‘kindergarten’ stage

Limitations restrict research too

Information captured by traditional evaluations –

Limitations for informing policy and delivery, and guiding practice

Impact evaluation – knowledge too narrow (cost-effectiveness) for Selection of Interventions – need a ‘Choice’ guide on multiple dimensions

Process evaluation – too simplified for Replication and Innovation

…like a wardrobe with no shelves or hangers

Elements of new frameworkDefinitions

Including crime prevention and community safety

Process – 5Is

Know how – a language and a map for describing all the tasks of the preventive process and thereby capturing, evaluating and sharing good practice knowledge

Elements of new framework

Conjunction of Criminal Opportunity

Know about crime, know what works to prevent it

Conceptual framework to map immediate causes of criminal events and preventive interventions in those causes

Definitions

Crime Prevention Ethically acceptable and evidence-based advance action intended to reduce the risk of criminal events… – by intervention in their causes

Or alternatively put:

– by frustrating criminal goals, through disrupting activities and organisations directed towards their pursuit

Risk = possibility, probability and harm

Community Safety defined positively, in terms of quality of life

MPLEMENTATION

NVOLVEMENT

MPACT

NTELLIGENCE

NTERVENTION

The Five Is The tasks of the Preventive Process

5Is builds on SARA to describe the process of prevention

SARA

Scanning

Analysis

Response

Assessment

5Is

Intelligence

Intervention

Implementation

Involvement

ImpactBut is more detailed, more structured

Methodology: Conjunction of Criminal Opportunityframework

5Is – The Zoom Structure

Message: Intelligence

Map: Causes, Risk & Protective Factors

• General social/geographical context • Evidence of crime problem – sources of information and

analysis • The crime problem/s tackled - pattern, trend, offenders,

MO• Wider crime problems • Consequences of the crime problem/s • Immediate causes, risk & protective factors, criminal

careers

Meat: Specific content of knowledge - particular

causes of crime problem

Detour:

Conjunction of

Criminal Opportunity

Immediate causes of criminal events: the Conjunction of Criminal Opportunity

A crime prevention intervention

Reduced crime

Intervention in cause

Disruption of Conjunction of Criminal Opportunity

Decreased risk of crime

events

Wider benefits

Interventions: crime prevention principles and the Conjunction of Criminal Opportunity

Illustrations of 5Is + CCO

Drink and disorder – problem-oriented partnership

Youth centres – Irish Republic

Grippa clips – product design

Operation Moonshine

Operation Moonshine – Intelligence

General social/geographical context

Evidence of crime problem – sources of information and analysis

The crime problem/s tackled – pattern, trend, offenders, MO

Consequences of the crime problem/s

Immediate causes, risk & protective factors, criminal careers

Operation Moonshine Intelligence: Causes – CCO

Offender Presence

Target Enclosure

Resources for Crime

Readiness to Offend

Crime Preventers

Crime Promoters

Wider Environment

Operation Moonshine Intervention

1. Modification of carrier bags

2. Targeted high visibility police patrols3. Acceptable behaviour contracts for persistent offenders4. Target hardening of retail store to prevent alcohol theft

5. Removing flowerbed from the front of row of shops6. Community clean up7. Youth shelter8. Mobile recreation unit

9. Arresting/cautioning of anti social behaviour offenders

10. Drop in centre for youths

11. A healthy living centre for youths

12. A forest location as alternative place for youths to gather

13. Disrupting a possible drugs market targeting youths

Operation Moonshine – Intervention

Method:– Removing the flowerbed from the row of shops

Principles:– Environmental design– Restricting resources for crime– Deflecting offenders from crime situation– Reassurance

Risks of countermoves:• Ram-raiding Counter-countermoves:• Bollards!• With sharp bits

Operation MoonshineIntervention

Method:

Community clean up

Principles:

Reassurance

Mobilising preventers

Building cohesion

Operation Moonshine Intervention

Method:

Youth shelter for local kids

Principles:Removing offenders from

crime situation and from alcoholReducing readiness to offend bymeeting needs legitimatelyRisks of countermoves:Inappropriate graffiti

Operation Moonshine Implementation

Converting method into action on the ground – management, planning and supervision

Targeting of the action on the crime problem, offender, place and victim

Inputs of £, HR, capacity-building

Monitoring, quality-assuring and adjusting the action in the light of feedback – adaptability

Outputs achieved for each method

Risks/blockages in implementation

Exit strategy/ expansion/ continual revision in case of changing fashions in ASB

Involvement

Irish Youth Centres

Visits to 10 centres in Dublin and Limerick, Republic of Ireland

Meetings with each team and local Garda (police), Probation

Over 120 practice knowledge items harvested, from tactical to strategic

Involvement – Mobilisation process

Clarify crime prevention roles/ tasks – need expert supervisor for motorcycle project, volunteer youth centre staff, community rep

Locate appropriate preventive agents – trawl organisations eg angling societies such as Dublin Angling Initiative, and local angling enthusiast

Alert them that they may be causing crime and/or could help prevent it

Inform them – challenge joyriding audience behaviour by showing video of consequences to stop them acting as crime promoters

Motivate them – get children off parents’ hands… in extreme circumstances pressure parents to send yp to youth centre by arranging conditional stay of eviction order

Empower them – increase capacity – training staff/volunteers

Direct them - objectives, standards – Health & Safety/ Child safety rules

Involvement – PartnershipPartnership as strategic background to individual operational actions

Each project had connections with wider ‘justice family’ of agencies eg on local probation project management ctee.

Discussions between agencies on what activities to be done on whose premises

Partnership in operationsMeetings with parents of young person at youth centre if problem arises – for every negative issue, ensure they discuss 3 positives first = the ‘compliment sandwich’

Agreement with local Garda that no yp was to be picked up whilst on youth centre activity or at the centre itself – a means of preserving trust between centre and yp

Involvement – of offendersOutreach – how to recruit young people to join youth centres & be treated

Another crossover – outreach may itself act as preventive Intervention via development of trusting relationships and even the process of volunteeringBut that is no reason to confuse ‘working the streets’ with clear understanding of Intervention mechanismsBuilding trust on street – at both individual/group levelsWhat if the street workers see the yps doing bad things – how to respond so they maintain trust – eg by asking ‘should you really be doing that?’ Softly-softly approach – crime problem not directly raised at first, may be mentioned in passing… get to know them initiallyVoluntary participation of yp rather than as forcible condition of, say, cautioningAnticipatory mobilisation of clients – building relationships with yp that offer ‘handles that can be pulled on’ when yp starts offending

Once joinedKeeping in – maintaining motivation – ‘career structure’ of building responsibility and status in the youth centreHandling of incidents such as theft/damage with acceptance & inclusion

Contact and re-entry Methods for maintaining continuity pre imprisonment, during and post release

Involvement – Climate SettingCreating/maintaining conditions of mutual trust, acceptance and expectation in support of preventive action, whether through professional intervention, partnership or mobilisation

Importance of staffing continuity so personal trusting relationships can develop – how to preserve this with changeover to more centrally-managed arrangements?

Sensitivity in handling serious incidents eg theft or damage in youth centre – implications for relations with young people and their families; but also with Gardai

Maintenance of good relations between enforcement and juvenile support arms within Garda

Openness and fairness in making resources of youth centres available to wide range of young people

Making youth centre facilities available to wider community – helped to build trust and credibility

Grippa clips – preventing theft of customers’ bags in bars

Grippa clips – aspects of ‘Involvement failure’

Senior management of bar company agreed to let us trial the clipsThen many of them were ‘let go’ and we were passed to more junior managementWe piloted prototype clips in 4 bars, and found that the public:

Liked the designs and the concept, butDidn’t actually use them!Customers unaware of what clips for and how to use them

Problems in InvolvementCard hangers to alert and inform customers without

scaring them – some hangers ended up on floor in

2 bars with less staff involvement

Overall, bar staff not well-informed or motivated to

care for customers (contrasting experience in

Barcelona where customer care stronger and crime

widely understood as serious risk)

Supportive posters confined to toilets

Little communication of purpose of project from

regional managers to individual bar managers

Just before first evaluation in 13 bars, bar company

pulled out of entire project due to the recession and

slackening of police pressure

Grippa clips – Involvement successSubsequent development and pilot with major coffee chain at London rail terminus, combining clips with Stop Thief chairsClips frequently used – why the difference?

Customer care focusRevised design, easier to useSelf-explanatory logo – and no falling card hangersImplicit imagery – paintings of Stop Thief chairs on café wallsStaff involvement and retention policy of café company

Index of three month moving averages for recorded ASB “CADA” incidents in The Close compared with rest of Valley park beats and Eastleigh BCU

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eRest of Eastleigh ASB incidents (100 = 73 incidents)

Rest of Valley Park beats ASB incidents (100 = 11 incidents)

The 'Close' ASB incidents (100 = 5 incidents)

August 2003 - Youth shelter installed

Early 2002 and ongoing - High Visibility Patrols

April 2002 - Modification to carrier bags

November 2003 - ABC negotiations completed

April-June 2002 Flow er beds removed, bollards installed

August 2002 - Drugs supply w as addressed, w ith identif ication of suspects

Dec 2002-Feb 2003 Shop redesigned, security hardened, CCTV augmented

March 2003 - Prosecution and revoke of licence for anti-social motorbikers

Jul 2002 - Drop in centre starts on tw ice w eekly basis

Aug-Sept 2002 Community Cleanup

Impact - Moonshine

Impact – ‘Choice magazine’ approach to selecting interventions to replicate: Multiple dimensions of policy performance

• Selecting interventions that are effective, cost-effective and whose benefit significantly outweighs cost

• Efficient targeting on causes of crime/ safety problem • Prioritisation on harm, needs of victim & wider society• Coverage on the ground – how much of crime problem

tackled?• Scope – narrow range or broad range of crime types

tackled?• Adaptability – proofed v soc/ tech change/ adaptive

offenders• Taking action over appropriate timescales• Pursuing policies sustainable financially and in HR terms• Avoiding undesirable side-effects of action and balancing

tradeoffs with other policy values • Maximising legitimacy/ acceptability of actions• Ensuring policies are deliverable in rollout of programs

Further applications for 5Is framework

Beyond capturing good practice examples and failure mode analysis:

Synthesis/ testing of principles and theoriesFramework and source for toolkits and training

Supporting gap analyses for research, and strategic overviews for policy and delivery

Prospective business-planning/appraising tool, for project development and monitoring of implementation – ‘playback’ beside ‘record’

Further applications for the Conjunction of Criminal Opportunity

Organised crime/ drug dealingTerrorismCybercrimeDesign Against Crime – crime proofing of productsCrime Impact Assessment/ Risk AssessmentHorizon scanningOffender interviewsInvestigation of crimeUnderstanding / describing Modus Operandi

The question of simplicity

Crime prevention/ community safety are messy and complex

So: It’s futile dumbing down to communicate with practitioners, if what you communicate can’t deliver successful prevention

These are issues for designers to address in making the framework usable

Overall philosophy – high investment in design leads to high return in successful performance of crime prevention

Where to find information on 5Is and CCO

http://5isframework.wordpress.com

www.designagainstcrime.com/crimeframeworks

Ekblom, P (2011) Crime Prevention, Security and Community Safety with the 5Is Framework

Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan

Please send comments, suggest improvements or participate in development!

p.ekblom@csm.arts.ac.uk