The 5Is framework
Designed to share know-how and improve
performance in crime prevention
Paul Ekblom
Design Against Crime Research Centre
Central Saint Martins College of Arts & Design
University 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 for
implementation 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
Know-how
Process of doing crime prevention 3
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 4
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 5
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
Existing practice guidance & knowledge
frameworks for crime prevention
Process – SARA
Scanning
Analysis
Response
Assessment
Causation and Intervention – Crime Triangle
Victim/Target
Place
Offender
Limitations of existing frameworks
SARA is very simple and easy to learn, but:
Has insufficient detail to organise knowledge and
guide thinking, especially Response stage
Does 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 (costeffectiveness) 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 framework
Definitions
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
NTELLIGENCE
NTERVENTION
MPLEMENTATION
NVOLVEMENT
The Five Is
The tasks of the
Preventive Process
MPACT
5Is builds on SARA to describe the
process of prevention
SARA
5Is
Scanning
Intelligence
Analysis
Intervention
Response
Implementation
Assessment
Involvement
Impact
But is more detailed, more structured
5Is – The Zoom Structure
Message:
Intelligence
Map:
Causes, Risk &
Protective Factors
Methodology:
Conjunction of
Criminal Opportunity
framework
Meat:
Specific content
of knowledge particular causes
of crime problem
•
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
Detour:
Conjunction of
Criminal Opportunity
Immediate causes of criminal
events: the Conjunction of
Criminal Opportunity
Intervention
in cause
Disruption of
Conjunction
of Criminal
Opportunity
Decreased
risk of crime
events
Reduced
crime
A crime prevention
intervention
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
Wider Environment
Offender Presence
Target Enclosure
Resources for Crime
Readiness to Offend
Crime Preventers
Crime Promoters
Operation Moonshine
Intervention
1. Modification of carrier bags
2. Targeted high visibility police patrols
3. Acceptable behaviour contracts for persistent offenders
4. Target hardening of retail store to prevent alcohol theft
5. Removing flowerbed from the front of row of shops
6. Community clean up
7. Youth shelter
8. 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 Moonshine
Intervention
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 alcohol
Reducing readiness to offend by
meeting needs legitimately
Risks 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 – Partnership
Partnership 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 operations
Meetings 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 offenders
Outreach – 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 volunteering
But that is no reason to confuse ‘working the streets’ with clear understanding of
Intervention mechanisms
Building trust on street – at both individual/group levels
What 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 initially
Voluntary participation of yp rather than as forcible condition of, say, cautioning
Anticipatory mobilisation of clients – building relationships with yp that offer
‘handles that can be pulled on’ when yp starts offending
Once joined
Keeping in – maintaining motivation – ‘career structure’ of building responsibility and
status in the youth centre
Handling 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 Setting
Creating/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 clips
Then many of them were ‘let go’ and we were
passed to more junior management
We piloted prototype clips in 4 bars, and found that
the public:
Liked the designs and the concept, but
Didn’t actually use them!
Customers unaware of what clips for and how to
use them
Problems in Involvement
Card 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 success
Subsequent development and pilot
with major coffee chain at London rail
terminus, combining clips with Stop
Thief chairs
Clips frequently used – why the
difference?
Customer care focus
Revised design, easier to use
Self-explanatory logo – and no
falling card hangers
Implicit imagery – paintings of
Stop Thief chairs on café walls
Staff 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
Rest of Eastleigh ASB incidents (100 = 73 incidents)
Impact Moonshine
April-June 2002
Flow er beds
removed,
bollards
installed
Rest of Valley Park beats ASB incidents (100 = 11 incidents)
The 'Close' ASB incidents (100 = 5 incidents)
Aug-Sept 2002
Community Cleanup
March 2003 Prosecution and
revoke of licence for
anti-social
motorbikers
November
2003 - ABC
negotiations
completed
August 2003 Youth shelter
installed
250
Dec 2002-Feb 2003
Shop redesigned,
security hardened,
CCTV augmented
April 2002 Modification to
carrier bags
200
150
100
50
August 2002 - Drugs
supply w as addressed,
w ith identification of
suspects
0
Feb-04
Jan-04
Dec-03
Nov-03
Oct-03
Sep-03
Aug-03
Jul-03
Jun-03
May-03
Apr-03
Mar-03
Feb-03
Jan-03
Dec-02
Nov-02
Oct-02
Sep-02
Aug-02
Jul-02
Jun-02
May-02
Apr-02
Mar-02
Feb-02
Weighted index (based on 3 month moving average) - with 100 as a baseline
Early 2002 and
ongoing - High
Visibility Patrols
Jul 2002 - Drop in
centre starts on
tw ice w eekly basis
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 theories
Framework 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 dealing
Terrorism
Cybercrime
Design Against Crime – crime proofing of products
Crime Impact Assessment/ Risk Assessment
Horizon scanning
Offender interviews
Investigation of crime
Understanding / 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