Cover: Improved street lightning and crime prevention

Improved street lighting and crime prevention

A systematic review

A systematic review of a number of international evaluations of crime preventions projects.

Finding one's bearings in relation to a constantly growing body of research and drawing one's own conclusions is often difficult. This also applies to research on the effects produced by measures intended to combat crime. Systematic meta-analyses are one means of helping people to pick their way through the jungle of research findings.

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Review of international evaluations

Meta-analyses combine a large number of evaluations from several countries that are considered to satisfy a list of empirical criteria for measuring effects as reliably as possible. The results of these evaluations are then used to calculate and produce an overall picture of the effects that a given measure does and does not produce. Such studies are also valuable in relation to attempts to assess the circumstances in which a certain measure works. Meta-analyses aim to systematically combine the results from a large number of studies in order to produce a more reliable overview of the opportunities and limitations associated with a given crime prevention strategy.

The Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention (Brå) has therefore initiated the publication of a series of meta-analyses, in the context of which internationally renowned researchers are commissioned to perform the studies on our behalf. In this study, Brandon C. Welsh and David P. Farrington have carried out a meta-analysis of the effects on crime of improved street lighting based on 13 evaluations from the United States and United Kingdom.

David P. Farrington, Ph.D., is Professor of Psychological Criminology in the Institute of Criminology, University of Cambridge.Brandon C. Welsh, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor in the Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology, University of Massachusetts Lowell.