Crime fighters

While engineers well understand the connection between design and accident prevention, especially in cars, the connection between design and crime prevention is less well integrated into their work.

In an attempt to rectify this, home secretary Jacqui Smith launched her Design and Technology Alliance last August. The challenge for industry and commerce is to produce intrinsically secure designs, whether products, buildings or services, that are also aesthetically pleasing, have a high degree of usability, improve customer service and are what consumers want — thereby creating pleasant and safe living and working environments.

Some might argue that using design to close off opportunities for crime will just mean that people commit other crimes, or the same ones in a different way. But this does not stop manufacturers putting safety catches on guns or firewalls on PCs.

When consequences of misuse or malevolence are dire, limiting opportunities is a no-brainer. When (non-poisonous) North Sea gas replaced carbon monoxide-rich manufactured gas, only one means of committing suicide was removed, but the total suicides fell. and when steering column locks were made mandatory in Germany, car theft fell. Numerous similar examples could be cited.