Street Light Outages, Public Safety and Crime Attraction

The impact and policy relevance of street lighting for crime prevention: A systematic review based on a half‐century of evaluation research

“…The most recent study in Chicago (Chalfin, Kaplan et al., 2021) evaluated the short‐term impact of street light outages on crime at city street segments. Based on the knowledge that the repair and maintenance of street lights are a municipal responsibility and that they tend to be repaired very quickly in most cities, the study examined changes in reported crimes at street segments for up to 7 days before and 4 days after a street light is repaired.…”

“…As shown in Table 1, 15 of the 21 included studies investigated potential crime displacement, diffusion of crime‐prevention benefits, or both. In each case, the focus was on geographical or spatial displacement or diffusion, with three studies (Seoul, New York City, and Chicago; Chalfin, Kaplan et al., 2021) also examining temporal displacement, diffusion, or both. Of these 15 studies, 10 reported that displacement did not occur, and five reported that it was evident to some extent.…”

“…With respect to history, according to Zahm (2004, p. 536), public street lighting for the purpose of crime prevention dates from 1667 in France during the reign of Louis XIV. Ellis (2007, as cited in Chalfin, Kaplan et al., 2021) notes that the historical record of street‐lights used for public safety may go as far back as the Greco‐Roman era in 500 B.C.…”

Situational Peer Dynamics and Crime Decisions

“…To date, research on the situational and environmental aspects of crime has largely focused on area level indicators of criminal opportunities in time and space, consistent with the routine activities and social disorganization perspectives (Cohen and Felson 1979; Ratcliffe 2006). In this view, police deployments and related policies are logical interventions for increasing sanction risk perceptions in areas marked by physical indicators of suitable targets (e.g., Nagin 2013; Chalfin et al 2021). We extended this notion of an “environmental backcloth” for crime decisions to include peer influences from social contexts, which “create potent forces producing or constraining behavior” (Ross and Nisbett 2011:9; see also Thaler and Sunstein 2009; Jepperson and Meyer 2011).…”

“…The immediate context for crime consists partly of environmental factors, such as lighting, disorder, land usage, and neighborhood configuration (e.g., Clarke and Cornish 1985; Nagin, Solow, and Lum 2015; Chalfin, Kaplan, and LaForest 2021). But people also contribute to this context, as instigators, co-offenders, peers, bystanders, and law enforcement (Haynie 2001; Warr 2002; McGloin and Nguyen 2012).…”