Objectives

This paper offers novel experimental evidence that violent crimes can be successfully reduced by changing the situational environment that potential victims and offenders face. We focus on a ubiquitous but understudied feature of the urban landscape—street lighting—and report the first experimental evidence on the effect of street lighting on crime.

Methods

Through a unique public partnership in New York City, temporary street lights were randomly allocated to 40 of the city’s public housing developments.

Results

We find evidence that communities that were assigned more lighting experienced sizable reductions in nighttime outdoor index crimes. We also observe a large decline in arrests indicating that deterrence is the most likely mechanism through which the intervention reduced crime.

Conclusion

Results suggests that street lighting, when deployed tactically, may be a means through which policymakers can control crime without widening the net of the criminal justice system.

中文翻译：

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通过环境设计减少犯罪：来自纽约市路灯照明随机实验的证据

目标

本文提供了新颖的实验证据，表明可以通过改变潜在受害者和犯罪者所面临的处境环境来成功减少暴力犯罪。我们关注的是城市景观的一个普遍存在但未被充分研究的特征-街道照明-并报告了关于街道照明对犯罪影响的第一批实验证据。

方法

通过在纽约市的独特公共伙伴关系，临时路灯被随机分配给纽约市40个公共住房开发项目。

结果

我们发现有证据表明，分配更多照明的社区在夜间室外索引犯罪方面得到了大幅减少。我们还观察到逮捕人数大幅下降，这表明威慑是干预措施减少犯罪的最可能机制。

结论

结果表明，在战术上部署路灯可能是决策者可以在不扩大刑事司法系统范围的情况下控制犯罪的一种手段。