Fresh thinking on security

Speaking at the event, Professor Gloria Laycock, Director of the UCL Jill Dando Institute for Crime Science and now also Director of UCL CSCS, explained the significance of the Centre. She argued that rising crime incidence across the developed world is linked to the growth in opportunities to commit crime. The most effective means to tackle crime is through preventive security, she contended, rather than a focus on punitive measures and attempts to alter human behaviour.

This philosophy - central to the work of the UCL CSCS - is at odds with today's political rhetoric. The current government has spoken a lot in the past about being 'tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime', and has instituted policies focusing on poverty, parenting and poor education as determinants of crime. The opposition has argued for more prisons to keep criminals off the streets. Professor Laycock pointed out that crime trends are consistent across all developed countries, regardless of the policies that have been put in place. Britain's overcrowded prison system, she argued, does not illustrate that this country is tackling the problem effectively. A more effective approach would be to develop products that reduce the chances for opportunistic criminals to offend.

Also speaking at the event was Professor Bernard Buxton, Dean of the UCL Faculty of Engineering Sciences, where the UCL CSCS will be based. He highlighted the significance of security as one of the three great challenges facing mankind - the others being the environment and medicine. He also explained how traditional security measures were often not the best solutions in terms of the world people wish to live in. He used the example of concrete barriers protecting public buildings from suicide attackers, arguing that trees would be more effective at stopping vehicles from passing - and that trees are less visible as a security measure as well as enhancing the environment. Therefore there is a great deal of work for the UCL CSCS to accomplish, in order to put forward the most effective answers to some of the big security issues facing the world today.

The UCL CSCS aims to bring together academics from across a broad range of disciplines to develop multi- and interdisciplinary approaches to security and crime issues. A key objective is to encourage a scientific approach to thinking about security by policymakers, and security services. By acting as a single point of contact to external organisations, the CSCS will be able to attract new opportunities for consultancy and links with businesses to its academic members.

Hervé Borrion, Science Manager of CSCS, outlined the simple process by which academics from across UCL can get involved. The CSCS Academic Club has an online registration process and offers a medium for reporting on work that is of interest to the Security and Crime Science communities.

• Links:
• UCL Centre for Security and Crime Science