Abstract
There has been little discussion or consideration to date of the carbon footprint of crime and security, despite climate change impacts and much needed carbon reduction pervading political agendas around the world. This chapter addresses the gap by examining which burglary prevention measures are both low carbon and effective in preventing burglary. You will read about the Security Protection Factor and how a combination of window locks (which are especially effective), door locks, and external and indoor lighting is shown to be effective and low carbon, while burglar alarms and CCTV perform less well. The findings can be used to inform more sustainable choices for security and product design.
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Notes
- 1.
CCTV cameras are currently not examined but were included in the 2008/09 to 2011/12 CSEW, the most recent datasets this chapter analyses.
- 2.
ONS has updated SPFs based on 2012/2013 to 2018/2019 CSEW data. Their findings are broadly similar to those previously found, that is, the ‘best’ combination is WIDE whilst burglar alarms protect from burglary less than no security and when added to most combinations reduce their overall preventative effect (email correspondence between ONS and Andromachi Tseloni, September 2020).
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Shoesmith, H., Brunton-Smith, I., Tseloni, A., Thompson, R., Druckman, A. (2022). The Carbon Footprint of Crime and Security. In: Gill, M. (eds) The Handbook of Security. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-91735-7_40
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