Cutting Crime Impact – Practice-based innovation in preventing, investigating and mitigating high-impact petty crime

Project Information

CCI

Grant agreement ID: 787100

DOI

10.3030/787100

Project closed

EC signature date 23 April 2018

Start date 1 October 2018

End date 31 December 2021

Funded under

• Secure societies - Protecting freedom and security of Europe and its citizens

Total cost

€ 3 095 068,75

EU contribution

€ 3 095 068,75

Coordinated by

THE UNIVERSITY OF SALFORD
United Kingdom

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - CCI (Cutting Crime Impact – Practice-based innovation in preventing, investigating and mitigating high-impact petty crime)

Reporting period: 2020-04-01 to 2021-12-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

Cutting Crime Impact (CCI) addresses high-impact ‘petty crime’—non-organised crimes against persons and property that take place in towns and cities. Such crimes include: physical and sexual assault; robbery; burglary; and vandalism. Petty crime has a significant negative impact on European citizens’ quality of life, community cohesion and the safety and security of the urban environment. Those from deprived neighbourhoods and vulnerable groups are most seriously affected. In some instances, petty crime is linked to radicalisation and organised crime. Prevention is the optimum approach for reducing harm, resulting in fewer victims of crime, fewer individuals introduced to offending behaviour and less demand on criminal justice systems—especially Law Enforcement Agencies (LEAs)—and other public authorities. Integrating prevention into practice can nevertheless be a challenge for practitioners faced with urgent demands on their time, competing priorities and resource limitations.

OBJECTIVES
1. To enable LEAs and security policymakers to adopt a preventative, evidence-based and sustainable approach to tackling high-impact petty crime, through development and implementation of Toolkits tailored to their needs

2. To enable LEAs and relevant security policymakers to advance knowledge and practice across key responsibilities and operations. Toolkits will be developed, promoting: (i) predictive policing; (ii) community policing; (iii) crime prevention through urban design and planning; and (iv) measuring and mitigating citizens’ feelings of insecurity.

3. To demonstrate the value of a practitioner-led approach to innovation in solution development. Using innovation methods and tools from the design industry, CCI will support LEA practitioners and end users in requirements capture, problem framing, ideation, concept generation, solution design and prototyping.

4. To encourage wider EU adoption of effective approaches to safety and security, and will therefore develop an extended European Security Model that includes high-impact petty crime and citizens’ feelings of insecurity.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

Innovative content for Toolkits is being developed by engaging in a creative ideation, concept generation and design development process within a DesignLab — a comprehensive series of collaborative workshop activities designed by USAL. Concentrating on a CCI focus area, each DesignLab helped generate ideas /solution concepts relevant to two LEAs, who acted as the ‘client’ in the design process.

To ensure CCI builds on knowledge from EU-funded security research projects, EFUS led a review of EU-funded projects from the security research programme.

Understanding end user needs and context is the foundation of successful new product development. CCI devoted effort to understanding the needs and context of the six LEA partners and relevant stakeholders (incl. security policymakers, local authorities, planners, architects and community representatives). CCI Requirements Capture methods cards summarising different methods were developed to support LEAs.

Each LEA undertook an intensive process of requirements capture (RC) research to understand their needs and context. USAL supported LEA partners in conducting RC and complying with research ethics. The results of the RC were summarised in a confidential report and presented at a DesignLab. The DesignLab was used to understand and frame the problem, as well as generate ideas. USAL reviewed the resulting ideas, identifying a number of ‘Concept Directions’. LEAs selected one Concept Direction for development into a Toolkit Specification and PowerPoint presentation. Six LEA tools have been detailed to date. Two further tools will be developed in WP7. Tools will be prototyped, refined and demonstrated in WP8 (project period 2).

Due to ambiguities identified in the concept of ‘fear of crime’, USAL developed a new model to better operationalise the different aspects of worry, anxiety, and fear experienced by citizens.

All eight CCI Tools have been successfully demonstrated and implementation support materials developed. All Tools can be accessed at www.CuttingCrimeImpact.tools

CCI undertook research into the background to a European approach to security and developed a new conceptual model of European Security. The project has also published ten Policy Briefings on issues raised by the CCI Focus Areas and Tool development.

The CCI consortium partners have organised and hosted 41 events and participated in 134 events, sharing CCI research and outputs with over 17,000 attendees over the project period. The CCI Final Conference "Designing Security Futures – Framing European security through human-centred innovation" was held on 24–25 November 2021 in Brussels and live-streamed online.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

Within the European Security Research Programme, CCI is unique in its use of human-centred design methods and approaches to support LEAs and security policymakers in developing toolkits tailored to their specific needs and context. CCI focuses on the human participants within a designed ‘system’ and expends considerable effort on understanding: the nature of people’s roles; how those roles can be supported; how people’s needs can be met; and the context in which people operate.

CCI partner LEAs have been trained in requirements capture to enable them to develop an evidence-based, insight-informed approach to problem-framing and identification. Using innovation methods and tools from the design industry, CCI has supported LEA practitioners and end users in issue mapping, problem framing, ideation, concept generation, solution design and prototyping.

The LEA partners have produced Toolkit Specifications—written documents detailing the concept design solution, the end users, how the tool will function, and next steps with regard to development, prototyping and demonstration work. Tools were developed to address problems relating to: (i) predictive policing; (ii) community policing; (iii) crime prevention through urban design and planning; and (iv) measuring and mitigating citizens’ feelings of insecurity. Practical consideration of ethical, legal and social issues throughout the project's research and innovation activities are ensuring developed Toolkits help promote safe and secure towns and cities, without compromising fundamental human rights.

CCI has resulted in greater openness to innovation and design approaches amongst LEA and security policymakers partners, demonstrating the value of practitioner-led approaches to EU-funded research and innovation projects. Reviews of the state-of-the-art on four of the CCI focus areas have advanced knowledge of CCI partners.

CCI has produced eight Tools tailored to the end-user problems and operational contexts. These Tools have been demonstrated and are currently being implemented by CCI consortium LEA partners. The impact of the CCI Tools will be monitored over the next four years.

CCI has also produced a new European Security Model. This model presents a coherent framework for European security action in the context of value-based principles and principle-based strategies, and allows structured, critical assessment of European security
strategy — including the European Security Research Programme. The European Security Model provides a structure for future security research topics and areas, providing a vision for research that engages with fundamental European values.

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