IT’S Operation Design Out Crime. Gardai are joining forces with urban planners to reconfigure housing estates to reduce crime.

Following a series of international studies showing that environmental factors contribute to burglaries and muggings, gardai have launched a certificate programme to reward developers who use design devices that reduce crime and antisocial behaviour.

Senior officers hope that their design recommendations will eventually be included in every planning proposal in the country. Planning departments in some areas, such as Monaghan, already are demanding a garda report as part of planning applications.

The design tricks include putting extra windows in dwellings, especially gable ends, and turning the direction of houses so that they face onto public or derelict areas, improving natural surveillance. Changing the colour of lighting and removing or altering footpaths have been shown to cut crime.

Inspector Pat McCabe of the Garda’s crime prevention unit says there is now an officer in every division in the country qualified to check housing- development design.

“We have a look at the plans and the site, and based on policing knowledge and a crime profile of a particular area, we make recommendations in relation to how crime can be designed out,” he said.

“You try to home in on burglaries, but it’s a broader view than that: vandalism, general antisocial behaviour, a wide spectrum of potential crimes.”

Garda instructors were sent to the Scottish police school to learn design skills, including technical training to read architectural plans. They have already compiled reports for proposed improvements to estates including O’Malley Park in Limerick.

Experts now believe that environmental factors play a large part in crime, much of which is committed by legitimate users of a space rather than by outsiders or trespassers. Fences and gates, the traditional anti-crime feature, are of limited value in preventing crime by residents.

Case studies have shown substantial reductions in crime following environmental changes. One scheme in Australia involves playing classical music at bus stops, after it was determined that crime at a Melbourne train station was reduced by playing Mozart and Beethoven.

The first five certificates — for developments built in line with Garda standards — were awarded last week. Ennis town council received one for its redesign of the Shallee estate in Cloughleigh.

Sheila Sanders, from the council’s housing department, said yellow street lights, which “distort” sight, were replaced with high-quality white lighting, eliminating darkened areas. A British Home Office study in 2002 in Stoke-on-Trent found that for every £1 spent on street lighting £5 is saved in reduced crime. And with an estimated 695 crimes prevented in a year, this is a saving of £400,000 (€583,000).

Sanders said: “Gardai also suggested cutting down some trees to improve visibility from houses overlooking green areas, to ensure there was natural surveillance.

“We had communal seats that were in poor repair, which gardai said to replace with good sturdy individual seats. Long benches encourage people to lie down on them.” The council is also planning to build a sports area on the estate.

Pearse Smyth, an architect for Boylan & Sons who received the garda certificate for a site at Mulladuff in Monaghan, said crime prevention officers have been trying to get a foot in the door of planning for a long time.

“They don’t like urban sprawl, where they have to come in and deal with the consequences of bad planning,” he said. “A cul-de-sac should be just that; you shouldn’t be able to get to another estate by a path.”

Brian Byrne, the managing director of Cleary Doyle Developments, who also were awarded the certificate, says the most important feature of reduced-crime housing estates is to omit laneways. “Gardai had us look at the bends and length of roads,” he said. “If they’re chasing somebody, how can they stop them joyriding? What happens if they jump out of the car and try to run?” Other recommendations were planting trees with foliage starting above 2.5m, in order to allow unimpeded visibility, and changing road surfaces at entrances to estates.

McCabe said: “You are giving people who live there an ownership of the built environment, giving those who visit it a responsibility. At the end of the day we’re all living in the same place and it helps us all.”

Times Recommends

• Fish and chip shops ‘selling cobbler as cod’
• T in the Park festival at Kinross
• How to get Madonna’s Thighs