‘Changing behaviour to prevent crime: an incentives-based approach’ is one of a number of Home Office projects that aim to reduce crime.
The project looked at potential victims and those who can be encouraged to take more action to prevent crime. We identified individuals and businesses as priority targets. These groups spend an estimated £5 billion a year on security. Two questions were the starting point for the project:
Should potential victims be expected to do more and could they do more?
What could be done to encourage actions that could prevent crime?
The project examined what currently drives individuals and businesses to take crime prevention measures and assessed what needs to change. The key to this approach is understanding why individuals and businesses do not behave in the way one would wish.
Toolkit for policy-makers
We developed a toolkit for policy-makers as part of the project. This is made up of:
An eight-step framework to help identify the key people and organisations involved in the problem, how their actions impact on the problem and the reasons for their decisions. See the Overview report
An interactive version of the framework (Policy Development Tool ) that allows users to work through their own policy questions. The tool is illustrated with two examples: alcohol-related crime and crime on industrial estates. (Please note this tool contains macros. Please save the file on to your network to run. If you experience any problems, contact your network provider.)
A detailed paper that sets out the criteria for identifying and selecting policy options, identifies the range of policy instruments available, and appraises the effectiveness of each (Understanding policy options).
A case study based on car crime, demonstrating how policy ideas can be appraised to select the most promising option (Reducing theft of old cars).
