Could babies' faces reduce crime?

After looking at the topic of crime and design for my dissertation, specifically "What role can designers play in crime prevention within the urban environment and how this can influence society as a whole", this was one angle that I did not come across when researching the topic.

One section in my dissertation focussed largely on the London Riots and what people believed to be the cause of these. There was so many case studies I trolled through and many people offered their opinions on why they believed the riots occurred. Referring to a book I read in my second year of University "The Tipping Point", there is a chapter in this book which is of most interest to this topic - "The Power of Context". In this chapter it talks about our susceptibility to our surroundings and how certain stimuli in these can cause us to behave in a certain way. So what really was the reason for the riots occurring? According to Malcolm Gladwell who is the author of "The Tipping Point", there is not just one reason for causing certain events to happen but a whole series. So will painting babies on a wall really reduce crime?

An experiment is being run in South - East London at the moment to see if this really can help play a part in crime reduction. In an area that was badly hit by looters in the riots, these babies appear after shop opening hours when the shop shutters come down and watch over the area. According to studies from as long ago as the 1940s, the effect that seeing an image has on a baby has on an adult creates a positive response.

After compiling research throughout my dissertation, I am yet to be convinced this is a worthwhile method of crime prevention...

Read more.

Assignment 3

Mind Map with my crazy thoughts.

A meal of haggis and tatties later and we were all set for the next group meeting to discuss further the topic in which we wanted to continue with for our dissertation proposal.
All of us decided to continue with the same topic that we had picked originally but shift our focus to a specific area. Mindmapping the ideas again allowed us to add more information to the mind maps we had previously created. Using these as a starting block, now after looking at the topics in more detail we were able to discuss points in greater detail.

Talking initially about everybody's idea individually we soon ended up mixing between the topics as many points interlinked with one another and all seemed to relate in someway. We found that many issues we discussed were ones that also appeared in the book we read last year as part of Design Studies called "The Tipping Point" by Malcolm Gladwell. One part that particularly interested me last year was the chapter called 'The Power of Context' which conveyed how powerful a context can be on an individual and how it can make us respond in a specific way. One of the ideas that Gladwell talks about is 'The Broken Window Theory' which argues that fixing the smaller things within an environment can stop criminal acts from happening - just one of the points that I can explore further...

Discussing some points with the group before hand,
and afterwards with our mindmaps...

Assignment 2: Making Connections

Seminar and Group Brainstorm
This was a very enjoyable experience and brainstorming in two small sessions was very useful. To begin with there was a small, nervous silence but as soon as we got going, ideas were rolling off the tongue - sometimes too quickly to all be written down. We were all shouting out things and sometimes we found ourselves all laughing at the crazy ideas that we were coming up with. After our brainstorming session we went back as a group and reflected on what had been said before, generalising points.



Individual Brainstorm
When looking into the points discussed in the previous brainstorms, I was able to expand on these and look at them in more detail. I could not believe how much design relied heavily on context. The smallest details like people's personalities and location could affect massively how they responded to design. Designers have to be switched on and sensitive to the people they are designing for.

Assignment 1: Arguments and Evidence

We as humans are very sensitive to the environment around us, whether we are conscious of this or not. In the chapter, The Power of Context (Part one), Gladwell presents Bernie Goetz to us. A seemingly 'normal' man, who was approached by four black youths and asked for $5 on a subway car. Goetz shoots at these youths and leaves one paralysed but is still hailed as a 'hero'. Crazy?

Three of these four youths were carrying screwdrivers (clearly looking for trouble) and they had all committed previous offences, so really Goetz was cleaning up the streets, wasn't he? I mean he was clearly a normal man who had had enough of the violent crimes occurring and decided to take a stand! Wrong! Gladwell and the reader delve into Goetz's past and learn about how he was merely an accident waiting to happen. He was a class example of an emotionally unstable person - bullied as a child, abused by his father, a social misfit... It was only a matter of time before the environment around him made him 'tip'.

Reading The Tipping Point was very interesting for me. Never before have I read a book that has made me think about things so much or agree with statements I had never questioned before. The book for me was very enjoyable but at times sometimes hard to read. Gladwell presents many ideas all at once, sometimes bringing points up which had be discussed previously and this sometimes confused me.

Creating the mind maps made me understand things more and reinforced ideas that initially I had found hard to understand. I choose the Power of Context chapter to look at in more detail because for me it was the most interesting chapter. I had never thought before that crimes could be committed because of the environment around us. Splitting the chapter into different parts allowed me to focus on key points, e.g. Crime, Goetz, etc, and mind map these into more detail.

The mind mapping allowed me to understand more of the book than would have been possible by writing screeds and screeds of linear notes. If I forgot anything while I was mind mapping the first time I could always go back and add more (even my own opinions).