Improving crime prevention

Professor Paul Ekblom will speak on "Securing the knowledge: the 5I’s framework for improving performance in crime prevention, security and community safety" at the Australian Institute of Criminology in Canberra, 26 July 2010:

Securing the knowledge: the 5I’s framework for improving performance in crime prevention, security and community safety

74 Leichhardt Street, Griffith ACT, Professor Paul Ekblom
11:00 AM - 12:00 PM 26 July 2010

Presentation overview

In crime prevention, security and community safety, attempts to replicate individual ‘success-story’ projects often end in implementation failure. And efforts remain divided—between situational and offender-oriented interventions, between cause, risk factor and problem-oriented approaches, and between justice/law enforcement and ‘civil’ prevention. The field is in poor shape to control everyday crime problems, let alone the challenges of terrorism, organised crime and techno-crime where preventers must continually out-innovate offenders and the upcoming disruptions from financial disarray and climate change.

Professor Paul Ekblom has developed an approach which seeks to change that. In the seminar, he will diagnose under-performance in terms of how practice knowledge is captured and transferred, fostering cookbook copying and stifling innovation; in concepts and terminology inadequate as tools for thinking and communication; and in the adoption of over-simple frameworks which, though useful for a quick start, soon constrain practitioners. He describes a specification for a fit-for-purpose knowledge management framework, confronting complexities of real-life prevention and helping practitioners select prior practice, replicate and innovate. He then introduces a process-based framework, 5Is, and related definitions and models of causation and intervention, designed to meet the specification. This material, described in a forthcoming book (Crime Prevention, Security and Community Safety using the 5Is Framework: Palgrave Macmillan) supplies the foundations for a working practical system of knowledge management and process evaluation that complements and extends the progress made in impact evaluation.

The presenter

Paul Ekblom read psychology and gained his PhD at University College London. As a researcher in the UK Home Office for many years, Paul initially worked on crime prevention projects including police truancy patrols, shoplifting, drink and disorder, and crime on the London Underground. He then orchestrated the industrial-scale evaluation of the Safer Cities Programme, focusing on the impact of residential burglary projects. His final Home Office responsibilities centred on horizon-scanning; advising on Design against Crime (including on Safer Places, the government guide to crime prevention and the planning system) and developing the professional discipline and knowledge management of crime prevention.

Paul has worked internationally with the EU Crime Prevention Network, Europol, UN and Council of Europe. He is currently Professor Co-Director of the University of the Arts London Research Centre on Design Against Crime, based at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design.

Please RSVP by Friday, 23 July 2010 to aic.events@aic.gov.au