The challenge
Some of New York City's public housing developments had high rates of outdoor crime after dark.
The case
In 2016 New York City, the NYPD and the New York City Housing Authority worked with the University of Chicago Crime Lab to test whether better lighting could cut crime. From March to August 2016, 40 public housing developments that the police had prioritised for their high crime rates were randomly chosen to get temporary light towers, and 40 others served as a comparison. After accounting for crime possibly moving to nearby areas, they found the lights led to at least a 36% reduction in nighttime outdoor index crimes, a set of serious crimes that includes murder, robbery, felony assault, burglary, grand larceny and motor vehicle theft.
Why it worked
The first experimental evidence on street lighting found it cut serious crime outdoors at night. Changing the physical environment is a policing-free option, though the trial used temporary towers, so the effects of permanent lighting upgrades are less certain.
Sources
- Chalfin, A., Hansen, B., Lerner, J., & Parker, L. (2022). Reducing crime through environmental design: Evidence from a randomized experiment of street lighting in New York City. Journal of Quantitative Criminology, 38(1), 127–157.
- NBER Working Paper 25798 (2019), same title.
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