A Secured by Design trained Designing Out Crime Officer from the Metropolitan Police Service is to give a presentation to law enforcement colleagues from across the world at the prestigious Goldstein International Problem Solving Awards later this month.
Sean Hathaway, who has been a police officer for 16 years and works as a Designing Out Crime Officer on the south east London boroughs of Bexley, Bromley, Croydon, Royal Borough of Greenwich, Lambeth, Lewisham, Southwark, will be giving a presentation at the 29th Annual Problem-Oriented Policing Conference in Santa Cruz, California between November 11-13.
Hosted by the Santa Cruz Police Department, the Goldstein Awards recognise outstanding police officers and forces across the world who are engaging in innovative and effective problem-solving efforts and who achieve measurable success in reducing specific crime, disorder, and public safety problems.
Each year, police officers of all ranks, as well as crime consultants and crime researchers, come together to discuss what they’ve learned about trying to reduce different crime and safety problems.
Sean’s presentation will highlight the work that he undertook on controlling crime & disorder in a south east London housing complex, where problems included prostitution, drug dealing, robbery, and burglary. Sean’s subsequent work in the area with the local authority and housing agency has resulted in a 100% reduction in the anti-social behaviour that was being experienced by residents.
Sean was himself a finalist at the same awards ceremony in 2015 and has previously won the London Mayors Problem Oriented Policing (POP) Award Gold Award, as well as receiving five commendations for police work, including life-saving and Problem Solving. He is currently a finalist in this year’s POP Awards and has been shortlisted for the Tilley Problem Solving Awards as well.
Sean said: “I was initially called by the Local Policing team to help them with an ongoing problem they had for a property in the Cray Valley ward of Orpington. A standard police response of increased patrols, arrests and prosecutions had failed to remove the problem.
“Using my experience as a Designing Out Crime Officer I was able to offer advice around how Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design could assist – things such as increasing the natural surveillance and improving the lighting.
“Within three months of my environmental audit being submitted works were complete and a year later the problem has not re-emerged. This obviously represents a huge saving to Police and the local authority, and a massive improvement in the quality of life for residents”.
The awards ceremony will also see a presentation on ‘The Power of CPTED (Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design): Cutting Crime with Urban Design’, highlighting the importance of design principles that discourage crime and promote building security.
Secured by Design (SBD) is the national police crime prevention initiative that works on behalf of Police & Crime Commissioners and Chief Constables to deliver a wide range of crime prevention initiatives across the UK. As a national crime prevention scheme, SBD has achieved significant successes. In work with National Government, SBD have influenced national planning policy to embed crime prevention in the planning process and established police security standards in the building and construction industry.
SBD work to include proven crime prevention techniques and measures into the layout and landscaping of new developments and also work to improve the physical security of buildings using products, such as doors, windows, locks and walling systems that meet SBD security requirements. This has led to more than one million homes built to SBD crime prevention standards across the UK – that’s 30% of all new homes built – with reductions in crime of up to 87% year-on-year as reported by Police Scotland in 2017.
Key to such achievements is the network of SBD trained Designing Out Crime Officers – officers like Sean – who are based in Police Forces and local authorities around the UK, who specialise in designing out crime and who liaise with local authority planners, developers and architects to design out crime at the planning stage in a wide range of building sectors.
