Manipulating the moments that turn us into criminals | Tom Gash | TEDxAthens

What makes a criminal? In this data-driven talk, Crime Science Expert Tom Gash explains the details that turn someone into a criminal and suggests ways to prevent it.

Tom Gash is a Senior Fellow at the Institute for Government and an Honorary Senior Lecturer at the Jill Dando Institute of Security and Crime Science, University College London. He advises governments on crime policy and public administration internationally and is a regular contributor to debates on public policy and current affairs, writing for the Independent, Guardian and Financial Times, and speaking on television and radio.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx

Hello everybody.

It's lovely to meet you all.

Just so I know who I am talking to,

could everybody please raise their hand

if they have ever committed a crime?

(Laughter)

I can see that some of you don't want
to scare the people sitting next to you,

(Laughter)

or perhaps you have forgotten

that fare-dodging,
theft of office supplies,

childhood shoplifting,

(Laughter)

under-declaration of taxes,

(Laughter)

are all, in fact, crimes.

I work a lot with the police,
judges and politicians,

so I'm afraid I can't give you any clues

as to whether or not
I've ever broken the law,

(Laughter)

but I will let you into a secret:

the people who raised their hands

are normal!

(Laughter)

Nine out of ten people
have committed a crime

at some point in their lives.

Don't feel left out,
just because you haven't.

(Laughter)

There's a whole branch of criminology
dedicated to studying you.

You've got your own label:

you are a lifetime abstainer.

(Laughter)

Now, I'm not here today to make excuses
for our immoral acts.

On the contrary, seemingly trivial crimes
can have devastating consequences.

Think of the potential impact
of drink-driving.

The impact that tax fraud has
on our economies.

The way that vandalism, litter, graffiti,

affect whether we let our children
play in the streets.

But at the same time,
I don't want to lock the doors

and create Greece's largest,
and definitely most beautiful prison,

just because we've all
broken the law at some point.

I think we're human,

and, as humans, I believe
we are all deeply influenced

by the provocations
and temptations to crime

that exist in our societies.

We all have tipping points.

We all face moments when our morality,
however strong, is bypassed.

If my work on crime
has taught me one thing,

it's that human behaviour

is much more malleable
than we like to think.

And today I want to share with you
some of the ways

that even the worst human behaviour
is shaped by circumstance.

More than that,

I want to show you that we can
dramatically reduce crime

by manipulating the moments
that make us criminal.

Let me explain.

The first step in understanding

how we can become safer and happier

requires us to solve a big mystery.

This one is about car crime,

and it's an epic, spreading across
nations and decades.

Some of you might remember
that, in the 80s and early 90s,

car crime was a serious
and growing problem.

Joyriding had become
a rite of passage for many teens.

It was normal to go to your car

and find the window smashed
and the stereo stolen.

In the early 90s, something changed.

Car ownership was still increasing,
but car theft started to plummet.

And the decline has continued
for over two decades.

The shift is dramatic.

Look at England, Wales, Scotland;

there you are six times less likely

to walk out of your front door
and find your car stolen today

than you were 25 years ago.

A million fewer cars
were stolen in the US last year.

What has changed so fundamentally?

Why are we behaving better?

I'll give you a clue.

This is the Nissan Sunny.

And this is the Nissan Bluebird.

If you owned either of these vehicles
in the UK over the past few years,

I have bad news for you:

your car was more likely to be stolen

than if you owned
almost any other vehicle.

This is the 1996 Honda Accord,
the most stolen car in the US last year.

So we could just conclude
that thieves have terrible taste in cars.

(Laughter)

But the real reason
these cars are more stolen

is because they are
old and hopelessly insecure.

An older vehicle could be broken into
with a coat-hanger or a brick.

And there's no alarm to panic you

as you turn a simple
household screwdriver in the ignition

or expose the ignition cables
and hot-wire them.

These cars, as they fell out
of circulation,

led to that dramatic drop in car crime.

Now, the truth is

that new cars are still
quite easy to steal

if you know how.

You just need to buy

some simple technological kit
on the black market or the dark web.

Need to plan a little.

But most car thieves were opportunists.

For most, this level of planning
was a step too far.

Making crimes just a little less tempting,
a little more difficult,

was enough to reshape
millions of decisions each year

and eliminate millions of crimes.

Let's solve another mystery:

to understand how we can manipulate
the moments that turn us into criminals.

This one is set in a sunny
resort in Australia: Surfers Paradise.

It's one of those places that thrive
on tourism and a vibrant night life.

But, in the early 90s, its reputation
was taking a beating.

Violence was spilling out
of the bars and clubs,

and occasionally turned deadly.

Just one punch can kill.

Not usually because of
the force of the blow itself,

but from the secondary contact
as head hits pavement.

In 1993, something suddenly changed.

Violence around bars and clubs plummeted:

it fell by 52% in just one year.

What was the difference?

Was this security again?

Perhaps some dramatic shift
in policing tactics?

Tougher punishments?

No.

It was lots of small things.

I work with the Jill Dando Institute
of Security and Crime Science

at University College, London,

known as the JDI.

The JDI's Director
is Professor Richard Wortley,

and he was part of the team of academics,
businesses, local officials, and police,

who, together, engineered
this dramatic crime drop.

They worked from the simple premise

that the causes of violence
are often quite trivial:

rows over spilt drink
and accidental jostling,

fights over the rather limited
supply of taxis at the end of the night,

posturing to impress
or defend love interests.

They worked to reduce the chances
of these things happening.

First, they tried to limit
alcohol consumption.

They reduced the number
of binge-drinking incentives,

fewer Happy Hours,
fewer Three for Two offers,

they made sure
that soft drinks were cheaper,

they made sure that food
was available more of the time.

After all, you are less likely
to bump into someone if you are sober,

less likely to misinterpret things
if you are jostled.

Then venues worked to reduce conflict.

I don't know if you've noticed,

but it's really hard to get into a fight

if the person you want to fight
isn't interested.

So they worked on creating

a much more mixed environment
in terms of the clientèle,

not just attracting hard drinkers.

They changed their advertising messaging,

they started to bar
the very drunk from entry,

to try new consumer behaviours.

They trained security staff differently.

Rather than trying to intimidate people
and embarrass them,

security staff tried to create
a welcoming atmosphere,

and they anticipated
and de-escalated conflict.

These changes, together,
produced our dramatic crime drop.

And what I find so interesting about them

is that they weren't about
making things more secure,

but about making things
much, much nicer.

Reducing stress and strain

is an exceptionally good way
of reducing violence,

partly because so little of it
is actually premeditated.

A number of local governments
in England and Wales

improved transport late at night
in the city centre.

They found that violence dropped

with fewer people milling around
late at night looking for trouble.

If they had checked,

I think they would've found
that sexual assaults were reduced too

as fewer women jumped
into unlicensed, unmarked vehicles

in order to get home on a cold night.

Uber is hated by traditional
cabbies everywhere!

But by reducing costs,
increasing taxi availability,

and reducing both driver
and passenger anonymity,

I suspect they may well
have reduced violent crime.

These two examples show

that we can dramatically reduce
both violence and property crimes

by manipulating the moments
that turn us into criminals.

And there are so many more.

Sometimes it's possible to almost
entirely eliminate criminal opportunities.

In the US, bus drivers were being robbed
at exceptionally high rates,

until a number of US states

introduced a system where bus drivers
could no longer pay change in return.

They installed safety deposit boxes
into which fares went.

Drivers literally couldn't
access any cash.

Sometimes we need to shape

environments and criminal decision-making

much more subtly.

Next time you go into a shop,

I want you to think about

whether the layout encourages
or discourages crime.

The 7-Eleven convenience store chain
did this in the 1980s.

After consulting with convicted robbers,

they decided it was a good idea

to move the cash desk
from the back to the front.

They also got rid of
all the signage in the windows,

so that the cash desk
was definitely visible from the street.

They improved lighting
inside and outside the store.

They reduced the number
of entrances and exits.

Over a ten-year period,

where this was rolled out
across the country,

robberies fell by two-thirds,

when they were rising
almost everywhere else.

It may be clear by now

that you need to look at
the circumstances of crime in detail

and develop tailored strategies
to reduce crime.

Burglary has plummeted everywhere

as people have improved
household security.

But government agencies have found

that blocking off the back alley
behind houses, and improving lighting,

both also make a difference.

And it should be clear that this is not
just a job for the police.

Businesses, engineers, technologists,
and designers, can all dent crime rates.

After all, is there a more tempting
target for graffiti than this?

But what about this?

Apparently, this sign,
unlike its predecessors,

lasted a full two years

before someone
managed to squeeze in the "F".

(Laughter)

Now you might be a bit sceptical
about these approaches to reducing crime.

Perhaps you think that crime
is caused by poverty.

Or you think that criminals
are so corrupted

that they won't stop
until they are behind bars.

In either case, surely, if we make
any one type of crime less tempting,

criminals will simply go off
and find other criminal opportunities.

Well, my JDI colleague,
Professor Kate Bowers,

has looked at precisely this question.

Her team examined 102 different
successful crime prevention initiatives,

to see whether crime reductions
were compensated for

by increases in crime in nearby areas,

or whether falls in one type of crime

were achieved at the expense
of increases in other crime types.

What did they find?

Well, in around a quarter of cases,

they found that some crime
was displaced to neighbouring areas,

but that displacement was never complete,

so there was still
always less crime overall.

In a full half of cases,

there was no displacement whatsoever,

and, in a quarter of cases, they found
something else was happening.

Rather than falls in crime in one area
leading to increases elsewhere,

reductions in crime had halo effects:

falls in crime spilled over
into nearby areas.

When you think about it,
this actually makes complete sense.

If you eliminate
one gang-related shooting,

or reduce one drunken assault,

you eliminate the inevitable
retaliation nearby too.

If you stop a bike theft,

you reduce the temptation

for a victim, frustrated,
to steal one themselves,

or perhaps buy one for cheap
on the black market.

When I go into a shop today,

I can assure you, it never crosses my mind
that I might steal something.

But what if yesterday I'd gone in,
the shopkeeper was out the back,

I was in a terrible hurry,

and I happened to run off
quickly without paying?

Committing a crime somehow
reshapes our cognitive horizons,

and knowing that a crime
is common does too.

Imagine you are a teenager
growing up in an area

where it's normal for teens to steal cars.

How can this not affect
your view of acceptable behaviour?

And committing crimes can lead
to more contact with other criminals

and harmful entanglements
within the criminal justice systems.

A number of studies have now tracked
people throughout their lives,

to see how different life events
affect their behaviour.

They ask confidential surveys,

and if they find two teens

who were committing exactly
the same crimes as teenagers,

and only one of them
is caught and punished,

their lives start to diverge
in slightly unexpected ways.

Rather than the person who is caught

being less likely to commit crime,

being deterred,

they find that the person
who is convicted and punished

is more likely to be involved
in crime years later.

So our numerous crime reduction
successes are not only genuine,

they may have wider
crime-reducing benefits.

It is for this reason

that I think we are close to to solving
another, much bigger, mystery:

overall crime rates have fallen
very dramatically in recent years.

Better security on the parts
of businesses and individuals,

and our tailored temptation-reducing
approach to reducing crime,

should get much of the credit.

I am quite optimistic

that we are on the edge

of an exciting new science
of crime prevention.

But I have a deep fear:

I fear that all of us, all of you,
won't let this happen.

To invest in experimental
and evidence-based crime prevention,

we need to divert resources
from traditional responses to crime,

and let go of deeply cherished beliefs
about crime and its causes.

Those on the left, love to think

that poverty and inequality
are the only causes of crime,

and that we can't do anything about crime

unless we tackle these
entrenched social issues.

Those on the right, think that crime
is caused by a permissive society,

and that if we don't have more police
and ever tougher punishments,

we can't do anything about crime.

We are all deeply attached to the idea

that crime is caused by criminals.

We like trying to punish
or profoundly change criminals

rather than, in much more effective ways,

manipulating the moments
that pull people towards crime.

I've often wondered what's
behind our obsession with criminals.

Perhaps it's media accounts of crime:

they bombard us daily and stoke fear
to gain support for punitive policies.

Perhaps it's our diet
of morality tales and whodunits,

those detective stories
and James Bond films

where the film ends
when the baddie is caught

or, even better,
falls off the edge of a cliff.

Or, maybe, we simply yearn for
a much less complicated world,

one in which complex problems like crime
have simple, single solutions.

One in which people

are either universally good
or irredeemably bad.

Whatever the causes,

we too often forget

that our behaviour changes
depending on the circumstances we face.

We forget that we change,
mature, as we age.

You reformed criminals are proof of that.

And we forget that in real life,

the film keeps rolling
long after the criminal is caught.

If cars are still easy to steal,
they will still be stolen.

Cultures of binge drinking
and stressful environments

will still create violence.

I want to change the way we see crime,

so that we can change
how we respond to it.

So, today, I call on you all to recognise

that we can dramatically reduce crime

by manipulating the moments
that turn us into criminals.

I call on you to challenge those who say
we can't do anything about crime

and those who say

we can only dent crime
with ever bigger prisons.

I call on you to vote for, and support,

those politicians who seek
to prevent crime, not just to punish it.

If you do, I believe
we can create a world

that is much safer, and much happier,

than it is today.

A world that helps all of us to be good.

Thank you.

(Applause)