Phase 1 Report

Download PDF here: Grippa Phase 1 Report

This evaluation was commissioned by the University of the Arts (UoA) “ Design Against Crime Research Initiative” located at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design (CSM), London, connected to a practice led research project to develop and test anti-theft design prototypes. Whilst the Arts and Humanities Research Council provided some funding for “evaluation purposes” in order to secure the services of a formal crime science evaluation CSM found it necessary to secure further funds from Islington and Westminster councils in order to secure a first stage evaluation by Jill Dando Institute of Crime Science (JDI) to evaluate work being trialled in those boroughs. The support of Metropolitan Police officers (crime prevention design advisors Sgt. Paul Donlevey and PC Ike Gray) was indeed not just central to securing business cooperation and local council funding, but also in making sure this project actually happened.

This is the first time on record that a research-based practice-led design initiative had formally sought to have the efficacy of its design research measured, in order to feed the information back into the design research documentation process. The nature of the evaluation that follows was necessarily “experimental” in as much as the JDI were asked to engage with design ideas about the “iterative process” i.e. to recognise that this independent evaluation was equivalent to a first stage “scoping study”.