Lighting the way: park pathways can encourage criminal activity, but they don't have to with proper lighting and design.

Many of us have a preconceived notion about what makes a park safe. However, few of us look at the design of our parks as if we were the criminals, or would feel confident in describing all the elements required to make it safe. * As a police officer and Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED) specialist with the Peel Regional Police in Brampton, Ontario, Canada, I use my knowledge and experience of CPTED and the criminal element to question everything and never look at a property the same way again. This helps me to objectively conduct a thorough and situational assessment of all the factors that influence the safety of our environment, including the assessment of frequently overlooked variables that form the generally accepted practice. * The lighting of paved walkways is routinely accepted and seldom, if ever, challenged. (Refer to pictures #1 and #2 on the next page.) Yet I would ask each of you to disregard the policy and take a moment to select the picture that you feel represents the satyr situation. If you chose the isolated path (Picture # 1) as the proper lighting application, then you have based your selection on the need to light the most dangerous walkway scenario. People who generally pick this picture tend to unconditionally equate lighting with improved safety, and believe that the presence of lighting alone is enough to improve safety.* If you selected the walkway that borders the houses (Picture #2) as the proper lighting application, you inevitably based your decision on the belief' that a safe environment only occurs when lighting and witnesses are combined. A populated walkway, over the isolated one, has all the elements to make it safe. It is, in my opinion, this fact that makes the populated walkway the proper choice.

Lighting in the absence of witnesses should never be equated with safety. Crimes routinely occur in well-lit, yet inadequately populated, areas. This is certainly true of our walkway example where all the criminal activity is concentrated in the isolated section of the walk, despite the fact that the populated section is separated by nothing more than a municipal street. The safety ramifications don't end there, however. The mere fact that a walkway is lit will influence people to use it. This is particularly true of the average person who relies on little more than his instincts to keep him free of harm.

Unfortunately the same cannot be said of the criminal, who consciously looks for crime opportunities that minimize his risks. In the case of the isolated walkway, they recognize that the walkway itself serves as a movement predictor that leads potential victims past a point of their choice at a time that reinforces their advantage. This inevitably occurs after dusk when there are fewer people around. What then can be said of a lit, yet isolated, walkway should a crime occur?

In the event of a crime, it can be argued that the lights have done little more than rob potential victims of their night vision, while literally leading them down the proverbial garden path. This makes the criminals more difficult to see, who, by virtue of the lights, are themselves in a better position to engage in target selection while visually clearing the area for potential witnesses and interveners. The net effect is increased victimization and a policy in need of review.

In order to achieve the reduction of crime and loss, you must ask yourself two questions: "What are you trying to do?" and "How can we do it better?" This might, for example, result in the development of additional activities throughout the park or the strategic redistribution of existing activities in order to maintain a safe critical intensity of people. Only alter the viability and impact of these more basic, function-oriented changes has been assessed, will you be in a position to definitively resolve the matter of whether to light the walkway.

In this regard, assess the level of anticipated activity in the vicinity of the walkway. If the level continues to fall short of the critical intensity of people needed to keep the walkway safe, remove the walkway lights until such time as a safe level of activity can be reached. While potentially controversial, the removal of the lights will naturally direct users to better-observed and well-traveled routes along sidewalks through populated areas that are consistent with basic street-proofing advice. It will further increase safety by reducing the attraction to the criminal element, who will quickly recognize that the walkway yields fewer crime opportunities, and those that remain will be less desirable given an increased tendency to walk in groups, pairs or with dogs. These benefits notwithstanding, the probability that an existing lighting system would ever be removed in such a circumstance is unlikely, to say the least.

Banishing Bright Lights

The overuse of park lighting in parking lots and along walkways, whether isolated or not, can encourage the presence of people within the park at times when they're no longer desired. In the case of lighted parks, this routinely occurs after 11 p.m. when the park is supposed to be closed.

Constant light sends a signal that the park is still open. This is a conditioned response that results from our daily experiences where the presence of light signifies the park is open, and the dimming or absence of light signifies that it is closed. It should not be surprising that late-night users of the park use this frame of reference when deciding whether to enter, exit, or stay in the park.

It is my belief that the failure to signal the closing of a park through a conventional reduction in lighting results in several lost opportunities. They are the timely communication and reinforcement of the park closing time, the elimination of excuses by potential offenders found in the park and the natural withdrawal of users both to and from the park. In order to achieve these and other advantages, such as a savings in hydro electricity costs and associated maintenance expenses, I strongly advocate creating an environment that is capable of sending environmental cues to park users. In particular I recommend the strategic use of timers and a "high/low" lighting system.

High/low lighting systems were developed to provide a motion-activated capability for large scale, commercial lighting applications that typically include high pressure sodium (bronze-colored lights) or other light sources that require an extended period of time prior to powering up. High/low lights that are activated by timers can send a clear signal that the park is closing. This is best accomplished by powering down the lights to a predetermined level, then selectively turning off the lights to signal the park is closed.

With such a dynamic place we can reasonably expect both normal users and loiterers not engaged in disorderly conduct, to head for brighter environments. The motivation for normal users to do this will be the perception of safety offered by the other options, and loiterers not engaged in disorderly conduct will move to a setting more suitable to socializing.

The intelligent use of lighting can create the conditions where people naturally use the park in the way that it was intended for. It will also encourage police to increase their presence in the park, as they will naturally be drawn to this environment once the lights are off.

Lighting Up Playtime

Traditionally, there has never been a need to light playgrounds. They are, after all, intended to serve the needs of children--and by extension parents--during day light hours. Missing from this equation, however, is the real yet unintended use of these facilities by teenagers, loiterers and other abnormal users after daylight hours. This often results in damage to playground equipment, graffiti and litter, which could include dangerous hazards to kids.

In order to address these problems, the playground must be fundamentally sited where nearby residents and passersby on the street can clearly see it. With this witness potential established, a strategic lighting application is once again recommended, only this time the recommendation is to add and maintain a constant level of light to the playground so that the witnesses now have the ability to see the actual structure. A strategically placed and lit playground that is capable of being seen from surrounding residents or passersby will tend to discourage loitering by such abnormal users as beer drinkers, for instance, as their prolonged and potentially rowdy behavior is now more likely to be noticed.

To date, the installation of a light adjacent to three problem playgrounds in the Meadowvale area of the city of Mississauga, Ontario, in Canada has completely resolved a series of problems that were previously reported.

Thomas McKay is an 18-year veteran of the Peel Regional Police where he specializes in CPTED. McKay is the founding chair of CPTED Ontario in Canada, co-chair of the Central Ontario Crime Prevention Association and a former director of the International CPTED Association. He has written numerous articles on CPTED, instructs CPTED courses throughout North America and is a recipient of numerous awards including the prestigious Herman Goldstein Excellence in Problem Solving award for the Police Executive Research Forum, which identified him as a "subject matter expert."