@article{ref1,
title="'Cycle thieves, we are watching you': Impact of a simple signage intervention against bicycle theft",
journal="PLoS one",
year="2012",
author="Nettle, Daniel and Nott, Kenneth and Bateson, Melissa",
volume="7",
number="12",
pages="e51738-e51738",
abstract="BACKGROUND: Bicycle theft is a serious problem in many countries, and there is a lack of evidence concerning effective prevention strategies. Displaying images of 'watching eyes' has been shown to make people behave in more socially desirable ways in a number of settings, but it is not yet clear if this effect can be exploited for purposes of crime prevention. We report the results of a simple intervention on a university campus where signs featuring watching eyes and a related verbal message were displayed above bicycle racks. METHODOLOGY AND PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: We installed durable signs at three locations which had experienced high levels of bicycle theft, and used the rest of the university campus as a control location. Reported thefts were monitored for 12 months before and after the intervention. Bicycle thefts decreased by 62% at the experimental locations, but increased by 65% in the control locations, suggesting that the signs were effective, but displaced offending to locations with no signs. The Odds Ratio for the effect of the intervention was 4.28 (95% confidence interval 2.04-8.98), a large effect compared to other place-based crime prevention interventions. CONCLUSIONS AND SIGNIFICANCE: The effectiveness of this extremely cheap and simple intervention suggests that there can be considerable crime-reduction benefits to engaging the psychology of surveillance, even in the absence of surveillance itself. Simple interventions for high-crime locations based on this principle should be considered as an adjunct to other measures, although a possible negative consequence is displacement of offending.<p /> <p>Language: en</p>",
language="en",
issn="1932-6203",
doi="10.1371/journal.pone.0051738",
url="http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0051738"
}