The common misconception about lighting is that morelights make you safer. This is incorrect. The key factor is uniformity of light. Limit glare and shadows.
The picture above shows the disabling GLARE from a floodlight. The same picture taken with a flash shows what the shadows are hiding. Unfocused lighting does not help but hinders.
Another example:
The GLARE form the Globe lighting creates many shadows. In the second picture, the person just moved directly under the light and is hidden. It these lights were shining down, this would not occur.
What does the National Institute of Justice say about using light for security?
A REPORT TO THE UNITED STATES CONGRESS
Prepared for the National Institute of Justice
by Lawrence W. Sherman, Denise Gottfredson, Doris MacKenzie, John Eck, Peter Reuter, and Shawn Bushway in collaboration with members of the Graduate Program, Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice, University of Maryland
Some excerpts:
"In the absence of better theories about when and where lighting can be effective, and rigorous evaluations of plausible lighting interventions, we cannot make any scientific assertions regarding the effectiveness of lighting. In short, the effectiveness of lighting is unknown."
"In short, the effectiveness of lighting [as a crime deterrent] is unknown."
"...results are mixed. We can have very little confidence that improved lighting prevents crime, particularly since we do not know if offenders use lighting to their advantage."
"We may speculate that lighting is effective in some places, ineffective in others, and counter productive in still other circumstances. The problematic relationship between lighting and crime increases when one considers that offenders need lighting to detect potential targets and low-risk situations (Fleming and Burrows 1986). Consider lighting at outside ATM machines, for example. An ATM user might feel safer when the ATM and its immediate surrounding area are well lit. However, this same lighting makes the patron more visible to passing offenders. Who the lighting serves is unclear."
This cartoon from 1900 shows the thinking that we all were brought up with, that more lights mean safer. Unfortunately, the truth is more complex. Uniformity of lighting is the focus today. A full moon is only 1/10 of a foot candle, but is very bright if no other lighting is around.
Vandalism and Turning off the Lights
Is it possible to save energy and cut crime at the same time? According to school district experience, vandalism has been cut by simply turning off the lights. Sound preposterous? Experience shows that contrary to conventional law enforcement theory, which stresses well-lit areas, many districts had less vandalism once they've instituted a dark campus policy to save energy dollars. This is significant when you consider how much vandalism costs schools.
In 1980, California public schools lost approximately 13 million dollars from vandalism related acts during non-school hours, according to statistics collected by the State Department of Education.
One of the first school districts to reason that vandals get no thrill out of working in the dark was the San Antonio School District in Texas. In 1973 they started a night time black out program at 19 schools. Sam Wolf, Director of Security for the district says,
"I remember as a kid, we never hung around in the dark. We hung around a street light or some other kind of illumination. We wanted to see who was with us. With vandalism, the thrill is seeing the windows broken, in seeing the words written on the wall. It is no thrill to hang around in the dark".
Vandalism damage in the district was reduced from $160,000 in the late 1960's to $41,000 per year. Also, "We saved so much on utilities that our business managers and everybody else were quite impressed," says Wolf.
Bill Bakers, retired Associate Superintendent for the East Side Union High School District in San Jose, who pioneered an energy savings program that has saved over a million dollars per year, reports:
"We are not aware of any school districts where blacking-out campus coincided with an increase in vandalism, burglary, or arson. There has not been an increase of such incidents in our district during the hours of total blackness. It seems logical that a blackout discourages youth from entering campuses -- they have as much fear of the unknown as anyone else. In case of burglars, any light shown on a campus is cause for suspicion on the part of neighbors and police."
Don Rodriguez, former Energy Manager for Cupertino Union School District reported that vandalism decreased an additional 29% or $8,160 during 1981-82, when they instituted a dark campus policy, along with their antivandalism program, Project Pride. Project Pride rebates a percentage of the savings resulting from a decrease in projected losses due to vandalism. It also involves a variety of activities including weekly, monthly, and semiannual reports and graphs and charts on vandalism rates. While the cause and effect between night time blackouts and a reduction in vandalism is not clear cut, no one has reported an increase in vandalism due to night time blackouts.