Crime prevention series

Public housing

Published in:
Preventing graffiti and vandalism
Susan Geason and Paul Wilson
Canberra : Australian Institute of Criminology, 1990
ISBN 0 642 14936 4 ; ISSN 1031-5330
(Crime prevention series) ; pp. 14-26

The crucial factors

British researcher Sheena Wilson (1979) points out that it is often difficult to distinguish intentional forms of damage from wear and tear, indifference, neglect and thoughtlessness in public housing estates. Vandalism, it seems, is part of a spectrum of behaviour which begins with very common forms of carelessness such as dropping litter, and continues through a wide range of rough handling - bumping prams into glass swing doors, taking short cuts through newly planted flower beds, for example - to the stage where damage is deliberate: glass broken by airgun pellets, smashed fittings, and dismantled fire-hoses.

Wilson concludes that it came down to people's lack of a feeling of ownership - and therefore lack of responsibility - for the welfare of public parts of an estate. One solution would be instilling this sense of ownership.

Wilson suggested a style of management which treats tenants as customers buying a service, rather than as welfare supplicants. It would include a new attitude to everyday transactions such as reporting repairs, rent queries and applying for transfers; a more relaxed atmosphere at the local housing office; an open and friendly manner on the part of housing officers, and less reliance on curt, computer-printed communications.

The key to controlling vandalism and graffiti in public housing would seem to lie in a recognition of its special characteristics.

• It is "public", and does not therefore encourage a sense of "ownership" among its tenants.
• It is high-density living with the accompanying frictions.
• Maintenance is often slow and inefficient.
• Buildings and interiors are not designed with graffiti and vandalism prevention in mind.
• There is often a high percentage of children and the inevitable "problem families".
• Public housing is often socially stigmatised, too big to manage effectively, and managed by bureaucrats.

What emerges from the British and Australian research and case studies is that there is a need for the following.

• Humane, consultative management of public housing, partly as a desirable social goal in itself, but also to help instil a sense of ownership and pride in public housing tenants.
• Ongoing communications between the architects and designers who build the accommodation and the maintenance staff who look after it and can therefore feed back vital information about design weaknesses
• Special arrangements for children so their normal play does not turn into vandalism.
• Good maintenance so that vandalised property and a general air of neglect does not encourage more destruction.

Fundamental changes in the organisation and training of housing management might be needed if this new approach is to be implemented successfully.

Ms Wendy Sarkissian, who carried out a study for the then New South Wales Housing Commission on security through environmental design (1984), recommended three major strategies for minimising vandalism in public housing.

• Avoid a high density of children.
• Provide adequate facilities for youth to give them something to do.
• Make vandalism more difficult by using vandal-proof materials wherever possible.

Defensible space

Damage occurs most frequently where there is little or no surveillance - garages, refuse chambers and lifts, for example. To this extent, certain building and estate layouts can be said to encourage vandalism. This idea has been developed most fully by Oscar Newman (1972), who calls such no-man's-lands "indefensible space".

Others postulate that ownership can be just as important as territory, and Sheena Wilson, in her 1986 survey for the Home Office Research Unit, gave Newman's theory only limited support. Her examination of 52 housing estates in two London boroughs suggested that the design of buildings did not affect overall levels of vandalism. Tower blocks, in particular, she found, were not more susceptible to vandalism than other types of buildings.

Building design

Wilson's survey did find, however, that different sorts of buildings encouraged different types of vandalism.

For example, in large buildings where access routes were very public and people could come and go unchallenged, communal areas were heavily vandalised. In tower blocks, damage was concentrated round entries. One answer is to make entrances less inviting to outsiders - as an extreme measure, entryphones might be installed at the entrance to tower blocks.

According to the 1977 Lambeth Inner Area Study, the most vulnerable access ways are those linking flats in deck access and continuous gallery-type buildings. Everybody uses these, but no-one is responsible for them. Here the type of building is undeniably responsible for whole tracts of indefensible space. In addition, entrances and staircases that are isolated and out of sight - for example fire stairs - become "vandal temptation zones".

Scale

Scale has an important bearing on the amount of vandalism an estate suffers. The Lambeth study found that a factor common to the least vandalised estates was small-scale, well-maintained green space where the common areas appeared to belong to the residents rather than everyone and no-one. And alternatively, spaces which were severed by short-cuts appeared to be heavily vandalised.

Child density

Wilson's 1986 survey of London estates showed quite clearly that child density was a critical factor in determining degrees of vandalism. She found that all types of buildings were likely to experience some vandalism problems once the ratio of school-age children went above five to every 10 dwellings, or where the overall number of children in a block exceeded 20.

As high-rises exacerbate the children problem, local authorities should house families with children on or near the ground. Because a lot of vandalism is caused by children's play, one form of prevention is providing public play and leisure facilities. When siting such facilities, it is wise to heed research showing that children tend to play near to home and do not use flat and uninteresting playing fields.

In her study into preventing vandalism in New South Wales public housing estates, Wendy Sarkissian (1984) made the following recommendations concerning children.

• Design becomes important where child density is high, the critical point being when the ratio of adults to children is less than 3:1, and where densities are more than 60 to 70 children per hectare.
• As children will play everywhere, noisy activities, digging, sitting quietly, etc. should be separated out to cause least disturbance to people in dwellings.
• One way of preventing children taking risks on buildings etc. is to build adventure play areas on site or nearby.
• Children like to play on footpaths, so they should be designed to accommodate this.
• Leave part of the site undeveloped for natural play areas.
• Playground equipment should be sturdy and good looking.
• Supervised after-school and summer holidays play is needed.
• To stop teenagers getting bored and vandalising, provide challenging, varied and exciting activities for them, as well as informal gathering places and indoor social places exclusively for young people.

The Lambeth study suggested that play areas be moved from one part of an estate to another - as in crop rotation - to give the grass a chance to grow and share the nuisance of living near a large playground among residents.

In some cases playground facilities are underused because children are not encouraged to use them. The Exeter Police Crime Prevention Support Unit increased the number of children using a playing field from 10 to 300 in a week by turning up to organise games of football. They then persuaded schools to open up their grounds in the evenings for children.

A major problem here is getting officials to bend the rules a little: often purely administrative objections were raised by officials who wanted to save themselves trouble and effort.

Projects which help reduce vandalism tend to have a strong creative element and give participants a sense of ownership. For example, as soon as Halton local authority in the UK organised mural painting by groups of adolescents, they stopped defacing the walls (Wilson 1979).

Maintenance

Sarkissian (1984) came to regard vandalism as much a problem of maintenance, overuse or neglect, as one of outright destruction, and recommended the following.

• Use hardy, easily-replaced materials.
• Use standard sizes for easy replacement.
• Prepare maintenance manuals for speedy repairs.
• Insist on maintenance contracts for playground equipment so it was not out of action for long.
• Avoid removable materials such as paving bricks.
• Make funds available for maintenance and for correcting design faults.

Sarkissian warned that designers need to steer a course between durability and good looks because "hard architecture" discourages people from using facilities.

As damage left unrepaired often encourages destruction, a good policy for housing authorities is prompt repairs - particularly in the case of graffiti and broken windows - combined with strong on-site management and an insistence on responsible behaviour by adults and children.

The role of housing authorities

The approach of housing authorities to vandalism should be both diagnostic and prognostic, said David White (1979). That is, on the level of materials and fittings, authorities should look back, find out what has been damaged and replace it with something stronger - a basic, self-defence, reactive, even negative approach. The authorities must also look forward to, and avoid or allow for future damage by, building in easy-to-maintain or replaceable materials and fittings - a positive approach. Either of these approaches will only work if linked to a system of management which constantly responds to feedback from users and maintenance staff.

Working from local authority repair notes, the UK Building Research Establishment (White 1979) found that the most frequently reported damage was to glass - at foot level, and in entrances and access ways, particularly in buildings which housed children. Damaged glazing, more than any other single feature, makes a building look vandalised.

In the long term, such damage suggests that defensive rather than reactive measures are needed: modifications to the design and layout of housing estates, caretakers to provide supervision and a housing allocation policy which distributes families with children more equable. But with the immediate needs of the user in mind, the Building Research Authority's summary confined itself to commonsense precautions and listed finishes, materials and design features that work. According to White, the first step a housing authority needs to take is collating and analysing its own housing repair notes and devising from them a preventive design guide for architects.

The Consortium for Method Building, a grouping of seven local authorities in the UK has drawn up a checklist of likely damage and the remedies or precautions required (Sykes 1979). The key instruction, in almost all areas, is to aim at robust construction.

The Consortium's working party felt that the likelihood of vandalism was broadly affected by two factors:

• the general building design - its siting, the relationship and adequacy of play space and circulation spaces, its robustness in areas of high use and risk of attack, the relationship of its parts and the overall atmosphere created, and
• design detail and the choice of materials and fittings.

Neglect is infectious, and accidental damage which is left unrepaired encourages further damage. Areas of "low esteem" are particularly vulnerable. Anything temporary, slipshod or over-used, anything indeed which suggests that the housing authority is indifferent to the well-being of its tenants will invite casual ill-treatment.

The critical need then is to reduce the opportunities for casual vandalism. This means designing to prevent building failures, which the Greater London Council has found to be the commonest triggers for vandalism. Tough detailing is needed to prevent damage to the copings ends and exposed edges of brick walls as a minor initial failure can encourage a major collapse. And when doors fail in public areas, they positively invite vandalism.

NACRO projects in the United Kingdom

The work of the National Association for the Care and Resettlement of Offenders (NACRO) on problem estates flowed out of a meeting on crime and architecture.

Its first project began in 1976 on a heavily vandalised and unpopular estate in Widnes. A Crime Prevention Unit was established in 1979 and a Safe Neighbourhoods Unit in 1980. By 1985 the latter had worked on 19 estates in five inner London boroughs. Its aims were to confront vandalism and more minor crime by involving the residents on demoralised estates in planning improvements in such a way they would feel inclined to maintain and protect them (Rock 1988).

NACRO saw the victimisation and decay of problem estates arising from lack of pride, co-operation, power and cohesion, and the remedy in a restoration of structure and purpose.

Estate management programs were co-ordinated in liaison with different agencies and with tenant participation; tenants' organisations were established and strengthened; consultations were held with tenants, tenants' associations and local authorities; councils and tenants were assisted in planning and implementing the localisation of housing services to an estate or neighbourhood level; attempts were made to improve and develop policing, and facilities were provided for the young.

NACRO's Widnes project was reported to have brought about an appreciable decline in crime. Eighteen percent of a sample of households on the estate claimed to have suffered a break-in in 1976; by 1979, the comparable figure was 11 per cent. There was also a major decrease in the amount of damage noticed by residents.

The consensus was that crime and vandalism on the estate had abated, although by no means disappeared. There were fewer signs of graffiti and malicious damage around the estate, and on the whole less evidence of nuisance to residents (Rock 1986).

Cunningham Road Estate - population 1,600, half aged under 17 - had serious crime and vandalism problems in 1975, when NACRO and SCPR (Social and Community Planning Research) began their joint project.

The estate comprised 250 houses built around 1950 and about 200 new houses and flats. Houses were mostly two-storey with three or four bedrooms and front and rear gardens.

When the program started, some of the old houses were boarded up, others had broken windows. Gardens were untended; fences were a jumble of corrugated iron, wire and old boards. Shops were barricaded with steel shutters and daubed with graffiti. Streets and pavements were in poor condition. Vandalism was rife - broken glass, graffiti, smashed brickwork and litter. Even the new part of the estate was damaged, with vandalised playgrounds and broken glass.

The tenants were demoralised, apathetic, and hostile to the council and police. Police did not bother to do anything about crime on the estate, council dumped problem families on the residents, and they were angered by petty restrictions such as not being able to paint their front doors.

NACRO's approach was influenced by the work of Oscar Newman (1972), particularly his notions about the positive effects of a sense of control and ownership on crime and vandalism. To this, the program team added extensive consultation with tenants to get their views and co-operation on measures to be carried out to fight crime.

Social and Community Planning Research people began by distributing a questionnaire survey to most households. This provided them with reliable statistics, informed the tenants about the scheme, and set up invaluable personal contacts between the researchers and the local people.

NACRO wanted tenants to analyse the problem, and sought the views of a wide cross-section of the community, not just the most vocal. They invited randomly-selected tenants - adults and children - to a small, group discussion of about eight people, paid them to participate, and brought them back three times over a couple of months.

These group meetings elicited residents' views, gave everybody a chance to speak, and helped people develop a sense of community. The meetings exposed the low morale of the residents, who felt helpless to change things for the better, and the gap in understanding between the tenants and the council. Consequently the process also raised the consciousness of council workers.

The major problems aired by the Cunningham Road residents were anxiety about security, dissatisfaction with the council's record on repairs and maintenance, and disturbance and destruction caused by young people.

An analysis showed that the problems stemmed from poor planning and design coupled with poor management. Children's playgrounds were an example of poor planning and design. They had been designed for small children and sited close to dwellings, but because they were the only well-lit, dry areas with seating, teenagers congregated there and bullied children, broke equipment, and kept families awake at night with rowdy behaviour.

When consulted, the teenagers decided to build a hut for themselves. They also became involved in the process of cleaning up the estate by painting murals and planting trees.

Problems with garden fences arose from both poor planning and bad management. Tenants from the old part of the estate had to provide their own; some were unsightly, and others inadequate to keep out dogs and children. In addition, council had torn up front fences - which had been a hotchpotch of hedges and fencing - and replaced them with low walls which did not keep out children, dogs nor litter.

The scheme succeeded in helping tenants overcome their feelings of helplessness and apathy. The meetings brought people together for the first time, a sense of community developed, and tenants were able to negotiate with council on an equal footing.

Tenants set up a Residents' Association which organised leisure activities on the estate and lobbied council about repairs. An adventure playground opened near the estate and a play leader was appointed and organised mothers to help. Council let people paint their front doors, plant hedges and put fences on top of the dwarf walls. Pavements and street lights were repaired, and some outstanding repairs were done. A beat policeman was assigned to the estate at the request of tenants.

After initial problems with vandalism, the adventure playground began to succeed and the Residents' Association thrived. The council kept up repairs and maintenance, and a long-planned Youth and Community Centre opened nearby.

The estate no longer gives the impression of being under siege. There is little visible sign of litter, broken glass or other breakage, and no new graffiti. Almost all the trees planted at the beginning are still standing. Teenagers are seldom a nuisance now; the beat policeman reports a dramatic decrease in crime; and the few families which had been terrorising the neighbourhood appear to have quietened down.

Because of the residents' increased confidence and sense of community, relations with the police and council improved; and although violence and vandalism did not disappear, they did decrease.

Very little money was spent on the Cunningham Road project that was not already allocated to the area, although some was transferred from other budgets so small repairs could be done quickly. council officers gave a great deal of time to the tenants, and it was the relationships which grew out of this contact that raised the tenants' morale.

What began as an anti-vandalism project had implications far beyond its original terms of reference. It demonstrated: that tenants' conditions could be greatly improved without massive capital spending; the importance and difficulty of dialogue between tenants and housing authorities; the importance of morale to the welfare of the estate and the way this is affected by communications between tenants and housing authorities; and the latent possibilities for self-help among tenants (Blaber 1979).

And finally, largely as a result of this experience, Halton council adopted a package of changes emphasising the importance of improving estate management.

Priority Estates Project (PEP)

The UK Department of Environment's Priority Estates Project also recommended social reconstruction to fight demoralisation on problem estates. It was not concerned expressly with crime and the criminal justice system, but with crime and vandalism as indirect policy issues arising out of their effect on the environment.

The Priority Estates Project (PEP) was launched in 1979 to improve housing management and decrease the number of vacant properties on difficult-to-let estates. The aim was to move management and maintenance staff from Town Hall and put them on the housing estates where they could work closely with residents.

A PEP begun on the Penrhys Estate in the Rhonnda in Wales in 1984 is:

• involving tenants in consultations and programs;
• working with the local authority and other relevant agencies;
• initiating major repairs;
• improving lighting;
• treating walls with anti-graffiti paint;
• reducing the number of dwellings per block;
• localising lettings and repairs;
• intensifying beat policing and instituting night police patrols.

The Priority Estates Project (PEP) was not directed specifically at crime, but it nonetheless seems to have had a very real impact on it (Rock 1986). One of the consultants involved asserted that the burglary rate was decreasing on all but one of the Project's estates. The most conspicuous change was observed on the Broadwater Farm Estate in Haringey, which had been called a "nightmare estate"; between 1982 and 1984 the burglary rate dropped by 62 per cent.

A quantifiable success story comes out of the Gibbshill Estate near Glasgow (Burral 1979). Crime and vandalism were once so rife that shops windows were bricked up and the council considered demolishing the estate. Instead, with the full involvement of the tenants' association and the police, council undertook a £3 million environmental improvement scheme.

Over 200 houses were knocked down to make way for amenities including sports and recreation facilities, a community centre and a new shopping centre. The police introduced foot patrols and a local business gave a hut to a youth club.

As a result, vandalism almost disappeared, and the number of crimes and offences on the estate dropped by almost 40 per cent at time when the rate was rapidly increasing elsewhere.

Design tips for vandal-proofing public housing

Sykes (1979) gives some design tips for preventing graffiti and vandalism.

• One method of discouraging graffiti is to apply approved "graffiti" in the form of murals or mosaics where an undecorated surface might be tempting.
• Where murals are unsuitable, avoid soft-textured wall finishes which can be easily scratched, particularly if the surface colour contrasts with that of the substrate.
• Avoid light colours on walls.
• If it is likely that a surface will have to be renewed, avoid materials that are expensive to renew.
• Vital structural elements should be carefully protected; this can be done by cladding concrete with steel or a strong sheeting material provided that the method of fastening does not lend itself to vandalism.
• Soft mortar in brickwork can easily be scraped out, so joints should be regularly inspected and deteriorated mortar mix raked out and replaced by a good-quality mix of sand and cement.
• Glazing and tile-hung walls below ground-floor window level are best avoided.
• Piping should be installed inside rather than outside a building.
• Drain pipes should be cast iron rather than plastics or asbestos-cement below the height of two metres. They should be built up with concrete so they cannot be wrenched off the building, nor can the bracket fixings then be used as footholds.
• In areas where breakage of glass is mostly due to carelessness, or in ground-floor windows, toughened glass can be used.
• It is now possible to install vandal-proof lifts, or a vandal-resistant push-button system for lifts.
• Warnings that certain acts may evoke penalties might deter some vandalism. Warning signs must be clear and unambiguous, and as many vandals are very young or non-achievers, pictorial signs are the best.

Summary

Vandalism problems on many housing estates stem from poor planning and design coupled with poor management. The following solutions have arisen from case studies in Australia and the United Kingdom.

• Fostering a sense of territoriality. Public housing estates where architectural styles, tenant programs and management policies give tenants a sense of "owning" their residences seem to be less vulnerable to vandalism than huge impersonal estates where the tenants are alienated from the buildings and the management.
• Planners and architects can minimise vandalism and graffiti by designing spaces which can be easily seen to belong to particular groups of people, which can be watched and thus guarded by residents or passers-by, and to which access is limited to those who have a legitimate right to be there.
• Sensible management policies and practices. In public housing estates, effective management involves developing a good working relationship with tenants, good maintenance and quick repairs, sensible tenant allocation and fair eviction policies, and an insistence on responsible behaviour by adults and children.
• Better buildings. Faulty design and inappropriate material selection and specification result in building defects, which are widely regarded as one of the major triggers of vandalism. Architects and builders must be aware of the use to which buildings and fixtures will be put, making sure they are strong enough to withstand everyday wear and tear, careless use and misuse.
• Good maintenance and quick repairs. As much vandalism is caused by overuse or neglect of property, and as damage seems to attract more vandalism, well-maintained buildings and speedy repairs are essential.
• Providing alternative activities. Estate management, police, parents or a combination of these can help prevent vandalism by organising sporting, leisure and entertainment programs for young children and teenagers on public housing estates.