EngD Thesis Helen Skudder Carbon Cost of Crime

The Carbon Cost of Crime
Helen Skudder
Volume I
Thesis
Submitted in partial fulfilment of the degree of Doctorate of Engineering
Centre for Environment and Sustainability,

University of Surrey, Guildford, Surrey, GU2 7XH
Supervisors
Professor Angela Druckman, University of Surrey

Professor Ian Brunton-Smith, University of Warwick
John Cole, Home Office
Alan McInnes, Secured by Design
Sponsors
Declaration
This thesis and the work to which it refers are the results of my own efforts. Any ideas, data, images
or text resulting from the work of others (whether published or unpublished) are fully identified as
such within the work and attributed to their originator in the text, bibliography or in footnotes. This
thesis has not been submitted in whole or in part for any other academic degree or professional
qualification. I agree that the University has the right to submit my work to the plagiarism detection
service TurnitinUK for originality checks. Whether or not drafts have been so-assessed, the
University reserves the right to require an electronic version of the final document (as submitted) for
assessment as above.
Helen Skudder
Student number: 6281966
Page i
Acknowledgements
It is hard to know where to begin thanking all those who have helped throughout the last four years.
The first and biggest thank you must go to my stupendous supervisory team, Angela, John, Ian and
Alan; you have been nothing short of fantastic throughout this project. Your comments, advice,
guidance and support have been instrumental in the success of the research and it has been an
absolute pleasure working with you all and I will really miss our meetings (although Im sure you
wont miss my constant emails!). Thank you so much for taking a chance on me in the first place and
sticking with me throughout this brilliant project.
Colleagues both at the Home Office and the University, including Claire, Eileen, Alison, Chris, Brian
and Paddi have been great and a big thank you goes to them for assisting me over the last few years.
Next, I want to thank my fellow EngD students for amazing support throughout the modules,
conferences and training. To Noemi, Steffi, Freddie, Hristo, Rupert, Abdul, Josh and Emilia in
particular, continuing four years at university without being based there was made infinitely easier
with you all as friends and I really enjoyed being a part of CES. I wish all the EngD students (past
and present) all the very best in whatever adventures you dive into next!
I was given a wonderful opportunity with this unique research project and I have thoroughly enjoyed
every moment of it. Some times were more difficult than others and my next thanks (and apologies)
must go to those closest to me, who have kept me sane and continued to make me smile and laugh in
the face of any stress or pressure that presented itself along the way. My family have been an infinite
source of support and love, cheering along my publications (and never questioning why I have
chosen to remain a student for the last 10 years!). And finally, to Oscar, who has been so patient,
thank you for being by my side on this journey and I hope you can agree the last four years have been
pretty amazing. On to the next chapter of this crazy thing called life!
Page ii
Abstract
Cutting carbon emissions is a global priority, wherever they occur, and those associated with crime
are no exception. This research project explores the carbon cost of crime and crime prevention to
ensure that carbon emissions can be considered wherever possible. Although this study focuses on
crime in England and Wales as a case study, this can be applied elsewhere around the world.
A lifecycle perspective was adopted throughout, to ensure that all aspects of the carbon footprint
were accounted for. The carbon footprint of crime was estimated using Environmentally-Extended
Input-Output Analysis (EE-IOA) multipliers, and crime prevention measures were analysed by
systematically reviewing Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) environmental declarations.
The study estimated that crime in England and Wales gave rise to over 4 million tCO2e in the year
2011, representing the carbon cost of crime. The falling number of criminal offences has resulted in
a reduced carbon footprint from around 7 million tCO 2e in 1995 to below 3 million tCO2e in 2015 (a
cumulative reduction of over 54 million tCO2e).
To explore burglary prevention measures, the carbon footprint was combined with an indicator of
how secure against burglary the products were. Window and door locks were shown to be the highest
performing individual measures with low carbon footprints and the highest chance of preventing
crime. The highest performing combinations included window locks, internal lighting, door locks and
external lighting. Burglar alarms were the worst performing measure, from both environmental and
security perspectives.
Overall, it is clear that crime and crime prevention have a carbon cost, and that carbon emissions
need to be assessed and reduced wherever possible. The study has contributed towards informing
practitioners and policy-makers of this connection between crime and the environment. If a low
crime and low-carbon future is to be achieved, the encouraging trend of a decreasing carbon footprint
attributable to crime needs to be maintained, and strategies must take into account environmental
considerations alongside social and economic benefits.
Keywords: carbon cost of crime; carbon footprinting; impacts of crime; sustainability
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Readers Guide
This thesis consists of two volumes. Volume 1 presents the key research background, methods and
findings, while Volume 2 presents supplementary information, consisting of an impact log,
conference abstracts and all six-monthly reports collated, including the 24-month dissertation.
Executive Summary
Brief summary of research background,
methods used and key findings
Pre-introduction
Lists of contents, figures, tables, and
abbreviations
Chapter 1
Introduction to the research project and
research questions
Chapter 2
Background section to provide the
framework for the research based on
current literature
Chapter 3 Appendix 1.1 Appendix 3.1
Volume 1
Estimates of the overall carbon footprint of Journal of Industrial Paper 1

criminal offences Ecology paper Summary
Chapter 4
Appendix 1.2 Appendix 3.2
How crime is changing and how this has
British Journal of Paper 2
affected the carbon footprint of crime over
Criminology paper Summary
the last two decades
Appendix 1.3 Appendix 3.3
Chapter 5 Security Journal Paper 3
paper Summary
Estimates of the carbon footprint of
burglary prevention measures Appendix 2
Data
Chapter 6
Discussion and conclusions including
limitations, opportunities for further work,
impact and policy recommendations and
concluding remarks
References
Impact log
Volume 2
Conference abstracts
Collated 6-monthly progress reports
24-month dissertation
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Executive Summary
Executive Summary
Background
This EngD research project estimates the carbon emissions 1 associated with different types of crime
in England and Wales, and identifies crime prevention measures that are both low-carbon and
effective in terms of security. Consideration of environmental impacts is becoming an increasingly
important issue, as climate change remains one of the greatest challenges of our time. It is widely
accepted that to achieve sustainability a balance between economic, environmental and social factors
(known as the three pillars of sustainability) must be achieved. When crime is considered, despite
the social and economic impacts of crime being well studied and understood, the environmental
impacts are barely acknowledged in current literature and are rarely considered by governments,
practitioners, scholars or the general public. This research project explores the carbon cost of crime,
as a proxy for environmental impacts, in order to address this oversight and ensure that these costs
can be considered wherever possible.
Objectives
In order to estimate the carbon costs associated with crime and explore potential ways to reduce
these, several core research questions (and supplementary related questions) were addressed during
the project:
1. What are the total carbon emissions (in the form of a carbon footprint) attributable to crime
in England and Wales?
- Which type of crime results in the most carbon emissions?
- Which aspects of crime emit the most carbon?
2. Has the general drop in crime (since 1995) resulted in carbon savings?
3. What are the carbon emissions associated with crime prevention schemes or products?
- How do these compare with the carbon emissions of the crimes the schemes or products
aim to prevent?
4. How can carbon emissions be taken into account in project/policy appraisals?
5. What measures (policies, projects or commitments) could be implemented to reduce the
overall carbon emissions associated with crime?
1
Carbon emissions in this context and throughout this thesis refers to the basket of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions as defined by the
Kyoto Protocol (United Nations, 1998), which include carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O), hydrofluorocarbons
(HFCs), perfluorocarbons (PFCs) and sulfur hexafluoride (SF6).
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Executive Summary
Methods
Throughout this research project, a lifecycle perspective to carbon footprinting was taken to ensure
that all aspects of the carbon footprint were considered, wherever possible. There were several
lifecycle footprinting methodologies available that could have been used, including Life Cycle
Assessment (LCA) and Environmentally-Extended Input-Output Analysis (EE-IOA).
When estimating the carbon footprint of criminal offences, the aspects considered included those that
resulted from the event itself (replacement of stolen or damaged items and provision of health care
for victims), along with actions before and after the crime takes place. Before the offence, these
include defensive expenditure of households or businesses in order to protect themselves against
crime and government crime prevention activity. After the offence this includes the criminal justice
system (CJS) response to the crime including police detection and courts, probation or prison
services. To cover the broad range of products and services associated with crime, EE-IOA was
chosen as the most appropriate tool to estimate the scale of the footprint in this case. Using
monetised cost of crime data from a Home Office policy appraisal toolkit, the costs associated with
criminal offences were translated into a carbon footprint using EE-IOA carbon multipliers, which
detail the level of carbon arising in different sectors of the economy (kg CO2e per spent).
Later in the study, when the carbon footprint of specific crime prevention devices was being
considered, data from LCA studies were used to estimate the footprint. This methodology is more
appropriate for detailed and product specific footprinting, and existing studies, known as
environmental declarations, were used to identify the carbon footprint of devices. These carbon
footprint estimates were then compared with a measure of the devices effectiveness, known as a
security protection factor (SPF), from previous research (Tseloni et al., 2014). This allowed devices
to be compared and rated higher or lower on an environmental performance scale and effectiveness
scale in order to highlight the most and least desirable devices. Those devices that were found to be
effective and low-carbon were highlighted as most desirable, and those that were high-carbon and
less effective as least desirable.
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Executive Summary
The crime data used throughout comprised both police-recorded crime data and Crime Survey of
England and Wales (CSEW) data in order to capture estimates of crime known to police and that
which goes undetected. Some important omissions from the crime data include fraud (including
online), drugs and arson offences. Fraud and online-related offences were omitted because currently
no established measures of these offences over time exist. Many of the carbon costs associated with
online and drug offences are also complex to attribute as they may originate overseas (e.g. drug
production), take place across national borders, rarely reach the attention of the CJS or have no
physical component. These exclusions meant that only a partial picture of the overall trend of the
carbon footprint due to crime was presented. However, the study includes the majority of high-
volume offences (with the possible exception of online crime), and all exclusions were stated clearly
and discussed throughout.
Key Findings
The overall estimates of the carbon footprint of crime are outlined in Chapter 3, addressing research
question 1. The results of this Chapter were published in the Journal of Industrial Ecology in June
2016 (Skudder et al., 2016). Individual carbon footprints per offence were presented alongside a total
carbon footprint of crime for the year 2011. The year 2011 was selected because this is the most
recent year of EE-IOA carbon multipliers available. The key findings from this first part of the study
were that the money currently spent on crime gave rise to over 4 million tCO2e for the year 2011.
This represents the carbon cost of crime. This footprint is equivalent to the direct energy use of
around 900,000 UK homes, at an average carbon footprint of 4.5 tCO2e per household. By estimating
this footprint, the paper addressed the carbon-crime blind spot in criminology highlighted by Pease
(2009).
Different aspects of the carbon footprint resulted in varying contributions of emissions. The
replacement of stolen or damaged goods accounted for 51% of the total carbon footprint (around 2
million tCO2e) and relatedly, when looked at by offence type, burglaries were the offences that
resulted in the largest proportion of the total carbon footprint, at 30%. Police activity and the prison
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Executive Summary
service emissions also stand out as large proportions, accounting for 9% (375,000 tCO2e) and 7%
(290,000 tCO2e) of the total footprint, respectively.
When the actions, before, during and after the offence were analysed, emissions that arise as a
consequence of crime accounted for over two thirds of the total footprint (67%), those from the CJS
amounted to around one fifth (21%) and actions in anticipation of crime were noticeably smaller at
12% of emissions (49%, 43% and 8% respectively when only police-recorded offences are
considered). As crime prevention is known to be substantially cheaper than its investigation and the
imposition of sanctions (HMIC 2014), these results showed that this may also be true from a carbon
perspective.
It is tempting to conclude from this first part of the research project that crime reduction will
automatically result in a general reduction of carbon emissions. However, to answer the question
does crime cost carbon?, there was a need to consider how public and private money currently
associated with crime would be spent if the number of offences declined. To do this, an estimate of
the potential rebound effect associated with a small reduction in crime was presented, in which the
money associated with these offences was spent in other ways and the scale of the resultant carbon
footprint presented. It should be noted that re-spending of the money can result in either a carbon
saving or additional emissions, depending on the nature of the expenditure. A fall in domestic
burglary offences was used as an example and a low, medium and high estimate of the rebound effect
was presented. It was found that the rebound effect of reducing domestic burglary by 5% potentially
either reduced emissions by 3% (a saving of 19,000 tCO2e) or increased the carbon footprint by 23%
(an increase of 134,000 tCO2e). The most likely rebound effect (medium estimate) was estimated as a
potential increase in emissions of 2% (10,000 tCO 2e). This important limitation is considered
throughout the entire study to ensure that potential savings of emissions, when crime reduction is
concerned, are not overstated.
In Chapter 4 the study addressed the next research question, whether the carbon arising from crime
has changed over the last two decades. Despite demonstrating, in Chapter 3, that crimes have a high
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Executive Summary
carbon cost, this estimate was essentially static in time, with no consideration of the environmental
consequences of the changing nature and levels of crime over time. This is important, with growing
evidence that the crime profile has changed substantially over the last two decades.
Chapter 4 demonstrates a substantial fall in crime-related carbon emissions in England and Wales
over the last two decades, the results of which have been published in the British Journal of
Criminology (Skudder et al., 2017a). Key findings from this part of the research project show that
specific crimes (burglary and vehicle offences) and specific aspects of the carbon footprint (the need
to replace stolen or damaged items) resulted in the highest proportion of emissions and may therefore
offer the best potential opportunities for further reducing this footprint in the future (being cautious
of the rebound effect, which may impact on potential overall reductions). The falling number of
offences resulted in a carbon footprint that fell from around 7 million tCO2e in 1995 to below 3
million tCO2e by 2015. This amounted to a total reduction of over 54 million tCO2e, over the 20-year
period studied.
The large reductions of the number of burglaries (both recorded and unrecorded) and vehicle
offences (predominantly recorded offences) which occurred, coupled with the high carbon cost of
these offences (the need to replace stolen or damaged items mentioned above), were largely
responsible for the substantial reductions in emissions over this period. The fall in these types of
offence also more than offset the rise of emissions associated with the increasing number of violent
crimes in recent years.
For recorded offences, the decline in the carbon footprint is more prominent than the fall in the
number of offences (48% carbon drop compared to a crime drop of only 30%). This clearly
demonstrates that there is not a straightforward one-to-one relationship between the number of
offences and the resulting carbon footprint. As the different types of crime rise or fall, the carbon
footprint is altered over time. Therefore targeted prevention of specific carbon-intensive offences in
the future may have a disproportionate effect on the overall environmental impact of crime.
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Executive Summary
Although the observed drop in carbon over the last two decades is an encouraging trend, more could
potentially be done to reduce the emissions associated with crime and further decrease the carbon
footprint. It is also important to consider the limitations of these results, as stated previously, as the
rebound effect may offset the carbon saved from reductions in crime and so the reductions presented
only represent potential savings, rather than absolute savings in terms of carbon.
Chapter 5 analysed the carbon footprint of devices that aim to prevent burglary offences. The results
of this chapter are published in the Security Journal (Skudder et al., 2017b). The devices studied
included those that are surveyed in the CSEW, including door locks, window locks, internal and
external lighting, burglar alarms and CCTV cameras. To estimate the footprint of these devices,
environmental declarations (a standardised type of LCA study), which detail the carbon footprint of
the specific products, were found using a systematic literature review methodology. By comparing
the footprint of the products with a measure of their effectiveness (the SPF from Tseloni et al.
(2014)), low-carbon and effective devices (those more desirable) were emphasised, above those that
were less effective and higher carbon (less desirable).
Key findings of this section of the project included identifying those devices that performed well on
both an effectiveness measure and environmental performance. Window and door locks were shown
to be the highest performing devices individually and the most effective and low-carbon
combinations were found to be those known by the acronym WIDE (window locks, internal lighting,
door locks and eternal lighting). Burglar alarms were found to be the worst performing device as they
were least effective and had a high carbon footprint. Combinations that include burglar alarms were
found to be lower on both the effectiveness and environmental performance scales.
Discussion and Conclusions

Chapter 6 concludes the study by bringing together the discussion and conclusions sections. The
main limitations of the study are examined alongside potential areas for further research in this area.
Here, other carbon costs of crime and criminal justice that are yet to have been mentioned in this
study are briefly explored. These include direct and indirect emissions associated with the private
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Executive Summary
security industry, fires due to arson, altered behaviour due to fear or crime or victimisation, including
moving home and finally, other offences including fraud and online crime.
Overall, the research project has estimated the carbon emissions that result from crime. Crime, and
crime prevention efforts clearly have a carbon cost and with the growing need to reduce emissions
wherever they arise in order to limit climate change, these emissions need to be measured and
reduced wherever possible. By estimating the carbon footprint of individual offences, total crime in a
year, how crime has changed over time and the footprint of specific crime prevention products, the
research study has contributed towards informing practitioners and policy-makers of this connection
between crime and the environment.
The study has highlighted several areas where potential emission reductions may be most beneficial.
These include a focus on specific offences that produce the most carbon, such as burglary and vehicle
crimes, and also specific aspects of crime where the largest proportion of emission arise, such as the
carbon associated with replacing stolen or damaged goods or those associated with the CJS.
If a low-crime and low-carbon future is to be achieved, the encouraging trends of a decreasing carbon
footprint attributable to crime needs to be maintained and enhanced further. The CJS needs to
address the carbon intensity of prisons and court services, and with prison and court reforms
currently being delivered by the UK Government, this potentially looks to be a promising future. It is
important that sustainability considerations and crime prevention be at the forefront to reduce the
pressure on these services and ultimately reduce the demand and need for these services.
In terms of policy-making, the proposed integration of the carbon footprint of crime estimates into
the Home Office cost of crime policy appraisal toolkit is encouraging, as this will enable
environmental impacts to be considered alongside the social and economic impacts already
quantified.
There are of course limitations to the research and not all aspects of the carbon cost of crime can be
covered in a single project, but it is believed that the publicity around the publications and raising of
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Executive Summary
awareness of the work has helped strengthen the case for considering both crime prevention and
sustainability simultaneously, rather than being separate considerations.
The conclusions also highlight that the carbon estimates of crime and crime prevention can only ever
be an underestimate, as the true scale of the carbon footprint that could be attributed to crime in
England and Wales remains uncertain. Nonetheless, the study goes some way towards informing
policy-makers, academia and the wider public about the carbon cost of crime and potential areas
where reductions could be made. This remains the most important impact the project has had and it is
hoped that further work in this area will continue in the future.
List of publications and conferences
Journal Publications
Skudder, H., Druckman, A., Cole, J., McInnes, A., Brunton-Smith, I. and Ansaloni, G. (2016)
'Addressing the carbon-crime blind spot: A carbon footprint approach', Journal of Industrial
Ecology, doi: 10.1111/jiec.12457.
Skudder, H., Brunton-Smith, I.R., Druckman, A., Cole, J. and McInnes, A. (2017a) 'The falling
carbon footprint of acquisitive and violent offences', British Journal of Criminology, doi:
10.1093/bjc/azx009.
Skudder, H., Brunton-Smith, I.R., Tseloni, A., McInnes, A., Cole, J., Thompson, R. and Druckman,
A. (2017b) 'Can burglary prevention be low-carbon and effective? Investigating the
environmental performance of burglary prevention measures', Security Journal, doi:
10.1057/s41284-017-0091-4.
Conference presentations
ANZSOC, Hobart, Australia, November 2016. 29th Annual Australian and New Zealand Society of
Criminology Conference. Oral Presentation.
ECCA, Germany, June 2016. Environmental Criminology and Crime Analysis Symposium. Oral
Presentation.
Crime Survey Users Conference, London, UK. December 2015. Crime Survey Users Annual
Conference. Oral Presentation.
ECSEE, Brighton, UK, July 2014. European Conference on Sustainability, Energy and the
Environment. Oral Presentation.
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List of Contents
List of contents
Declaration ............................................................................................................................... i
Acknowledgements ................................................................................................................. ii
Abstract ..................................................................................................................................iii
Readers Guide ...................................................................................................................... iv
Executive Summary ................................................................................................................ v
Background.....................................................................................................................................v
Objectives ........................................................................................................................................v
Methods..........................................................................................................................................vi
Key Findings ................................................................................................................................ vii
Discussion and Conclusions ...........................................................................................................x
List of publications and conferences .......................................................................................... xii
Journal Publications .................................................................................................................. xii
Conference presentations........................................................................................................... xii
List of contents .....................................................................................................................xiii

List of figures ....................................................................................................................... xvi
List of tables ........................................................................................................................ xvii
Abbreviations ....................................................................................................................... xix
The Carbon Cost of Crime .................................................................................................... 1
1 Introduction ...................................................................................................................... 1
1.1 Context, aims and objectives ................................................................................................1
1.2 Research questions ................................................................................................................2
1.3 Outline ...................................................................................................................................3
2 Background ....................................................................................................................... 4
2.1 Why carbon? .........................................................................................................................4
2.2 What is meant by crime? ......................................................................................................5
2.3 Lifecycle Perspective .............................................................................................................6
2.4 Crime harm indexes ..............................................................................................................9
2.5 Connections between crime and the environment ............................................................ 10
2.5.1 Environmental crime ...................................................................................................... 10
2.5.2 Green criminology ......................................................................................................... 11
2.5.3 Viewing any type of crime as pollution .......................................................................... 12
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List of Contents
2.5.4 Weather and crime ......................................................................................................... 13

2.5.5 Crime and climate change nexus .................................................................................... 14
2.6 Why does more need to be done? ....................................................................................... 15
3 Carbon footprint of crime estimates ............................................................................. 17

3.1 Methodology ........................................................................................................................ 17
3.1.1 Previous approach .......................................................................................................... 17
3.1.2 Carbon footprinting ........................................................................................................ 18
3.1.3 EE-IOA Multipliers ........................................................................................................ 20
3.1.4 Final Demand ................................................................................................................. 21
3.1.5 Estimating the carbon footprint per offence ................................................................... 27
3.1.6 Estimating the total carbon footprint of crime in England and Wales ............................ 27
3.1.7 Assumptions and Limitations ......................................................................................... 29
3.2 Results .................................................................................................................................. 31
3.2.1 Carbon Footprint of Crime per incident ......................................................................... 31
3.2.2 Carbon Footprint of all Crime ........................................................................................ 33
3.2.3 Carbon footprint by source of emissions ........................................................................ 36
3.3 Discussion ............................................................................................................................ 38
3.4 Conclusions .......................................................................................................................... 43
4 Carbon footprint of crime changes over time ........................................................... 44

4.1 The crime drop .................................................................................................................... 45
4.2 Methodology ........................................................................................................................ 48
4.2.1 Data ................................................................................................................................ 49
4.2.2 Carbon footprinting crime over time .............................................................................. 50
4.3 Results .................................................................................................................................. 52
4.4 Discussion ............................................................................................................................ 61
4.4.1 Limitations ..................................................................................................................... 63
4.5 Conclusions .......................................................................................................................... 65
5 Carbon cost of crime prevention ................................................................................... 66

5.1 Crime prevention ................................................................................................................ 66
5.2 Methodology ........................................................................................................................ 72
5.2.1 Carbon footprinting crime prevention measures ............................................................. 72
5.2.2 Search strategy ............................................................................................................... 74
5.2.3 Eligibility criteria ........................................................................................................... 75
5.2.4 Number of security measures installed per household .................................................... 76
5.2.5 Establishing low-carbon and effective measures ............................................................ 78
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List of Contents
5.3 Results .................................................................................................................................. 80

5.3.1 Product footprints ........................................................................................................... 80
5.3.2 Household footprint and comparison with footprint of burglary .................................... 81
5.3.3 Carbon payback and crime prevention effectiveness ...................................................... 82
5.4 Discussion ............................................................................................................................ 87
5.4.1 The way forward ............................................................................................................ 88
5.4.2 Decreasing the carbon footprint of burglary prevention ................................................. 89
5.5 Conclusions .......................................................................................................................... 92
6 Discussion and Conclusions ........................................................................................... 94

6.1 Achieving objectives ............................................................................................................ 94
6.2 Key findings ......................................................................................................................... 95
6.3 Limitations........................................................................................................................... 97
6.4 Opportunities for further work.......................................................................................... 98
6.4.1 Private security industry impacts .................................................................................... 99
6.4.2 Emissions from fires due to arson ................................................................................ 101
6.4.3 Fear of crime impacts ................................................................................................... 103
6.4.4 Other types of offences ................................................................................................ 105
6.5 Dissemination of research ................................................................................................. 106
6.6 Impact and potential policy recommendations ............................................................... 107
6.7 Concluding remarks ......................................................................................................... 109
References............................................................................................................................ 111
Appendices .......................................................................................................................... 125
1 Published papers ........................................................................................................... 125
1.1 Addressing the carbon-crime blind spot: a carbon footprint approach........................ 125
1.2 The falling carbon footprint of acquisitive and violent crime ........................................ 140
1.3 Can burglary prevention be low-carbon and effective? ................................................. 161
2 Data appendix ............................................................................................................... 181

3 Research Paper Summaries ......................................................................................... 183
3.1 Paper 1 ............................................................................................................................... 183
3.2 Paper 2 ............................................................................................................................... 186
3.3 Paper 3 ............................................................................................................................... 189
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List of Figures
List of figures
Figure 2.1: Example of life cycle stages in a product system for Life Cycle Assessment (ISO
14040, 2006). ..................................................................................................................... 6
Figure 2.2: Crime lifecycle (Wootton and Davey, 2004) ...................................................... 7
Figure 2.3: Types of costs associated with crime, adapted from Brand and Price (2000). ...... 8
Figure 2.4: Feedback loop between climate change and crime .............................................. 16
Figure 3.1: Carbon footprint estimates of individual criminal offences................................. 31
Figure 3.2: Carbon footprint (tonnes CO2e and % of total) of recorded and unrecorded crime
by offence type. ................................................................................................................ 35
Figure 3.3: Carbon footprint (tonnes CO2e and % of total) of recorded and unrecorded crime
by source. ......................................................................................................................... 37
Figure 4.1: Carbon footprint of total crime (police-recorded and unrecorded) between 1995
and 2015. .......................................................................................................................... 52
Figure 4.2a: The carbon footprint of police-recorded crime, split by offence type. .............. 55
Figure 4.3a: The carbon footprint of police-recorded crime, split by expenditure category
source of emissions. ......................................................................................................... 59
Figure 5.1: Section of EPD results table example (Assa Abloy, 2015).................................. 73
Figure 5.2: Highest, lowest, inter-quartile range and average (median) carbon footprints of
different burglary prevention measures from environmental declarations. ..................... 81
Figure 5.3: Burglary prevention measures plotted by their effectiveness and carbon payback
ratio (median values only). .............................................................................................. 83
Figure 5.4: Combinations of burglary prevention measures plotted by their effectiveness and
carbon payback ratio (median only) ................................................................................ 84
Figure 6.1: Estimated carbon footprint and turnover of the private security industry in the
UK .................................................................................................................................. 100
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List of Tables
List of tables
Table 3.1 EE-IOA datasets considered for use in study. ........................................................ 20
Table 3.2: Monetised economic and social costs of crime per offence for 2011(Home Office,
2011a) .............................................................................................................................. 23
Table 3.3: Breakdown of the criminal justice system (CJS) costs of crime per offence for
2011(Home Office, 2011a) .............................................................................................. 24
Table 3.4: Offence mapping from recorded crime categories (Home Office, 2012) to
offences in the economic and social cost of crime estimates (Home Office, 2011a) ... 25
Table 3.5: Mapping economic and social cost of crime expenditure categories to SIC codes
(EE-IOA emissions factor categories) ............................................................................. 26
Table 3.6: Crime adjustment factors to estimate unrecorded crime from recorded crime
figures. Source: Home Office, 2011b. ............................................................................. 28
Table 3.7: Major assumptions and limitations of study methodology. .................................. 29
Table 3.8: Estimated carbon footprint per incident ................................................................ 32
Table 3.9: Summary of the carbon footprint of all crime, both recorded and unrecorded
totals, by offence type. ..................................................................................................... 34
Table 3.10: Estimate of the counterfactual footprint of a 5% drop in domestic burglary. ..... 42
Table 4.1: Offence category matching process ...................................................................... 50
Table 4.2: Year-on-year number of offences and carbon footprint estimates. ....................... 53
Table 4.3: Year-on-year carbon footprint estimates of police-recorded crime, split by offence
type. .................................................................................................................................. 56
Table 4.4: Year-on-year carbon footprint estimates of unrecorded crime, split by offence
type. .................................................................................................................................. 57
Table 4.5: Year-on-year carbon footprint estimates of police-recorded crime and unrecorded
crime, split by expenditure category source of emissions. .............................................. 60
Table 5.1: Criteria for environmental declarations inclusion in study ................................... 75
Table 5.2: Estimation of the average number of windows and doors per household in the UK.
.......................................................................................................................................... 76
Table 5.3: Estimation of the number of locks found on windows available to buy on popular
DIY websites in the UK. .................................................................................................. 77
Table 5.4: Number of environmental declarations included in study and associated carbon
footprints. ......................................................................................................................... 80
Page xvii
List of Tables
Table 5.5: Burglary prevention measures carbon footprint (min, max and median) per
household and carbon payback ratio ................................................................................ 82
Table 5.6: Full results of security measure(s) security protection factor (SPF), carbon
footprint (kg CO2e) and carbon payback ratio (burglary footprint over device footprint).
.......................................................................................................................................... 86
Table 6.1: Estimate of the carbon footprint due to fire incidents in England in 2015-16. ... 102
Table 6.2: Estimated carbon footprint of moving house in the UK. .................................... 104
Table A2.1: Environmental declarations included in study ................................................. 181
Page xviii
Abbreviations
Abbreviations
ABH Actual bodily harm
ABI Annual Business Inquiry
ABS Annual Business Survey
ALO Architectural Liaison Officer
B Burglar alarm
BCS British Crime Survey
BSI British Standards Institute
BSIA British Security Industry Association
C CCTV
CEBR Centre for Economics and Business Research
CENSA Centre for Sustainability Accounting
CJS Criminal justice system
CO2 Carbon dioxide
CO2e Carbon dioxide equivalent
CPDA Crime Prevention Design Advisor
CPTED Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design
CSEW Crime Survey for England and Wales
CVS Criminal Victimisation Survey
D Door locks
DCLG Department for Communities and Local Government
DECC Department of Energy and Climate Change
Defra Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
DETR Department for Environment, Transport and the Regions
DOCO Designing out crime officer
E External lighting
EE-IOA Environmentally-Extended Input-Output Analysis
EngD Engineering Doctorate
EPD Environmental Product Declaration
GDP Gross Domestic Product
GHG Greenhouse gas
GWP Global Warming Potential
HMIC Her Majestys Inspectorate of Constabulary
HO Home Office
I Internal lighting
Page xix
Abbreviations
IOM Integrated Offender Management

IPCC Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
ISO International Organization for Standardization
kgCO2e Kilograms carbon dioxide equivalent
LCA Life Cycle Assessment
LED Light emitting diode
MoJ Ministry of Justice
MRIO Multi-region Input-Output
NOAA National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
NTU Nottingham Trent University
OECD Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
ONS Office for National Statistics
PAS Publically Available Specification
PEP Product Environmental Profile
PPM Parts per million
PVC Polyvinyl chloride
QALY Quality-adjusted life year
RIBA Royal Institute of British Architects
RICS Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors
ROW Rest of the world
SBD Secured by Design
SIC Standard industrial code
SPF Security protection factor
tCO2e Tonnes carbon dioxide equivalent
UN United Nations
VAP Violence against the person
W Window locks
WIDE Window locks, internal lighting, door locks and external lighting
WIOD World input-output database
WRAP Waste and Resources Action Programme
Page xx
Chapter 1: Introduction
The Carbon Cost of Crime

1 Introduction
1.1 Context, aims and objectives
This EngD research project estimates the carbon emissions associated with different types of crime in
England and Wales and identifies low-carbon and demonstrably effective means of crime control. A
carbon footprint typically provides a measure of all greenhouse gas emissions caused by a person,
product, organisation or nation (Carbon Trust, 2015) and offers a broadly understood measurement
that can be grasped and placed into context easily (Weidema et al., 2008). The carbon footprint of
crime includes both the emissions associated with criminal events and the costs and benefits of crime
prevention solutions. By first quantifying the carbon footprint of criminal offences, the savings
achieved by preventing crime are then compared against the emissions associated with crime
prevention schemes or products. Additionally, the study explores whether a reduction in the level of
crime alongside a reduction of carbon emissions can be achieved, resulting in a win-win scenario.
Although this study focuses on crime in England and Wales as a case study, this can be applied
elsewhere around the world.
In the current political climate, the importance of issues relating to climate change and personal
security is critical. Austerity is shrinking police forces (HMIC, 2012), while police-recorded violent
crime is rising (ONS, 2017). Government departments are being forced to deliver more with less
(Hawkins et al., 2016) as they too shrink to save money. A global environmental challenge persists
as carbon dioxide concentrations pass the milestone 400 parts per million (ppm) (Betts et al., 2016).
The impacts of climate change have already been seen in the form of rising sea levels (NOAA,
2016a) and extreme weather (15 of the hottest 16 years have occurred since 2000 (NOAA, 2016b)).
Public concern for the environment is a topical issue and global climate change, in particular, has
been identified as one of the greatest challenges of our time (United Nations, 2016). Consideration of
environmental impacts, therefore, is becoming an increasingly important issue. It is, however, widely
accepted that to achieve a sustainable future, economic prosperity, a healthy environment and social
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justice (known as the three pillars of sustainability) must be pursued simultaneously to ensure well-
being and quality of life of present and future generations. When crime is considered, whilst the
social and economic impacts are well studied and understood, the environmental impacts are barely
acknowledged in current literature and are rarely considered by governments, practitioners, scholars
or the general public. These environmental costs can be considered wider or intangible costs, which
this research project explores.
Of course, the estimates of the carbon footprint of crime, as a proxy for environmental impacts,
provided by this study are not intended to inform or influence the behaviour of police or of criminals
themselves. Rather, the intention is to enable policy makers, as part of the policy appraisal process, to
assess the environmental impact of crime alongside the social and economic impacts already
considered. It is believed that the Home Office is the first UK Government department, or indeed the
first organisation in the world, to be considering the externalities of crime through this environmental
lens. While the methodology is applied to England and Wales, it can be applied to other countries.
1.2 Research questions

The core (and supplementary) research questions addressed throughout the project duration were:
aim to prevent?
Page 2
1.3 Outline
The remainder of this thesis proceeds as follows. First, Chapter 2 outlines existing research relating
to the connections between crime and the environment. The remaining chapters then address the core
research questions in turn:
Chapter 3 estimates the overall carbon footprint of crime in England and Wales (research
question 1). The results of this chapter are published in the Journal of Industrial Ecology
(Skudder et al., 2016).
Chapter 4 examines how crime is changing and how this has affected the carbon footprint of
crime over the last two decades (research question 2). The results of this chapter are
published in the British Journal of Criminology (Skudder et al., 2017a).
Chapter 5 analyses the carbon footprint of measures that aim to prevent burglary offences
(research question 3). The results of this chapter are published in the journal Security
(Skudder et al., 2017b).
Research questions 4 and 5 are discussed throughout these chapters to highlight any potential public
policy areas where these emissions can be assessed and feasibly reduced and form the basis of the
conclusions. Chapter 6 details the discussion and conclusions of the study, including key limitations,
potential areas for further research, policy recommendations and impact. Copies of the papers
published are included in Appendix 1 of this volume.
Page 3
Chapter 2: Background
2 Background
In this chapter the foundation for the study is outlined. A traditional literature review is not
appropriate for this project due to the limited number of studies which have addressed the carbon cost
of crime: only one previous study has attempted to estimate the carbon cost of crime (Pease, 2009)
and only a handful of studies have referred to this. This section therefore outlines the main themes of
the research by exploring existing literature that, although it does not explicitly refer to the carbon
cost of crime, relates to the foundation of the project and provides context. First, the reasons for the
focus on carbon costing are explained, followed by how crime is defined throughout the study. Next
the lifecycle perspective adopted is briefly explored to highlight how the carbon cost of crime can be
estimated and how this relates to existing estimates of the economic and social costs of crime.
Following on from this, existing literature is reviewed relating to the connections between crime and
sustainability, and more specifically crime and climate change. Throughout the literature review the
gaps in current knowledge are highlighted and a final section details why more needs to be done in
this area of research and how this thesis aims to address these.
2.1 Why carbon?

The inspiration for conducting innovative research into the connection between crime and climate
change originated from an earlier estimate of the carbon cost of crime by Professor Ken Pease
(2009). Peases study stated that crime is not carbon neutral (Pease, 2009: 16) and that it is
difficult to imagine a high crime society being a low-carbon society (Pease, 2009: 3), thereby
identifying the carbon-crime blind spot and suggesting that an association between crime and climate
change exists.
Emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs) resulting from human activities, carbon dioxide being the
most notable, are becoming an increasing problem. Levels of GHGs have recently reached the
highest in history, producing widespread impacts on human and natural systems (Pachauri et al.,
2014). Global efforts in response to this challenge such as the Paris Agreement, which brought
together nearly 200 countries, set out plans to reduce emissions (UNFCC, 2015). Since emissions
Page 4
have global consequences regardless of where they come from (Committee on Climate Change,
2016), limiting these impacts remains a complex issue that requires co-ordination across nations and
across research disciplines.
Human induced climate change, therefore, is such a fundamental issue that it should permeate all
policy areas, including crime prevention (Pease and Farrell, 2011). Carbon emissions associated with
crime represent an unknown entity, which may add an extra burden on the environment and
contribute towards global warming and climatic change. This study addresses this omission by
quantifying the carbon footprint of crime and exploring ways to reduce these emissions. It should be
noted that whilst carbon emissions are the most widely used proxy for wider environmental impacts,
it is understood that there are other environmental impacts of crime that are omitted from this study.
2.2 What is meant by crime?

Crime is not simply an infraction of criminal law, but is also a social issue that affects everybody.
Crime can be considered socially constructed as differing behaviours only become criminal as
deemed by society in specific places or at specific times. For example, the same behaviour may be
considered criminal in one society, but an act of honour in another society or in the same society at a
different time (Rosenfeld, 2009). Berger and Luckmann (1991) first discussed social construction
theory and linked social problems to criminal behaviour. Other studies have expanded upon this with
examples as varied as smacking children, smoking, the media and reality TV (Loseke and Best, 2003;
Schneider, 1985). However, this concept is very broad and so to be more specific than behaviour
socially constructed as crime, the types of notifiable (triable) criminal offences that are included in
this study, are those that could possibly be tried by a jury (Home Office, 2011b). This encompasses
all types of offences reported to the police such as shoplifting, theft, drug offences, burglary, robbery,
violent offences (assault), sexual offences (rape) and the most serious offences including murder
(homicide)2.
2
Where certain specific offences are excluded from analysis, this is stated clearly in the methodology or results sections.
Page 5
It has been shown that the effect of crime often ranks at the top of public concern when considering
life satisfaction, and a majority of the public report they sometimes worry about crime (Cohen,
2008). Victims of crime also report lower life satisfaction scores than those who have not been a
victim in the previous 12 months (relating to burglary) (Cohen, 2008). To consider both the effect of
crime on victims and the general public, for the purposes of this research project, crime includes not
only the illegal activities committed by offenders, but also the criminal justice system (CJS) response
and the impact of these offences on the victims, on society and the offender. This ensures that all
aspects across the lifecycle of criminal offences are covered.
2.3 Lifecycle Perspective

A lifecycle perspective is adopted throughout this research project. The term lifecycle can be used
in different ways and the nature of this interdisciplinary research project presented alternative
meanings depending on the context required. In this project, two meanings are used as a lifecycle
approach to estimating the carbon footprint is used and this is applied across the lifecycle of
criminal offences. In carbon footprint studies the term lifecycle is clearly defined and examples of the
stages included are shown in Figure 2.1. A products carbon footprint measures the GHG emissions
over its lifecycle stages with the aim of assessing its whole life impact (Carbon Trust, 2012).
Figure 2.1: Example of life cycle stages in a product system for Life Cycle Assessment (ISO 14040, 2006).
Page 6
In contrast, when referring to the lifecycle of a crime the term is not commonly used and only
loosely refers to the activities before, during and after the event. In order to measure the carbon cost
of crime, the emissions across the entire lifecycle of criminal offences needs to be considered.
Wootton and Davey (2004) illustrate (Figure 2.2) the multitude of complex aspects associated
throughout the lifecycle of any crime. These range from pre-crime issues such as the offenders
readiness to offend or the anticipation of risk to reward, to the post-crime issues including detection
of the crime, actions of the victim and offender and potential prosecution.
Figure 2.2: Crime lifecycle (Wootton and Davey, 2004)
As well as focusing on the criminal event therefore, in order to assess the carbon footprint, carbon
emissions produced by the manufacture of goods or provision of services before and after the crime
takes place also need to be taken into account. For example, in an incident of burglary, carbon
emissions result from not only preventative measures taken by potential victims (manufacture of
window and door locks and energy usage of burglar alarms or security lighting), but from the clean
up or consequences of the event post-crime (replacement of broken windows and stolen items,
provision of victim services and insurance claim services), and lastly the response to the event from
the CJS
Page 7
(police response including driving to victims households and carbon associated with police stations,
probation services or courts and prison buildings). The sum of the emissions, resulting from these
activities, amounts to the total carbon footprint attributable to the crime.
Taking this lifecycle perspective to crime is similar to that used to estimate the economic and social
costs of crime in the UK (Brand and Price, 2000). It is believed that Brand and Prices work was the
first comprehensive attempt worldwide to place a monetised value on the costs of crime to victims,
businesses, the taxpayer and society generally (Dubourg et al., 2005). These estimates play an
important part in helping the UK Government achieve the greatest impact on crime for the money
spent (Brand and Price, 2000). They are published in Her Majestys Treasury Green Book
Supplementary Guidance relating to crime, which values crime for policy and project appraisal
purposes. Policy appraisals relating to crime do not currently include assessment of environmental
impacts; therefore, the quantification of this aspect of crime will enable a more holistic, sustainable
approach regarding the valuation of crime.
Figure 2.3 details the different costs associated with crime. All costs associated with the different
aspects of crime, pre-offence, as a direct consequence and those relating to public services, are
accounted for, effectively detailing the lifecycle of criminal activities.
Defensive expenditure Police

Consequences
Insurance Administration Legal aid and non legal
and Premiums of crime aid defence
Fear of crime and Damaged/stolen property Probation Service
precautionary behaviour Lost output Prison Service
Government crime Emotional and physical Jury Service
prevention activity impacts
Offender Support
Health Services
Anticipation of Victim Support Services Criminal Justice
Crime System
Figure 2.3: Types of costs associated with crime, adapted from Brand and Price (2000).
Page 8
2.4 Crime harm indexes

In recent years there has been growing interest in addressing the harms resulting from crime in
addition to the volumes of crime that occurs. This recognises the broader impacts of crime, not just to
victims, offenders and associated families, but also society more generally. The Office for National
Statistics (ONS) in the UK has recently developed the Crime Severity Score (CSS) to provide a new
measure of crime, which ranks offences according to their seriousness (ONS, 2016b). This is
premised on the belief that not all crimes should be treated equally, with some crimes causing
disproportionate levels of harm. Other research in this area includes the Cambridge Crime Harm
Index (CHI) (Sherman et al., 2016), victim seriousness judgements (Ignatans and Pease, 2016) and
the sentencing gravity score (Ratcliffe, 2015). A ranked or weighted measurement of crime provides
several benefits including the ability to take account of the seriousness of harm of offences that occur
and also show and track the change in the severity of crime over time. For example, a weighted
measure shows whether more serious crimes are becoming more/less prevalent rather than the crime
trend being driven by large-volume, low-level incidents. A weighted measure may also allow police
resources to be best targeted to specific areas or to specific offences that cause the most harm as local
crime profiles can be produced (ONS, 2016b).
Whilst a harm-related measure of crime provides a weighted score of criminal offences that takes
account of their social impact (and elements of their economic cost), environmental harm caused by
criminal offences has been ignored in existing work. The reason why this has been neglected until
now are likely to be because of the externality of these types of harm. Environmental costs do not
have a single victim, as the impacts of carbon emissions (which include, for example, warmer
temperatures and flooding as a result of global warming), are largely felt by humanity as a whole
rather than by individuals (see Popovski and Mundy (2012) for a discussion on and definition of
climate change victimization). Also these environmental impacts may be felt years after the criminal
event, rather than the more immediate social and economic impacts of crime that are felt by victims
and the CJS.
Page 9
Any type of environmental impact, such as carbon emissions that result from criminal offences,
however, should be of no less importance than the social and economic impacts. The environment
plays a key role in supporting economic activity, both directly through provision of resources (water,
timber and minerals) and indirectly by services provided by ecosystems (carbon sequestration, water
purification and nutrient cycling) (Defra, 2010). There is also an increasing recognition of the need to
connect environmental harms with criminology (Hall, 2011), and in light of global targets to reduce
carbon emissions, there may be an opportunity to use a focus on the environmental harms of crime to
strengthen the justifications for crime prevention. This could have benefits not just for people and the
economy but also for the environment and, in theory, provide more sustainable decision making for
long-term prosperity.
2.5 Connections between crime and the environment

To address the limited existing research on the impacts of crime on the environment, this study
focuses on the carbon cost of crime. There are, however, several ways in which existing research has
drawn connections between crime and the environment. These include environmental criminal
offences (crimes against the environment), green criminology as a research discipline, the impact of
weather on crime patterns, how the physical environment and nature impact on criminal behaviour
and even suggestions that crime itself can be viewed as pollution. These are discussed in the
following sections.
2.5.1 Environmental crime
The term environmental crime is either seen as crime that directly harms the environment (UN,
2016), or crime that may be influenced by the physical environment (Brantingham and Brantingham,
1993). The first definition, as crime that harms the environment, includes offences such as trade in
illegal wildlife, unregulated or illegal fishing or logging, illegal timber trade or the illicit trade of
hazardous waste. These types of offences affect the natural environment in a variety of ways
including the quality of air, water and soil. They also threaten the survival of species and cause
uncontrollable disasters (UN, 2016). Environmental crimes are often perceived as victimless crimes
and as such carry low punishments. However, fly tipping, for example, is a common and growing
Page 10
problem in the UK, costing local councils and the Environment Agency millions per year to clear up
(Watson, 2005).
The majority of research concerned with the enforcement of environmental laws tends to focus on
large-scale environmental disasters, which are exceptional or extraordinary cases rather than routine
offences (Edwards et al., 2013). Incidents such as Bhopal, the worlds largest industrial disaster, or
the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, tend to be discussed often in environmental
crime analyses (Chunn et al., 2002; Gibbs et al., 2010; Shover and Routhe, 2005; Uhlmann, 2011).
The environmental impacts of more general types of crime are not often discussed or even mentioned
in this environmental crime discipline.
The second definition of environmental crime, which considers the connections between the physical
environment and criminality, assesses how prevention can be addressed through environmental
design. Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED) principles have evolved over the
years and are based on many early studies (Angel, 1968; Clarke and Mayhew, 1980; Gardiner, 1978;
Jacobs, 2010; Jeffery, 1971; Lynch, 1960; Newman, 1973; Poyner, 1983). The five essential
elements of crime prevention when related to the physical environment include surveillance, access,
territoriality, management and maintenance, and physical security (Armitage and Monchuk, 2009a).
The implementation of these principles and how they can potentially be useful to identifying
effective and low-carbon crime prevention solutions is explored in more detail in Chapter 5.1.
2.5.2 Green criminology
Green criminology as a discipline has struggled with exact definitions and scope (Lynch and
Stretsky, 2003). Green crimes, like other crimes, can be seen as social constructions influenced by
social locations and power relations in society. A green crime can be defined as an act that either:
may or may not violate existing rules and environmental regulations; has identifiable environmental
damage outcomes; and originates in human action (Lynch and Stretsky, 2003). Using this definition,
it could be inferred that all offences committed are in fact green if they have associated carbon
emissions, which have identifiable environmental damage and have originated from human action.
Page 11
Therefore, the existing treatment of green crimes can be seen as too narrow. Although not every
offence violates environmental regulations, it could be implied that the carbon emissions associated
with crime, if not reduced, are in breach of other regulations, such as the Climate Change Act (2008).
The realisation that green criminology could in fact be more mainstream and all criminal offences
could indeed be classed as green crime not only broadens the scope of green crime substantially to
include all crime, but also helps to promote the benefits of analysing environmental impacts as crime.
2.5.3 Viewing any type of crime as pollution
Several studies suggest a further connection between the study of crime and the environment; the
idea that there is a potential benefit of viewing any type of crime as a form of pollution (Eck and Eck,
2012; Farrell and Roman, 2006; Nagin, 2012). This argument states that responsibility for social
control would be shifted from policing agencies to those who produce criminal opportunities that
may generate crime, known as crime generators (Farrell and Roman, 2006). These crime polluters
vary widely across public and private sectors and range from vehicle manufacturers, car owners, car
park designers, architects and builders, product designers, credit card companies, internet service
providers, financial institutions, alcohol manufacturers retailers, and governments (both local and
central). These actors reap benefits (profits), whilst society bears the cost of crime and its impacts.
This is similar by polluters of carbon emissions where almost no cost is incurred by the originator,
but the planet as a whole bears the impacts. This idea of crime generators was only presented as a
point of discussion by the authors rather than a working proposal of how to implement such a policy
relating to crime prevention or control (Farrell and Roman, 2006). This suggests that, in its current
form, it is not yet developed enough to be implemented as part of policy or to help reduce crime.
Viewing crime as pollution could potentially ensure environmental controls in the same way that
polluters pay for other types of pollution to the environment (such as chemicals or wastes released
into the atmosphere or into waterways). This idea, however, has been challenged, as others argue that
environmental controls have failed in many areas and so to suggest that crime could be dealt with in
this way may be optimistic at best (Lynch et al., 2015). As part of this challenge, Lynch et al. (2015)
also indicated that the scientific definition of pollution does not apply to crime in the same way as
Page 12
other pollutants. They assert that for crime to be considered pollution, issues such as the background
level of crime must be defined to ascertain when the level of crime exceeds its natural state,
something that has not yet been adequately addressed. However, this theory that the impacts of
crime, in the form of carbon emissions, are effectively an act of polluting or environmental harm is
re-enforced by this study by discussing these impacts over time and exploring the potential routes of
reducing this pollution.
2.5.4 Weather and crime
Extreme weather events, including a decrease in cold temperature extremes and increase in warm
temperature extremes, and an increase in the number of heavy rain events have been linked to
human-induced climate change (Pachauri et al., 2014). The weather and its impact on crime,
therefore, is a further important aspect of the environment to consider. Hotter or more extreme
weather is thought to influence crime by leading to more antisocial behaviour and violent crime
because of increased tensions, and this has been shown in different regions (Agnew, 2012; Cohn,
1990; Horrocks and Menclova, 2011). This effect has also been shown to be linked to more calls to
service (for policing) and greater impacts on policing resources associated with hotter weather
(Brunsdon et al., 2009). Ranson (2014, p.274) estimated that future climatic projections will cause
an additional 22,000 murders, 180,000 cases of rape, 1.2 million aggravated assaults, 2.3 million
simple assaults, 260,000 robberies, 1.3 million burglaries, 2.2 million cases of larceny, and 580,000
cases of vehicle theft taking place in the US between 2010 and 2099. Although this connection
between weather and crime has been studied, the inverse of the relationship, whether crime has an
impact on the weather (or climate), which this study aims to explore, is yet to be developed fully.
Page 13
2.5.5 Crime and climate change nexus
Only recently has the nexus between crime and climate change been considered, with the work of
Pease (2009) estimating the carbon cost of crime and its implications. Carbon dioxide emissions in
particular, as the main source of global warming and climatic change, present an important measure
of the environmental impact of crime.
Pease (2009) calculated the first estimate of the carbon costs of crime and this is the only known
study of this type. The carbon footprint was estimated by translating the average monetary cost of
offences into a carbon value using a carbon multiplier, which designated a volume of CO 2 that arises
per pound spent in the economy. The use of these multipliers and other limitations led to Pease
acknowledging that a precise quantification was beyond the scope of his initial report and his
estimate was merely to demonstrate that crime is not carbon neutral and help ensure that this
important impact is taken into account and reduced where possible. Many of the limitations in
Peases original estimates are addressed in this study (see section 3.1.1). These include more recent
crime figures, updated monetised costs and, importantly, use of more detailed and accurate carbon
emissions factors in order to provide a more robust footprinting methodology.
There are several connections between crime prevention and climate change mitigation (to contribute
towards sustainable development). Firstly, the United Nations (UN) recognises that elements of
public safety, security, rule of law and access to justice are crucial for international development and
advancement, including worldwide targets such as the Sustainable Development Goals (also known
as the Global Goals) (United Nations, 2015; United Nations, 2016). The most relevant of which
being Goal 16: the promotion of peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, the
provision of access to justice for all, and building effective, accountable institutions at all levels.
Academics also agree, with Armitage and Gamman (2009) asserting the need to reconcile security
with sustainability and emphasise areas of potential synergy in relation to building new homes.
Both security and sustainability are in essence preventative actions taken in anticipation of saving
larger costs in the future. Costs incurred by victims of crime or the CJS are similar to the costs that
Page 14
result from climate change, as both are, arguably, preventable. They are also similarly pushed to the
side-lines in times of economic hardship, with the exception of issues of national security, extremism
or critical national infrastructure. Neither security nor sustainability, however, is truly mainstreamed
in governments, businesses or considered by individuals: Ekblom (2002) highlights the obstacles
involved with transferring knowledge of crime prevention into mainstream policing practices, and
Kok and De Coninck (2007) provide directions for mainstreaming climate change mitigation and
adaptation as they note that so far this is hardly happening. Both fields therefore agree that prompt
action will save needless negative future impacts and costs: sea level rise and higher temperatures
associated with climatic change or the economic and social burdens associated with crime.
2.6 Why does more need to be done?

Existing carbon footprint studies range from those assessing the impact of products (Tukker and
Jansen, 2006; Wells et al., 2012; Ziegler et al., 2013), households (Druckman and Jackson, 2009;
Lenzen et al., 2006; Peters and Hertwich, 2006; Tukker et al., 2010; Wilson et al., 2013), companies
(Wiedmann et al., 2009), cities (Collins et al., 2006; Mohareb and Kennedy, 2012; Wiedmann et al.,
2015) and even nations (Davis and Caldeira, 2010; Hertwich and Peters, 2009; Li and Hewitt, 2008;
Munksgaard et al., 2005). Taking the need to achieve emissions reductions across every aspect of the
economy, this study broadens the approach to consider the carbon footprint of crime.
The importance of recognising these environmental impacts brings together two ideas. First, that
crime causes carbon emissions, which causes rising temperatures through global warming. And,
secondly, that these rising temperatures can be shown to increase the amount of crime that takes
place (Agnew, 2012; Cohn, 1990; Horrocks and Menclova, 2011; Ranson, 2014). This potentially
generates a loop of negative social and environmental impacts (Figure 2.4), which may need to be
disrupted. The presence of this feedback loop highlights the importance of studying the synergies
between crime and climate change (or its carbon footprint) in particular.
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Figure 2.4: Feedback loop between climate change and crime
Global warming/climate
change
Emissions as a result of crime

itself, and the way it is dealt Warmer weather
with
More violent crime or anti-

social behaviour
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Chapter 3: Carbon footprint of crime estimates
The text in Chapter 3 is predominantly from the published paper Addressing the carbon-crime blind spot: a carbon
footprint approach (Skudder et al., 2016) (See Appendix 1.1).
3 Carbon footprint of crime estimates

In this chapter, the overall carbon footprint of criminal offences is estimated, addressing the first core
and two supplementary research questions:
First, the methodology will be described in detail, followed by presentation of the results and
discussion of the implications of the findings.
3.1 Methodology
3.1.1 Previous approach
Pease calculated the first estimate of the carbon costs of crime in 2009 and this is the only known
study of this type. Pease considered the carbon costs of both recorded and estimates of unrecorded
crime and tentatively estimated a carbon footprint of over six million tonnes CO2e attributable to
crime in England and Wales (Pease, 2009). The carbon footprint was estimated by translating the
average monetary cost of offences into a carbon value using a carbon multiplier, which designated a
volume of CO2 that arises per pound spent in the economy.
Peases estimate, however, did not attempt to differentiate between the sources of carbon emissions
throughout the lifecycle of each criminal event. The same volume of carbon per spent was
allocated to policing costs, prison costs, insurance services, and the replacement of stolen goods. This
is clearly an oversimplification as the levels of emissions from these varying sources throughout the
lifecycle of a crime are likely to differ substantially. The emissions associated with keeping
offenders in prison are very different from those emitted from the manufacture of a product (which is
replaced if the original is stolen or damaged during a crime). Also, the sources are likely to differ
between different crime types, as items stolen during an incident of shoplifting are very different
from those when a car is stolen.
Page 17
To address these limitations, this study takes a lifecycle approach to estimate the carbon footprint of
crime. The ability to distinguish between varying sources of emissions and types of crime produces
more realistic and robust estimates of the carbon footprint. This approach is described in the
following sections.
3.1.2 Carbon footprinting
There are several methodologies used to assess the carbon footprint of an individual, a product or
service, an organisation or a country. The most well known approach to estimate the footprint of a
product or service is Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). LCA is a bottom-up, process based approach for
which extensive methodological guidance is available, such as the Publicly Available Specification
(PAS) 2050 or International Standard ISO 14040 (BSI, 2011; ISO 14040, 2006). A major strength of
LCA is its high specificity (Wiedmann and Barrett, 2011). As LCA relies on existing datasets of
materials and components it is well suited to assess the footprint of products (which are physical) in
particular.
The concept of carbon footprinting can also be applied at a higher-level scale to systems and
organisations such as households, communities, companies and nations (Wiedmann, 2009). In such
cases use of LCA is not pragmatic due to the wide scope required in assessing many products and
services simultaneously. For example assessment of the carbon footprint of crime must include goods
that are stolen and damaged as well as services such as insurance, health, legal, police and prisons.
For such complex systems Environmentally-Extended Input-Output Analysis (EE-IOA) is the
preferred methodology (Wiedmann and Barrett, 2011) and is therefore the methodology used in this
study.
EE-IOA is a top-down methodology, which, although it lacks the specificity of LCA, overcomes the
limitations of boundary cut-off problems found in LCA (Wiedmann, 2009; Wiedmann and Barrett,
2011). EE-IOA uses economy-wide modelling to estimate supply chain emissions (Wiedmann,
2009). It is based on economic Input-Output tables that detail all the flows of economic activity
between producers and consumers in a given region (usually a country) (ONS, 2012). These tables
Page 18
are used to calculate Gross Domestic Product (GDP) but an extension of this analysis can also be
used to estimate the undesirable by-products (environmental impacts) of the economic system
(Leontief, 1970). This footprinting methodology allows footprint estimates for each offence type to
be produced, distinguishing different types of spending associated with particular crimes and
allocating the most appropriate carbon multiplier to each spend category.
Emissions are classified as either direct or indirect (also known as embedded) emissions. The
emissions that arise as a result of, for example, from the burning of a building due to arson are known
as direct emissions. Emissions that arise throughout the supply chain of products or services
purchased by the police or criminal justice system (CJS) services are known as indirect or
embedded emissions. These arise as a result of the extraction of resources required to manufacture
products, energy used during manufacture, transportation and retail stages, as well as disposal at
end-of-life. Embedded emissions may occur anywhere in the world and should, in theory, be
included wherever they occur (Druckman and Jackson, 2009; Kanemoto et al., 2014; Lenzen et al.,
2012; Peters and Hertwich, 2008; Wiedmann et al., 2007). Emissions estimated using EE-IOA are
indirect only. The units for carbon footprints are commonly either tonnes of carbon dioxide (tCO 2)
or tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (tCO 2e). CO2 is the primary greenhouse gas emitted through
human activities, whereas CO2e is a measure used to express the impact of multiple greenhouse gases
(carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, etc.) in terms of the amount of CO2 that would create the
same amount of warming.
The basic equation for EE-IOA modelling is presented in Equation 1.
c = u (1 A) -1 y (1)
where c= GHG emissions (i.e. carbon footprint), u = a vector of GHG intensity coefficients, (1-A)-1
= Leontief Inverse matrix and y = a vector of final demand ( spent in each sector by final
consumers) (Leontief, 1970; Miller and Blair, 2009).
In order to operationalize this equation, two sets of data are required: EE-IOA derived multipliers (u
(I-A)-1), which detail the GHG emissions arising due to each monetary unit of expenditure of final
demand (Defra, 2012); and final demand (y) itself, which is represented by the (monetised)
Page 19
expenditure associated with crime in different sectors of the economy. These two sets of data are
described in the following sections.
3.1.3 EE-IOA Multipliers
EE-IOA derived multipliers provide a measure of indirect impacts per (monetary) unit of output by
industry (United Nations, 2013). In other words, they represent the amount of GHGs embodied per
of goods and services produced (Lenzen et al., 2004). They thus effectively act as conversion factors,
which can be viewed as translating the expenditure associated with crime into an equivalent carbon
footprint. Several datasets exist4 that include EE-IOA multipliers ready for use and thus eliminate the
need for full EE-IOA modelling.
The accuracy of an EE-IOA dataset has been shown to increase with the number of regions and also
the number of economic sectors included in the model. The more industry sectors in a model the
more robust the analysis will be, due to more interdependencies between sectors that have distinct
production technologies being considered (Lenzen, 2011; Wiedmann et al., 2007).
Several datasets were considered for use in the study, as detailed in Table 3.1.
Table 3.1 EE-IOA datasets considered for use in study.
Dataset Regions Number of industry Years available

sectors for UK
Defra3 - indirect emissions from 2 - UK and rest of the
106 2007-2011
the supply chain (CenSA) world (ROW)
EXIOPOL4 43 countries 129 2000
Eora MRIO database 5 187 countries worldwide 511 1990-2010
1995, 2000, 2005,
OECD-WTO TiVA initiative6 57 OECD countries 18
2008 and 2009
World Input-Output Database
40 countries worldwide 37 1995-2011
(WIOD) 7
3
Defra (Department for the Environment Food and Rural Affair) produces indirect emissions from the supply chain emission factors,
calculated by the Centre for Sustainability Accounting (CenSA) and are available to view at:
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/uks-carbon-footprint
4
Exiopol final product data available at: http://www.feem-project.net/exiopol/
5
Eora world multi-region input-output analysis datasets available to download at: http://worldmrio.com/
6
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and World Trade Organisation (OECD-WTO) joint TiVA data are
available at: http://www.oecd.org/industry/ind/measuringtradeinvalue-addedanoecd-wtojointinitiative.htm
7
World Input-Output database available at: http://www.wiod.org/new_site/home.htm
Page 20
The dataset chosen for this study was produced by Defra (2014). It has only two regions (UK and rest
of the world) which results in a loss of detail provided by datasets with more regions, as imported
emissions coefficients used are only an average of all countries of the world instead of considering
the coefficients by country of origin. However, it was considered the most suitable as it provides an
appropriate level of detail for matching emissions factors to the crime expenditure dataset (final
demand) (106 sectors categorised by Standard Industrial Classification - SIC). Importantly, it also
enables estimates using final demand in purchaser prices (i.e. inclusive of taxes, subsidies, and
distributors margins) and thus negated the necessity of converting final demand to basic prices,
which can be highly problematic (Akers and Clifton-Fearnside, 2008; Druckman et al., 2008;
Lequiller et al., 2006). This dataset also provided the most up-to-date multipliers and two previous
studies carried out for Government policy users, assessing the carbon footprint of the NHS and the
footprint of all UK Central Government departments, also utilised this dataset for similar analysis
(NHS SDU, 2010; Wiedmann and Barrett, 2011).
The use of the Defra dataset highlights improvements on the previous tentative estimate of the carbon
costs of crime. Peases study (2009) used a single emission factor sourced from the International
Energy Agency, which estimated that around one kgCO 2e was emitted per spent in the UK
economy. This represents a very high carbon intensity per spent on goods and services. In contrast,
the most utilised emission factor in this study, public administration and defence, estimates that
only 0.27 kgCO2e is emitted per spent. The industrial sectors with emissions factors closer to one
kgCO2e per include the chemicals industry (Standard Industrial Code SIC 20c) and production of
wood and wood products (SIC 16) (Defra, 2014).
3.1.4 Final Demand
The Economic and Social Costs of Crime (monetised costs associated with specific criminal
offences5) (Brand and Price, 2000; Dubourg et al., 2005; Home Office, 2011a) are used for final
demand (y in Equation (1)). These costs of crime estimates are divided into three categories: those
in anticipation of crime (defensive expenditure and insurance); as a consequence of crime
Page 21
(damaged/stolen property, emotional and physical impacts, health services and victim services); and
lastly those in response to crime associated with the CJS (police, legal defence, probation, prison or
jury services) (Brand and Price, 2000). The methodology used for estimating these monetised costs
largely draw on various data from the security industry, the Department of Healths quality adjusted
life years (QALYs) and the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) (Brand and Price, 2000;
Dubourg et al., 2005; Home Office, 2011a). Importantly, these estimates include costs to society, the
taxpayer and the victims of crime; no benefits received by the offenders (such as stolen goods) are
accounted for and have a zero-rate applied as these are not deemed beneficial to society or
households. For full details of these monetised estimates see Tables 3.2 and 3.3 and for a full list of
offences included see Table 3.4.
Page 22
Table 3.2: Monetised economic and social costs of crime per offence for 2011(Home Office, 2011a)
Costs in Costs in
anticipation of Costs as a consequence of crime () response to 2011 prices
crime () crime ()
Administration
Total Costs ()
Direct Victims
justice system
Physical and
Expenditure
Lost Output
Recovered
Emotional
Impact on
Destroyed
Damaged/
Insurance
Defensive
Criminal
Property
Property
Property
Value of
Services
Services
Health
Victim
Stolen
Offence category
Homicide 176 278 1,097,050 - - - 2,550 547,205 934 174,965 1,823,157

Serious wounding 1 1 5,807 - - - 8 1,414 1,635 17,401 26,268
Other wounding 1 1 5,807 - - - 8 1,414 1,635 1,186 10,053
Sexual offences 2 3 29,013 - - - 21 5,374 1,111 4,001 39,525
Common assault - - 1,005 - - - 7 326 149 309 1,797
Robbery - 25 3,886 132 14 -23 19 1,226 586 3,155 9,022
Burglary in a dwelling 268 215 824 1,027 227 -27 13 78 - 1,379 4,003
Theft-not vehicle - 40 150 212 21 -16 1 4 - 365 778
Theft of vehicle 662 449 1,020 2,872 423 -657 1 57 - 241 5,069
Theft from vehicle 141 61 339 291 153 -13 1 24 - 61 1,057
Attempted vehicle theft 79 25 247 - 187 - 1 13 - 79 632
Criminal damage 16 44 602 - 257 - 2 7 - 153 1,081
Burglary-not in a
315 252 967 1,205 266 -32 16 91 - 1,619 4,700
dwelling
Commercial robbery - 27 4,135 141 15 -25 21 1,305 623 3,356 9,598
Commercial theft of -
1,338 907 2,061 5,803 856 2 115 - 488 10,243
vehicle 1,328
Commercial- theft from
170 73 409 351 184 -16 1 29 - 73 1,276
a vehicle
Shoplifting 40 - - 59 - - - - - 27 126
Commercial criminal
28 76 1,050 - 449 - 4 13 - 267 1,886
damage
Page 23
Table 3.3: Breakdown of the criminal justice system (CJS) costs of crime per offence for 2011(Home Office, 2011a)
Costs in response to crime () 2011 prices
CJS Over-head
Non Legal Aid
Compensation
Prison Service
Offence category
Police activity
Crown Court
Jury Service
Prosecution
Magistrates
Other CJS
Probation
Legal Aid
Criminal
Defence
Injuries
Service
Court
Total CJS
Costs
costs
Homicide 18,086 1,646 439 2,119 283 3,541 1,793 1,693 138,839 4,333 1,955 235 174,965
Serious wounding 7,177 654 175 841 113 1,405 711 423 3,313 1,720 776 93 17,401
Other wounding 500 46 12 58 7 98 50 72 163 120 55 6 1,186
Sexual offences 1,849 91 58 190 28 317 175 63 872 182 156 19 4,001
Common assault 144 13 4 17 2 28 15 19 16 34 16 2 309
Robbery 1,065 66 63 90 17 229 109 97 1,032 261 124 - 3,155
Burglary in a dwelling 699 17 17 23 5 41 29 82 375 38 53 - 1,379
Theft-not vehicle 232 8 6 5 1 24 8 34 24 4 17 - 365
Theft of vehicle 98 4 2 2 - 11 4 35 76 1 7 - 241
Theft from vehicle 38 1 1 1 - 4 1 7 5 - 2 - 61
Attempted vehicle theft 21 1 - - - 2 1 15 35 - 1 - 79
Criminal damage 92 1 4 2 - 7 4 4 7 24 6 - 153
Burglary-not in a dwelling 820 20 20 27 6 48 34 97 440 44 63 - 1,619
Commercial robbery 1,133 70 67 95 18 244 116 103 1,098 277 132 - 3,356
Commercial theft of vehicle 199 7 5 5 - 22 7 71 154 2 15 - 488
Commercial- theft from a
45 1 1 1 - 4 1 9 6 - 3 - 73
vehicle
Shoplifting - - - - - - - - - 25 - - 27
Commercial Commercial-
161 2 6 4 - 13 6 6 13 42 11 - 267
Criminal damage
Page 24
Table 3.4: Offence mapping from recorded crime categories (Home Office, 2012) to offences in the economic
and social cost of crime estimates (Home Office, 2011a)
Offence Categories used Offences included from police-recorded

Exclusions
in study crime statistics (ONS)
Homicide (collective term for murder,

Homicide
manslaughter and infanticide)
Violence against the person - with injury Homicide and
Serious Wounding
(total) ABH
Violence against the person - without injury
Other Wounding Assault
(total) and actual bodily harm (ABH)
Sexual Offences Sexual Offences (total)
Common Assault Assault without injury
Robbery Robbery of personal property
Burglary in a Dwelling Burglary in a dwelling (total)
Theft - Not Vehicle Other theft (total) Shoplifting
Theft or unauthorised taking of vehicle and
Theft of Vehicle
Aggravated vehicle taking
Theft From Vehicle Theft from a vehicle
Attempted Vehicle Theft Interfering with a vehicle
Criminal Damage Criminal damage (total)
Burglary - Not in a
Burglary not in a dwelling (total)
Dwelling
Commercial - Robbery Robbery of business property
Commercial - Theft of
CVS estimate*
Vehicle
Commercial - Theft From
CVS estimate*
Vehicle
Shoplifting Shoplifting
Commercial - Criminal Criminal damage to buildings other than a
Damage dwelling
Offences not included in

estimate
Fraud and Forgery (total)
Drug offences (total)
Other miscellaneous
offences (total)
* Commercial Victimisation Survey (CVS) 2012, best estimate available. The CVS represents 4 industrial sectors (manufacturing, retail, transportation and
accommodation) and details crime recorded by businesses for the year 2011/12 (See Table T.1 - Home Office, 2013).
In order to estimate carbon emissions, a mapping process to convert the monetised costs of crime
categories (insurance, police activity, victim services etc.) into Standard Industrial Classification
(SIC) sectors, as found in the EE-IOA dataset, was performed. For example the insurance
administration expenditure sector is mapped to the insurance, reinsurance and pension funding
sector (SIC code 65) and police activity is mapped to the public administration and defence sector
(SIC code 84). For full details of this mapping process see Table 3.5.
Page 25
Table 3.5: Mapping economic and social cost of crime expenditure categories to SIC codes (EE-IOA
emissions factor categories)
Expenditure Category
Property damaged
Emotional Impact
Magistrates Court
Value of Property
Probation Service
Criminal Injuries
Victim Services
Other CJS costs

Health Services
Administration
Police Activity
Non Legal Aid
Prison Service
CJS Overhead
Crown Court
Physical and
or destroyed
Jury Service
Expenditure
Lost Output
Prosecution
Recovered
Defensive
Legal Aid
Insurance
Property
Defence
Stolen
comp.
Homicide
Serious
Wounding
Other Wounding
Sexual
Offences
Common
Assault
Robbery
Burglary in a
Dwelling
Theft - Not
Vehicle
Theft of
Vehicle
Theft From
Vehicle
Attempted
N/A
N/A
N/A
N/A
Vehicle Theft
Criminal
Damage
Burglary -
Not in a
Dwelling
Commercial -
Robbery
Commercial -
Theft of
Vehicle
Commercial -
Theft From
Vehicle
Commercial -
Attempted
Vehicle Theft
Shoplifting
Commercial -
Criminal
Damage
Multipliers key and justification

Supply Chain
SIC
Colour Brief description Emissions Factor Justification of selection
code
2011 (kg CO2-eq / )*
Includes consumer electronics which defensive products (immobilizers, CCTV,
Computer, electronic and
26 0.41 burglary alarms etc. are likely to be, as well as those products that are likely to
optical products
be stolen (laptops, mobile phones)
Security and investigation Defensive spending associated with personal offences (violent crimes) is more
80 0.24
services likely to be linked to security services rather than electronic products
Insurance, reinsurance and Includes life and non life insurance taken out in anticipation of personal and
65 0.18
pension funding services property-related crimes.
Motor vehicles, trailers Includes manufacture of the vehicle, parts and electronic equipment within the
29 0.62
and semi-trailers vehicle to replace stolen/damaged vehicles and their parts
Services to buildings and Includes specialised cleaning service and landscape services which could be
81 0.25
landscape required following criminal damage
87- Victim support includes counselling, peer support and information provision, a
Social Care services 0.29
88 similar service to those of social care.
86 Human health services 0.25 Includes hospital activities which are most likely to be used if a crime occurs
Public administration and Includes justice and judicial activities, public order and safety and general
84 0.27
defence services public administration.
Solicitors, barristers and other legal services used for legal aid and non legal
69 Legal services 0.10
aid defence
Includes hotels and similar short stay accommodation, which is similar in
55 Accommodation services 0.45
nature to prisons
N/A = not applicable
*Source: Defra, Indirect emissions from the supply chain, 2014
Page 26
3.1.5 Estimating the carbon footprint per offence
The carbon footprint per offence is estimated by multiplying the appropriate SIC sector EE-IOA
multiplier [u(1 A)-1] by each element of expenditure final demand [y] in that sector. For example,
the monetised cost of the health service aspect of a single homicide is 934 (Table 3.2). Multiplying
this by the appropriate multiplier (SIC code 86: human health services) of 0.25 kg CO2e / (Table
3.5), yields a footprint of the carbon emissions which result from this spending in the health services,
due to this single criminal offence, of just over 234kg CO 2e. Detailed carbon footprints per offence
thus estimated enable identification of the most carbon costly crime overall and which aspects of
these crimes result in the highest emissions.
3.1.6 Estimating the total carbon footprint of crime in England and Wales
Once a footprint per offence has been estimated, a total carbon footprint of crime can be established
by scaling up these footprints by the number of offences that occur in a given year. Crime statistics
are found in the Crime in England and Wales statistical bulletins, published by the UKs Office of
National Statistics (ONS). These include both police-recorded crime and the results from the Crime
Survey England and Wales (CSEW), a household based victimisation survey (ONS, 2013b). For
commercial offences not included in these bulletins, including commercial - theft of a vehicle and
commercial - theft from a vehicle, estimates from the Commercial Victimisation Survey (CVS)
(Home Office, 2013) are used.
The true number of total offences which occurs is not known with certainty, as both police-recorded
crime and CSEW estimates exclude some forms of crime (ONS, 2016a). Most of the available
statistics refer only to those that result in a court conviction or other formal penalty (Maguire, 2007).
In this study, police-recorded crime figures7 are first used to estimate the total carbon footprint of
recorded crime, and then an estimate of unrecorded crime is made.
To include unrecorded crime in the carbon footprint, adjustment factors 8 from the Home Office
Integrated Offender Management (IOM) toolkit are used. This enables grossing up of recorded crime
figures to a total crime volume estimate (Home Office, 2011a; Home Office & Ministry of Justice,
2011). The adjustment factors detailed in Table 3.6 effectively represent the ratio between the
Page 27
estimated total number of offences (from the CSEW) to the number of comparable recorded offences
(police figures) (Home Office, 2011a). For example, an adjustment factor of one (homicide) implies
that all incidents that occur are recorded, whereas an adjustment factor of over 16 (shoplifting)
implies that over 16 times more incidents of shoplifting occur than are actually recorded by the
police. The unrecorded crime carbon footprint excludes the expenditure associated with the CJS, as,
of course, these unrecorded incidents do not result in emissions arising from the police service,
courts, probation or prison sentences.
Table 3.6: Crime adjustment factors to estimate unrecorded crime from recorded crime figures. Source: Home
Office, 2011b.
Offence Crime adjustment factor

Homicide 1
Serious Wounding 1.5
Other Wounding 1.5
Sexual Offences 13.6
Common Assault 7.9
Robbery 4.8
Burglary in a Dwelling 2.8
Theft - Not Vehicle 4.6*
Theft of Vehicle 1.3
Theft From Vehicle 3.5
Attempted Vehicle Theft 2.3
Criminal Damage 5.9
Burglary - Not in a Dwelling 1.9
Commercial - Robbery 4.8
Commercial - Theft of Vehicle 1.3
Commercial - Theft From Vehicle 3.5
Shoplifting 16.1
Commercial - Criminal Damage 5.9
*theft from the person factor selected
Page 28
3.1.7 Assumptions and Limitations
As can be seen from Table 3.7, the assumptions and limitations of this study are many. The relevance
and impact of each assumption/limitation is discussed in the comments section of the table.
Table 3.7: Major assumptions and limitations of study methodology.

Process Assumption/Limitation Comments discussing the relevance and
impact
Use of EE-IOA This study is subject to the standard limitations of EE-IOA. For Limitations outweighed by the benefits of this
multipliers example: methodology to estimate economy wide
The outputs and carbon emissions of each industrial sector footprinting on a national scale.
(whether in the UK or rest of the world) are assumed to be
directly proportional to its inputs.
Every industrial sector is assumed to be homogenous with regard
to its input requirements, the commodity it produces, and the
emissions from the firms within the sector.
Accumulating or depleting stocks are not accounted for.
Data are generally collected from surveys and are therefore
subject to the normal drawbacks of survey data (response rate,
sampling errors, missing/incomplete data and so on).
Data only include the formal economy and therefore goods sold on
the black market, for example, are not taken into account.
For more detailed explanations of the limitations of EE-IOA, see
(Hertwich, 2005; Lenzen, 2000; Miller and Blair, 2009; Wiedmann,
2009).
Choice of EE- Other datasets may estimate higher/lower footprint estimates per Justification of dataset choice detailed in EE-
IOA dataset offence depending on the EE-IOA source. IOA Multipliers section.
Distinction The emissions factors used take into account emissions relating to Due to the dataset chosen, this study is unable
between carbon products supplied for consumption in the UK and those imported to distinguish between emissions that arise
emissions that products that are used by UK industries for consumption in the UK. overseas and those that arise in the UK. Thus
arise in the UK It is not, however, possible to apportion emissions between those the amount of the footprint that is attributable
and those that based in the UK and those from the rest of the world, as results to other countries is not estimated in this study.
arise in the rest generated only provide an estimate of the total upstream emissions It is recommended that this be addressed in
of the world (Defra, 2014). future studies.
Use of monetized Only those offences included in these estimates can subsequently The Green Book guidance estimates are used
costs of crime provide a carbon footprint estimate. Offences such as fraud, online on a regular basis for project and policy
estimates as final (cyber) crime and international crimes are omitted. appraisal in the Home Office and represent the
demand. best available data relating to the monetised
Estimates based cost of criminal offences.
on multiple Further analysis into the carbon impact of other
sources including offences not included here will be addressed in
the British Crime future studies.
Survey (BCS)
and Department
of Environment,
Transport and the
Regions (DETR)
quality adjusted
life years.
Expenditure Four expenditure categories are omitted from the carbon footprint Lost output (victims taking time off work due
categories calculations due to ambiguities over the extent that they produce to crime) could be said to reduce emissions
excluded from carbon emissions; physical and emotional impact on direct victims, during working hours (commuting for
study lost output, criminal justice system (CJS) overheads and criminal example), but energy consuming behavior of
injuries compensation. those not working may offset this. Likewise,
the valuation technique used to estimate the
physical and emotional costs of crime using
QALYs is ambiguous as to whether this impact
produces or reduces emissions (Pease, 2009)
(Pease 2009). Similarly, CJS overheads and
criminal injuries compensation (salaries or
pay-outs as result of injury) are ambiguous as
to whether these expenditures result in carbon
emissions and so they are omitted from the
estimates.
Mapping of Some subjectivity required*. Exploratory sensitivity analysis was performed
expenditure Each expenditure category is only mapped to one SIC code. to investigate the effects of this subjective
categories to SIC process**.
codes Process and justification of choices detailed in Table 3.5.
When selecting industrial sectors, partial
Page 29
Process Assumption/Limitation Comments discussing the relevance and

impact
allocation of multiple sectors is also possible,
but beyond the scope of these estimates.
Possibility to improve accuracy in future
estimates by supplementing with primary data
where available (for example energy/fuel use
in prisons or police buildings).
Year of data Emissions relate to the year 2011 as a result of these being the most Future revisions can easily be carried out for
recent supply chain emission factors (multipliers) available. updated monetised costs of crime figures,
The recorded crime statistics used relate to the financial year 2011/12 recorded crime statistics, unrecorded estimates
(April 2011 March 2012) to reflect the year of the Defra and supply chain emission factors.
multipliers.
Data relating to Although the EE-IOA multipliers represent the whole of the UK, all A dataset of EE-IOA multipliers relating only
region of England other datasets, including recorded crime data and cost of crime to England and Wales is not currently available
and Wales estimates, relate to England and Wales only. and it is assumed that UK estimates are a
sufficiently representative average of England
and Wales.
Unrecorded crime The assumption when the emissions factors are applied to these The true number of crimes that go unrecorded
estimates using unrecorded offences is that the average cost of these unrecorded or unreported by the police is an unknown
adjustment offences is the same as those that are recorded, minus the costs entity and these simply represent the best
factors in the associated with the CJS. estimates available.
Integrated Any updates to these adjustment factors can be
Offender integrated into future estimations of the carbon
Management footprint of crime.
(IOM) toolkit.
A lower overall reliability of the estimate of
total number of crimes is acknowledged in
return for greater completeness of the cost of
crime estimates (Dubourg et al., 2005).
Direct emissions The direct emissions from fire associated with a case of arson, for Although indirect (embedded) emissions
omitted from example, of which there were 27,218 incidents*** recorded in the associated with replacing any damaged
estimates year 2011/12 (Home Office 2012), are not currently included in the property are included, the direct emissions
estimates. from burning property and vegetation are not.
Direct transportation emissions, from the burning of fuel in vehicle These direct emissions (arson and travel) are
engines associated with crimes being carried out or dealt with are not outside the scope of this study and are likely to
currently considered. Even though offenders tend not to travel be the subject of future work.
particularly far, distances travelled to commit crimes can vary and
have been seen to have increased steadily since World War II
decades (Wiles and Costello, 2000).
Other emissions Emissions that result from moving house may be as large as those A detailed estimate of emissions from moving
that could be from other sources. Security is considered one of the main reasons home or those from premature refurbishment
associated with why people move home and is shown by the strong relationship and regeneration due to crime is not currently
crime are between high crime rates and tendency for people to move (Dugan, available and is beyond the scope of this study
omitted from 1999). Pease (2009) considered these emissions and made a tentative
estimates estimate of around 5.6 tCO2 emissions attributable per house move.
He argued that if only 1 million of house moves in the UK were due
to high crime rates this would double the emissions from all other
crime that occurs. Armitage and Monchuk (2009) go on to suggest
that poorly designed areas which require premature refurbishment
and regeneration, along with additional costs derived from moving
home from crime-challenged areas, are reflected with an increased
carbon footprint.
* Expenditure associated with prisons, for example, could have been mapped to public administration and defence, as an alternative to the
chosen accommodation services sector. Mapping this onto accommodation services involves many assumptions, one of which is that the
energy behaviours of prison residents are akin to that of people on holiday. As shown by (Barr et al., 2010), while individuals may be
relatively comfortable carrying out environmentally friendly behaviours in and around their home, they can find carrying out such
behaviours more problematic in a tourism context. Thus, this assumption may cause an overestimate of emissions.
** For example, police expenditure is re-allocated from public administration and defence to security and investigation services. The
results showed a variation of impacts for the different offences. The carbon footprint was found to be 7% less for robbery offences, but 5%
more for serious wounding offences. Overall the total carbon footprint of crime would be 2% lower as a result.
*** Arson endangering life and arson not endangering life.
The estimates produced utilizing this detailed methodology are considered to be a good first step to
enable the carbon footprint of crime to be quantified. In the next section, the results are presented,
followed by discussion of the potential applications of the estimates to inform policymaking.
Page 30
3.2 Results
In this section estimates of the carbon footprint of individual crimes are presented, followed by the
footprint of all criminal offences (recorded and unrecorded) in England and Wales. From these
estimates sources of high emissions are identified, including the most carbon costly offence.
3.2.1 Carbon Footprint of Crime per incident
Figure 3.1 shows the total carbon footprint per incident of different types of crime. A detailed
breakdown is given in Table 3.8.
CO2 Cost per crime 2011 (kg)

71.2
Criminal Justice System
6
Carbon Footprint (tonnes CO2e)
5.1 Consequences of Crime

5
4.2 Anticipation of Crime
4
3
2.2
2
1.4 1.3 1.2
1.1 1.1
1 0.7
0.3 0.3 0.2 0.2
0.1 0.1 0.1 0.0
-
Figure 3.1: Carbon footprint estimates of individual criminal offences.

*Attempted Vehicle Theft includes commercial and domestic offences
Page 31
Table 3.8: Estimated carbon footprint per incident
Carbon footprint per incident (kg CO2e)

Anticipation of
Consequences of crime Criminal justice system Total
Crime
Non legal aid defence

Property Recovered
Property damaged /
Magistrates court
Probation service
Other CJS costs

Victim Services
Property Stolen
Heath Services
Administration
Police activity
Prison service
Crown court
Expenditure
Jury service
Prosecution
Offence
Defensive
Insurance
destroyed
Legal aid
Homicide 42 50 - - - 457 233 4,850 441 118 568 76 340 172 454 62,208 1,162 71,172
Serious Wounding 0 0 - - - 2 407 1,925 175 47 225 30 135 68 114 1,484 461 5,075
Other Wounding 0 0 - - - 2 407 134 12 3 16 2 9 5 19 73 32 715
Sexual Offences 0 1 - - - 4 277 496 24 16 51 7 30 17 17 391 49 1,380
Common Assault - - - - - 1 37 39 4 1 5 1 3 1 5 7 9 112
Robbery - 5 59 6 -10 3 146 286 18 17 24 5 22 10 26 463 70 1,149
Burglary in a Dwelling 110 38 458 101 -12 2 - 187 5 5 6 1 4 3 22 168 10 1,110
Theft - Not Vehicle - 7 95 9 -7 0 - 62 2 2 1 0 2 1 9 11 1 196
Theft of Vehicle 272 80 1,773 261 -406 0 - 26 1 1 1 - 1 0 9 34 0 2,055
Theft From Vehicle 58 11 130 68 -6 0 - 10 0 0 0 - 0 0 2 2 - 277
Attempted Vehicle Theft 32 5 - 83 - 0 - 6 0 - - - 0 0 4 16 - 146
Criminal Damage 4 8 - 96 - 0 - 25 0 1 1 - 1 0 1 3 7 147
Burglary
129 45 538 119 -14 3 - 220 5 5 7 2 5 3 26 197 12 1,303
Not in a Dwelling
Commercial Robbery - 5 63 7 -11 4 155 304 19 18 26 5 23 11 28 492 74 1,222
Commercial-
550 162 3,582 528 -820 0 - 53 2 1 1 - 2 1 19 69 1 4,152
Theft of Vehicle
Commercial
70 13 157 82 -7 0 - 12 0 0 0 - 0 0 2 3 - 334
Theft From Vehicle
Shoplifting 16 - 26 - - - - - - - - - - - - - 7 49
Commercial - Criminal Damage 6 14 - 110 - 1 - 43 1 2 1 - 1 1 2 6 11 198
0 denotes value <1, -denotes no value
Page 32
The crime/offence that results in the highest estimated carbon footprint is homicide at around 71
tCO2e per incident and is considerably larger than any other. This is mostly due to the carbon
emissions resulting from a long prison sentence and higher policing costs compared to other
offences. Serious wounding is the next prominent carbon footprint per incident at around five tCO2e
emitted per offence. Robbery and burglary both result in emissions of around one tCO2e per incident
and several offences such as common assault, shoplifting and criminal damage have a much smaller
footprint under 0.1 tCO2e per incident.
For personal crimes, including homicide, wounding and sexual offences, the carbon emissions
associated with the expenditure in anticipation of crime are estimated as the smallest proportion of
the total carbon footprint, and the CJS emissions appear as the largest source. Property and vehicle
offences, including burglary, vehicle theft and shoplifting have a larger anticipation of crime carbon
footprint due to the emissions resulting from defensive expenditure and insurance. These offences
have much smaller CJS footprints but a higher amount of emissions from the consequences of crime.
This is likely to be due to the high value of items stolen or damaged, such as the emissions embedded
in vehicles and their spare parts and the need for their maintenance or replacement following these
incidents. Robbery, which includes an element of violence, has a large proportion of emissions
associated with the consequences of crime due to emissions related to the health service.
3.2.2 Carbon Footprint of all Crime
To build upon the per-incident footprints the carbon footprint of all crime is further investigated by
taking the number of offences into account. Scaling up the estimate by the number of offences that
occurs is essential to emphasize the extent to which individual offences contribute to this total carbon
footprint.
The carbon footprint of all (recorded and unrecorded) crime is estimated to be just over four million
tCO2e for the year 2011 in England and Wales (see Table 3.9 for detailed break down). This carbon
footprint results from around 3.5 million offences recorded by the police in 2011, responsible for just
less than two million tCO2e emissions. The estimated additional 15 million offences that went
unrecorded account for a further two million tCO 2e, effectively doubling the footprint estimate. In
Page 33
order to investigate the nature of this footprint and how to reduce this in the future, the results are
firstly analysed by offence type and secondly by source.
Table 3.9: Summary of the carbon footprint of all crime, both recorded and unrecorded totals, by offence type.
Carbon Footprint tonnes CO2e, 2011 (number of offences 2011/12)

Offence category
Police-recorded
Unrecorded crime - estimated Total Crime
crime
Homicide 39,299 (550) - (0) 39,299
Serious Wounding 186,173 (36,679) 7,527 (18,340) 193,700
Other Wounding 374,362 (522,773) 107,283 (261,387) 481,645
Sexual Offences 74,176 (53,665) 192,127 (676,179) 266,303
Common Assault 22,929 (202,513) 54,900 (1,397,340) 77,829
Robbery 78,187 (67,920) 54,561 (258,096) 132,748
Burglary in a Dwelling 272,552 (245,317) 309,159 (441,571) 581,711
Theft - Not Vehicle 156,377 (796,795) 299,721 (2,868,462) 456,098
Theft of Vehicle 189,152 (92,057) 27,617 (27,617) 243,854
Theft From Vehicle 83,183 (300,377) 196,202 (750,943) 279,385
Attempted Vehicle Theft* 3,666 (25,010) 3,924 (32,513) 7,590
Criminal Damage 82,805 (563,892) 299,455 (2,763,071) 382,261
Burglary - Not in a Dwelling 333,541 (255,736) 798,718 (230,162) 521,872
Commercial - Robbery 8,291 (6,770) 1,370 (25,726) 14,002
Commercial - Theft of Vehicle 29,068 (7,000*) 8,406 (2,100) 37,474
Commercial-Theft From
19,719 (59,000*) 46,511 (147,500) 66,231
Vehicle
Shoplifting 15,250 (308,322) 199,063 (4,655,662) 214,313
Commercial - Criminal
13,376 (67,329) 43,395 (4,329,912) 56,771
Damage
TOTAL 1,979,831 (3,611,705) 2,065,859 (14,886,579) 4,045,690
*best estimate available from commercial victimisation survey.
Number of offences (police-recorded or estimated unrecorded) included in parentheses.
To highlight those offences that contribute the most carbon, Figure 3.2 shows the footprint of all
crime split by offence type, including both recorded and unrecorded crime. The offences resulting in
the highest overall carbon emissions are burglary (both in a dwelling and not in a dwelling), which
combined account for nearly 30% of the total footprint (580,000 tCO 2e). Other wounding (which
includes actual bodily harm - ABH), and theft also account for a large proportion of the overall
footprint at around 11% each. These offences with the largest contributions may help inform policy
makers of where the greatest impact in terms of emissions can be found and where there might be the
potential for largest reductions. Despite homicide having such a large footprint per incident (around
71 tCO2e), this is offset by the relatively low number of offences occurring each year, meaning it
contributes only 1% to the total carbon footprint of crime.
Page 34
600,000
Unrecorded Recorded 14%
% of Total Carbon Footrpint of Crime

500,000 % of total
12%
400,000 10%
8%
300,000
6%
200,000
4%
100,000
2%
- 0%
Figure 3.2: Carbon footprint (tonnes CO2e and % of total) of recorded and unrecorded crime by offence type.
*Attempted Vehicle Theft includes commercial and domestic offences
Figure 3.2 also shows the effect of unrecorded offences and how these increase the total footprint for
each offence. This highlights that even offences that are not formally recorded by the police still
result in environmental impacts, in the form of carbon emissions, and to overlook these unrecorded
incidents would underestimate the scale of this impact. For example, theft, criminal damage and
sexual offences contain large proportions of emissions resulting from unrecorded incidents. For
sexual offences this is due to a known degree of underreporting of these incidents (and therefore the
number of estimated unrecorded offences is higher) (ONS 2013b).
Since there is a varied distribution of the number of offences that go unrecorded (by type), the
overall carbon intensity9 established in the study is 0.55 tCO2e per offence for recorded incidents and
0.14 tCO2e /offence for incidents that go unrecorded. However, this is not to suggest that all
unrecorded offences are not as carbon-intensive as recorded offences in reality. Neither does this
Page 35
suggest that incidents should not be recorded in order to reduce this overall footprint. The footprints
of unrecorded offences do not result in emissions arising from the CJS and this is likely to have
resulted in the lower overall intensity. It is also worth noting that offences with higher individual
footprints, such as homicide, are those that are more likely to be recorded, as they are more serious.
Less serious offences such as shoplifting, with a high number that go unrecorded, have a smaller
individual footprint and contribute towards the smaller carbon intensity of unrecorded offences.
3.2.3 Carbon footprint by source of emissions
Finally, in order to highlight which aspect (expenditure category) of these offences contributes the
most emissions; the footprint of all crime is broken down in Figure 3.3 by the source of emissions. It
was found that the collective sources of emission associated with the consequences of crime
(property stolen or damaged and health services) are around 67% of all emissions. Those associated
with the CJS (police, prisons, probation and legal defence) are around 21% and the smallest
proportion is attributed to those actions in anticipation of crime (defensive expenditure and insurance
administration) at 12%.
If unrecorded offences are omitted from the footprint (i.e. only recorded offences included), it is
worth noting that the distribution of these emissions is transformed. Activities in anticipation of
crime account for 9%, consequences of crime, 49%, and those from the CJS, 43%. This highlights
the larger proportion that the CJS represents when recorded offences are considered in isolation from
the estimated unrecorded offences.
Page 36
1,600,000 40%
Anticipation Consequences Criminal Justice System
1,400,000 of crime 35%
% of Total Carbon Footprint of Crime

1,200,000 30%
1,000,000 25%
800,000 Unrecorded 20%

Recorded
600,000 15%
% of total
400,000 10%
200,000 5%
0 0%
-200,000 -5%
Figure 3.3: Carbon footprint (tonnes CO2e and % of total) of recorded and unrecorded crime by source.
For property-related offences (burglary, theft or shoplifting) any property recovered, usually
following police investigations, produces a negative carbon value, similar to the negative monetised
cost. This represents a saving of emissions, as items will not need to be repaired or replaced.
The value of property stolen represents the largest source of emissions at just under 1.5 million
tCO2e (37% of the total), when both recorded and unrecorded incidents are taken into account,
followed by the emissions associated with Health Services (16% of total) and those from property
being damaged or destroyed (15%). Police activity and the prison service emissions also stand out as
large proportions accounting for 9% and 7% of the total respectively. For public services such as
these it is helpful to present the carbon footprint attributed to crime per day, as these are 24 hour, 365
days a year services. The policing proportion of the footprint, for example, equates to just over 1,000
tCO2e per day. Prisons produce slightly less, at just below 800 tCO2e per day and the largest is the
Page 37
health service, with nearly 1,800 tCO2e per day related to crime. These areas are highlighted as
sources of emissions that policy makers may consider have the greatest opportunities for further
investigation and possible reduction in the future. Ways to reduce the emissions intensities of these
services are varied and require assessment on a case-by-case basis, taking into account running and
capital costs in monetary and carbon terms. For example, to improve the energy efficiency of a
prison, hospital or police building, existing facilities could be retrofitted with low-carbon measures
or, alternatively, the buildings could be demolished and rebuilt to modern energy-efficiency
standards.
3.3 Discussion
This first part of the research project has provided a detailed estimate of the gross carbon footprint of
criminal offences in England and Wales. At over four million tCO2e for the year 2011, the money
currently spent on crime produces a footprint equivalent to the direct annual energy use of around
900,000 UK homes, at an average carbon footprint of 4.5 tCO2e per household (DECC 2013).
The replacement of stolen or damaged goods accounts for 51% of the total carbon footprint 8. This
reflects the assumptions made regarding property offences, where it was assumed that new items
replace property that is stolen or damaged. Because of the high volume of property offences and the
high value of items (albeit only an average monetised value) this results in the highest proportion of
emissions. It may equally be the case that these items are utilised by the criminal or sold on as second
hand goods. This would imply that the value is an overestimate as the reuse of these items may save
emissions elsewhere in the economy. As the fate of these items is unknown, estimating the scale of
this indirect impact is beyond the scope of this study. However, it is believed to be a reasonable
assumption that replacement of these items is likely following their theft and the carbon emissions
associated with this extra manufacture is thus highlighted as an area of significance.
Because the replacement of goods accounts for a large proportion of emissions, it is not surprising
that, when looked at by offence type, burglary is the offence that results in the largest proportion of
8
Includes the footprint of stolen, damaged or destroyed property, minus the footprint of property recovered.
Page 38
the total carbon footprint, at 30% (Figure 3.2). Burglary and property-related offences contrast with
personal crimes such as homicide which, although being the offence with the highest individual
footprint, at around 71 tCO2e per offence committed, only accounts for 1% of the total footprint due
to the small number of occurrences. Personal crimes require time and resource intensive
investigations and tend to lead to longer prison sentences than property offences, hence their higher
individual footprints. As these offences involve more emissions arising from the CJS, a focus on the
carbon efficiency of these public services may provide a path for reducing these emissions in the
future.
In order to inform policy-making it is helpful to align these estimates with that of the monetised
economic and social costs of crime. The carbon emissions which result from crime were, therefore,
apportioned into three categories: those in anticipation of crime, those as a consequence of crime, and
those due to the criminal justice system (Figure 3.3). When looked at this way, emissions that arise as
a consequence of crime account for over two thirds of the total footprint (67%), those from the
criminal justice system amount to around one fifth (21%) and noticeably smaller is the 12% of
emissions from actions in anticipation of crime (49%, 43% and 8% respectively when the estimated
unrecorded offences are excluded). This highlights that actions in anticipation of crime tend to result
in less carbon emissions, as they are less costly overall than dealing with the offences once they have
occurred. This is generally echoed by advice that emphasizes that crime prevention is enormously
cheaper than its investigation and the imposition of sanctions (HMIC, 2014). The results show that
this may also be true from a carbon perspective and policy makers may wish to consider the
suggested areas of focus in light of carbon emission reduction targets. The carbon impact of crime
prevention should also be explored in more detail and is encouraged as part of further work into the
carbon impact of crime.
It is tempting to conclude from this first part of the research project that crime reduction will
automatically result in a general reduction of carbon emissions. However, to answer the question
does crime cost carbon?, the wider consequences of crime and crime prevention must first be
examined. For example, although there are emissions associated with the running of prisons,
Page 39
offenders spending time in prison are likely to consume less than an average citizen in the UK since
they earn less; this may actually reduce their carbon footprint overall.
To demonstrate this, an estimate of the rebound effect associated with a small reduction in crime is
presented, in which the money associated with these offences is spent in other ways. This is similar
to the approach taken by Heyes and Liston-Heyes (1993) where the impact of re-allocated military
spending found that backfire (where interventions result in more emissions) might occur when
spending was reallocated to households. Similarly, Lenzen and Dey (2002) assessed the rebound
effect of government outlay, as one of several case studies relating to spending options in the
Australian economy. They conclude that shifting government spending from administration and
defence towards education, community services, parks and museums, for example, is likely to result
in fewer carbon emissions when compared to awarding tax rebates, which may increase consumption
and emissions.
This is, of course, a highly challenging task and there is no right answer. An estimation of this kind
involves many assumptions, and one way is to assess the carbon emissions associated with a drop in
a certain type of crime. The emissions associated with a hypothetical 5% drop in the number of
domestic burglaries are thus presented. This was chosen as it is the criminal offence that contributes
most to the overall footprint, and a drop of 5% was recorded between 2010 and 2011 and so is
realistic to analyse.
In order to estimate the impact of the rebound effect, there was a need to consider how public and
private money (final demand) currently associated with domestic burglary offences, would be spent
if the number of these offences were to decline by 5%. In order to get a very rough assessment and
avoid using untestable assumptions, following Druckman et al. (2011), the lower, medium and upper
bound of carbon emissions in this counterfactual scenario was estimated. In this calculation just two
types of expenditure: household expenditure and central government expenditure were estimated. To
estimate the lower bound all expenditure was allocated to the Standard Industrial Code (SIC) sector
with the lowest EE-IOA derived multiplier, and similarly, to estimate the higher bound all
expenditure was allocated to the SIC sector with the highest EE-IOA derived multiplier. A 'medium'
Page 40
estimate, which is the most likely scenario, was also presented. To do this expenditure was
apportioned according to average UK household consumption and central Government expenditure
for the year 2011, using data from ONS Supply and Use Tables (ONS, 2013c).
The major limitation of this approach is that estimates depend on the level of disaggregation of the
EE-IOA dataset used (in this case 106 sectors); a dataset with higher disaggregation is likely to give a
wider range of results. The results of the estimates are shown in Table 3.10.
It was found that the rebound effect of reducing domestic burglary by 5% may potentially either
reduce emissions by 3% (a saving of 19,000 tCO 2e) or increase the carbon footprint by 23% (an
increase of 134,000 tCO2e). The most likely rebound effect (medium estimate) is an increase in
emissions of 2% (10,000 tCO2e) (for detailed results see Table 3.10). This was estimated by re-
allocating money saved from the reduction in crime proportionally according to the average UK
household consumption pattern and UK central government spending. The low estimate was
generated by re-allocating saved money to the lowest emitting sectors of household and government
expenditure, and the high estimate used the highest emitting sectors. The low estimates 3% drop of
emissions would indeed imply that crime does currently cost society additional carbon, as the
alternative would produce a lower footprint. Conversely, the medium and high estimates imply that
because crime exists this saves carbon as the money may potentially be spent in more carbon-
intensive ways.
Page 41
Table 3.10: Estimate of the counterfactual footprint of a 5% drop in domestic burglary.
5% less domestic burglary

Domestic burglary
Actor Low Estimate Medium Estimate High estimate
concerned Carbon New New New
Associated Assumption and Difference Assumption and Difference Assumption and Difference
Spend Footprint footprint Footprint Footprint
spend selection of new (thousand selection of new (thousand selection of new (thousand
category (thousand (thousand (thousand (thousand
(billion) emission factor tCO2e) emission factor tCO2e) emission factor tCO2e)
tCO2e) tCO2e) tCO2e) tCO2e)
Money saved on
Money saved on Money saved on
anticipation of crime
Anticipatio anticipation of crime and anticipation of crime
and replacing stolen or
n of crime replacing stolen or and replacing stolen
Public ii and damaged property spent
damaged property spent or damaged property
and on the highest
Victims of 1.2 478 on the lowest household 461 -17 spent proportionally 493 +15 household carbon-
612 +134
property carbon-intensive sector on the average
crime intensive sector of the
stolen or in the economy (services consumption pattern
damaged economy (electricity
of households as of UK households
transmission and
employers - SIC 87) (multiple factors)
distribution - SIC 35)
Money saved on
public services
Health Money saved on public
Money saved on public associated with crime
services, services associated with
services associated with (prisons, police,
police, crime (prisons, police,
crime (prisons, police, health etc.), spent
Central health etc.), spent on the
legal, 0.33 102 health etc.), spent on the 100 -2 proportionally 97 -5 highest carbon-intensive
102 +0
Government lowest carbon-intensive between the average
probation, public service (social
courts and public service (education UK central
care services SIC 87-
services - SIC 85) government
prisons 88)
expenditure (multiple
factors)
Total 561 -19 Total 590 +10 Total 714 +134
Total 1.53iii 580 % Original % Original % Original
97% -3% 102% +2% 123% +23%
footprint footprint footprint
i
The actions of the offender if they cease to commit crime are not estimated as the offenders expenditure (monetised benefits of crime) is not included in the cost of crime estimates.
ii
Specifically those who take actions in anticipation of crime, such as buying insurance against theft or protecting their property with security measures.
iii
Total expenditure omits several cost categories due to ambiguities as detailed in this studys methodology sections. These include lost output and physical and emotional direct impact of crime and it is possible
that emissions will arise in the absence of crime related to these avoided activities, such as emissions associated with the remaining years of a person who has avoided an early death. However, these emissions are
likewise omitted from this counterfactual estimate due to these ambiguities.
Page 42
Being hypothetical, these are, of course, extremely rough estimates, and the wide range highlights the
scale of the uncertainty involved in trying to answer this question. The importance of the focus on
presenting the footprint of emissions that arise as a result of offences that have occurred - the
attributional carbon footprint of crime - rather than those that could be saved if crime is prevented is
re-iterated.
3.4 Conclusions
From this first part of the research study, it can be concluded that the carbon footprint estimate
attributable to crime is over 4 million tonnes CO2e for the year 2011. The most carbon costly
individual offence is found to be homicide at 71 tonnes CO2e. When the number of offences that
occurs is taken into account, burglary offences are found to contribute the largest proportion of
emissions at over 30% of the total footprint.
The next chapter extends these initial estimates over a time series to assess whether or not the total
carbon footprint attributed to crime has changed in recent years with the changing levels and nature
of crime in England and Wales.
Page 43
Chapter 4: Carbon footprint of crime changes over time
The text in Chapter 4 is predominantly from the published paper The falling carbon footprint of acquisitive and violent
crime (Skudder et al., 2017a) (See Appendix 1.2).
4 Carbon footprint of crime changes over time

In this chapter, the study addresses the second research question, whether the general drop in crime
(since 1995) has resulted in carbon savings. Despite demonstrating in the previous chapter that
crimes result in substantial carbon emissions, these estimates are essentially static in time, with no
consideration of the changing nature and levels of crime over time. With growing evidence that the
crime profile has changed substantially over the last two decades this is important.
Studies have demonstrated that many acquisitive and interpersonal crimes have experienced a
downward trajectory since the 1990s, both domestically and across the world (Aebi and Linde, 2010;
Bunge et al., 2005; Farrell et al., 2014; Tseloni et al., 2010). Whether we have witnessed a
concomitant fall in overall levels of crime is less certain. Recent evidence suggests that at least part
of the apparent fall in crime could be reflective of a move to more technology-reliant activities (e.g.
cybercrime), which are less easily measured (Dry, 2014; ONS, 2016a). Others have argued that
existing approaches to measuring crime are deficient, either by placing too much emphasis on police
activity, failing to accurately pick up the enhanced risks experienced by particularly vulnerable
groups of the population, or giving insufficient emphasis to those who experience chronic
victimisation (Farrell and Pease, 2007; Aebi and Linde, 2010; Eterno and Silverman, 2012; Tcherni
et al., 2015; Walby et al., 2015). Yet whilst there is still considerable disagreement over the precise
nature of the changes in overall levels of crime, the environmental implications of the apparent
reduction in levels of acquisitive and violent related crimes both high carbon forms of activity
warrants further scrutiny.
In this chapter the changing carbon footprint of crime9 over time in England and Wales since 1995 is
presented. Using police-recorded crime and self-reported victimisation survey data, a substantial fall
in crime-related carbon emissions in England and Wales over the last two decades is demonstrated. It
is shown that specific crimes (burglary and vehicle offences) and specific aspects of the carbon
9
In this section, similar to the last, the carbon footprints of drug, fraud and cyber-related crimes are excluded due to limitations with
existing methods of quantifying these crimes.
Page 44
footprint (the need to replace stolen or damaged items) result in the highest proportion of emissions
and may therefore offer the best opportunities for further reducing this footprint in the future.
Measuring the changing carbon footprint of crime not only emphasises the environmental impact of
these types of offence, but also presents an opportunity to consider the potential environmental
benefits of crime reduction.
4.1 The crime drop

Patterns of crime and victimisation are changing, with growing evidence that many countries have
experienced a general fall in levels of crime over the past two decades. For example, the Crime
Survey for England and Wales (CSEW, formerly the British Crime Survey) has reported marked falls
in overall levels of crime since a peak of 19 million offences in 1995, with the most recent estimate
of 6.3 million offences committed in the year ending March 2016 (ONS, 2016a). Acquisitive crimes,
in particular, appear to be responsible for much of the fall, with burglaries and vehicle thefts showing
large declines year-on-year and a fall of more than half since the early 1990s (Farrell, 2013; Farrell et
al., 2014; Van Dijk, 2007). This general crime decline is echoed across a number of countries
including France, Australia, the Netherlands, and the United States, where violent crime has fallen by
33% and property crime by 29% since 1990 (FBI, 2016).
The crime drop, however, is not universal across all crime types or across all countries, suggesting
that these general reductions are masking a more complex reality. Aebi and Linde (2010), show that
whilst property offences and homicide have been steadily falling since the 1990s, some violent
crimes and drug offences have actually increased in recent years across parts of Western Europe. In
England and Wales, the most recent police-recorded crime figures also suggest that violence against
the person may be increasing, with similar increases in levels of arson, criminal damage and sexual
offences (ONS, 2016a). Tcherni et al., (2015) also demonstrate that the true nature of crime changes
is more complex than the general reductions in official crime statistics would suggest. These figures,
they argue, provide an increasingly incomplete picture of the true extent of criminal activity, with the
apparent declines in acquisitive crime reflecting changing offending habits, rather than a real fall in
crime. In particular, they suggest that many offenders may be moving online, a contention that is, at
Page 45
least partially, borne out by evidence with recent figures from the CSEW suggesting an estimated 5.8
million fraud and computer misuse incidents occurred in 2015/16 (ONS, 2016a).
Methodological limitations with the collection of official figures also impact on their ability to
provide a true reflection of the extent and nature of the crime drop. Falls in police-recorded crime
figures may be as much a reflection of changing policing priorities and recording habits as a real
reduction in crime (Aebi and Linde, 2010). For example, Burrows et al., (2000) demonstrated that
estimated levels of domestic burglary (and attempted burglary) were heavily influenced by police
reporting and recording practices in the UK, with the same activity classified as a burglary in one
police force failing to be recorded as a crime in another. And despite substantial efforts to improve
consistency across police forces with the introduction of the National Crime Recording Standards in
2002, more recent evidence suggests that police recording practices may still be influencing
estimates of crime (Flatley and Bradley, 2013) 10 . Relatedly, the problem of active police non-
recording of offences has also been highlighted, leading the UK Statistics Authority to conclude that
there is accumulating evidence that suggests the underlying data on crimes recorded by the police
may not be reliable (2014, p.7) and the subsequent decision to de-designate them as National
Statistics.
Changes in the reporting habits of the public can also have a substantial impact on estimated levels of
police-recorded crime. Throughout the 1980s, there was a general increase in reporting of crime by
the public, which correlated with increasing crime rates (Van Dijk et al., 2012). For certain types of
offence such as property-related offences, reporting can be higher due to the need for police incident
numbers for insurance claims. A recent increase in the willingness of victims to come forward and
report serious sexual assaults is also thought to be the main driver of the increased number of sexual
offences recorded by police (ONS, 2016a).
Estimates from the CSEW, a household victimisation survey, are not susceptible to the same sources
of recording and reporting bias, and as such, are believed to offer a better measure of trends on a
10
Following a review by Her Majestys Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC) in 2014 it is expected that actions taken by police forces to
improve their compliance with the national recording standards have resulted in an increase in the number of offences recorded (ONS,
2016).
Page 46
consistent basis over time at least for those crimes that they include (ONS, 2016a). However, the
veracity of the CSEW has also recently been challenged, with Walby et al. (2015) demonstrating that
the decision to cap repeat victimisation at a maximum of five offences may have led to severe
under-estimates of some crimes, in particular violence against women. There are also many
populations missed by the CSEW most notably vulnerable groups including homeless people and
those living in institutions groups who may experience disproportionate levels of victimisation
(Hope and Norris, 2013). The CSEW also focuses on a narrower band of victim-perceived offences,
limiting its coverage of overall levels of crime.
Despite these criticisms, measures of crime in England and Wales are generally regarded as world-
leading, and provide a long running time-series to explore the environmental impacts of changing
levels of crime and police activity. The general falls in acquisitive crime and violence noted in
police-recorded crime figures are likely to, at least in part, be reflective of real reductions in criminal
activity, and certainly provide a robust picture of the extent of police activity (which it is anticipated
will make a substantial contribution to the overall environmental costs of crime). And the CSEW can
provide an estimate of the potential level of criminal activity that does not reach the attention of the
police, but which may still result in direct environmental costs for individual victims, at least for
those offences in-scope.
Page 47
4.2 Methodology
The carbon footprint associated with acquisitive and violent crime in England and Wales annually
from 1995 to 201511 was estimated, focusing specifically on changes in the magnitude of the carbon
footprint and the main components of this overall footprint. Using the offence-specific carbon
footprint estimates from Chapter 3, which attribute emissions across the varying aspects of each
criminal event, these were multiplied by the estimated number of offences that occurred across the
time series to generate a total carbon footprint for each offence category, for each year.
The focus is restricted to acquisitive (e.g. burglary, theft and shoplifting) and violent (e.g. homicide,
assault and robbery) crime because these offences have the most robust measurement across time and
there is sufficient detail about the monetised costs associated with these offences to estimate a carbon
footprint (Brand and Price, 2000; Dubourg et al., 2005; Home Office & Ministry of Justice, 2011).
The carbon footprints for drug offences, fraud and online offences were not estimated. Fraud and
online-related offences are omitted because currently no established measures of these offences over
time exist. Many of the carbon costs associated with online and drug offences, are also complex to
attribute as they may originate overseas (e.g. drug production), take place across national borders,
rarely reach the attention of the criminal justice system (CJS) or have no physical component. These
exclusions mean that only a partial picture of the overall trend of the carbon footprint due to crime is
presented but the majority of offences are assumed to be included.
11
All crime statistics are reported by financial years and are labelled as 2015/16 (for example). Years such as 2015/16 will be referred to as
simply 2015, in this study.
Page 48
4.2.1 Data
Annual estimates of crime are derived from the Crime in England and Wales statistical bulletins,
published by the UKs Office for National Statistics (ONS). Using both police-recorded crime12 and
CSEW data mitigates the coverage problems associated with each individual measure. Police-
recorded crime figures provide a picture of general trends in a wide range of offences and are also
likely to be a robust estimate of those criminal activities that reached the attention of the CJS. In
contrast, whilst the CSEW is narrower in scope and is not affected by the known recording and
reporting biases of police-recorded crime, it affords an insight into the carbon costs of those offences
that are not reported. However, whilst confident that these estimates represent the best possible with
current data sources, these estimates remain constrained by the well-known limitations of official
crime figures.
Carbon footprint estimates of two subsets of crime statistics (police-recorded and estimated
unrecorded crime), as well as total crime are calculated. Crimes are distinguished in this way to
ensure the carbon costs of the CJS are accurately reflected in the footprint estimates, with only those
offences that are recorded by the police including emissions associated with policing, the courts and
prisons.
To provide an estimate of crime that goes unrecorded the total number of offences captured in the
CSEW is used, minus the offences that are recorded by police in matching categories 13. For example,
if 1 million burglaries are estimated to have occurred in 1995, as reported in the crime survey, but
police recorded only 300,000 in the same year, the estimate of the number that went unrecorded is
700,00014. The CSEW data used spans the whole period between 1995 and 2015 (ONS, 2016a), but
12
The police-recorded crime data used is a combination of two datasets. Figures from the most recently released figures are used to cover
the period 2002 to 2015 (ONS, 2016). Since the introduction of the National Crime Recording Standard (NCRS) in 2002, statistical
bulletins on police-recorded crime do not include years prior to this because of the difference in counting rules, which may skew
comparisons of these statistics. However, to enable analysis back to 1995 figures from an historic dataset (Home Office, 2012) are used to
estimate crime between the years of 1995 and 2002.
13
This method differs from that in Chapter 3 where crime adjustment factors are used to estimate unrecorded crime from police-recorded
figures. This is because a series of these factors is not available to compare across the 20-year period in this part of the study.
14
By focusing on recorded and unrecorded crime, it is acknowledged that not all police activity for those offences that are reported, but
ultimately not recorded is accounted for. This is a comparatively small number of offences (particularly in recent years) and is only a small
fraction of the police effort expended on dealing with recorded offences. As such, there is a possibility that the cost of unrecorded crime is
slightly underestimated.
Page 49
pre-2001 was only conducted every two years rather than annually. Therefore the years 1996, 1998
and 2000 are omitted from the time-series.
4.2.2 Carbon footprinting crime over time
The offence-specific carbon footprint estimates (from Chapter 3 results) are matched with the offence
categories in each crime dataset (Table 4.1). The CSEW dataset has fewer categories of crime, and
does not include measures of homicide, sexual offences or commercial offences (shoplifting,
commercial robbery or commercial criminal damage) 15.
Table 4.1: Offence category matching process
Matched offence categories

Offences with a carbon Police-recorded offences Police-recorded offences Crime survey offences
footprint estimate 1995-2002 2002-2015 1995-2015
Homicide Homicide Homicide N/A
Violence against the person (VAP) -
Serious Wounding Violence with injury Wounding
with injury
Violence without injury, ABH,
VAP -without injury, Less serious
Other Wounding Assault with injury, and Less Assault with minor injury
wounding, ABH and other injury
serious wounding
Sexual Offences Sexual offences Sexual offences N/A
Assault without injury, Racially
Common assault, Racially or
or religiously aggravated assault
Common Assault religiously aggravated common Violence without injury
and Assault without injury on a
assault and Assault on a constable
constable
Robbery of personal property
Robbery (known as Robbery 1997 and Robbery of personal property Robbery
before)
Burglary in a Dwelling Domestic burglary Domestic burglary Domestic burglary
Other household theft,
Total other theft offences,
bicycle theft, theft from
Theft - Not Vehicle Other theft offences Bicycle thefts and Theft from the
the person, other theft of
person
personal property
Theft or unauthorised taking of a
Theft or unauthorised taking of
Theft of Vehicle motor vehicle, Aggravated Theft of vehicles
motor vehicle
vehicle taking
Theft From Vehicle Theft from a vehicle Theft from a vehicle Theft from vehicles
Attempts of and from
Attempted vehicle theft Interfering with a motor vehicle Vehicle interference
vehicles
Criminal Damage Criminal damage Criminal damage Criminal damage
Burglary in a building other than
Burglary - Not in a
Other burglary a dwelling and Non-domestic N/A
Dwelling
burglary
Commercial Robbery Robbery of business property Robbery of business property N/A
Shoplifting Theft from a shop Shoplifting N/A
Commercial - Criminal Criminal damage to a building other Criminal damage to a building
N/A
Damage than a dwelling other than a dwelling
To produce the annual carbon footprint estimates, the number of offences committed each year in
each crime category was multiplied by the equivalent offence-specific carbon footprint. For example,
the carbon footprint of burglary (in a dwelling) is 1.1 tCO2e for recorded offences and 0.7 tCO2e for
15
Some information, on sexual offences for example, is available in the self-completion module of the CSEW however this data is not
available in all years of the time-series.
Page 50
unrecorded offences (when the CJS emissions are excluded). In 1995, the number of police-recorded
burglaries was 640,000, which produces an estimated 0.7 million tCO2e (1.1 * 640,000). The number
of unrecorded burglary offences in 1995 was 1.75 million, producing 1.2 million tCO2e (0.7 *
1,750,000). All burglary in a dwelling for the year 1995 therefore emits around 1.9 million tCO2e
(0.7 million + 1.2 million tCO2e).
As well as calculating the carbon footprint by offence type, the source of emissions across the time
series is also detailed. For example, the 1.1 tCO2e associated with a recorded incident of burglary
arises from several sources of spending: 100 kg CO 2e from defensive expenditure (security and
insurance), 450 kg from replacing stolen property, 180kg from policing and 170kg from prison
services amongst others. How the proportion of emissions from these sources has changed over time
with the rise and fall of the number of offences is also presented in the results in order to highlight
the sources of emissions where savings or increases of carbon have occurred.
Page 51
4.3 Results
Figure 4.1 shows how the overall (combined total recorded and unrecorded) carbon footprint of
acquisitive and violent crime changes over time, between 1995 and 2015. The carbon emissions
resulted from around 5 million police-recorded and 15 million unrecorded offences in 1995, which
dropped to around 3.5 million recorded and 4 million unrecorded offences in 2015 (a crime drop of
63% (30% for recorded crime and 74% for unrecorded crime). For full year on year figures of both
the number of offences and resultant carbon footprint see Table 4.2.
8
Unrecorded Footprint
7
Police Recorded Footprint
(Million tonnes CO2e)
6
Carbon Footprint
Figure 4.1: Carbon footprint of total crime (police-recorded and unrecorded) between 1995 and 2015.
The total carbon footprint of acquisitive and violent crime dropped by 62% between 1995 and 2015.
This year-on-year decline accumulates to a total reduction of over 54 million tCO 2e over the 20-year
period, representing a substantial decline in carbon due to the associated drops in these types of
offences. In 1995 the footprint was estimated at around 7 million tCO2e (3.5 million tCO2e each
attributed to both recorded and unrecorded offences), declining to 5 million tCO 2e in 2001. The
footprint fell further to a low of 2.6 million tCO2e in 2013 with a slight increase to 2.7 million tCO2e
in the most recent year (2015). This, however, represents over 4 million fewer tCO 2e resulting from
acquisitive and violent crime per year than in 1995. As the number of unrecorded offences that
occurred fell more sharply than the number of police-recorded offences, emissions from police-
Page 52
recorded offences make up a larger proportion of the overall carbon footprint in more recent years
(over 60% in 2014, compared to 50% in 1995).
Table 4.2: Year-on-year number of offences and carbon footprint estimates.
Carbon Footprint estimates

Number of offences (million)
(million tonnes CO2e)
Year
Police-recorded Unrecorded All Police-recorded Unrecord
All crime
crime crime crime crime ed crime
1995 4.92 15.10 20.02 3.52 3.46 6.98
1996 4.84 - - 3.42 - -
1997 4.40 12.91 17.31 3.02 3.04 6.05
1998 4.64 - - 3.03 - -
1999 4.79 11.01 15.80 3.02 2.58 5.60
2000 4.68 - - 2.88 - -
2001 5.03 8.34 13.38 3.01 1.85 4.86
2002 5.35 7.72 13.07 3.10 1.71 4.81
2003 5.37 7.09 12.45 3.02 1.57 4.60
2007 4.30 6.38 10.68 2.27 1.28 3.55
2008 4.06 7.02 11.08 2.24 1.38 3.63
2009 3.73 6.37 10.10 2.06 1.26 3.32
2010 3.57 6.60 10.17 1.96 1.41 3.37
2011 3.43 6.61 10.03 1.84 1.32 3.16
2012 3.13 6.00 9.13 1.63 1.27 2.90
2013 3.09 4.98 8.07 1.62 1.00 2.62
2014 3.16 4.41 7.57 1.67 0.95 2.62
2015 3.43 3.95 7.38 1.82 0.86 2.68
The number of police-recorded offences fell from 5 million to 3.5 million between 1995 and 2015, a
decline of 30%. But the carbon footprint arising from these offences fell by 48% over the same
period, from 3.5 million tCO2e to 1.8 million tCO2e. This means that by 2015, 1.7 million tCO2e less
was emitted per year. This accounted for a total drop in carbon of over 20 million tCO 2e. The number
of unrecorded offences fell by 74% between 1995 and 2015, a substantially larger drop than police-
recorded figures. Similarly, the estimated carbon footprint arising from the unrecorded offences
declined by 75% from approximately 3.5 million tCO2e in 1995 to 860,000 tCO2e in 2015, a
reduction of over 33 million tCO2e 5. As the carbon footprint arising from unrecorded offences does
not include emissions from the CJS, these crimes produce a smaller footprint per offence than police-
recorded crime.
Page 53
To contrast this carbon footprint (an estimate of environmental harm) to a measure of social harm,
the Crime Severity Score (CSS) for England and Wales showed a decline in the severity of recorded
crime of 29% between 2002 and 2015 (although the most recent year saw a rise of 10%) (ONS,
2016a). The carbon footprint over this period dropped from 4.81 million tonnes CO 2e to 2.68 million
tonnes CO2e, a drop of 44% (with a rise of 2% in the most recent year). The failure to consider
environmental harms of crime in existing harm scores may, therefore, mean this is an underestimate
of the harm reduction resulting from the general crime drop over the last two decades.
To better understand the reasons for the steep decline in carbon emissions, the carbon footprints split
by the types of offences is compared in Figure 4.2a (police-recorded crime) and Figure 4.2b
(unrecorded crime). For full year-on-year figures, split by individual offence types, see Tables 4.3
and 4.4.
The large proportion of emissions arising from property offences 16 is notable in both Figure 4.2a and
4.2b. As the number of offences declined, the footprint of police-recorded property offences (Figure
4.2a) has more than halved from nearly 1.9 million tCO 2e in 1995 to 770,000 tCO2e in 2015.
Burglary (combining both in a dwelling and not in dwelling), in particular, produced the most
emissions of any offence at 1.5 million tCO2e in 1995 and 490,000 tCO2e in 2015. Figure 4.2a also
shows a clear reduction in the carbon arising from police-recorded vehicle offences. In 1995 vehicle
offences accounted for 1.3 million tCO 2e (1.1 million tCO2e of which was from vehicle theft),
dropping to 620,000 tCO2e by 2005 to just 250,000 tCO2e in 2015. In contrast, the footprint
attributed to violent crime 17 steadily increased over this period from 300,000 tCO2e, peaking at
800,000 tCO2e by 2015. This increase is largely from the other wounding offences which grew
from 140,000 tCO2e to over 430,000 tCO2e over the period.
16
Including burglary, shoplifting and criminal damage
17
Including homicide, wounding, sexual offences, robbery, and assault
Page 54
2.0
Property offences
1.8
Violent crime
1.6
Vehicle offences
1.4
Carbon Footprint
1.2
1.0
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0.0
1995 1997 1999 2001 2003 2005 2007 2009 2011 2013 2015
Figure 4.2a: The carbon footprint of police-recorded crime, split by offence type.
2.0
Property offences
1.8 Violent crime
1.6 Vehicle offences
1.4
Carbon Footprint
1.2
1.0
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0.0
1995 1997 1999 2001 2003 2005 2007 2009 2011 2013 2015
Figure 4.2b: The carbon footprint of unrecorded crime, split by offence type.
Page 55
Table 4.3: Year-on-year carbon footprint estimates of police-recorded crime, split by offence type.
Footprint of police-recorded offences

Violent Crime Property Offences Vehicle Offences Total
Commercial -
Commercial -
Vehicle Theft
Burglary in a
Year
Theft From
Theft - Not
Shoplifting
Wounding
Wounding
Attempted
Burglary -
Homicide
Common
Dwelling
Dwelling
Offences
Criminal
Criminal
Robbery
Robbery
Damage
Damage
Theft of
Not in a
Vehicle
Vehicle
Assault
Serious
Sexual
Other
Vehicle
1995 0.05 0.06 0.14 0.04 0.08 0.00 0.71 0.17 0.13 0.78 0.00 0.01 0.00 1.12 0.23 0.00 3.52
1996 0.05 0.07 0.16 0.04 0.09 0.00 0.67 0.16 0.14 0.73 0.00 0.01 0.00 1.09 0.22 0.00 3.42
1997 0.05 0.07 0.17 0.05 0.07 0.00 0.58 0.15 0.13 0.65 0.00 0.01 0.00 0.90 0.20 0.00 3.02
1998 0.05 0.08 0.22 0.06 0.06 0.02 0.53 0.15 0.11 0.62 0.01 0.01 0.03 0.86 0.19 0.01 3.03
1999 0.05 0.10 0.25 0.07 0.08 0.02 0.49 0.16 0.11 0.60 0.01 0.01 0.03 0.82 0.19 0.01 3.02
2000 0.06 0.10 0.25 0.06 0.10 0.03 0.45 0.16 0.12 0.56 0.02 0.01 0.03 0.75 0.17 0.01 2.88
2001 0.06 0.11 0.27 0.07 0.12 0.03 0.48 0.18 0.13 0.58 0.02 0.02 0.04 0.72 0.18 0.01 3.01
2002 0.07 0.13 0.29 0.08 0.11 0.03 0.49 0.22 0.13 0.59 0.01 0.02 0.04 0.70 0.18 0.01 3.10
2003 0.06 0.14 0.36 0.08 0.11 0.03 0.45 0.22 0.14 0.54 0.01 0.01 0.04 0.64 0.17 0.01 3.02
2004 0.06 0.14 0.41 0.08 0.10 0.03 0.36 0.21 0.14 0.47 0.01 0.01 0.03 0.53 0.14 0.01 2.73
2005 0.05 0.14 0.43 0.08 0.10 0.02 0.33 0.20 0.14 0.45 0.01 0.01 0.03 0.47 0.14 0.01 2.63
2006 0.05 0.12 0.40 0.08 0.11 0.03 0.32 0.19 0.14 0.43 0.01 0.01 0.03 0.43 0.14 0.01 2.50
2007 0.06 0.11 0.36 0.07 0.09 0.03 0.31 0.17 0.13 0.39 0.01 0.01 0.03 0.37 0.12 0.01 2.27
2008 0.05 0.24 0.32 0.07 0.08 0.02 0.32 0.16 0.12 0.39 0.01 0.02 0.02 0.32 0.11 0.01 2.24
2009 0.04 0.23 0.31 0.07 0.08 0.03 0.30 0.15 0.10 0.35 0.01 0.02 0.02 0.26 0.09 0.01 2.06
2010 0.05 0.20 0.29 0.07 0.08 0.03 0.29 0.16 0.09 0.34 0.01 0.02 0.01 0.23 0.09 0.00 1.96
2011 0.04 0.19 0.26 0.07 0.08 0.03 0.27 0.17 0.08 0.33 0.01 0.02 0.01 0.20 0.08 0.00 1.84
2012 0.04 0.11 0.26 0.07 0.07 0.02 0.25 0.15 0.07 0.30 0.01 0.01 0.01 0.18 0.08 0.00 1.63
2013 0.04 0.11 0.27 0.09 0.06 0.03 0.24 0.14 0.06 0.30 0.01 0.02 0.01 0.17 0.08 0.00 1.62
2014 0.04 0.13 0.33 0.12 0.05 0.03 0.22 0.13 0.06 0.28 0.01 0.02 0.01 0.17 0.07 0.01 1.67
2015 0.04 0.15 0.43 0.15 0.05 0.04 0.22 0.13 0.07 0.27 0.01 0.02 0.01 0.18 0.07 0.01 1.82
Page 56
Table 4.4: Year-on-year carbon footprint estimates of unrecorded crime, split by offence type.
Footprint of unrecorded offences by offence category

Year Violent Crime Property Offences Vehicle Offences

Total
Serious Other Common Burglary in a Theft - Not Criminal Theft From Attempted
Robbery
Wounding Wounding Assault Dwelling Vehicle Damage Vehicle vehicle theft
1995 0.37 0.47 0.06 0.06 1.22 0.43 0.26 0.44 0.15 3.46
1996 - - - - - - - - - -
1997 0.32 0.39 0.06 0.05 1.13 0.39 0.21 0.38 0.11 3.04
1998 - - - - - - - - - -
1999 0.26 0.31 0.07 0.04 0.99 0.31 0.22 0.30 0.09 2.58
2000 - - - - - - - - - -
2001 0.25 0.13 0.05 0.03 0.68 0.25 0.19 0.21 0.07 1.85
2002 0.27 0.08 0.04 0.03 0.65 0.22 0.17 0.19 0.07 1.71
2003 0.25 0.03 0.04 0.03 0.63 0.21 0.16 0.18 0.05 1.57
2004 0.22 0.01 0.03 0.02 0.51 0.19 0.16 0.18 0.04 1.38
2005 0.21 0.00 0.04 0.03 0.51 0.20 0.18 0.15 0.04 1.36
2006 0.22 0.00 0.05 0.03 0.50 0.21 0.21 0.15 0.04 1.40
2007 0.18 0.00 0.05 0.03 0.48 0.19 0.19 0.14 0.03 1.28
2008 0.16 0.03 0.04 0.02 0.49 0.24 0.20 0.16 0.03 1.38
2009 0.18 0.00 0.05 0.02 0.45 0.22 0.18 0.13 0.03 1.26
2010 0.19 0.07 0.04 0.02 0.54 0.22 0.17 0.14 0.02 1.41
2011 0.18 0.03 0.04 0.02 0.47 0.25 0.16 0.15 0.02 1.32
2012 0.18 0.06 0.03 0.02 0.46 0.23 0.14 0.12 0.02 1.27
2013 0.12 0.00 0.02 0.02 0.40 0.20 0.11 0.12 0.02 1.00
2014 0.12 0.00 0.01 0.01 0.41 0.17 0.10 0.11 0.02 0.95
2015 0.11 0.00 0.02 0.01 0.35 0.15 0.08 0.11 0.01 0.86
Page 57
Figure 4.3a and 4.3b show the same carbon footprint of both police-recorded and unrecorded crime,
but this time split by the source of emissions throughout the lifecycle of the offences (for full year on
year figures see Table 4.5). This includes emissions from spending in anticipation of crime
(defensive measures such as security and insurance), spending as a consequence of the crime having
taken place (replacing stolen property, use of the health service and victim services) and also the CJS
costs (policing, prisons, probation etc.). Unrecorded offences do not result in emissions from the CJS,
and so these are excluded from 3b.
Emissions arising from the cost of replacing stolen, damaged or destroyed property are shown as the
largest proportion of both recorded and unrecorded violent and acquisitive crime (around 2 million
tCO2e for each source of crime figures in 1995). These emissions, however, also showed the largest
decline over the 20-year period (dropping to 560,000 tCO2e for recorded crime and 580,000 for
unrecorded crime).
For police-recorded crime, the footprint for anticipation of crime spending (insurance or defensive
expenditure) has also declined noticeably over the period falling from around 500,000 tCO 2e in 1995
to 130,000 tCO2e in 2015. Conversely, the emissions arising from victim and health services rose
over the period (an increase of 130,000 tCO2e per year). This is most likely due to the increased
number of violent offences that has occurred in recent years.
For unrecorded crime, the total footprint rapidly decreased over time from around 3.5 million tCO 2e
in 1995 to 860,000 tCO2e by 2015. The proportions of the three sources of emissions, however, have
remained relatively stable over the 20-year period. Emissions from replacing stolen or damaged
property accounts for around 60% of the footprint in the early years of the series, rising to 70% in
later years. Emissions from anticipation of crime activities decreased as a share of total emissions
from 27% to below 15% and the victim and health services emissions remained at around 15%
throughout.
Page 58
Anticipation of crime (defensive and insurance)

Property stolen, damaged or destroyed (-recovered)
4.0 Victim and Health Services
Police Activity
3.5 Prosecution, Courts, Defence and Probation
Prison
3.0
Carbon Footprint
Other CJS Costs

2.5
2.0
1.5
1.0
0.5
0.0
Figure 4.3a: The carbon footprint of police-recorded crime, split by expenditure category source of
emissions.
Anticipation of crime (defensive and insurance)

Property stolen, damaged or destroyed (-recovered)
4.0
Victim and Health Services
3.5
3.0
Carbon Footprint
2.5
2.0
1.5
1.0
0.5
0.0
2005
2010
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2006
2007
2008
2009
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
Figure 4.3b: The carbon footprint of unrecorded crime, split by expenditure category source of
emissions.
Page 59
Table 4.5: Year-on-year carbon footprint estimates of police-recorded crime and unrecorded crime, split by expenditure category source of emissions.
Carbon Footprint estimates

Police-recorded Crime Unrecorded Crime
Year Anticipation Property Anticipation
Prosecution, Property stolen,
of crime stolen, Victim Other of crime Victim and
Police Courts, damaged or
(defensive damaged or and Health Prison CJS Total (defensive Health Total
Activity Defence and destroyed
and destroyed Services Costs and Services
Probation (-recovered)
insurance) (-recovered) insurance)
1995 0.46 1.98 0.11 0.44 0.13 0.38 0.04 3.52 0.48 2.03 0.95 3.46
1996 0.44 1.90 0.12 0.43 0.13 0.37 0.04 3.42 - - - -
1997 0.38 1.63 0.12 0.39 0.12 0.34 0.04 3.02 0.42 1.80 0.81 3.04
1998 0.36 1.57 0.17 0.41 0.13 0.34 0.05 3.03 - - - -
1999 0.35 1.52 0.19 0.42 0.13 0.35 0.05 3.02 0.36 1.56 0.66 2.58
2000 0.32 1.41 0.19 0.41 0.13 0.35 0.05 2.88 - - - -
2001 0.33 1.44 0.21 0.44 0.14 0.38 0.06 3.01 0.26 1.15 0.44 1.85
2002 0.33 1.46 0.22 0.48 0.15 0.40 0.06 3.10 0.24 1.06 0.41 1.71
2003 0.31 1.37 0.26 0.48 0.16 0.39 0.06 3.02 0.23 1.01 0.33 1.57
2004 0.26 1.17 0.29 0.45 0.15 0.35 0.06 2.73 0.20 0.90 0.28 1.38
2005 0.24 1.09 0.30 0.44 0.15 0.35 0.06 2.63 0.19 0.90 0.27 1.36
2006 0.23 1.03 0.28 0.42 0.14 0.33 0.06 2.50 0.20 0.92 0.29 1.40
2007 0.21 0.93 0.25 0.38 0.13 0.31 0.05 2.27 0.18 0.86 0.24 1.28
2008 0.20 0.87 0.24 0.41 0.14 0.33 0.06 2.24 0.20 0.94 0.25 1.38
2009 0.17 0.76 0.23 0.39 0.14 0.31 0.06 2.06 0.17 0.84 0.24 1.26
2010 0.16 0.72 0.22 0.37 0.13 0.30 0.06 1.96 0.19 0.91 0.31 1.41
2011 0.15 0.67 0.20 0.36 0.12 0.28 0.05 1.84 0.18 0.88 0.26 1.32
2012 0.14 0.61 0.19 0.30 0.10 0.24 0.04 1.63 0.17 0.81 0.29 1.27
2013 0.13 0.58 0.20 0.31 0.10 0.24 0.04 1.62 0.15 0.70 0.15 1.00
2014 0.13 0.55 0.24 0.33 0.11 0.25 0.05 1.67 0.14 0.67 0.14 0.95
2015 0.13 0.56 0.31 0.36 0.13 0.28 0.06 1.82 0.13 0.58 0.14 0.86
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4.4 Discussion
In recent years the falling number of criminal offences has resulted in a fall of the carbon footprint
attributable to crime from around 7 million tCO2e in 1995 to below 3 million tCO2e by 2015. This
fall results in a total reduction of over 54 million tCO 2e over the 20-year period studied broadly
equivalent to around 10% of the current UKs annual carbon emissions (DECC, 2015).
The large reductions of burglary (both recorded and unrecorded) and vehicle offences
(predominantly recorded offences), coupled with the high carbon cost of these offences, are largely
responsible for the substantial reductions in emissions over this period, more than offsetting the rise
of emissions associated with the increasing number of violent crimes. For recorded offences, the
decline in the carbon footprint is more prominent than the fall in the number of offences (48% carbon
drop compared to a crime drop of only 30%). This clearly demonstrates that there is not a
straightforward relationship between the number of offences and the resulting carbon footprint. As
the different types of crime rise or fall, the carbon footprint is altered over time. Therefore targeted
prevention at specific carbon-intensive offences in the future may have a disproportionate effect on
the overall environmental impact of crime.
For both recorded and unrecorded offences a large proportion of the footprint arises from replacing
stolen or damaged items (around 33% of recorded crime and over 60% of unrecorded crime). The
carbon arising from activities in anticipation of crime (such as security, crime prevention measures or
insurance) is relatively low compared to impacts arising after the crime has occurred (replacing
property, health services and CJS activities). Emissions from actions in anticipation of crime have
also fallen sharply over time for both recorded and unrecorded offences.
Compared to the social and economic impacts of crime, the environmental harms (estimated here in
terms of carbon emissions) associated with crime may seem marginal. But to overlook these impacts
risks crime prevention strategies being unsustainable in the future. The three pillars of sustainability
social development, economic development and environmental protection - must be equally
acknowledged as part of decision-making (United Nations, 2016). There is also a risk of carbon
reduction targets - such as the Climate Change Act (2008) in the UK - being missed if carbon
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emissions associated with crime and the CJS are not reduced wherever possible. Although the
continued drop in carbon over the last two decades is an encouraging trend, more could be done to
reduce the environmental impact of acquisitive and violent crime and further decrease the carbon
footprint. A continued focus on specific offences (burglary and vehicle crime) and particular sources
of emissions (the need to replace stolen property) may further decrease carbon emissions.
These estimates of the carbon footprint of crime add to a growing body of work considering the true
harms resulting from criminal offences. This is important because simply measuring the volumes of
crimes that occur assumes that all crimes are created equal, when clearly different offences have
varying impacts on victims, society, the economy and the environment. Only by considering all of
the potential harm caused by crime, can crime prevention policy be truly sustainable. Also learnt
from this approach, is that as the crime profile has changed over time, so have the environmental
harms produced as a result. As offences have differing carbon footprints the environmental harm has
actually reduced more than the number of offences over time and acknowledgement of these
potential environmental benefits of crime prevention could help further reduce these emissions in the
future.
The use of economic and social cost of crime estimates differs from other measures of the harm
caused by crime, making it difficult to combine this with other harm indices. The Crime Severity
Score (ONS, 2016a) and Cambridge Crime Harm Index (Sherman et al., 2016), for example, weight
crime types by sentence days served. Although this is a straightforward approach to produce a
weighted index of harm, to estimate the environmental impacts of crime using only the sentencing
guidance would omit several important elements of criminal offences where carbon emissions arise,
consequently leading to an underestimate of the environmental harm caused. Sentence days served is
just one area where the environmental impact of criminal activity is felt, with the length of sentence
given to offenders directly impacting on the carbon footprint of each individual offence (those with
longer prison sentences clearly being associated with a larger footprint than community served
sentences for example). However, this does not consider other sources of carbon including those
resulting from policing activity, criminal justice service operation, victim experiences, and
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unrecorded crime categories (Ignatans and Pease, 2016). As a result this study does not attempt to
weight the environmental impact of crime by any existing harm index, but instead presents
comprehensive footprint estimates in their entirety.
This section demonstrates that all types of crime have environmental impacts in the form of carbon
emissions. The emissions that arise from crime are a form of pollution, which contributes directly to
the problem of climate change. There is also a potential negative feedback loop between the
emissions associated with crime and global warming, with the emissions to the atmosphere as a result
of crime leading to increased temperatures, and these warmer temperatures in turn leading to more
crime occurring from rising tensions (Agnew, 2012). An opportunity may be seized, therefore, to
reduce these long-term adverse indirect effects of crime. This can be achieved either by devising
policies to target carbon-intensive offences, or at the very least ensuring that the carbon impacts of
crime are taken into account within policy and decision-making. Cutting crime may therefore be seen
to provide a sustainable solution that provides not only social and economic benefits, but also
environmental benefits.
4.4.1 Limitations
This section of the research study is not without its limitations. Most notably, it was assumed that the
carbon footprint of each offence has not changed over time. This assumption of course is a
simplification as, for example, energy efficiency improvements and the move towards renewable
energy sources has meant a fall of carbon emissions per unit of expenditure over recent years
(Committee on Climate Change, 2013). As such, it is likely that the results underestimate the carbon
cost of acquisitive and violent crime in earlier years, and hence the total carbon reductions. Future
research could explore this impact in more detail by utilising varying carbon multipliers across the
time series.
The carbon footprint estimates also only include emissions that arise as a result of the offences
occurring, so it cannot definitively be said that the potential reductions have resulted in absolute
savings. A true savings calculation would need to take into account any emissions associated with
how public and private money currently spent in association with criminal offences would be spent in
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the absence of crime. For example if the number of violent crimes falls, the money saved on treating
victims in hospital or on keeping offenders in prisons does not necessarily result in a saving in terms
of carbon emissions. This money may simply be re-invested in other government services that
produce similar (or higher) carbon emissions. Thus, the focus has been on presenting the potential
reductions in emissions, not absolute savings, as these depend on how money is spent in the absence
of crime.
Finally, not all types of crime are included in the study, fraud and online crimes being notably absent.
It is increasingly becoming clear that patterns of criminal activity are changing, with a growing
number of offences being committed in virtual spaces online. These types of offences may have
inherently fewer carbon emissions associated with them as no physical items need replacing and the
offences are much less likely to come to the attention of police. But although it has been estimated
that around 5.8 million fraud and computer misuse offences were experienced in 2015, with around
half of the fraud offences being cyber-related (ONS, 2016a), the level of under-reporting is less clear.
Under-reporting of cyber crime happens for a number of reasons including victims potentially not
perceiving what has happened as a crime, not knowing where or how to report it, or believing that the
police cannot do anything in response to the incident (McGuire and Dowling, 2013). Any carbon
footprint associated with cyber offences are also inherently different from other types of crime as
they have no physical location, the harm to victims is usually reimbursed by banks and other
financial institutions (meaning there is greater involvement of these institutions to prevent these
kinds of crime) and the policing of these offences is vastly different and utilises different types of
technology. For these reasons estimating the carbon footprint of online offences is not possible using
the current methodology and as a result only a partial picture of the true scale of the carbon footprint
of crime has been presented.
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4.5 Conclusions
The results of this chapter tell a previously untold story that may enable crime prevention policies
that acknowledge these environmental impacts and the potential benefits in terms of carbon
emissions reductions of crime prevention or reduction, as observed over the last few decades.
Although the continued drop in carbon over the last two decades is an encouraging trend, more could
be done to reduce the environmental impacts of crime and further decrease the carbon footprint. A
continued focus on specific offences (burglary and vehicle crime) and particular sources of emissions
(the need to replace stolen property) may further decrease these carbon emissions. It is hoped that
this may help inform crime prevention strategies in the future to ensure that benefits of crime
reduction, in terms of carbon savings, can be realised.
In the next chapter, attention is turned to the carbon cost of crime prevention measures and whether
the carbon footprint of these is greater or less than the carbon footprint of the crime(s) they aim to
prevent.
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Chapter 5: Carbon cost of crime prevention
The text Chapter 5 is predominantly from the paper Can burglary prevention be low-carbon and effective? (Skudder et
al., 2017b) (See Appendix 1.3).
5 Carbon cost of crime prevention

As burglary was highlighted in Chapters 3 and 4 as the offence that results in the largest proportion
of emissions, when turning attention to crime prevention measures, this was the most suitable offence
on which to focus further analysis. In this chapter, therefore, research question three is addressed to
estimate the carbon emissions associated with crime prevention schemes or products and see how
these compare with the carbon emissions of the crimes the scheme/product aims to prevent.
First a closer look at burglary prevention is required (extending the literature review from Chapter 2).
This is followed by the methodology, then the presentation of results and finally a discussion of the
implications of the findings.
5.1 Crime prevention

The benefits of crime prevention are obvious in terms of reduced burden on society and the economy.
Preventing crime saves lives, improves wellbeing, and limits costs associated with property being
lost, damaged or wasted (HMIC, 2014). Savings are also made in terms of time, work and money
expended on dealing with the consequences of crime. The launch of the Modern Crime Prevention
Strategy by the Home Office (UK Government department) clearly demonstrates that prevention is a
key priority of Government policy (Home Office, 2016b).
Savings offered by crime prevention however, may be more than just financial. Chapters 3 and 4
demonstrated that crimes result in substantial carbon emissions. This begs the question whether
crime prevention measures produce less carbon than the crimes they prevent. If they do then they
potentially provide additional benefits that have previously been overlooked.
In this chapter, the carbon emissions associated with crime prevention measures are assessed. This is
believed to be the first attempt to help inform crime prevention specialists of the environmental
impact of burglary prevention products and enable comparisons with the carbon emissions of the
crimes they aim to prevent. The focus in particular is on those measures associated with preventing
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domestic burglary, as this was shown to be the offence with the largest overall contribution to the
total carbon footprint of crime.
Households in England and Wales rely on a number of security devices to protect them from
burglary. The most popular being locks on doors and windows, security lighting, burglar alarms and
security chains (ONS, 2013a). Other forms of security such as CCTV systems are rare in private
households (Tseloni et al., 2014: Table 2) but may be increasing in popularity. However, not all
devices and their combinations can prevent domestic burglary to the same extent (Tseloni et al.,
2014). In this chapter, those security measures, both individually and used in combination, which are
the least (and most) carbon-intensive were identified. Then the carbon costs of each measure were
compared with a measure of their effectiveness, known as the security protection factor (SPF)
(Tseloni et al., 2014). This allowed win-win measures in terms of security and environmental
performance to be identified, i.e. measures that are effective at reducing the number of offences that
occur, and that also have low emissions associated with this preventative measure.
Households with no security measures in place are five times more likely to be burgled than those
with modest security measures (police.uk, 2016). In particular, the growth of security measures in
households and the increasing emphasis on private security has been linked to the drop in property
offences (Aebi and Linde, 2010; Clarke and Newman, 2006; Van Dijk, 2007; Vollaard and Van
Ours, 2011). The increased number of security devices installed in homes and businesses has also
recently been found to be the most likely explanation responsible for the drop in crime since the mid
1990s (Farrell et al., 2014).
Crime prevention advice from the UKs crime mapping website, police.uk, aims to help households
prevent burglary where possible. There are varying types of security for households to implement in
order to prevent burglaries from occurring. Alongside routine actions such as keeping doors and
windows locked in unoccupied houses, hiding keys out of sight, securing bikes and ensuring gates
and fencing are in good condition, the use of good window locks, strong deadlocks and installing a
visual burglar alarm along with good outside lighting is encouraged (police.uk, 2016). Welsh and
Farrington (1999) found that a combination of interventions is needed to impact certain categories of
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crime. This is because, alarms on their own are ineffective as a prevention measure and a
combination of interventions is needed to be successful (Tilley et al., 2015).
Tseloni et al. (2014) explored the presence of security devices and burglary risks in order to establish
the effectiveness of each device type, both individually and when used in combination with others.
To this end, the study employed population-based data from the Crime Survey for England and
Wales (CSEW) from 2008/09 to 2011/12 detailing the use of security devices within homes, to
produce a security protection factor (SPF) for each device type. The SPF was calculated using a
Security Impact Assessment Tool (SIAT), initially developed to test the effectiveness of security
measures against car theft (Farrell et al., 2011). The SIAT compares the overall burglary risk to the
burglary risk of households without security and those with particular security devices (either
individual devices or combinations). The SPF values therefore indicate the level of security conferred
relative to the absence of security devices. The burglary security measures examined included door
and window locks, security chains, burglar alarms, indoor and external lights, window grilles or bars,
dummy alarms and CCTV systems. They found that external lights or door locks offered the highest
protection against burglary of households relying on a single security device. One of the most
effective combinations of devices included window and door locks, indoor and external lighting
(known as WIDE - referred to as EIWD in Tseloni et al.s. study), which afforded 49 times more
protection against burglary than no security (Tseloni et al., 2014). Rather surprisingly, however,
alarms in properties without any other device slightly increased burglary risk compared to no
security. Furthermore, adding a burglar alarm reduced the overall preventive effectiveness of most
security combinations. Tilley et al. (2015) highlighted that burglar alarms, although having high
plausibility to prevent burglary, are unlike door or window locks, as they do not create a physical
obstacle to burglary. Also alarms do not increase the risk to a potential burglar approaching the target
property, as would be the case with external lights or CCTV. Alarms may indeed act as flags for
criminals to target properties or they may simply be installed but not used; or, if triggered, they are
ignored by neighbours, passers-by and the police, making them ineffective (Tilley et al., 2015).
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A criticism of crime prevention measures, either physical security focussed or otherwise, is the
potential effect of crime displacement. That is the usually unintended effect of crime-control
programs, by which efforts to prevent one kind of crime sometimes lead would-be offenders to
commit a different kind of crime or the same kind of crime at a different time or place (Barr and
Pease, 1990: 278). Several reviews of displacement, particularly those focusing on the situational
interventions discussed above, find that crime displacement seems to be the exception rather than the
rule (Barr and Pease, 1990; Eck, 1993; Guerette and Bowers, 2009; Hesseling, 1994). For this reason,
when crime prevention measures are considered, the idea that an incident prevented from one
location (such a house which has resisted an attempt of burglary) may occur in another is not
considered in this research, as the evidence of this is not strong enough to suggest this is the case in
the majority of situations.
Increased security adds value in terms of social and economic benefits as people avoid becoming
victims (Clarke and Weisburd, 1994). An opinion poll concerning desirable factors in the design of
homes indicated that security against crime was the most important factor (Mori Social Research
Institute, 2002). Nationwide crime prevention initiatives, such as Secured by Design (SBD),
therefore aim to encourage the building industry to design out crime at the planning stage and
encourage businesses and households to implement Crime Prevention Through Environmental
Design (CPTED) principles where possible. SBD advice and guidance relating to these principles is
proven to reduce the chance of burglary by up to 75% (Secured by Design, 2015). CPTED has
evolved over many years and is based on many early studies (Angel, 1968; Clarke and Mayhew,
1980; Gardiner, 1978; Jacobs, 2010; Jeffery, 1971; Lynch, 1960; Newman, 1973; Poyner, 1983). The
five essential elements of CPTED include surveillance, access, territoriality, management and
maintenance, and physical security. Although crime prevention initiatives, such as SBD, do not rely
solely upon physical security, the standards set to which doors, windows, fences and other household
products must adhere, suggest that physical security is viewed as a crucial factor (Armitage and
Monchuk, 2009a). The recent update of the building regulations in England has included a section on
household security, known as approved document Q (HM Government, 2015), which prescribes
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standards to which windows and doors must adhere, addressing the access and physical security
principles, although these only apply to newly built homes.
The environmental benefits or pitfalls, however, of increased security have yet to be explored in any
great detail despite a clear relationship between crime prevention and environmental considerations
in the pursuit of sustainability. Cozens (2007) recommended that researching areas of potential
conflict between ecological sustainability and designing out crime would aid urban sustainable
development efforts. Existing guidance relating to community safety highlights that designing out
crime should be central to the planning and delivery of new developments, in order to ensure
sustainable communities, where crime and disorder do not undermine quality of life or community
cohesion (Home Office, 2004). Armitage et al. (2008) assessed the conflicts and synergies between
SBD accreditation (ensuring that new homes/developments implement CPTED principles and design
out crime where possible) and the UKs Code for Sustainable Homes 18 (a national standard for the
construction and design of new homes). Encouragingly, the study did not identify any features of
sustainable design that would prevent a development from achieving the SBD accreditation and
equally, no features of SBD security were identified which would make it difficult to achieve a high
rating on the Code for Sustainable Homes. Implementing SBD principles therefore does not prevent a
developer from achieving high levels of sustainability and vice versa. Armitage and Monchuk
(2009b) suggested that poorly designed areas which require premature refurbishment and
regeneration, along with additional costs derived from moving home from crime-challenged areas,
may have an increased carbon footprint. Pease (2009) adds to this discussion with the assertion that
the costs, both fiscal and carbon, of crime reduction through SBD compliance could be recovered
over a period as short as four years. Well-known environmental assessment schemes such as
BREEAM (although not exclusive to homes) include credits awarded for safe access and the security
of the site or building (BRE, 2016). This again demonstrates the synergies that already exist between
18
The Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) has recently removed the Code for Sustainable Homes as changes
were made to Planning and Building Regulations (HM Government 2015), resulting in some elements that are revised or lost.
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sustainability and security, but the more specific analysis of individual crime prevention measures in
terms of environmental impact is still to be developed fully.
In order to justify the use of crime prevention measures, it is important that the benefits outweigh the
costs involved. These can either be economic, social or environmental costs/benefits and each are
important to consider as part of decision making when assessing security requirements. The Home
Office economic and social cost of crime estimates the monetised cost of domestic burglary (in a
dwelling) to be around 4,000 (Home Office & Ministry of Justice, 2011). This monetised figure
includes the physical and emotional impact on victims (800), average value of property stolen or
damaged (1,200), the cost of police investigations (700), the cost of other CJS services such as
courts, probation and prison services (700) and the costs associated with anticipation of the offence
including defensive expenditure and insurance (400).
Chapter 3, utilizing these monetised figures, estimated the resultant carbon footprint of this offence
to be just over 1 tonne (1,154kg) CO2e, equivalent to around 2,750 miles of driving an average
passenger car. These emissions arose from several sources, including defensive spending (150kg),
policing (190kg), replacing stolen or damaged property (550kg) and the CJS, including courts,
probation and other services (120kg). This carbon footprint estimate of burglary is used as the
baseline against which the environmental impact of burglary prevention measures is compared in this
chapter.
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5.2 Methodology
In this section of the study, the carbon footprint of commonly used burglary prevention measures was
established and compared to the footprint of an incident of burglary. The footprints were estimated
using data from environmental declarations scaled up to an average household footprint by
multiplying by the number of measures expected in a typical household 19. The footprint of both
individual measures and those used in combinations in households was estimated. This was then
compared to an indicator of the measures effectiveness, known as SPF, estimated by Tseloni et al.
(2014), to establish which measure, or combinations of measures, was most preferable if an effective
and low-carbon solution is required.
The measures studied included those in the Crime Prevention Module of the Crime Survey for
England and Wales (CSEW): door double locks or deadlocks, window locks, external lights on a
timer or sensor, indoor lights on a timer or sensor, CCTV, burglar alarms and security chains 20.
Where no environmental information was found relating to specific measures, it was not estimated.
These products were highlighted in order to recommend that companies address these gaps. Details
of the steps taken to estimate the carbon footprints of crime prevention measures are described
below.
5.2.1 Carbon footprinting crime prevention measures
All products and services have an environmental impact, whether during their production, use or
disposal (European Commission, 2003). To establish the carbon footprints of a burglary prevention
products, existing studies that consider all carbon emissions associated across all aspects of the
products life cycle were used. These studies are known as Life Cycle Assessments (LCAs) and
estimate emissions associated with the product from raw material extraction all the way to disposal,
including the manufacturing of the product and emissions associated with its use (electricity for
19
A typical home was assumed to have 3 doors (with 2 locks on the front door and 1 on each rear door), 8 windows (with 1.42 locks per
window), 1 burglar alarm system (made up on a control unit, an alarm ringer and 2 sensors, 1 indoor light (to create the illusion of someone
occupying the house), 3 external lights (one by each door) and 3 CCTV cameras (one by each door). The calculations and assumptions
relating to this typical household are detailed fully in Section 5.2.4.
20
Similar to Tseloni et al. (2014), dummy alarms and window bars or grilles were omitted from the analysis as these products are rare
(have a low prevalence in the survey) and are largely undesirable in modern households, in comparison to the more widely used measures
such as window and door locks, burglar alarms or lighting on a timer or sensor.
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example). LCAs also take into account any recycling or re-use applications before final end-of-life
disposal. More specifically, in this study environmental declarations were used, which are a
standardised type of LCA study, which enable comparisons between products that provide the same
function (BSI, 2010). Environmental declarations are defined by an international standard (ISO
14025) and are becoming increasingly important as a means of communicating environmental impact
data about products in the supply chain. They also, in theory, give contractors and clients more
confidence when specifying and procuring products (Ghumra, 2016). The declarations summarise
details of the environmental impacts of the product under scrutiny, including the global warming
potential (GWP measured in kgCO2e), for each aspect of the products life cycle. Across this life
cycle the total amount of these emissions represent the total embodied carbon (or carbon footprint) of
the individual product, which this study used in order to compare products. It should be stressed that
the ultimate goal of carbon footprinting is to reduce environmental impacts rather than deliberating
on the level of accuracy of the results (RICS, 2012).
There are a variety of environmental declaration schemes across industrial sectors, such as Eco-Leaf,
eco-profile, environmental product declarations (EPD), environmental profiles and product
environment profiles (PEP) (BSI, 2010). EPDs cover products related to the construction industry,
whereas Eco-leaf and PEPs cover electronic products. An example of the results provided in an EPD
is given in Figure 5.1.
Figure 5.1: Section of EPD results table example (Assa Abloy, 2015)
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The use of existing environmental declarations had its advantages: first it negated the necessity to
perform new LCA studies for the specific products of focus (performing LCAs are time-consuming,
data intensive, expensive and can include the challenge of commercially sensitive data). Also, as
environmental declarations follow a set of strict rules and standards, their results make them suitable
for comparison across products, and thus help inform choices between which burglary prevention
measures are the most suitable. This study is believed to be the first to gather and collate
environmental declarations in one place to help inform crime prevention specialists of the
environmental impact of these burglary prevention products and enable comparisons with the carbon
emissions of the crimes they aim to prevent.
5.2.2 Search strategy
There are many different environmental declaration schemes. Therefore, a systematic literature
review approach was taken to find environmental declarations of the selected crime-related measures
(door locks, window locks, burglar alarms, lighting - indoor and external with a timer or sensor - and
CCTV systems). The search period was November 2015 to March 2016.
The search strategy initially utilised keywords in a popular online search website (Google) to locate
the environmental declarations. The searches contained keywords relating to the crime prevention
aspects (i.e. security, burglary) and the products themselves (i.e. lighting, cctv, alarm, lock,
window, door, camera). These broad terms were limited by exclusively searching for these in
combination with references to the environmental declarations or LCA type results (i.e. using the
terms ISO 14025, environmental product declaration, product environmental profile, GWP or
CO2). When an environmental declaration was found, the company website was also searched in
order to find others of similar products that may also be relevant, as companies which have
undertaken environmental declaration studies often undertake this for a range of products rather than
just a single product.
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The initial search also led to websites of databases for various environmental declaration
programmes such as the International EPD System 21, ASTM EPD program22, IBU EPD program23,
EcoLeaf Environmental Labels 24 and the PEP Eco Passport program 25 , among others. Systematic
searches through these databases were also performed to ensure that relevant products were found
wherever possible.
5.2.3 Eligibility criteria
For declarations to be eligible to be included, several criteria had to be met, outlined in Table 5.1.
Table 5.1: Criteria for environmental declarations inclusion in study
Burglary
prevention Inclusion criteria
measure
All measures Environmental declarations must adhere to ISO 14025 standard and include the GWP impact category so
that carbon emissions estimates could made.
Products must have a security application and must be for domestic use, excluding products with
exclusively commercial use.
Products must reflect the broad category of burglary prevention measure detailed within the CSEW. An
environmental declaration of an entire door is not representative of the carbon footprint of a door lock
and similarly for an entire window and a window lock. As many door and window locks are integrated
into the door or window, only those declarations relating to the locking mechanism were selected.
Window and Only those declarations which related to window fixtures and fitting were used to represent window
door locks locks.
Declarations referring to door locking cylinders or similar hardware were used to represent double door
lock or deadlocks.
Lighting Lighting products selected had to include a sensor or timer to have a security application, thus excluding
(indoor and the many environmental declarations relating to more general lighting either in the home or for industrial
external lights applications.
on a timer or Any type of lighting was included, ranging from LED to halogen bulbs, so not all would be considered
sensor) energy efficient or low-carbon options (LEDs are more energy efficient than other light bulbs and thus
lower carbon).
No declarations were found relating to solar powered external lights on a sensor and so an estimate of
these is not available as part of this analysis. It would be anticipated that a solar-powered security light
would have a much smaller footprint due to the renewable energy providing electricity for the in-use
phases (B1-B7 in Figure 5.1) of the life cycle assessment but only LED or halogen lights are included
here.
Whether the lighting was suitable for indoor or outdoor use was sourced from product websites.
CCTV systems Only cameras with a sensor or those with surveillance capabilities were included in the study.
The search only included declarations relating to the camera rather than an entire CCTV system. This is
a limitation. Although many camera declarations found related to network cameras and therefore
potentially have associated emissions from computer equipment or use of the internet to view the
footage, the wide variability of these systems may overestimate the footprint and so only the camera
equipment itself is included in the estimate.
Burglar alarms Separate environmental declarations were searched for relating to each of the individual parts which
make up a burglar alarm system, including the alarm ringer (siren), the control unit and the sensors
installed around the home.
Environmental declarations for dummy/false alarm boxes were not found and so are not included within
this study.
21
http://www.environdec.com/
22
http://www.astm.org/CERTIFICATION/EpdAndPCRs.html
23
http://construction-environment.com/hp481/Environmental-Product-Declarations-EPD.htm
24
http://www.ecoleaf-jemai.jp/eng/
25
http://www.pep-ecopassport.org/
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The smallest, largest and average (median, to discount outliers) footprints found in each set of
declarations were used as the indicative footprint for the burglary prevention products. The smallest
provides an idea of the minimum footprint expected from the measure, the largest the maximum
expected and the median the most likely estimate of the footprint. It should be noted that although
there are many different types of each of the crime prevention measure available to buy from a
consumer perspective, many are likely to be of similar material composition (most door locks are
made from aluminium alloys for example), and also potentially of similar size and shape 26. As such
using the footprint of those products with an environmental declaration to represent those products
that do not yet have an environmental declaration is deemed reasonable.
5.2.4 Number of security measures installed per household
In order to estimate the carbon footprint of the burglary prevention measures installed in a home, the
number of measures per household must be estimated. This section describes the methodology and
assumptions used.
As the number of doors and windows in homes varies considerably based on the type of home, a
weighted average was used to represent the household footprint. Table 5.2 details assumptions used
concerning the number of doors and windows per household. These are based on a previous study
assessing the capital cost of Secured by Design measures (Davis Langdon, 2010), combined with
estimates of the proportion of each house type from the English Housing Survey (DCLG, 2016).
Table 5.2: Estimation of the average number of windows and doors per household in the UK.
Number of
households
Number of windows per Number of doors per
(DCLG, 2010) Proportion of
House Types house type house type
(Davis total
(Davis Langdon, 2010) (Davis Langdon, 2010)
Langdon, 2010;
DCLG, 2016)
Detached 6,191,079 26% 11 4
Semi-detached 5,790,666 25% 8 4
Terraced 6,729,747 29% 6 3
Flats/maisonettes 4,659,459 20% 5 1.25
Total Total Weighted average per Weighted average per
household household
23,370,951 100% 8 3
*a maisonette was estimated to have all 5 windows on the ground floor but a flat above the ground floor has none, so an average of the two
was used for this type of household.
26
Although it is important to note that varying lock types exist, such as rim locks and multi-point locks, which can differ significantly in
construction and material composition.
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Once the number of doors in a house was estimated, the number of door locks per household was
established using the Metropolitan Police Service (Met police) guidance for door security. It was
assumed that front doors have two locks, whereas rear access or other doors only have one (Met
Police, 2016). Therefore each household is assumed to have four locks (one front door with two
locks and two other doors with one lock each).
The number of window locks per window was established using a weighted average of the number of
locks needed for different window types (PVC and timber) available to buy from popular DIY
merchants in the UK, as detailed in Table 5.3. The number of locks per window was therefore
assumed to be 1.42. With an average of eight windows per household (Table 5.3), this meant that
11.36 locks were assumed to be present in each household.
Table 5.3: Estimation of the number of locks found on windows available to buy on popular DIY websites in
the UK.
Weighted average
Number of locks Number of windows Proportion of total
number of locks
Wickes PVC windows (Wickes, 2016a)
1 16 64% 0.64
2 7 28% 0.56
3 2 8% 0.24
Total 25 100% 1.44
Wickes timber windows (Wickes, 2016b)
1 10 56% 0.56
2 6 33% 0.67
3 2 11% 0.33
Total 18 100% 1.56
B and Q PVC windows (B & Q, 2016a)
1 8 89% 0.89
2 1 11% 0.22
Total 9 100% 1.11
B and Q timber windows (B & Q, 2016c)
1 10 56% 0.56
2 6 33% 0.67
3 2 11% 0.33
Total 18 100% 1.56
Overall weighted average 1.42
It was assumed that external lighting or CCTV cameras were installed by both the front and back
doors in a household (i.e. each of these measures therefore required three per household). To create
the illusion of someone occupying a house to deter burglars, only one indoor light on a sensor or
timer was assumed needed. For burglar alarm systems it was assumed that one control unit, one
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ringer and two sensors were present in each household 27. The household footprint of each measure
was found by simply multiplying the individual measure footprint by the number assumed present in
each household.
A lifespan of the presence of these products in the household over 10 years was assumed in order to
make the household footprints comparable. The lifespan (or service life) of the products is indicated
in environmental declarations where they consider the in-use stage of the life cycle. The lifespan of
burglar alarms, indoor lights and external lighting products, indicated in the environmental
declarations, was ten years, whereas a CCTV camera was only five years. This means that the
footprint of CCTV was doubled as it was assumed that two will be needed to cover 10-year period of
the household footprint. For window and door locks the in-use phase of the lifecycle is not included
as no energy consumption is required during use of these mechanical products and so they are
assumed to last the 10-year period also (although it is likely that they will last longer than this
period).
5.2.5 Establishing low-carbon and effective measures
Once a household footprint was established, measures were assessed on their own in a household and
when used in combination. It is common, for example, for houses to have both secure door locks and
window locks, and some may choose to install CCTV or burglar alarms, or use external lighting or
indoor lights as burglar deterrents. Tseloni et al. (2014)s full SPF database (adapted from their Table
2) was used to compare combinations of measures. Security chains as a measure were included in the
original Tseloni et al. study, but were omitted from this study since no footprint estimate was
available. This resulted in 30 combinations, instead of the original 55 in the Tseloni et al. study28.
The footprint of the combinations of measures was calculated by adding the footprint of the measures
together. The minimum, average and maximum, for each household measure combination was
27
Represents the typical burglar alarm system box contents on popular security and DIY websites (B & Q, 2016b, Yale, 2016), with the
exclusion of door contacts, key fobs or panic buttons as no environmental declarations of these components could be found.
28
There are a greater number of combinations possible but only those present in more than 50 households in the original survey data were
analysed and this threshold was maintained in this study for consistency and comparability.
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calculated in order to establish what the likely footprint would be, and the best and worst case
scenarios for each measure.
The carbon footprint of a burglary (excluding carbon arising from defensive expenditure which these
prevention measures represent) is estimated at around 1000 kgCO 2e (Table 3.8 of Section 3.2.1).
When the household carbon footprints of the measure(s) were compared to the carbon footprint of
one incident of burglary, those that resulted in a higher footprint than that of burglary were deemed
carbon-intensive and designated low environmental performance. If, however, the measure(s) had a
lower carbon footprint than the footprint attributed to a burglary, they effectively may offer a net
carbon saving (if the products prevent the offence from occurring): these products were categorised
as high environmental performers and are preferable over the low performers. To make the above
comparison straightforward and highlight those measure(s) that provide greater carbon savings when
compared to a single burglary incident, a carbon payback ratio was calculated by dividing the
footprint of a burglary by the footprint of the security measure. A carbon payback ratio equal to one
implies that security measure(s) produce the same amount of carbon as the burglary incident they
prevent. A burglary prevention measure(s) with a carbon footprint three times greater than the
footprint of a burglary would yield a carbon payback ratio of 0.33, indicating a greater carbon cost
for the prevention measure than for the offence itself. Conversely, a prevention measure(s) with a
carbon footprint half that associated with burglary would produce a carbon payback ratio of 2, and
those with even smaller footprints yield higher carbon payback ratios. Therefore security measures
with carbon payback ratios higher than one are deemed to perform well with respect to
environmental concerns.
To identify those measures that not only showed high environmental performance, but also were
more effective at protecting against burglary, the measure(s) were then plotted by both the carbon
payback ratio and their effectiveness indicator (SPF). The SPF is also a ratio measure as it indicates
the level of security conferred relative to the absence of security devices: Burglary prevention
measure(s) with a SPF less than one indicate worse protection than no security at all (lack of
effectiveness). Those with SPF higher than one confer greater protection than no security (good
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preventive effectiveness) (Farrell et al., 2011; Tseloni et al., 2014). This enables the most ideal
measure(s) to be highlighted using these comparisons to identify those with high environmental
performance and high effectiveness.
5.3 Results
5.3.1 Product footprints
The search for environmental declarations relating to burglary prevention measures yielded 45
declarations eligible for inclusion in the study. Table 5.4 summarises these and their associated
average carbon footprint estimates. The crime prevention measure with the highest individual carbon
footprint is the burglar alarm control unit (352.53 kg CO2e), and the lowest is door locks (3.14 kg
CO2e). For full details of the declarations, see Appendix 2.
Table 5.4: Number of environmental declarations included in study and associated carbon footprints.
Number of Median carbon

Burglary prevention measure environmental footprint
(From CSEW) declarations (kgCO2e)
included in study (mean when <2)
Door double or deadlocks 11 3.14
Window locks 3 4.18
2 (control unit) 352.53
Burglar alarm 10 (sensor) 5.44
2 (ringer) 26.46
Indoor lights (on a sensor or timer*) 6 60.35
External lights (on a sensor or timer) 4 134.50
Security chain None found
CCTV 7 66.31
* Indoor lighting for security purposes would normally be on a timer to create the illusion of someone being in the household. However, no
environmental declarations that specifically mention timers were found so the indoor lights on a sensor are used as a proxy for this.
Figure 5.2 details the median, minimum, maximum and interquartile ranges 29 of carbon footprint
estimates found in the environmental declarations. Burglar alarm sensors and CCTV show the largest
range of any of the measures. In contrast, window and door locks footprint estimates are much more
clustered around the median value.
29
Burglar alarm control unit and burglar alarm ringer estimates based on only two declarations and so the median and quartiles are
estimates between the two (high and low) values.
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400
350
Carbon footprint (kg CO2e)
300
250
200
150
100
50
0
Door locks Window locks Burglar alarm Burglar alarm Burglar alarm Internal lights External lights CCTV
(control unit) (sensor) (ringer)
Figure 5.2: Highest, lowest, inter-quartile range and average (median) carbon footprints of different burglary
prevention measures from environmental declarations.
5.3.2 Household footprint and comparison with footprint of burglary
Table 5.5 details the minimum, median and maximum carbon footprint estimates per household of
individual measures and the resulting best, median and worst-case scenarios of potential carbon
payback ratios when compared to the footprint of a burglary. The carbon payback ratios are
calculated by dividing the footprint of a burglary by the household footprint of the security measure.
For example, the installation of door locks shows the highest payback ratio with around 80 times
fewer carbon emissions than allowing a burglary to take place (1000 kgCO 2e for a burglary divided
by 12.54 kgCO2e the median footprint of door locks in a typical household). Of course, the
minimum footprint results in the best-case carbon payback ratio and the maximum footprint in the
worst-case. None of the measures included in the study have a footprint higher than burglary (all
carbon payback ratios were higher than one). Even the measure with the largest individual footprint,
burglar alarms, still resulted in between 2-3 times fewer emissions than those associated with a single
incident of burglary. The following sections focus on the median carbon payback ratios and compare
individual devices and combinations to a measure of their effectiveness.
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Table 5.5: Burglary prevention measures carbon footprint (min, max and median) per household and carbon
payback ratio
Carbon footprint Carbon payback ratio a

per household a (Burglary footprint over Security
Crime prevention
(kg CO2e) footprint)
measure
Best Worst
Minimum Median Maximum Median
case case
Door locks (D) 1 13 51 673 80 20
Window locks (W) 44 48 50 22 21 20
Burglar Alarm (B) 339 390 581 3 3 2
Indoor lights (I) 40 60 102 25 17 10
External lights (E) 286 404 423 3 2 2
CCTV (C) 26 b 398 519 38 3 2

a
calculations may not sum due to rounding to nearest whole number. See Table 5.6 for all results combinations.
b
environmental declaration did not include in-use life cycle stage, which explains the smaller overall footprint
5.3.3 Carbon payback and crime prevention effectiveness
Figure 5.3 compares the carbon payback ratios of individual crime prevention measures with their
security protection factors (SPFs). The most desirable measures (high environmental performance
and high effectiveness) are located towards the top or towards the right of the diagram and those
towards the bottom or the left are seen as the least desirable.
Measures with a carbon payback ratio lower than 1 (below the horizontal dotted line), are shown to
be more carbon-intensive than an incident of burglary (at 1000 kg CO2e per incident). There are,
however, no measures below this line as all measures have a carbon payback ratio higher than 1. The
device with the highest carbon payback is shown to be double door or deadlocks with nearly 80 times
fewer carbon emitted than that compared with an incident of burglary.
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80 Double Door or
Deadlock (D)
70
60
Environmental performance
(Carbon Payback Ratio)
50
40
30
Window Locks (W)
20 Indoor lights (I)
10
Burglar Alarm (B)CCTV (C) External Lighting (E)
0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Effectiveness (Security protection factor)
Figure 5.3: Burglary prevention measures plotted by their effectiveness and carbon payback ratio (median
values only).
Notes: Measures with a carbon payback ratio lower than 1 (below the horizontal dotted line) are more carbon-intensive than one incident
of burglary and measures that have an SPF of lower than 1 (left of the vertical dotted line) offer less protection than no security at all.
The measures are, spread between left and right on the SPF scale, highlighting those that are more or
less effective. Window locks and indoor lights are highest in effectiveness, albeit both with non-
statistically significant SPFs (Tseloni et al., 2014), whilst also having a high environmental
performance (between 17 and 21 times fewer emissions than burglary). These measures therefore
may also be seen as desirable individual measures. If the statistical reliability of burglary prevention
(SPF) is to be considered alongside environmental performance the best individual measure is door
double or deadlocks and the second best external lights.
The least desirable individual measure is burglar alarms, as they have a comparatively low
environmental performance (only 3 times fewer emissions than burglary) and a SPF lower than 1,
meaning that they offer less protection than no security at all (left of the vertical dotted line). This is
supported by Tseloni et al. (2014), who suggested that a house with a burglar alarm and no other
security may flag the existence of valuables and/or that burglar alarms alone may have been fitted to
previously (in the months before the CSEW reference period) burgled homes and thus may indicate
undocumented/unobserved repeat victims. Although, it should be noted that a property with a burglar
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alarm and no other security is rare, as only 212 (0.6%) out of around 37,000 properties included in
their study reported this combination of devices (Tseloni et al., 2014, Table 1).
Figure 5.4 shows the combinations of measures carbon payback ratio and SPF, again plotted to show
comparisons between the effectiveness and the environmental performance of these measures. The
carbon footprints of the measures included in the combination were added together before being
divided by the footprint of burglary to derive the carbon payback ratio. For example, the footprint of
the WIDE combination is around 524 kg CO2e (404kg for external lighting, 60kg for internal lights,
48kg for window locks and 13kg for door locks), which divided by the 1,000kgCO 2e from an
incident of burglary gives a carbon payback ratio of 2.18. The combination footprints are denoted by
capital letters of the first letter of the measures: D for Double or deadlocks, W for window locks, B
for burglar alarm, C for CCTV, E for external lighting and I for indoor lighting. See Table 5.6 for
detailed results of available combinations.
20
18
WD
16
Environmental performance
(Carbon Payback Ratio)
ID
14
12
10 IW
IWD
8
4 BD WB WBDED CWD EWD

IWB EID EIW CW EW EIWBD
WIDE
2 IWBD
EBD EWB EIWB EWBD CEWBD CEIWBD

0
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50
Effectiveness (Security Protection Factor)
Figure 5.4: Combinations of burglary prevention measures plotted by their effectiveness and carbon payback
ratio (median only)
Notes: Measures with a carbon payback ratio lower than 1 (below the horizontal dotted line) are more carbon-intensive than one incident
of burglary and measures that have an SPF of lower than 1 (left of the vertical dotted line) offer less protection than no security at all.
Abbreviations as per Figure 5.3.
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The most desirable combination for burglary prevention (right hand side of the diagram) is external
and indoor lights with window and door locks (WIDE) and external lights, window and door locks
(EWD). Also considered desirable in terms of carbon are the measures clustered in the top left
section, which have higher environmental performance, but a slightly lower effectiveness (although
these measures still offer more protection than no security). These include all possible combinations
of indoor lights, window and door locks (WD, ID, IW and IWD).
The least desirable combinations (nearest the bottom left of diagram), with low effectiveness and low
environmental performance include external and indoor lights with window locks and burglar alarm
(EIWB); external lights with burglar alarm and door locks (EBD); external lights with window locks,
burglar alarm and door locks (EWBD); and external lights with window locks and burglar alarm
(EWB). Common to all these combinations is the burglar alarm, which reflects its poor individual
performance. Also undesirable are the combinations with five or six measures (bottom right of
diagram) with higher effectiveness but a lower environmental performance. The CEWBD
combination (all measures but indoor lighting) and all six measures combination (CEIWBD), in
particular, have a carbon payback ratio lower than one, meaning they are more carbon-intensive than
an incidence of burglary (at 1,000 kg CO2e), which is considered undesirable.
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Table 5.6: Full results of security measure(s) security protection factor (SPF), carbon footprint (kg CO 2e) and
carbon payback ratio (burglary footprint over device footprint).
Security Protection Carbon payback ratio

Carbon Footprint
Security Factor (SPF) (burglary footprint over
(kg CO2e)
device(s) from Tseloni et al. device(s) footprint)
(2014) Min Median Max Best Median Worst
B 0.89 338.5 389.9 580.5 3.0 2.5 1.7
C 1.59 26.3 397.9 519.5 38.1 2.5 1.9
D 2.79 1.5 12.5 50.8 672.8 79.7 19.6
E 3.01 285.9 403.5 423.0 3.5 2.5 2.4
I 3.50 39.9 60.4 102.0 25.1 16.6 9.8
W 6.58 44.5 47.5 50.2 22.5 21.0 19.9
BD 1.96 340.0 402.4 631.4 2.9 2.5 1.6
CW 14.54 70.8 445.4 569.7 14.1 2.3 1.8
WD 12.54 46.0 60.1 101.0 21.8 16.7 9.9
ED 10.77 287.3 416.0 473.8 3.5 2.4 2.1
EW 17.76 330.4 451.0 473.2 3.0 2.2 2.1
ID 9.62 41.4 72.9 152.8 24.2 13.7 6.5
IW 8.33 84.4 107.89 152.2 11.9 9.3 6.6
WB 4.68 383.0 437.4 630.7 2.6 2.3 1.6
CWD 24.01 72.2 458.0 620.5 13.8 2.2 1.6
EBD 6.71 625.9 805.9 1054.4 1.6 1.2 1.0
EID 9.17 327.3 476.4 575.8 3.1 2.1 1.7
EIW 13.20 370.3 511.4 575.2 2.7 2.0 1.7
EWB 10.25 668.9 840.9 1053.7 1.5 1.2 1.0
EWD 34.41 331.9 463.6 524.0 3.0 2.2 1.9
IWB 6.26 422.9 497.8 732.7 2.4 2.0 1.4
IWD 16.54 85.9 120.4 203.0 11.7 8.3 4.9
WBD 8.92 384.5 450.0 681.6 2.6 2.2 1.5
EIWB 11.52 708.8 901.3 1155.7 1.4 1.1 0.9
WIDE 49.12 371.8 523.9 626.0 2.7 1.9 1.6
EWBD 16.49 670.4 853.5 1104.6 1.5 1.2 0.9
IWBD 18.24 424.4 510.3 783.6 2.4 2.0 1.3
CEWBD 32.44 696.7 1251.3 1624.1 1.4 0.8 0.6
EIWBD 29.62 710.3 913.8 1206.6 1.4 1.1 0.8
CEIWBD 34.00 736.6 1311.7 1726.1 1.4 0.8 0.6
Notes: Abbreviations: W = window locks, D = door double or deadlocks, E = External lights on a timer or sensor switch, I indoor lights
on a timer or sensor switch, B = burglar alarm, C = CCTV.
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5.4 Discussion
The social and economic benefits of reducing crime are well understood but the potential
environmental benefits are yet to be developed fully. Actions taken to prevent crime are not exempt
from the current global effort to reduce emissions. The aim of this chapter was to estimate the carbon
impact of burglary prevention measures and identify those that are both low-carbon and effective. By
analysing environmental declarations of commonly used burglary prevention products, the average
carbon footprint of various measures was estimated, including door and window locks, security
lighting, burglar alarms and CCTV systems. This is believed to be the first review of carbon footprint
information related to burglary prevention measures.
In terms of environmental impact, it has been shown that burglary prevention measures installed in
households have relatively small carbon footprints (between 12 and 400 kg CO 2e) with no individual
measure exceeding the carbon footprint associated with an incidence of burglary (1,000 kg CO 2e).
All individual measures considered produce less than half the emissions associated with a burglary,
and in some cases produced over 80 times fewer emissions than a single burglary, showing potential
carbon paybacks if burglaries can be avoided by implementing these measures. Only two
combinations of measures (one with five measures and one with six) exceeded the footprint of a
burglary.
Of course the desirability of these measures is subject to their effectiveness at preventing burglaries
from occurring. To take this into account, the carbon payback ratio (footprint of burglary over the
footprint of the measure) was plotted alongside an effectiveness indicator (SPF). When burglary
prevention measures are used in isolation, window locks, indoor lighting and door locks were found
to be the most desirable as they are highest on the environmental performance scale (with higher
carbon payback ratios) and highest on the effectiveness scale. When combinations of measures were
analysed, the most desirable combinations include window locks, door locks, indoor and external
lighting (WIDE). The least desirable combinations (lower environmental performance and lower
effectiveness) were those that included burglar alarms.
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5.4.1 The way forward
This part of the study could be expanded in a number of ways. The availability of environmental
declarations to estimate the carbon footprints is central to this work. As environmental declarations
are very product specific, the results can vary considerably due to the sources of data used, the
product designs or manufacturing techniques 30. However, only comparing declarations with matching
stages would vastly diminish the sample size. Where major differences between declarations in
similar product groups was found this was highlighted (see Figure 5.2). Also, as environmental
declarations are costly to undertake and produce, it is likely that only higher spec or higher grade
products generally have environmental declarations. Lower grade products may have differing
environmental impacts (such as the carbon intensity of the manufacturing process), but these are
difficult to estimate and so results may be biased towards representing the impacts of only higher-
grade products31. Future work would ideally include a larger number of environmental declarations
for each product type and include those of varying quality (and higher and lower prices).
This study used information from the environmental declarations to represent the carbon footprint of
the installation of these products only, and did not consider the embodied carbon of any products that
may be replaced by newer or more secure products. In this way, it was assumed that the choice
between which measures to implement is at the beginning of a house design stage rather than crime
prevention measures which have been retrofitted into existing homes. Incorporating carbon footprint
estimates of security devices fitted in existing homes presents an additional extension of the current
work.
The time period differences for SPFs calculations (2008/09-2011/12), environmental declarations
(2007-2015) and housing stock (2010) also demonstrate a further limitation (with a coincidental
midpoint of 2010). The preventive effect and related SPF values of security devices and their
30
For example, the burglar alarm sensor declarations detail varying levels of carbon associated with the in-use phase; one as low as
0.52kgCO2e over the 10 year life-span, and the highest at around 55kgCO2e. The life cycle stages (A1-D in Figure 5.1) included or
excluded in the system boundary vary across declarations, which also complicates comparability.
31
This may be a particular issue with burglar alarms and their installation cost (and one would assume ensuing quality) as they vary widely
between below 100 and over 1,000. A surveyed average installation cost of 475 +150 a year maintenance was estimated for a 3-
bedroom semi-detached property, with higher prices in London (Which?, 2016). This arguably contributes to their overall ineffectiveness
in preventing burglary (Tilley et al. 2015).
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combinations may well alter over time. This has been evident with burglar alarms, which used to
prevent burglaries effectively in the period 1992-1996 (Tilley et al., 2015), unlike during the most
recent years examined (2008/09-2011/12) in the current work. Replicating the current study for
informing policy initiatives should rely on up-to-date SPF and carbon footprint estimates.
The current work gives conservative estimates for both the preventative effect and the carbon
payback ratio of security measures. These findings build on those of Tseloni et al.s (2014), which
assessed the effectiveness of these products but did not consider the carbon implications. The SPFs
indicate the preventative effect of a security device(s) for a year due to crime survey constraints. As
it would be realistic to assume that burglary risks for longer than one year are higher (Wittebrood and
Nieuwbeerta, 2000), the SPF values arguably underestimate the preventative effect of security during
a 10-year period. In addition the footprint of burglary prevention measures were only compared to
the footprint of a single burglary. It is likely that once installed these measures may prevent more
than one incident of burglary taking place in the course of the 10 years of the devices life span
assumed here. Therefore this may also underestimate the level of carbon payback ratio, as the
emissions associated with the consequences of two or more burglaries may be avoided.
Future research in this area could fine-tune both estimates of preventive effectiveness and carbon
payback across different types of social groups. For example, it would be realistic to assume that the
carbon payback ratio is even higher than estimated herein for particularly vulnerable households,
such as social renters, whose burglary risk and incidence is well above average (Hunter and Tseloni,
2016; Tseloni and Thompson, 2015).
5.4.2 Decreasing the carbon footprint of burglary prevention
A natural extension of this study is to consider how to reduce the footprint of the burglary prevention
measures studied. There are many ways manufacturers can reduce the embodied carbon of their
products. The process of commissioning an environmental declaration that estimates environmental
impacts is a good starting point, since LCAs are considered a viable screening tool that can pinpoint
environmental hotspots in complex value chains (Hellweg and Canals, 2014). A common way to
reduce emissions is to focus on the elements of the product with the highest impact first. For different
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products, savings can be made in various ways throughout the lifecycle stages and, as noted by the
European Commissions Integrated Product Policy Statement, it is important that all environmental
impacts should be considered throughout the life-cycle in an integrated way to ensure that negative
impacts are not simply shifted from one part of the life-cycle to another (European Commission,
2003).
For manufacturing, there are several ways to save embodied carbon of products, by using fewer
materials, using alternative materials (higher recycled content), using clean (renewable) electricity,
or minimising waste (or re-using or recycling more) throughout the manufacturing process (WRAP,
2016). For the construction of buildings (of which security measures may be considered a part), the
use of recycled materials such as steel or aluminium, as a substitute for virgin materials, can confer
savings up to 50% of the embodied energy (Chen et al., 2001). The way in which businesses monitor
their environmental impact throughout manufacturing or distribution is also important and the
certification of environmental management systems has been shown to have a significantly positive
effect on the innovation of more environmentally friendly products (Rehfeld et al., 2007). An
example of how this approach has been applied in the security sector was recently demonstrated by a
large door lock manufacturer: as a result of commissioning environmental product declarations
(EPDs) for a range of its products, for a particular door lock the number of materials used was
reduced (material weight and thickness without compromising strength), aspects were re-designed
and a custom-made nickel and chrome-plated material was replaced with stainless steel (Assa Abloy,
2016). As well as modifying existing products this approach by this particular manufacturer is also to
be taken forward for new product designs, which will be instrumental for ensuring sustainability is
considered throughout their product range.
Obstacles to environmental product innovation mainly consist of the economic aspects (such as the
higher price tag often associated with products which consider their impacts more wholly) (Rehfeld
et al., 2007). Through the changes in the example above, however, the environmental impact was
reduced along with a 15% reduction of manufacturing costs (Assa Abloy, 2016), demonstrating the
potential economic benefits that also exist. It is likely that because of the higher costs, this is the
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reason the search found that few companies have undertaken environmental declarations of burglary
prevention measures and further research in this area is needed. Completion of more environmental
declarations would improve the knowledge base of where improvements can be made in regards to
environmental impacts of existing measures. Moreover, advances in technology also have the
potential to reduce the carbon emissions associated with crime prevention measures, and indeed
newer and smarter products, with lower carbon footprints, may already be available.
Other types of burglary prevention that are not physical products may also potentially offer low-
carbon solutions to preventing burglary and other types of crime. Examples of this include advice
and guidance from websites such as police.uk and thecrimepreventionwebsite.com. Common sense
measures, such as not leaving valuable items on show, is often important in reducing opportunities to
commit crime, as highlighted by opportunity being one of the key drivers of crime in the Home
Offices Modern Crime Prevention Strategy (2016).
Other websites such as Immobilise.com - a national property register to help track items and
repatriate them to the correct owner if they get stolen - also offer a presumed low-carbon service, as
only the maintenance of the website and advertisements and travel associated with retrieving items
would produce emissions. The reduction of emissions associated with the need to replace stolen
items was highlighted as a large area of emissions (nearly 1.5 million tonnes CO2e) arising due to
crime in Chapter 3. Property registers such as this, therefore, may help save emissions by reducing
the need for items to be replaced.
In addition, police forces in the UK have Crime Prevention Design Advisors (CPDAs), also known
as Architectural Liaison Officers (ALOs) or Designing Out Crime Officers (DOCOs), who offer free
advice on new building projects as part of planning applications. Again, this may contribute to a low-
carbon burglary prevention strategy. One example is promotion of the planting of vegetation such as
thorny bushes along property boundaries as a natural deterrent as advised by Secured by Design
(2014). Security advice such as this may even indeed be carbon positive as plants take up CO 2 from
the atmosphere.
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5.5 Conclusions
The study detailed in this section is believed to be the first to help inform crime prevention specialists
of the environmental impact of burglary prevention products and enable comparisons with the carbon
emissions of the crimes they aim to prevent. It has been shown that effective burglary prevention
does not have a significant carbon footprint when compared to the emissions associated with
burglaries that can be prevented. Window locks are found to be the most effective and low-carbon
measure available individually. Combinations of window locks, door locks, external and indoor
lighting (WIDE) are also shown to be effective and low-carbon. Burglar alarms and CCTV do not
perform as strongly, with higher carbon footprints and lower security against burglary.
It was demonstrated that crime prevention measures may be able to offer more than monetary savings
or reduced social impacts, as it is clear that careful choice of burglary prevention measures can save
carbon emissions, whilst still ensuring a secure and safe home. It is encouraging that the security
industry as a whole is beginning to pay attention to environmental impacts, as shown by the
availability of environmental declarations related to burglary prevention measures. In future there
will be a greater need to consider environmental impacts and substantial emission reductions are
required, in particular, over the next few decades to reduce climate risks (Pachauri et al., 2014).
These findings are of considerable benefit to security professionals by highlighting that crime
prevention measures have varying environmental costs, and that the most successful security
measures are not necessarily the most carbon costly. In fact, the opposite is true, with many of the
most successful security measures having a comparatively small carbon footprint, enabling security
professionals to make win-win choices. This information could also be incorporated into future house
building and renovation guidelines. There is already a need to consider the environmental impact of
housing, but connecting this to crime prevention/security represents an additional benefit. For
example, the opportunity to install security measures (better locks) could be combined with
installation of energy saving or other environmentally friendly initiatives (double glazing).
The results presented in this chapter are an important contribution towards a growing connection
between security and sustainability agendas. Cozens (2007), for example, highlighted an explicit
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need to integrate crime issues in sustainability frameworks. Also, Armitage and Gamman (2009)
highlighted the importance of ensuring that any steps forward for the green agenda, such as
minimising carbon emissions, do not present a step back for the crime agenda (and vice versa).
Sustainability concerns can be considered alongside security choices and that win-win measures (in
terms of security and low-carbon) can be chosen to minimise impacts whilst not compromising
safety.
As both security and sustainability considerations are often neglected in the face of economic
pressures (with the exception of national security/national infrastructure concerns), awareness of
these issues between sustainability and security professionals is essential to avoid long-lasting
damage to the environment and risks to community safety.
It is understood that security choices around the home are made in various ways and it is unlikely
that the carbon footprint of these products will be a deciding factor alone. But if it is possible to
secure homes against burglary while minimising the environmental impact, then low-carbon
measures may be more favourable to householders concerned about the environment. It is hoped that
by highlighting the footprints of common burglary prevention measures this may help inform these
choices further in the future and also advocate further research into these and other environmental
impacts of crime prevention measures.
The next section brings the three previous chapters of the thesis together to discuss the main findings
of the research, limitations, areas of further research and impact and potential policy
recommendations.
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Chapter 6: Discussion and Conclusions
6 Discussion and Conclusions

6.1 Achieving objectives
The aim of this EngD research project was to estimate the carbon emissions associated with different
types of crime in England and Wales. This included both the emissions associated with criminal
events and the environmental costs and benefits of crime prevention solutions. These estimates help
identify potential opportunities to reduce the overall environmental impact and also potentially
identify low-carbon and demonstrably effective means of crime control. Identifying win-win
scenarios, which result in both a reduction of the level of crime and the amount of carbon emissions
that result from these offences, was important. The aim was also to enable policy makers, as part of
the policy appraisal process, to assess the environmental impact of crime alongside the social and
economic impacts already considered.
Several core and supplementary research questions were designed to address the aims:
aim to prevent?
As introduced in the literature review (Background Chapter 2), to discuss crime as a form of
pollution framed the study and opened up questions about the environmental impacts which result
from criminal offences. In the project, carbon emissions were considered holistically through the
lifecycle approach; specifically, emissions were examined from all aspects of crime and specific
forms of crime prevention, from activities before the offence is committed (including security
considerations), to direct impacts from crime (such as the replacement of stolen items) and the CJS
implications (emission from policing, prisons, courts etc.).
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Questions 1-3 have been answered throughout the three main research projects (Chapters 3, 4 and 5).
The main findings of the research have estimated the carbon emissions associated with different
types of crime and of specific crime prevention measures. Questions 4 and 5, relating to whether
carbon emissions as a result of crime can be taken into account in project and policy appraisals and
what measures could therefore be implemented to reduce these carbon emissions, has been discussed
throughout and will be summarised in the following sections.
In this chapter, first key findings are presented, followed by a summary of the main limitations of the
research. Next, the opportunities for further research are discussed, followed by details of how the
research has been disseminated. Finally, the impact and potential policy recommendations are
detailed before concluding remarks.
6.2 Key findings

There are a number of key findings from the project, detailed throughout Chapters 3, 4 and 5. The
key finding from the first part of the study (Chapter 3) was that the money currently spent on crime
in England and Wales gives rise to over 4 million tCO2e for the year 2011. This represents the
carbon cost of crime. This footprint is equivalent to the direct energy use of around 900,000 UK
homes, at an average carbon footprint of 4.5 tCO 2e per household. By estimating this footprint, the
project has enabled the carbon-crime blind spot (i.e. where the environmental impacts of crime are
currently overlooked) to be addressed.
Several areas of the footprint were highlighted as having potential for reductions. The replacement of
stolen or damaged goods accounted for 51% of the total carbon footprint. In terms of offence type,
burglary resulted in the largest proportion of the total carbon footprint, at 30%.
Analysis of actions before, during and after the offence revealed that emissions arising as a
consequence of crime account for over two thirds of the total footprint (67%), those from the
criminal justice system (CJS) amount to around one fifth (21%) and those from actions in
anticipation of crime are noticeably smaller at 12% (49%, 43% and 8% respectively when only
police-recorded offences are considered).
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Despite demonstrating in Chapter 3 that crimes have a high carbon cost to the environment, these
estimates were essentially static in time, with no consideration of the environmental consequences of
the changing nature and levels of crime over time. This is important, with growing evidence that the
crime profile has changed substantially over the last two decades. Key findings from Chapter 4
demonstrate that over the last two decades a substantial fall in crime-related carbon emissions in
England and Wales has occurred. The falling number of offences resulted in a carbon footprint that
fell from around 7 million tCO2e in 1995 to below 3 million tCO2e by 2015. This results in a total
reduction of over 54 million tCO2e over the 20-year period studied. As the number of crimes has
gone down, so has the carbon footprint, but, importantly, this has not occurred in a straightforward
one to one ratio. The results show that specific crimes (burglary and vehicle offences) and specific
aspects of the carbon footprint (the need to replace stolen or damaged items) result in the highest
proportion of emissions savings and may therefore offer the best potential opportunities for further
reducing this footprint in the future.
Chapter 5 analysed the carbon footprint of measures for preventing burglary offences. The measures
studied include door locks, window locks, internal and external lighting, burglar alarms and CCTV
cameras. Comparison of the footprint of the products with a measure of their effectiveness (from
existing research) allowed low-carbon and effective products to be emphasised above those that are
less effective and/or higher carbon. Key findings of this section included identifying measures that
perform highly on both an effectiveness measure and environmental performance. Window and door
locks were shown to be the highest performing measures individually. The most effective and low-
carbon combination is known by the acronym WIDE (window locks, internal lighting, door locks and
eternal lighting). Burglar alarms were found to be the worst performing product as they were least
effective and had a high carbon footprint. Combinations that include burglar alarms were also found
to be lower on both the effectiveness and environmental performance scales.
Overall, this study has addressed the carbon-crime blind spot initially identified by Pease (2009) and
highlighted areas where the majority of emissions attributed to crime arise. This research has shown
that crime has a carbon cost, and that, over time, as the number of crimes have gone down, so too has
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the carbon footprint. But this did not occur in a straightforward one-to-one manner, with some
crimes, and some aspects of the response particular crimes, making a disproportionate contribution to
the carbon reduction. The analysis into burglary prevention goes further to suggest that low-carbon
and effective forms of crime prevention are indeed possible and already exist, which have the
potential to save emissions overall if offences can be avoided. This is particularly important when
reviews of crime prevention interventions find that crime displacement (incidents prevented in one
place which may occur in another location or at another time) seems to be the exception rather than
the rule (Barr and Pease, 1990; Eck, 1993; Guerette and Bowers, 2009; Hesseling, 1994), meaning
that the emissions of incidents, likewise, could be avoided rather than displaced to other offences.
6.3 Limitations
Although the research project has achieved its aims and objectives, there are of course always
limitations to the conclusions. The majority of the limitations have already been discussed in
Chapters 3-5, more specifically in sections 3.1.7, 4.4.1 and 5.4. Many main limitations relate to
existing data sources, such as:
Using Environmentally-Extended Input-Output Analysis (EE-IOA) derived carbon

multipliers to calculate the carbon footprint of criminal offences (see section 3.1.3).
Basing the carbon footprint of crime estimates on the monetised social and economic cost of
crime estimates (see section 3.1.4).
Using police-recorded crime figures and Crime Survey for England and Wales data from the
Office for National Statistics to estimate the scale of crime committed in England and Wales
(see sections 3.1.6 and 4.2.1).
Using environmental declarations global warming potential (GWP) estimates to represent the
carbon footprint of crime prevention products (see section 5.2.1).
Using security protection factors as a measure of effectiveness of burglary prevention
devices (see section 5.2.5).
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Other limitations, linked to choices of how to conduct the study, included:
The subjective choice of allocating EE-IOA multipliers (industrial sector categories) to cost
of crime categories (see sections 3.1.3 and 3.1.7).
Application of 2011 carbon footprint estimates to all years considered in the time series
(1995-2015), which presents an oversimplification of the carbon intensity of the economy
and how this has changed over time (see section 4.4.1).
The assumptions associated with the number of security measures installed in a typical
household (see section 5.2.4).
And finally, limitations connected to the implications of the findings included:
The estimated scale of the rebound effect, which may overset the carbon savings related to
preventing criminal offences (see section 3.3).
Despite these limitations, it is important to note that the ultimate goal of carbon footprinting is to
reduce environmental impacts rather than deliberating on the level of accuracy of the results(RICS,
2012). Keeping this in mind, whilst the objective of estimating the footprint associated with crime
and prevention has been achieved, there is still a need to reduce these emissions and associated
environmental impacts, and the findings have highlighted many key areas where emissions can be
reduced.
6.4 Opportunities for further work

The title of this project the carbon cost of crime invokes such a wide array of subjects that it would
be quite impossible to estimate all aspects that could be included under this umbrella of crime. The
decision of where to draw the line has limited some areas of study, for example this study has only
focussed on England and Wales despite the methodology being applicable to other countries. It is,
however, important to therefore consider the bigger picture wherever possible and so opportunities
for further work are discussed here.
In Chapter 3, various crime exclusions were outlined as part of the carbon footprint of crime
estimates (section 3.1.17). The features that were problematic to estimate from the monetised costs
included the physical and emotional harm to victims of crime from lost output, criminal justice
overheads and compensation payments made to victims. These were mainly problematic due to
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ambiguities over the extent that they produce carbon emissions. For example, victims taking time off
work because of crime could be said to reduce emission during working hours, but energy consuming
behaviour of those not working may offset this. Emotional costs of crime are also ambiguous as to
whether their impact produces or reduces emissions (Pease, 2009).
In addition to the difficulties associated with estimating the carbon footprint from the monetised
costs of crime, a number of other offences and aspects of offences were excluded from the estimates.
A brief list (with selected more detailed explanations below) of additional areas of further study
which may be of interest include estimates of emissions associated with:
the private security industry

fires due to arson offences
offenders travel to and from the place where crime is committed
organised crime offences (and whether these differ from that of un-organised crime)
altered behaviour due to fear or crime or victimisation, including moving home
aspects of the CJS which serve the public, but are not necessarily associated directly with
crime
other criminal offences not estimated elsewhere in this thesis such as fraud, cyber or online
offences, traffic offences or drugs offences
To explore the potential for further work, a selection of these additional areas (those expected to have
the largest impact) are discussed briefly, and in some cases estimated, in the following sections.
6.4.1 Private security industry impacts
The environmental impacts of the private security industry may be under-estimated due to the
growing scale of this sector in recent years (Security Industry Authority, 2016). The defensive
expenditure aspect of the anticipation of crime costs (estimated in Chapter 3), is assumed to account
for around 370,000 tCO2e in the year 2011. The monetised cost of crime estimate, from which the
footprint estimate is produced, is mainly based on data from the British Security Industry Association
(BSIA) and Mintel Market Intelligence reports (Brand and Price, 2000). There may, however, be a
difference between this estimate (which is scaled up by types of crime and police-recorded figures)
and the scale of the environmental impact of private security as a whole in the UK. This difference is
likely to be due to Brand and Prices estimate being out-dated (originally from 2000 and only uprated
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for inflation since). Also, the number of crimes recorded has fluctuated over the past few decades
whereas the scale of the private security industry has grown rapidly. It therefore warrants further
scrutiny.
Rather than using BSIA or Mintel sources, data from the Annual Business Survey (ABS - formerly
the Annual Business Inquiry, or ABI, pre 2007) (ONS, 2010; ONS, 2016c) was used to produce an
initial estimate of the carbon footprint of the private security industry as a whole in the UK. The
annual turnover of the security and investigation services sector is available in the ABS, alongside
the value of total purchases of goods, materials and services relating to this sector. Rather than
using turnover, which measures the amount of money taken by the industry, the purchase of goods,
materials and services was used to estimate the scale of the footprint of this sector, as this measures
the consumption of the industry.
To translate the total goods purchased value into a carbon footprint, the 2011 private security
carbon multiplier, from the Defra dataset (from Chapters 3 and 4) was used. Figure 6.1 shows the
resulting estimated footprint between the years of 1995 and 2014, plotted alongside the total turnover
for comparison.
600,000 8,000
Carbon footprint of goods and services
Carbon Footprint from goods and services
Turnover 7,000
500,000
6,000
Turnover (million)
400,000
(tonnes (CO2e)
5,000
spend
300,000 4,000
3,000
200,000
2,000
100,000
1,000
- 0
1995 2000 2005 2010 2015
Figure 6.1: Estimated carbon footprint and turnover of the private security industry in the UK
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The growth of the security industry over this 20-year period is evident with a turnover of only 2
billion in 1995, reaching to peak over 7 billion in 2012. The footprint resulting from the purchase of
goods and services has grown at a similar rate over the period, from 100,000 tCO 2e in 1995 to around
450,000 tCO2e in 2014, with slight fluctuations in recent years. The 2011 footprint of private security
in the UK (around 480,000 tonnes CO 2e) is higher than that estimated from the cost of crime figures
(370,000 tonnes CO2e) and so it is possible that this element of the carbon cost of crime is
underestimated in footprints presented in Chapter 3.
Whilst this may provide a more accurate estimate of the footprint of the private security industry, it
was not included in the overall estimates presented in earlier chapters due to data limitations.
Applying 2011 carbon multipliers to each year in this dataset (similar to the limitations of Chapter 4
results) limits the accuracy of the time series, as earlier years are likely to have been more carbon-
intensive than 2011, which may underestimate the footprint. Also, the use of the ABS dataset to
represent the entire private security industry presents a further limitation, as there is large variability
in this sector. For example, emissions from large organisations such as G4S are likely to be vastly
different from smaller operations of individual establishments requiring security personal. Further
work is needed to expand upon this and explore these limitations in the future if the scale of this
footprint is to be estimated, monitored and reduced.
6.4.2 Emissions from fires due to arson
Fire is unique in terms of carbon emissions associated with criminal activities as it results in direct
emissions through the act of burning property. These are, of course, in addition to the indirect
emissions associated with the need to replace or clean up damaged items. Incidents of arson also tend
to be responded to by the fire-service (in addition to police), which is a different form of emergency
service than those associated with other types of crime and has not yet been addressed as part of this
research.
An estimate of the direct emissions from an incidence of arson depends on the quantity and nature of
material burnt during the crime. Existing research around emissions associated with fire tend to
centre of those emitted from wildfires (usually the burning of vegetation), which is likely to differ
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considerably from emissions from burning property, vehicles or buildings. The Greater Manchester
Fire Service conducted research to estimate the emissions associated with unintentional fires of
vehicles, dwellings, rubbish and business/industrial sites (Marsden, 2009). A rudimentary calculation
of emissions from fires is presented in Table 6.1, which utilises Marsdens estimates of CO2 yield per
hour alongside data from the Home Office detailing the number of incidents attended by fire and
rescue services in England. To calculate the carbon footprint arising from these fire incidents the CO 2
yield per hour was multiplied by the number of incidents attended.
Table 6.1: Estimate of the carbon footprint due to fire incidents in England in 2015-16.
Type of fire Average area CO2 yield per No. of incidents attended Total tCO2
incident burnt per fire hour of fire by fire and rescue produced from
(m2) per m2 (tonnes services in England incidents in
(Marsden, CO2) (2015-16) 2015-163
2009) (Marsden, (Home Office, 2016a)
2009)
Vehicles 6 1.15 20,829 23,845
Dwellings 20 1.90 31,333 59,783
Rubbish 4 0.76 5,2131 3,979
Businesses 100 19.08 15,9842 304,975
Total 73,359 392,582
1 Other outdoors incidents used to represent the rubbish category, but this category is also likely to include wildfires
2 other buildings incidents used to represent businesses/industrial properties.
3 Assuming each incident lasts for an hour (it is likely than many will be shorter and others longer).
The footprint attributed to fire incidents in England for the year 2015-16 was found to be over
390,000 tonnes CO2 arising from over 73,000 fire incidents. However, not all fire incidents are
preventable or intentional. The number of arson offences recorded by police forces in the same year
was much lower at around 22,000 cases (19,000 arson not endangering life offences and 3,000
arson endangering life offences) (ONS, 2016a). Assuming that the proportion of arson offences is
similar to the proportion of all fires spread amongst the dwelling, business, rubbish or vehicle fires,
the carbon footprint due to arson offences is likely to be around a third of this total (at around
118,000 tCO2).
Marsden (2009) asserts a much higher estimate of 2 million tCO2 that could be attributed to all
preventable fires in the UK annually and this was put forward as a conservative estimate with the
potential to be as high as 20-25 million tonnes CO2. This demonstrates the uncertainty associated
with these estimates and it is left for future research to produce more robust and accurate estimates of
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the true scale of this impact. What is encouraging however, is that despite this footprint potentially
being a large source of emissions not otherwise accounted for, cases of arson are already becoming
less prevalent with a drop of around 60% in the annual number of arson offences reported since 2002
(ONS, 2016a). The scale of these emissions is therefore likely to decrease if this trend continues
6.4.3 Fear of crime impacts
Peoples behaviour can change either in anticipation of crime occurring (being haunted by anxiety)
or as a consequence of being a victim of crime (Box et al., 1988). This is termed fear of crime. In
the first carbon cost of crime estimate by Pease (2009), it was suggested that people who move house
due to crime could be considered a good measure of the fear of crime aspect of the carbon footprint
estimate. Pease suggested that the cost of moving home (at 5,800 for a 200,000 house) produced a
potential footprint of 5.6 tCO2e. Pease went on to suggest that if only 1 million of the people who
move in an average year moved because of crime this could produce a footprint as large at 5.6
million tCO2e, effectively doubling the footprint of crime. Here, this study updates Peases figures
utilising the methodology from Chapter 3s carbon footprint of crime estimates. This newer estimate
of the carbon footprint associated with moving home demonstrates the potential scale of emissions
associated with fear of crime.
In a recent study by the Post Office and the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR)
(2016), the average cost of moving home (selling and buying) in the UK (in addition to the purchase
price) is over 13,000. Table 6.2 shows these costs broken down by type and an estimated carbon
footprint arising from these costs using selected Defra multipliers (2014) for each cost type,
including Stamp Duty.
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Table 6.2: Estimated carbon footprint of moving house in the UK.
2015 Cost of Moving (Post Defra (2014) Carbon Carbon Estimated Carbon
Office and Cebr, 2016) multiplier description multiplier footprint (tonnes
(kg CO2e/) CO2e)
Public administration and
Stamp Duty 4,372 defence services; compulsory 0.27 1.17
social security services
Real estate services on a fee
Estate Agent 5,697 0.09 0.50
or contract basis
Other professional, scientific
Surveyors 627 0.16 0.10
and technical services
Other professional, scientific
Conveyancing 1,486 0.16 0.23
and technical services
Removals 1,037 Road transport 0.78 0.80
TOTAL 13,219 2.81
It is therefore estimated that the carbon footprint associated with an average house move in the UK is
around 2.8 tonnes CO2e. The number of people moving home due to crime is unknown but many
householders consider security and safety highly (amongst the need for light, space and privacy for
example) when considering which aspects of their home are most important to them (RIBA, 2012).
Using Peases (2009) estimate of 1 million house moves (deemed a realistic estimate at around 20%
of all house moves in a given year) potentially due to crime, this would equate to a footprint of 2.8
million tonnes CO2e, which would add around 70% on top of the total carbon footprint of crime
estimated by this research study (detailed in Chapter 3).
These estimates, however, remain limited as no estimate of the carbon associated with people
moving from rented or social housing is presented (even if these people are less likely to be able to
move). This is because these people do not own their home to sell or move from, which means,
again, that this is an underestimate or the true potential scale of the carbon associated with this fear
of crime behaviour.
Other possible actions associated with peoples actions in response to fear of crime may be smaller
and even harder to quantify. These include the driving of children to and from school, rather than
walking in unsafe neighbourhoods, people who stay at home in order to feel safe or those who avoid
certain areas of towns or cities. Some of these activities may even be carbon negative. Despite being
everyday activities, they clearly have an impact on the environment and could be said to only happen
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because crime exists, again highlighting potential carbon emissions that arise or are saved due to
crime that may be overlooked by current estimates.
Regeneration required of failed housing estates due to crime could also be considered an indirect
carbon cost generated from fear of crime. The previous Prime Minister of the UK described sink
estates as actually having crime designed in (Cameron, 2016), highlighting failed estates from the
60s and 70s. Armitage and Monchuk (2009b) add to this and suggest that poorly designed areas,
which require premature refurbishment and regeneration, may result in an increased carbon footprint.
This problem is potentially solved by the principles of crime prevention through environmental
design (CPTED) and failing estates can be used as case study examples when design fails to deter
crime. An example of this in London is the Aylesbury Estate, which is undergoing a large
programme of re-generation after its decline in the 1990s (Aylesbury Now, 2016). The embodied
carbon of these estates, which when built were intended to last for many years, is effectively wasted
if the areas have to be demolished and re-built.
The scale of the carbon footprint relating to refurbishment and regeneration is hard to measure, and it
is left for future research to investigate further. The carbon cost due to regeneration however is
assumed to be large and a significant cost to the environment. Understanding this is important to help
inform future housing developments, including how cities and towns are designed, to minimise
carbon and prevent crime wherever possible.
6.4.4 Other types of offences
There is potential to extend this work to other offence types not currently included in the estimates
presented, such as fraud offences, online offences (cybercrime), traffic offences, drug offences and
arson (as already discussed). As previously mentioned in Section 4.4.1, any carbon emissions
associated with cybercrime offences are likely to be inherently different from other types of crime as
they have no physical location and the policing of these offences is vastly different and utilises
different types of technology. Fraud and drug offences are similarly complex as there are currently
no financial estimates of the impact of these offences. Therefore, it is not possible to estimate the
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carbon footprint of these omitted offences using the current methodology and it is reserved for future
studies to investigate further.
6.5 Dissemination of research

An important aspect of the project is the dissemination of research through various channels. In order
to distribute the findings amongst the most relevant audiences the academic papers were targeted for
either environmental footprinting audiences (Paper 1 in the Journal of Industrial Ecology),
criminology audiences (Paper 2 in the British Journal of Criminology) or crime prevention specialists
(Paper 3 in Security Journal). Alongside the publication of each paper, a communications plan was
adopted to ensure that press releases or supplementary publication of research summaries were also
made available to raise awareness of the key findings of each part of the research project. For
example, publication of the first paper was followed up by press articles by the publisher, university,
project sponsors (Secured by Design and the Home Office) and subsequently by wider media,
including the New York Times, Science Magazine and the ENDS report. This not only enabled the
research to be more widely appreciated but also enabled feedback on the research findings to directly
link to the subsequent research papers and produced more focussed follow up reports and papers with
more direct recommendations.
Research paper summaries (1-2 pages in length) were produced alongside each publication (and in
some cases published online) to communicate the research in a much more concise way. These were
also written in a style more appropriate for practitioners than the full versions of the academic
research papers. These can be found in Appendix 3.
Presentations at international and UK-based conferences also allowed the research findings to be
disseminated in specific research communities, shaping the way the research progressed throughout
the four-year study. As a result of a presentation on the project at the Crime Statistics Users
Conference in December 2015, a collaboration was established with a research team at Nottingham
Trent University (NTU) to bring together and produce Paper 3. This outlined the carbon emissions of
security devices and combined this with the NTUs work on the effectiveness of these measures.
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6.6 Impact and potential policy recommendations

Impacts have been generated at various points throughout the project and were recorded in an impact
log, which can be found in Volume 2. Highlights include the publication and publicity around the
three published papers and presentation of the research findings at various workshops, lectures,
conferences and university events. Some impacts have already been achieved, whilst others represent
areas for potential recommendations for the future.
In terms of impact made in academia, the publications detailing the research findings have added to
the debate between sustainability and criminology disciplines. By re-focusing green crime
exclusively on the environmental costs of crime and introducing security and crime considerations
amongst environmental specialists, the inter-disciplinary nature of this research has opened up new
areas where more needs to be done to connect the ideas of sustainable development with that of
crime prevention and security. In particular, to ignore the findings may risk lost opportunities to
reduce carbon emissions.
Recommendations from the carbon footprint of burglary prevention analysis (Chapter 5) include
consideration of the environmental cost of crime prevention for security practitioners. This helps to
ensure that the true cost of any product or crime prevention measure is fully considered and potential
benefits (which may not have been taken into account previously) can be used as further justification
for successful initiatives.
Potential future impacts include the addition of the carbon footprint of crime estimates into a revision
of the Home Office cost of crime policy appraisal toolkit, which is currently planned and drafted.
When published, these estimates have the potential to impact the way crime is valued in policy
making. This would mean that more sustainable decisions (those that consider economic, social and
environmental consequences) can be taken regarding crime and crime prevention. The recommended
policy change as a result of this work was to introduce these carbon footprint estimates as part of the
valuation of the impact of crime and crime prevention policies.
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Other potential policy recommendations as a result of the research project include the consideration
of the carbon emissions associated with crime in other areas of the CJS in addition to the crime
valuation policy element of the Home Office. Crime prevention is substantially cheaper than its
investigation and the imposition of sanctions (HMIC 2014), and these results suggest that this may
also be true from a carbon perspective. Policy makers may, therefore, consider these areas in light of
carbon emission reduction targets. For example, the Crown Prosecution Service may rethink their
allocation of custodial or non-custodial sentences by considering the emissions associated with long
custodial sentences, which are not routinely considered as part of the overall cost of incarcerating
offenders.
Other ways to increase the awareness of the carbon cost of crime in the future include the
development of training materials for delivery by the College of Policing. These could include
considerations of the potential environmental benefits of crime prevention (alongside the social and
economic benefits) or highlight the impact that policing and the CJS has and ways in which this
could be reduced. Further publicity in police forces (and potentially to Police and Crime
Commissioners) could support the cause for taking more sustainable decisions around crime
prevention and justice. Police forces already consider their direct environmental impacts through
carbon reporting and benchmarking (of which the National Police Estates Group - NPEG -
Environment Team plays a large part), but widening this remit to consider the carbon associated with
criminal offences could play an important role in raising awareness of the wider environmental
impacts of crime.
Page 108
6.7 Concluding remarks

In the current political climate, the importance of issues relating to climate change and personal
security are critical. The UK is currently projected to miss the fourth and fifth carbon budgets (2023
onwards) (Committee on Climate Change, 2017), meaning carbon emissions reductions need to be
realised wherever possible. Carbon emissions associated with crime cannot continue to be ignored.
This project has estimated of the scale of the carbon emissions resulting from crime, and also
highlighted areas where changes can be made to reduce these emissions in the future.
In comparison to the social and economic impacts of crime, the environmental impacts of crime may
seem marginal. However, for many criminal offences the carbon emissions are large and to ignore
these could be costly. For example, burglary offences, which have dropped in priority in terms of
policing and crime prevention initiatives, are responsible for a large proportion of carbon emissions
resulting from crime each year in England and Wales. If not addressed, carbon emissions associated
with replacing stolen items may increase. Furthermore, emphasising potential carbon savings from
crime prevention promote and strengthen the argument for targeting particular offences, including
those that are already priorities for policing due to the social and economic impacts, such as violent
offences.
There are several ways this research project could evolve in the future to address a truly sustainable
approach to cutting crime. Rather than cutting crime through traditional means and consequently
achieving emissions savings, it may be possible to assess environmental, social and economic factors
as a whole in order to help ensure that crime is prevented wherever possible. This would present a
more forward-thinking approach to sustainable development relating to crime prevention. However,
for this to happen, a change is needed where the social and economic factors are not the sole driving
force behind decision-making but the environmental considerations are equally considered.
It is important to note that the carbon estimates of crime and crime prevention can only ever be an
underestimate, as the true scale of the carbon footprint that could be attributed to crime remains
uncertain. Nonetheless, the study demonstrates a starting point in combining the disciplines of
environmental sustainability and crime prevention and opening up the conversation between crime
Page 109
prevention and sustainability professionals. The main findings have outlined potential areas where
attention is needed to produce more favourable outcomes than the current high emissions relating to
criminal offences and crime prevention measures. Utilising the crime as pollution theory, the so-
called crime generators (ranging from vehicle manufacturers, car owners, car park designers,
architects and builders, product designers, credit card companies, internet service providers, financial
institutions, alcohol manufacturers, retailers, and governments) all need to consider ways in which
crime can be designed out or ways to minimise the negative impacts of crime. There are already
existing solutions and adding the environmental lens into the toolkit of crime prevention can only
help to mainstream the thinking about ways to achieve sustainability and to produce safer societies
with less crime. The study goes some way towards informing policy-makers, academia and the wider
public about the carbon cost of crime and potential areas where reductions could be made. This
remains the most important impact the project has had and it is hoped that further work in this area
will continue in the future.
Page 110
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Appendix 1.1
Appendices
1 Published papers
1.1 Addressing the carbon-crime blind spot: a carbon footprint approach
Page 125
Appendix 1.1
Page 126
Appendix 1.1
Page 127
Appendix 1.1
Page 128
Appendix 1.1
Page 129
Appendix 1.1
Page 130
Appendix 1.1
Page 131
Appendix 1.1
Page 132
Appendix 1.1
Page 133
Appendix 1.1
Page 134
Appendix 1.1
Page 135
Appendix 1.1
Page 136
Appendix 1.1
Page 137
Appendix 1.1
Page 138
Appendix 1.1
Page 139
Appendix 1.2
1.2 The falling carbon footprint of acquisitive and violent crime
Page 140
Appendix 1.2
Page 141
Appendix 1.2
Page 142
Appendix 1.2
Page 143
Appendix 1.2
Page 144
Appendix 1.2
Page 145
Appendix 1.2
Page 146
Appendix 1.2
Page 147
Appendix 1.2
Page 148
Appendix 1.2
Page 149
Appendix 1.2
Page 150
Appendix 1.2
Page 151
Appendix 1.2
Page 152
Appendix 1.2
Page 153
Appendix 1.2
Page 154
Appendix 1.2
Page 155
Appendix 1.2
Page 156
Appendix 1.2
Page 157
Appendix 1.2
Page 158
Appendix 1.2
Page 159
Appendix 1.2
Page 160
Appendix 1.3
1.3 Can burglary prevention be low-carbon and effective?
Page 161
Appendix 1.3
Page 162
Appendix 1.3
Page 163
Appendix 1.3
Page 164
Appendix 1.3
Page 165
Appendix 1.3
Page 166
Appendix 1.3
Page 167
Appendix 1.3
Page 168
Appendix 1.3
Page 169
Appendix 1.3
Page 170
Appendix 1.3
Page 171
Appendix 1.3
Page 172
Appendix 1.3
Page 173
Appendix 1.3
Page 174
Appendix 1.3
Page 175
Appendix 1.3
Page 176
Appendix 1.3
Page 177
Appendix 1.3
Page 178
Appendix 1.3
Page 179
Appendix 1.3
Page 180
Appendix 2
2 Data appendix
Table A2.1: Environmental declarations included in study
Measure Product Name Declaration number Organization Year

Door Locks Mortise/tubular frame door lock EPD-FVS-2011111-E FVSB 2011
Multi-point lock EPD-FVS-2011111-E FVSB 2011
Electromechanical multi-point EPD-FVS-2011111-E FVSB 2011
lock
Single point lock EPD-ASA-20150137-IBA1- Assa abloy 2015
EN
Mortise lock EPD-ASA-20150138-IBA1- Assa abloy 2015
EN
Triton Scandinavian Oval EPD-ASA-20150098-IBA1- Assa 2015
EN
Triton Scandinavian Round EPD-ASA-20150101-IBA1- Assa 2015
EN
Profile cylinder EPD-FVS-2011411-E FVSB 2011
Industrial cylinder EPD-FVS-2011411-E FVSB 2011
Electronic profile cylinder EPD-FVS-2011411-E FVSB 2011
Electronic mortise cylinder EPD-ASA-20150135-IBA1- Assa abloy 2015
Medeco CLIC EN
Window Window fittings (for wooden EPD-FVS-2011311-E Roto Frank AG 2011
locks windows)
Window fittings (for plastic EPD-FVS-2011311-E Roto Frank AG 2011
windows)
Window sliding hardware with EPD-FVS-20130198-IBG1- FVSB 2013
locks EN
Indoor lights BANG CFL G24Q SLFB-0005-V1 Securlite 2012
BANG CFLI - E27 SLFB-0004-V1 Securlite 2012
VOILA SENSOR CFL LAMPS SLFB-0027-V1 Securlite 2012
G24Q
VOILA SENSOR 12 LEDS SLFB-0029-V1 Securlite 2012
BANG ROUND SENSOR 9 SLFB-0001-V1 Securlite 2012
LEDS
BANG ROUND SENSOR 12 SLFB-0007-V1 Securlite 2012
LEDS
External RONDO PERFORMANCE SLFB-0017-V1 Securlite 2012
lights METALLIC IODIDE LAMP
RONDO SENSOR CFL LAMPS SLFB-0018-V1 Securlite 2012
GX24Q PROFESSIONAL
RONDO SENSOR LED SLFB-0020-V1 Securlite 2012
RONDO LED SLFB-0019-V1 Securlite 2012
Burglar Central LS radio alarm HAGE-2013-022-V1-EN Hager 2013
alarm Central HAGE-2012-013-V1-EN Hager 2012
(control unit)
Burglar Alarm CS8000 TYXAL+ DDOR-2015-006-V1-EN Delta DORE 2015
alarm Central siren Proxeo HAGE-2014-015-V1-EN Hager 2014
(ringer)
Burglar Alarm sensor LGRP-2011-518-v1-en Legrand 2011
alarm Motion detectors 360 ceiling HAGE-2012-004-V1-EN Hager 2012
(sensor) mounted
DMB TYXAL + (6412286) DDOR-2015-001-V1-EN Delta DORE 2015
DO TYXAL BL + (6412288) DDOR-2015-002-V1-EN Delta DORE 2015
MDO TYXAL BL + (6412305) DDOR-2015-004-V1-EN Delta DORE 2015
DMBD TYXAL + (6412311) DDOR-2015-014-V1-EN Delta DORE 2015
CCT56P004 ENVPEP1311030EN Schneider 2011
Electronic
Page 181
Appendix 2
Measure Product Name Declaration number Organization Year

CCT56P002 360 Ceiling Indoor SCHN-2011-450-V0 Schneider 2011
or Outdoor PIR Electronic
Round HBNet motion detector HAGE-2013-005-V1-EN Berker 2013
Motion detector kallysto.pur HAGE-2013-003-V1-EN Hager 2013
CCTV BL-C111 BH-07-027 Panasonic 2007
BL-C131 BH-07-028 Panasonic 2007
BL-C161KT BH-08-040 Panasonic 2008
VL-CM210 BH-09-047 Panasonic 2009
DMBV TYXAL + (6412287) DDOR-2015-016-V1-FR Delta DORE 2015
Page 182
Appendix 3.1
3 Research Paper Summaries

3.1 Paper 1
Page 183
Appendix 3.1
Page 184
Appendix 3.1
Page 185
Appendix 3.2
3.2 Paper 2
Page 186
Appendix 3.2
Page 187
Appendix 3.2
Page 188
Appendix 3.3
3.3 Paper 3
Page 189
Appendix 3.3
Page 190
Appendix 3.3
Page 191
Appendix 3.3
Page 192

EngD Thesis Helen Skudder Carbon Cost of Crime

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The Carbon Cost of Crime

Submitted in partial fulfilment of the degree of Doctorate of Engineering

Centre for Environment and Sustainability,

Professor Angela Druckman, University of Surrey

Student number: 6281966

sticking with me throughout this brilliant project.

systematically reviewing Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) environmental declarations.

cumulative reduction of over 54 million tCO2e).

considerations alongside social and economic benefits.

Keywords: carbon cost of crime; carbon footprinting; impacts of crime; sustainability

findings, while Volume 2 presents supplementary information, consisting of an impact log,

Estimates of the overall carbon footprint of Journal of Industrial Paper 1

effective in terms of security. Consideration of environmental impacts is becoming an increasingly

can be considered wherever possible.

Assessment (LCA) and Environmentally-Extended Input-Output Analysis (EE-IOA).

include defensive expenditure of households or businesses in order to protect themselves against

less effective as least desirable.

and discussed throughout.

(290,000 tCO2e) of the total footprint, respectively.

concerned, are not overstated.

crimes in recent years.

were less effective and higher carbon (less desirable).

found to be lower on both the effectiveness and environmental performance scales.

Discussion and Conclusions

between crime and the environment.

sustainability simultaneously, rather than being separate considerations.

List of publications and conferences

List of contents .....................................................................................................................xiii

2.5.4 Weather and crime ......................................................................................................... 13

3 Carbon footprint of crime estimates ............................................................................. 17

4 Carbon footprint of crime changes over time ........................................................... 44

5 Carbon cost of crime prevention ................................................................................... 66

5.3 Results .................................................................................................................................. 80

6 Discussion and Conclusions ........................................................................................... 94

2 Data appendix ............................................................................................................... 181

IOM Integrated Offender Management

The Carbon Cost of Crime

elsewhere around the world.

this research project explores.

1.2 Research questions

research questions in turn:

published are included in Appendix 1 of this volume.

2.1 Why carbon?

across research disciplines.

2.2 What is meant by crime?

aspects across the lifecycle of criminal offences are covered.

2.3 Lifecycle Perspective

Figure 2.2: Crime lifecycle (Wootton and Davey, 2004)

activities, amounts to the total carbon footprint attributable to the crime.

approach regarding the valuation of crime.

accounted for, effectively detailing the lifecycle of criminal activities.

Defensive expenditure Police

2.4 Crime harm indexes

crime profiles can be produced (ONS, 2016b).

and the CJS.

2.5 Connections between crime and the environment

2.5.1 Environmental crime

in this environmental crime discipline.

2.5.2 Green criminology

2.5.3 Viewing any type of crime as pollution

reducing this pollution.

2.5.4 Weather and crime

2.5.5 Crime and climate change nexus

of the environmental impact of crime.