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Would a billion-dollar investment in improved street lighting make Australian roads safer at night? Paul Marchant finds the evidence wanting

When we look around an imperfect world, we feel an understandable impulse to improve matters. We may therefore decide to intervene by prescribing medical treatment or by introducing crime reduction measures. But how do we know that what we do is likely to work? In medicine the standard answer is to do a trial; not surprisingly the same is true in crime reduction. But, says Paul Marchant, the lessons learned from medical trials have not been implemented in the latter field.