Reducing Crime Through Environmental Design: Evidence from a Randomized Experiment of Street Lighting in New York City.

Objectives: This paper offers novel experimental evidence that violent crimes can be successfully reduced by changing the situational environment that potential victims and offenders face. We focus on a ubiquitous but understudied feature of the urban landscape—street lighting—and report the first experimental evidence on the effect of street lighting on crime. Methods: Through a unique public partnership in New York City, temporary street lights were randomly allocated to 40 of the city's public housing developments. Results: We find evidence that communities that were assigned more lighting experienced sizable reductions in nighttime outdoor index crimes. We also observe a large decline in arrests indicating that deterrence is the most likely mechanism through which the intervention reduced crime. Conclusion: Results suggests that street lighting, when deployed tactically, may be a means through which policymakers can control crime without widening the net of the criminal justice system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]