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Critically Appraising the Alleged Benefits of Lighting on Public Safety: New Results
Paul Marchant (Leeds Metropolitan University)
Much is made of the benefits of lighting for public safety. Lighting is claimed to substantially reduce crime and also road traffic accidents. But are the claims true? I have previously criticised work, which purports to show substantial benefits, for lack of scientific and statistical rigour; for example in the British Journal of Criminology (See www.britastro.org/darkskies/cfds2006/proceedings.pdf and www.radstats.org.uk/no091/Marchant91.pdf). This presentation will update previous work in this field with more recent studies and will show why the lavish claims which are made are still suspect. Furthermore, results from the analysis of other data will be presented. Scientific scepticism remains warranted concerning the alleged public safety benefits of lighting.

Video to follow