Novel crime-fighting idea is one to watch

As crime-fighting ideas go it seems extraordinarily simple - put up pictures of staring eyes to make people behave more responsibly.

But the ploy is to be trialled by the British Transport Police after a two-year experiment at Newcastle University produced remarkable results.

Academics found that bike racks at the university which had eye images placed above them experienced 62% fewer thefts than the previous year, while those without eyes saw thefts increase by 63%.

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Professor Melissa Bateson and Professor Daniel Nettle, of the Centre for Behaviour and Evolution, and Ken Nott, of Newcastle University's security team, talk about their findings in the journal PLoS ONE.

For the first year the team monitored the level of bike thefts from all racks across campus for a control figure.

They then placed the eye signs in three locations, leaving the rest of the racks without signs.
They monitored all the sites for a year to measure the impact on the level of crime, and noticed a major drop for racks with eyes but an increase at those without.

Similar studies in the last few years suggest that people behave better when they feel they are being watched.

A 2006 study found that staring eyes made people pay almost three times as much into a tea-room honesty box.

And research in 2010 showed that people using a canteen were more likely to clear away their tray after a meal when there were eyes watching them.

Now the idea is to be incorporated by British Transport Police (BTP), with train company C2C, on a route between London's Fenchurch Street station and Southend in Essex.

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Lead author of the paper Prof Nettle said: "We don't know exactly what is happening here but this just adds to the growing evidence that images of eyes can have a big impact on behaviour.

"We think that the presence of eye images can encourage co-operative behaviour. One strong possibility is that the images of eyes work by making people feel watched.

"We care what other people think about us, and as a result we behave better when we feel we are being observed."

Mr Nott, who is deputy team leader for security in the estates security service at Newcastle University, said: "Anything we can do to reduce the level of theft on the campus is very welcome.

"I had followed previous work done by this team and thought it might be able to make a difference to levels of crime, so I decided to suggest this experiment.

"The results were clear and we have now put these pictures up across all the bike racks on the campus."

Barry Sharp, from BTP's London North Area Crime Team, said: "Research shows that this sign has had some promising results at Newcastle University, and we are always looking at new ways to tackle cycle theft at rail stations.

"As well as signs at stations and increased patrols at hot-spot locations, we aim to crack down on cycle thieves across Essex."