Jason G. Goldman reviews research from the University of Newcastle in the UK that suggests being watched can crack down on crime:
By using the university’s crime database, [researchers] identified three spots on campus that suffered extremely high rates of bike theft, and installed signs at each location. Thesigns featured a pair of male eyes gazing outwards, along with the headline “Cycle Thieves: We Are Watching You”, the name “Operation Crackdown”, and the logo of a local police service. The signs caused an impressive 62% decrease in thefts in each of the three locations. Unfortunately, there was an equivalent increase in thefts elsewhere. While the intervention only displaced the thieves to other spots on campus, it was clear that the feeling of being watched was an effective deterrent.
Later that year, with the “Operation Crackdown” signs still up, the same researchers returned to the three experimental sites on campus to see whether the same watchful eyes would crack down on littering, despite the fact that the signs were explicitly written to discourage bike theft. To stack the odds against the experiment participants, the researchers used a rubber band to affix a flyer to the handlebars of each bike, giving them the opportunity to just drop the paper onto the ground. Half the time, the researchers pre-littered the area, which they suspected might have made people more likely to litter. After all, what’s one more piece of paper? So they pitted the watchful eyes against the already littered ground. As expected, the eyes made the unwitting participants less likely to litter (compared with spots without the signs), and the pre-littered ground did not make it any more likely.
(Image of poster used in study via BBC Future)
The Dish 