Understanding and Reducing the Carbon Footprint of Crime

Project ID: 2228cd1320 (You will need this ID for your application)

Research Theme: Energy and Decarbonisation

UCL Lead department: Security and Crime Science

Department Website

Lead Supervisor: Kate Bowers

Project Summary:

Engineering net zero requires an understanding of what contributes to mankind’s carbon footprint. Like all human activities, crime has a carbon footprint, but this has received little attention in academic or policy debates. For example, as a high-volume problem, property crime creates a significant financial burden in terms of the replacement of stolen goods, lost income and on the criminal justice system. But it also has a direct carbon cost. Replacing stolen goods requires additional manufacturing to meet demand (at odds with the EPSRC’s mission to improve the circular economy), the transportation of these goods contributes to carbon emissions, as do housing repairs. Less obvious (carbon) costs are the travel and actions of the victim, the police and offender. Carbon costs are also far from equal across crimes. For example, metal and catalytic convertor theft involve precious resources, cyberattacks can have physical consequences and arson has a large environmental impact. This project seeks to build a carbon cost framework around crime by undertaking a systematic review, developing theory, and using data science/ AI approaches to analyse large data sets. This will result in a system for assessing crime carbon costs which identifies the specific contexts in which these are significantly higher. This will highlight areas for multi-agency intervention that both improve safety and reduce energy demand. The project has two external supervisors who have both have academic positions and years of policing experience: Dr Ben Stickle from Middle Tennessee State University and Dr Ryan Davenport, a Met Police Officer and UCL Visiting Fellow. The selected student will have a background in data science, use of AI and/or econometrics and have an interest in crime and environmental issues. Training will be tailored from a range of modules across the engineering faculty developing understanding of crime science, energy demand and advanced methods.