Crime Reduction - Helping to Reduce Crime in Your Area

5Is: a practical tool for transfer and sharing of crime prevention knowledge

Introduction

We need deliberately designed tools for transfer and sharing of crime prevention knowledge, for two reasons: For efficient use of scarce resources in executing an extremely challenging task, crime prevention activity should be focused, and based on reliable knowledge of what works. But knowing what works, in 'headline' terms, is not enough to ensure delivery of good performance: how it is transferred to practitioners and put into practice is just as important. Know-how – knowledge of the process of doing crime prevention – plays a central role. Too-literal 'cookbook' copying doesn't work, because preventive action is very context-dependent for its success.

• To share knowledge of what works and the process of intelligently implementing it in diverse contexts needs a common conceptual framework and language. This is to ensure effective communication of the key ingredients of crime prevention schemes and how they have been implemented and evaluated. Sharing and communication are particularly important in an international context like the European Crime Prevention Network (EUCPN).

What is the 5Is framework?

The 5Is is a knowledge management framework designed to assist practitioners to improve their performance of crime prevention, by helping them select and replicate good practice appropriate to their needs and circumstances. It helps them to accurately follow the underlying principles and practical details of (properly-evaluated and documented) preventive action, yet to adapt it for different contexts. As such, it sees practitioners as intelligent, professional consultants rather than narrow technicians or amateurs. 5Is follows the stages of the preventive process, namely Intelligence, Intervention, Implementation, Involvement (of the community) and Impact. An illustrative introduction is available to explain.

The central ideas have a long history of development. 5Is incorporates the more specific Conjunction of Criminal Opportunity framework which focuses in detail on generic causes of crime and equally generic principles of preventive intervention. The 5Is label was first introduced at the Aalborg conference of the European Crime Prevention Network (EUCPN) in 2002.

How can 5Is be used?

The 5Is framework can be used as:

• A framework to capture key 'know-how' information about crime prevention projects and organise its easy retrieval for selection and replication of good practice.

• A means of helping innovation in circumstances where no ready-made solutions exist, by synthesising knowledge from individual, well-evaluated good practice projects into a structured set of principles; and describing diverse and generic 'transferable elements' of crime prevention activity which can be combined in new kinds of project.

• A generic checklist and guide for the detailed steps of the 'preventive process', to help the design, appraisal, development, planning and quality-assurance of effective crime prevention projects. It is equivalent to 'SARA' in Problem-Oriented Policing (Scanning, Analysis, Response, Assessment) but has a much more differentiated structure.

• A means of gap-analysis in our knowledge of what works and how to implement it. (To identify gaps you need maps.)

• A means of learning from failure as well as from success (which of the 5Is went wrong in this project?).

• A framework for training practitioners.

• A means of fostering communication and collaboration between practitioners from diverse agencies and disciplines, and different countries, through clearly-defined standard terms and concepts.

• In all of the above it complements systematic reviews of effectiveness such as those of the Campbell Collaboration and provides a means of getting those findings into practice, through directly training and informing practitioners, and by identifying the infrastructure necessary to support implementation.

What form does 5Is take?

See the Illustrative Guide.

How is 5Is being developed?

5Is is still under development both in the UK (eg with the Crime Reduction College) and currently under serious consideration for adoption by EUCPN. The idea is for it to evolve into a collectively-owned tool.

Where can I find 5Is guidance material?

Various guidance document are linked to this document. Anyone wishing to obtain further information, please visit the 'Crime Frameworks' webpage at the Design Against Crime website. Three published examples are available.

Download a print version of the 5Is introduction and illustrative guide Word 97 (170 Kb)

Paul Ekblom
Home Office UK
30 January 2003

paul.ekblom@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk

Last update: Tuesday, January 09, 2007