Design out Crime Using Design to Reduce Injuries from Alcohol Related Violence in Pubs and Clubs Contents
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Design Out Crime Using design to reduce injuries from alcohol related violence in pubs and clubs Contents 2 The problem Foreword 4 A drinkers history The problem 8 Adolescents and alcohol 11 The violence 12 The victims 15 Glassing scenarios 16 Alcohol misuse 17 The injuries Accidental injury 18 The time and the place Material matters 22 Pint sized facts History of the pint glass 23 Current glass types 24 Glass 26 Plastic 27 Polycarbonate vs. glass 31 Alternatives to glass 32 Case study 34 Promotional potential in a glass 36 Case study Designing a safer future 40 How designers can help 42 How designers work 46 Endnotes Design Out Crime is an initiative from the Home Office’s Design & Technology Alliance Against Crime and the Design Council. The Alliance is tasked with bringing about innovation and encouraging others to ‘think crime’ in the first stages of design, planning and product development. It is comprised of ten experts from the world of design, industry and law enforcement. The problem Foreword This is not an attempt to redesign the British pint glass for the sake of it. Alan Campbell The Design Out Crime project has the potential to reduce the number of There are nearly 1 million violent glassings and the number of accidental incidents each year in the UK where the injuries bar workers suffer from broken victim believed the offender to be under glass.5 973,000 the influence of alcohol1, absorbing a incidents of alcohol- significant amount of police time and an The Design Out Crime project is estimated £2.7bn in NHS funding for developing safer alternatives to related violence each alcohol-related harm, including assault traditional glasses by engaging industry, 2 year in the UK injuries. trade and consumers in creating Alan Campbell is the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State responsible solutions. After consulting the experts for crime reduction. The use of glassware in alcohol-related on the problem (the victims, publicans, violence is a particular concern. materials specialists, emergency services Glasses and bottles used as weapons and drinks brand owners) the Alliance £2.7bn can intimidate victims, bar staff or Against Crime has appointed a team of bystanders and cause serious injuries. specialist designers at agency Design costs to NHS for alcohol- Bridge to prototype options for a safer related harm, including As a blunt weapon, for instance in an pint glass. This booklet shares all the intact bottle, glass can cause significant research and insights they have worked assault injuries physical damage. with so you can understand the complex issues around glassings and alcohol- But when glass is broken and used as related violence in the UK. a sharp weapon the potential damage is hugely increased. Glass-inflicted injuries There are still plenty of other 87,000 to the eyes and face often require stitches opportunities for designers to create their or surgery and can result in heavy blood own solutions to alcohol-related violence violent incidents loss and even loss of sight. and for the drinks industry to commission involving glass them. Doing so could help make safety There are an estimated 87,000 violent from crime a selling point and make it incidents involving glass each year in the harder for the few people who behave UK.3 Around 5,500 glassings are violently when they’re drunk to injure reported annually.4 That’s 100 every others with the vessels they drink from. 5,500 week. In cases that are reported it is most Everything we’ve learnt is in this book. commonly pint glasses which are broken What could you do with this information? estimated glassings and used as sharp weapons. And so it is the redesign of the pint glass that the We believe there is a fantastic Design & Technology Alliance Against opportunity to offer both a safe and Crime has focused on to make it less likely enjoyable drinking experience through that they could be used by violent innovation, the use of new materials and attackers to inflict serious injuries. creative design. The problem / Foreword Foreword A drinkers history shaped the modern way we drink. Porter effective reduction of injuries caused by served in pewter looked poor compared glass in and outside licensed premises Peter Haydon to pale ale in glass. People started to starts with an assessment of what people ‘drink with their eyes’ and the lighter, are likely to do, and, with that in mind, At most points in history it has been more industrial beers were increasingly considers the alternatives. possible to understand alcoholic drinks drunk for refreshment rather than in terms of the job they did. First they sustenance. Yet when the role of drink Its research understands what’s been allowed people to drink water safely and the type of drinks consumed tried in the past and it will learn from without dying of cholera or typhoid. changed, the amount we drank didn’t mistakes, when others haven’t. In the Then they were nutritional staples. Later and this had some extreme effects on episode of Panorama of 11 August 2009 they were social lubricants and cultural our behaviour. the BBC mocked up a bar in Oldham to cohesives. suggest that people would have to queue Peter Haydon is author of An Inebriated History of Britain, the story of the Alcohol has always been related to in ‘post office’ fashion to make them evolution of drinking and drinking Modern society, global manufacturing violence. It may seem that the risk of behave more responsibly. In 1915 when places in the UK. and taxation, and the relegation of encountering violence on a night out is the government first directly interfered ‘drink’ in the popular mind from local greater in 2009 than it was in 1999, but is in the drink trade by nationalising pubs produce to Fast Moving Consumer it greater than in 1939 when ‘razor gangs’ in strategically sensitive parts of the Goods (FMCG) status, has removed were the dread of Glasgow, or 1959 when nation, they closed 53 pubs in the many of these justifications for the they were even more widespread, or 1809 Carlisle area and opened three. The first existence of intoxicating drink. or 1709 when the term cut-throat didn’t of these was the Gretna Tavern. Increasing popular alienation from just apply to a type of razor? As an Previously it had been a post office. No matters culinary, plus production historian of drink my suspicion is that one liked it much. People are just as likely realities, mean that intoxication is all that things haven’t changed that much. And to resent an imposed solution in 2009 as numerous brands have to offer. We now therein lies the root of many of the they were in 1915. Any change to the design drinks to meet the tastes of perceived problems we face today. way that we drink that makes drinking ‘market sectors’ rather than relying on safer will only be accepted if it is seen the maturity of the individual and the This is what makes this Design Out first and foremost as an improvement. increasing sophistication of palate that is Crime research so refreshing. It rejects That is the design challenge. supposed to come with age to bring an the usual premise that the appropriate appreciation of complex flavours and the response to amending other people’s effects they have. An undemanding behaviour is to tell them they shouldn’t market sector can only be satisfied with do it – what one may term the ‘Catholic’ drinks that are undemanding. If or ‘Fiscal’ response, which has intoxication is all that is demanded then, misinformed so many temperance in this, the best of all possible worlds, the minded measures. (Measures which have market will supply. done little to change popular behaviour from century to century.) This is a Victorian view as much as a contemporary one. It was the censorious The Design Out Crime project is playing attitudes of many Victorians that served its part by investigating the issues and – uniquely in Europe - to divorce eating delivering an informed solution by from drinking, with profound creating the next generation pint glass. consequences for modern Britain. This project is much more than merely Similarly it was the Victorian an assessment of whether polycarbonate introduction of mass produced glass that is better than glass. It recognises that A drinker’s history A drinker’s history 1. The problem Nearly 10,000 11–17 A quarter of UK Adolescents year-olds are admitted to teenagers say they have hospital each year in the drunk five or more drinks and alcohol UK because of alcohol in a row three times consumption.9 or more in the month preceding the survey.14 Most young people do not drink By age 15, 37% of young excessively or come to any harm through people drank at home, In 1997-98, there were , 34% outdoors, 38% at 6,667 admissions of 1 000 drinking, but there is a significant someone else’s house under-18s to NHS minority who do and this is a big concern.6 and 45% at parties.10 hospitals in England for young people a week alcohol-related reasons. The cost to the taxpayer In 2005–06 this increased suffer serious facial Government has recognised the need for for the criminal justice to 8,889.15 system to deal with injuries from action on this issue, with the launch of alcohol-related crimes by Up to 1,000 young people the National Alcohol Strategy 7 and the under-18s is estimated a week suffer serious drunken assaults at between £915m and facial injuries from Youth Alcohol Action Plan.