SOLVING CRIME

Dr. Melissa Bateson is a psychologist from Newcastle university who decided to do an experiment on her
colleagues. First, she put a picture of some flowers on the wall behind the box where staff is supposed
to leave money for hot beverages. Than, she put a picture of a pair of human eyes on the wall behind
the box. At the end of the experiment she realized that there was three times more money in the box
when the picture of eyes was behind the box. That is because humans are programmed to respond to
eyes. Later, pictures of eyes were used to combat crime, for example bicycle theft. Amazingly, rate of
bicycle theft fell by 62%.

During the 1960s and 70s rate of really serious crimes was really high and politicians expected it to get
much worse. They were, however, wrong. Rate of violent crimes dropped and today is down by amazing
50%. Some politicians will tell you that that is the result of their policies, but that is highly unlikely. The
key to solving the problem was lead that was used in petrol while it is proved to cause aggressive
behavior.

It is well known that the cities feel safer at night it they are bright, but the light produced by street
lamps is considered ugly. Therefore, the council in Glasgow decides to put blue light lamps in one street
of the city. Blue light effected people and made their behavior better. It was also the cause of less
committed crimes in said street. It seems that blue light deters crime and is now installed in Japan as
well.