Awarded by the IAATI Australasian Branch, 2002, Crime Prevention office, Ashfield Local Area Command NSW Police Service, and The Byvan Group.

During the year 2000 the Ashfield Mall car park was the Ashfield Local Area Command’s hot location for vehicle theft. The Ashfield Mall has over 20,000 customers through its doors on a daily basis. This increases during the festive season. They have a car park that has over 700 car spaces. Plus the roof car park which is owned by Ashfield Council which has over 350 spaces.

During 2000 the Ashfield Mall was the target for over 65 vehicle thefts that have been recorded. We believe this figure may even be higher. A number of these vehicles have never been recovered and some have been used in other offences. During January, 2001 a meeting was called between the Centre Management's Operations Manager David Ellis and Ashfield Local Area Commands Crime Prevention Officer A/Sgt Brendan Donnellan. The issue of Motor vehicle theft was discussed. The Byvan group decided to impute funds to redesign the layout of the car park and install CCTV.

The level one car park was re painted to bring the lighting the up the Australian standard. CCTV was installed which was digital based with excellent coverage and good quality print. The mall purchased the "Lock it or Loose it" signs as designed by the Police Service. We sat down and redesigned the layout of the car park. The problem was that staff car spaces were at the closest point to the shops and customers were the furthest away. Basically this was reversed with security upgraded around staff parking and a sticker system introduced to make sure staff we the only persons parking in the designated area. One way traffic flow was introduced to allow for extra time for offenders to be detected. An extensive media campaign was put out by the police advising residents and potential thieves of the changes that were made. Security personal were deployed more frequently to the car parks to be high profile. Foot patrols through taskings were increased and closing off of a known youth trouble spot was implemented at the front entrance to the mall.

Results: During 2001 the car theft rate dropped 66%. As of and including the 30 November, 2001 only 21 vehicles have been recorded stolen from the car park. Seven of these vehicles were stolen from the roof top car park which is council owned but contributed to the figures as the victims were shopping. Between March and July 2001 only one vehicle was reported stolen. The Byvan group and the Crime Prevention Officer worked together to achieve the excellent results which have been brought to your attention.

Extracted from the nomination prepared by Sergeant Brendan Donnellan, NSW Police Service
 

In addition to the main award the Branch presented the following Recognition Certificates in this awrd category:

Awarded to BMW Australia
This year BMW (Australia) became the first manufacturer to adopt a radical new component identical system using microdots. While microdots have been used overseas as a form of component identification for vehicles, BMW (Australia) has pioneered (along with the National Motor Vehicle Theft Reduction Council and their microdot supplier - Datadots) the used of microdots  incorporating a partial VIN. This is unique in that other vehicle applications of microdot technology has used a sequential serial number that requires a separate database to maintain the link between the VIN and the microdot serial number. The incorporation of the VIN means that police, registration inspectors, or forensic officers can readily check the identify of the component without the need of accessing additional private sector databases.

While the incorporation of the VIN sounds a relative simple concept, there were a number of quality control and supply procedures that needed to be developed and tested to ensure that:
1. the correct dots were always available when required (taking into account the dots are currently manufactured overseas and delays occur in supply that would prevent a vehicle from being delivered to the customer), and
2. that the correct batch of dots and only those dots were applied to the correct vehicle. 

Despite BMW’s being a popular target amongst professional thieves the decision adopt the microdot technology incorporating the VIN is a brave and innovative motive by BMW that will
hopefully prove to significantly reduce professional theft.

BMW’s decision is ‘brave and innovative’ because:
1. Vehicle manufacturers are traditionally very conservative when it comes to adopting new technologies, particularly those requiring development of new systems and procedures; and
2. Being the first to adopt the system, the unit costs of the dots are considerably higher than they will be once a number of other manufacturers also adopt the system. Thus, the cost they are required to pass on to their customers is artificially higher than it will be for other manufacturers who adopt the system some time in the future.

It is noted that now BMW had taken the lead with this technology a number of other manufacturers are now following their example. Due to the foresight of BMW to pioneer this technology and develop the necessary systems and procedures, I believe we will very shortly see the adoption of this technology by local manufacturers across their entire product line, which can only serve to substantially reduce the problem of vehicle theft within Australasia.

Recognition Certificate Awarded to Policy & Programs Unit, Organisational Policy and Development, NSW Police Service:

Introduction
Crime Prevention through Environmental Design (CPTED) is a situational crime prevention strategy that reduces opportunities for crime within the built environment. Specifically, it applies urban planning, design and place management principles that prevent crime ingredients from intersecting in time and space. In recent years, CPTED has been widely promoted as a means of reducing motor vehicle theft and other crimes in Australian car parks. While there is sufficient evidence to commend the use of CPTED, little is known about the effectiveness of individual treatments in different environments - particularly car parks. Template strategies, therefore, should be treated with a degree of caution. The NRMA Car Park rating scheme rewards applicant car parks for using
generic CPTED strategies. Ratings from 1 to 5 stars are linked to different levels of design and security safety. Template treatments are required in every car park regardless of the design,
size, use or configuration of the facility. Five star car parks in low-crime areas, for example, are to receive the same treatments as five-star car parks in high-crime hotspots. This practice
could be likened to a family doctor that prescribed generic treatments to every patient for every ailment. The intention might be honourable but the practice is less than professional.

The study
This research (thesis):

•  assessed the overall usefulness of CPTED as a crime prevention measure, and has
•  filled gaps in our ‘collective’ understanding of CPTED (individual strategies and their application).

The study was undertaken by the applicant for a Master of Architecture (through the University of Sydney). It examined environmental factors, conditions, contextual influences and/or management practices in 48 high crime rate car parks and 48 low crime rate car parks in the Sydney metropolitan area (N=96). The field component of this study spanned two calendar years and the findings are based upon the statistical analysis of more than 350,000 observations, measurements and calculations. This project remains the largest,
most detailed study of car park crime in the world1.

Results provide support for some “widely held” assertions about the effectiveness of CPTED - and challenge others. A paper outlining the results of this study is attached. The author presented it at the recent 6th International CPTED Association (ICA) Conference in Brisbane. The National Motor Vehicle Theft Reduction Council and the Australian Institute of Criminology have held discussions with the author about publishing the results of this study. 

Nomination prepared by Inspector Phil McCamley, Policy & Programs Unit, Organisational
Policy and Development, NSW Police Service.