2025.May.19
EVENTSThe 1st BAIRAL Research Meeting for Fiscal Year 2025
“Watching and Being Watched: When Environmental Design Meets Crime Prevention”
◇BAIRAL（B’AI RA League）
BAIRAL is a study group by young research assistants (RA) of the B’AI Global Forum of the Institute for AI and Beyond at the University of Tokyo. Aiming to achieve gender equality and a guarantee of rights for minorities in the AI era, this study group examines relationships between digital information technology and society. BAIRAL organizes research meetings every other month with guest speakers in a variety of fields.
◇Date & Venue
・Date: Wednesday, June 11, 2025, 5:00 – 6:30 pm (JST)
・Venue: Online via Zoom（No registration required）
https://u-tokyo-ac-jp.zoom.us/j/88272485472?pwd=v8bO6rKKCYPsCLbbNbUOF3dFwpovmd.1
Meeting ID: 882 7248 5472
Passcode: 318962
・Language: English
◇Guest Speaker
Dr. Sihan YANG, Project Researcher, Collaborative Community Design Lab, University of Tokyo
◇Abstract
Japan is widely regarded as a safe country with relatively low crime rates, where traditional policing coexists with increasing technology-driven interventions. Notably, crime prevention has never been merely a judicial matter; it is also deeply entangled with the field of environmental design. The idea of looking into the relationship between public security and urban landscape could be traced back to Jane Jacobs’ ‘eyes on the street’ in 1961. Subsequent theories such as Defensible Space and Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED) have significantly shaped contemporary approaches to environmental criminology.
In recent decades, the proliferation of sensors, actuators, and surveillance devices in everyday environments has added a new layer to the nexus of factors involved in crime prevention. To explore security issues in the context of smart cities, the speaker conducted fieldwork in Kakogawa City, Hyogo Prefecture, Japan. This involved an environmental assessment based on a newly designed CPTED evaluation framework, as well as a questionnaire survey examining residents’ perceptions of safety, participation in crime prevention activities, and acceptance of public surveillance. The results will be discussed, grounded in local observations and contextual detail.
Put simply, a more dynamic understanding of the relationship among people, devices, and environments is needed to inform the experience of watching and being watched, and to form a robust foundation for developing smart safer cities. More critically, it was in 2022 that Japan’s crime rate marked the end of a 20-year decline and has shown a consistent upward trend since. This calls for reflection on what each of us, as ordinary individuals, can do, and what we can no longer ignore.
◇Organizer
B’AI Global Forum, Institute for AI and Beyond at the University of Tokyo
◇Inquiry
Priya Mu (Research assistant of the B’AI Global Forum)
priya-mu[at]g.ecc.u-tokyo.ac.jp (Please change [at] to @)
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