Another way to control for it is to increase or decrease lighting in some locations while leaving others the same and see what changes occur to crime rates. Tha

Another way to control for it is to increase or decrease lighting in some locations while leaving others the same and see what changes occur to crime rates. That has been done at least once, in Chicago where low-output lights were replaced with much brighter lights in some alleys but not others, with controls for various demographic factors and prior crime rates. The result was that crime increased where brighter lighting was used. One plausible explanation is that committing crimes, like most human activities is easier when there's sufficient light to see what you're doing, and using a flashlight is a poor option when you want to avoid calling attention to your illegal behavior. http://www.popcenter.org/library/scp/pdf/130-Morrow_Hutton.pdf http://www.popcenter.org/library/scp/pdf/130-Morrow_Hutton.p...