cops, burglars and designers

Since the last 1st of November in Monterrey, Mexico there has been a corrupt transit police cleanup, trust exams are being applied to more than 1400 elements, those who don’t approve it will be fired from this department.

A couple of days ago I saw a video that the behavioral economics investigator Dan Ariely posted in his blog, in which he explains an experiment that he did about the susceptibility that people have towards dishonesty and the elements that can trigger it.

It would seem to be very important that in this cleanup (and in the ones to come) this kind of concepts were taken on account, above all to diminish the susceptibility that the survivor elements and the new ones could have towards corruption.

In this aspect is where I see a great opportunity for design, if we are able to prove the relevance that elements such as clothing, accessories and work tools have in the performance of the cops, we will have the opportunity of designing products of this kind that not only work better but transmit security and compromise in a significant way.

Who knows, maybe designing a good police pen can be a good beginning for the very needed transformation of Mexican institutions.

Posted on Wednesday, November 4th, 2009 at %I:%M %p. Filed under: Blog, Essays and articles Tags: dan ariely, design, diseño, limpia de tránsitos, mexico, monterrey, police cleanup RSS 2.0 feed.