Crime prevention by design
Crime prevention by design is the idea that the level of crime is influenced by the built environment and, by careful design of this built environment, the level of crime can be reduced. This reduction can be accomplished by either addressing physical or social and individual sources of threat, or both.
Contents
Description
The idea that crime could be influenced by the design of the built environment was based on the more limited idea of defensible space and further developed in work of Elizabeth Wood, Jane Jacobs and Schlomo Angel.
Two principles of crime prevention by design are designing in and designing out.
Crime prevention by design methods
CPTED
CPTED (Crime prevention through environmental design) has a long history, dating back to the 1970s.
It employs three design strategies to reduce crime:
- Natural surveillance, called surveillance by the public in Securipedia
- Natural access control, which is covered in the measures Directing traffic flows and Access control
- Natural territorial reinforcement, which relates mainly to the securipedia measure of Ownership
In addition, it employs two strategies not related to design:
- Maintenance
- Activity support
Environmental design
Secured by Design
This UK initiative to persuade the building, construction and design industry to adopt secure design methodology and to use products with a proven track record in defeating known criminal methods of entry, is explained in more detail on the page Secured by design.
Sustainable design
New Urbanism approach
Achievements and limitations
(describe here what positive and negative experiences have been achieved with crime prevention by design)
Cultural criminology has critizised design-based approaches to crime prevention for only reducing fear of crime but not the root cuases of crime, while raising ethics issues. An illustrative argument is that design-based measures may just displace crime to other places nearby, and it may contribute to separating out certain types of people from certain types of public space (such as separating out other people than "middle class" from commercial malls).[1]
Further reading
- A good presentation of a practical application of crime prevention by design is given in this presentation by the UK organisation ACPO.
Footnotes and references
- ↑ David Garland: The Culture of Control: Crime and Social Order in Contemporary Society. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2001, p. 162.
