What is CPTED, and what can it do for my municipality?
In Thinking About Crime, James Q. Wilson observed, “if a child is delinquent because his family made him so or his friends encourage him to be so, it is hard to conceive what society might do about this attitudes. No one knows how a government might restore affections, stability and fair discipline to a family that rejects these characteristics.” (Poyner 1983) Researchers began to challenge the assumptions of Wilson and other doubters of governmental intervention. They began to look beyond merely changing the behavior of criminals, and started to look for ways to reduce the likelihood of victimization through innovative concepts, instead of relying exclusively on law enforcement to carry the burden.
This outlook planted the seed for a program called Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED), which has begun to resonate deeply amongst community planners. Some cities implemented CPTED policies in the 1980s, a time when “entrepreneurial” cities began competing for business. It has continued to be an effective tool, and the new smart growth movement will continue to make CPTED an attractive, low-cost, worthy program for municipalities.
CPTED applies the combination of design changes and community organization (representing both the built and social environments, respectively) to reduce the opportunities for, and the likelihood of, criminal activity. It seeks to create an environment less tolerant and more resistant to criminal behavior.
Reducing crime through proper design is the ultimate goal.
The program centers on a working partnership between criminologists and planning and design professionals. In his seminal book Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design, (1971) C. Ray Jeffery advanced Oscar Newman’s “defensible space” (defined as bringing the environment under control of its residents) concept to formulate the CPTED program. Newman designed and successfully demonstrated methods to reduce the likelihood of criminal victimization by providing people with defensible space in inner-city housing projects.
The CPTED tenets include natural access control (controlling the ingress and egress of individuals through the placement of landscaping, fences, lighting, entrances, and exists as to leave a criminal without any rational for trespassing if stopped), natural surveillance (the arrangement of physical features and people through the intelligent placement of doors, windows, lighting, and common outdoor areas to decrease the ability of a criminal to act without being detected) and territorial reinforcement (the use of physical features that expresses ownership, such as fences, signage, and landscaping to clearly delineate public, semi-public, and private space so citizens know where they are).
This program is the antithesis of the gated community concept!
Newman applied his tenets to high-crime housing projects, but CPTED has evolved to rework entire cities. Since CPTED is intrinsically malleable, planning professionals have added their own elements, including activity support (placement of kiosks in heavily traveled areas to promote news about community events to demonstrate community pride and organization.) The application of all of the above tenets reduces crime and increases the public’s awareness sine “the physical changes and raised social expectations created an environment less tolerant of criminal behavior.” (Carter et al., 2003) CPTED applications seek to create a more dynamic, integrative, design oriented community program to give everyone a stake in their neighborhoods to reduce crime, rather than relying on pure design techniques.
Early criminology studies had indicated that there is a strong, tri-angular relationship between interpersonal activities, the build environment, and crime. While there have been a number of studies through the eyes of people with different agendas, all have come to the conclusion that a well-designed community with involved citizens can reduce the likelihood of criminal activity. Jane Jacobs, in her book The Death and Life of Great American Cities (1961), stresses that one of the best attributes of city neighborhoods is the safety that results from people being familiar with each other. These types of neighborhoods generally have mixed commercial and residential uses that generate plenty of human activity and interaction. In turn, the dynamic atmosphere acts as a deterrent to criminal activity. Jacobs coined this as the “eyes on the street” theory.
Studies have shown that police protection generally reduces crime, but it is difficult for patrols to stop crimes, such as home burglaries or street robberies, because of the disproportionate amount of resources alloted for a geographical area. Communities began to view Jacob’s eyes on the street theory as an important deterrent to crime in response to the inability of police to stop a majority of criminal activity. This theory is deeply rooted in CPTED methodology.
Crime is a subject everyone is concerned about and would like to reduce, but if crime abatement programs are too expensive to implement and operate, it may drop in political importance. CPTED addresses the larger issue of the omnipresent crime problem (especially in older, more vulnerable downtown areas) through a low-cost, intuitive program.
The next post will detail CPTED application in the North Trail section of Sarasota, Florida, an area that—prior to CPTED— had been plagued by drugs, prostitution, violence, and a litnay of quality of life problems.
Sources:
Carter, Sherry, Stanley L. Carter, and Andrew L. Dannenberg. “Zoning Out Crime and Improving Community Health in Sarasota, Florida: ‘Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design.’” American Journal of Public Health Vol 93 (Sep2003).
Poyner, Barry. Design against Crime. London: Butterworths, 1983.
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