Creating Defensible Spaces and Designing Out Opportunities for Crime

This chapter outlines a best practice framework for reducing or eliminating public crime and disorderDisorder problems. Situational crime preventionSituational crime prevention and CPTEDCrime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED) (Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design) provide core concepts, including defensible spaceDefensible space, territorialityTerritoriality, guardianship and assisting compliance. The idea of an enforcement pyramidEnforcement pyramid also aids planning. Additional applied theories include community policingCommunity policing, reassurance policingReassurance policing, quality-of-life policingQuality-of-life policing and third-party policingThird-party policing. Social contractSocial contract theory and systematic problem solvingProblem solving (or ‘problem-oriented policing’) constitute overarching frameworks. These theories are developed from research on what does and doesn’t work in crime prevention. Consequently, they provide important starting points and a shared language for developing strategies that are most likely to be effective, subject to local conditions. The chapter includes a set of intervention case studies in the areas of lightingLighting, road and alley closures, public housing layouts and security upgrades in order to illustrate these principles at work in real life.