Recently, violent crimes against vulnerable people, such as children and women, have become a problem in densely populated areas. Due to the lack of budget and manpower, existing crime prevention measures are limited, and the principle of Crime Prevention through Environmental Design (CPTED) is gaining attention as an alternative. CPTED is a strategy that reduces crime opportunities and promotes the safety of residents through principles such as natural surveillance, access control, territoriality, activity activation, and maintenance, and requires economic costs and sufficient analysis.
Recently, various violent crimes have become a social problem due to the frequent occurrence of violent crimes against socially vulnerable groups such as children and women. These crimes share a common physical environment that is vulnerable to crime, and they occur repeatedly, especially in low-income dense residential areas. Current countermeasures are summarized as the expansion of CCTV for crime prevention and the strengthening of police forces and patrols. However, these measures have their own limitations, as it is difficult to increase the number of facilities and personnel due to insufficient budgets and inadequate support policies.
Crime prevention through environmental design
Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED) is the principle and practice of reducing crime and insecurity by planning and changing the design of urban and architectural spaces to eliminate or minimize crime opportunities, and is gaining attention as an architectural alternative to the limitations of the current crime prevention system. Unlike traditional criminology, which considers crime as an illegal act by a perpetrator, environmental criminology defines crime as a dynamic event that occurs in a specific place at the same time as a criminal and a victim, which is a proof that environmental factors are important in the occurrence of crime. In other words, the new approach that crime can be prevented by using environmental design to prevent crime that is affected by the situation is the basis of CPTED and suggests the need for its introduction.
Application and benefits of CPTED
CPTED has a wide range of applications through type-specific customized design that comprehensively considers urban architectural and socio-cultural factors, and has the advantage of being easily applied without significantly disrupting existing planning and design frameworks. It can also promote the revitalization of spaces and neighborhoods by naturally engaging residents in the planning process. In addition, it can be applied to school facilities to reduce the frequency and severity of school violence. These benefits of CPTED are especially evident in public spaces. For example, applying CPTED principles to public spaces such as parks and playgrounds can be very effective in reducing crime.
On the other hand, depending on the level of implementation, it requires a significant economic cost, so it should be preceded by a thorough local analysis through a crime risk assessment. The application of CPTED is based on five principles outlined by Jeffrey in the United States: natural surveillance, access control, territoriality, activation, and maintenance. They are fundamentally predicated on the presence and activity of the occupants, or “people around”. People are the building blocks of a safe environment. Understanding these principles will help you achieve a safe place to live with appropriate suggestions incorporating CPTED, both as a component and beneficiary of a safe environment and as a local resident who knows the area best.
Key principles of CPTED
Natural surveillance is the arrangement of buildings and facilities to maximize visibility. The idea is to make it easy to observe intruders in the event of an attack so that residents can easily distinguish between the activities of neighbors and strangers. Examples include designing building entrances, interior staircases, and exterior windows to be open, and planning to avoid blind spots such as gaps between buildings. Poor lighting design, especially in public areas such as parking lots, parks, and playgrounds, can be an invitation to crime and a hiding place for potential criminals.
Natural access control is about directing people into a space through roads, walkways, landscaping, doors, etc. It prevents crime by preventing unauthorized people from entering and exiting, making it difficult to access criminal targets and increasing the risk of exposure to criminal behavior. In order to strengthen natural access control, specialized personnel such as security guards should be deployed along with organizational and mechanical complementary measures such as advanced access control devices and unmanned security systems. CCTV for crime prevention applies the principles of mechanical surveillance and access control, and must be monitored 24 hours a day, while security bells, emergency bells, and human detectors are also used as access control devices.
Territoriality is an imaginary territory that local residents can claim by freely using or occupying an area, creating real or virtual boundaries to distinguish between the rightful users of the area and those who are not. This can be accomplished through the use of physical features that express ownership, such as fences, signs, landscaping, plantings, parks, changes in pavement, etc.
Activation is the principle of encouraging and stimulating the active use of public spaces to enhance natural surveillance by the human eye, thereby reducing crime and making residents feel safe. To increase the utilization of space, it is important to design spaces and facilities to trigger various behaviors. In the case of Yeomri-dong, Mapo-gu, after establishing bases through a survey of local residents’ opinions, a ‘salt road’ was created around the lines connecting the bases, and it was utilized as an exercise path.
Maintenance is the principle of planning and designing a facility or public space to be well managed and easy to manage so that it can be used continuously as it was initially designed, and users refrain from deviant behavior. As the broken window theory suggests, unmaintained spaces and facilities can lead to a decrease in civic responsibility and an increase in criminal behavior, so proper maintenance is necessary.
Limitations and the future of CPTED
Of course, CPTED is not a one-size-fits-all solution that can dramatically reduce crime anywhere. Again, the presence of large numbers of people on buildings and streets, or the “feel” of large numbers of people, is a prerequisite. And while the built environment can deter the motivation and likelihood of crime, it cannot be a direct deterrent, so its role must be complemented by people. Nevertheless, CPTED is a breakthrough in the efficient and safe creation of urban and built environments in the future, and if properly applied based on the aforementioned principles and crime risk assessments, it will be a strong barrier in an increasingly insecure society. The application of CPTED will ultimately play an important role in creating safe urban environments, which will contribute to crime prevention and improve the quality of life for residents.
