Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design

Routine activity theory states that for a crime to be committed, three important factors need to be present including: a motivated offender, an accessible target, and the absence of a capable guardian against a violation. Marcus Felson and Lawrence E. Cohen introduced the routine activity theory in 1979, where they believed that an individual who has these three characteristics gives them a greater possibility of committing a crime. Moreover, situational crime prevention is known as strategies of ways for preventing or reducing the opportunities for criminals to commit crimes that derive from the routines of an individual’s everyday life. Ronald V. Clarke introduced situational crime prevention theory in 1983, where he believed that removing the situation instead of removing the criminal could prevent crime. In this paper, I will be discussing what routine activity/situational crime prevention theory is, and apply two peer-reviewed articles from Google Scholar that test the routine activity/situational crime prevention theory by discussing what the authors are trying to figure out and discuss their findings, and lastly, tie the routine activity/situational crime prevention theory articles to our textbook in hopes to fully understand in depth what the theory encompasses.

Situational and social approaches to crime prevention are both proactive where they anticipate and prevent crime but are different in the way on how crime is prevented, each having their own strength and weaknesses. In this essay, I will briefly talk about what is crime prevention and how situational and social approaches are derived, followed by providing a critical comparison of situational and social approaches by first explaining what is situational and social approaches to crime prevention, the differences between the two approaches, their strength and weaknesses and lastly, to show understanding that besides situational and social approach, there are other approaches to crime prevention.

The book defines ecological, as “a type of sociological approach that emphasizes demographics and geo

Summary: This chapter discusses the seven secondary defenses applied to crime after detection. These seven defenses can be split into two categories: discourage and oppose. The four ways which potential victims discourage their attackers: movement away from adversary, communicate ability to escape, distraction, feigns, and startles, and symbiotic protection. The three methods for quick opposition upon attack are chemical and weapon defense, sudden weaponry, and emergency social defense.

Throughout the social development of individuals, there are several things that we learn through inclusion and the way in which parents raise us. We learn how to make appropriate social interactions depending on who is in our presence, we learn social expectation, what is considered good behavior, and finally what is considered bad behavior. Yet, awareness of what can constitute as criminal conduct has become increasingly prominent in our culture, especially with the strong presence in social media that it now has. However, what we are often exposed to are adult criminal assailants, and we rarely hear about juvenile, unless they have committed an extreme offense. But it is that last population, the one that we need to focus on, considering that it is them that can move to the extremes; to get blossom under help or to commit an increasing amount of crime.

CPTED stands for Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design. The idea behind CPTED is that effectively using the environment can drastically reduce the act and fear of crime leading to an overall better quality of life. The four principles of CPTED are natural surveillance, natural access control, territorial reinforcement, and maintenance and management (Tan, Cheong, p.4). Breaking down each one of these principles is very important. Natural surveillance is based on the idea that criminals do not want to be watched. The main goal of natural surveillance is to watch intruders. “Natural surveillance can be achieved by a number of techniques. The flow of activities can be channeled to put more people (observers) near a potential crime area” (Tan, Cheong, p. 4). The next principle to break down is natural access control. Natural access control is used by relying on physical elements to keep unauthorized people out of a certain dwelling. Third, territorial

Situational crime prevention is the prevention theory and implementation that focuses mainly on specific types of crime, and relies heavily on preparation. People who focus on situational crime prevention follow more with the idea that people commit crimes as an opportunity and not because of biological or psychological discriminants. A simple way to look at situational crime prevention is to use the speed bump, while some may limit the value of its effectiveness, a speed bump removes the opportunity to speed and therefore performs its duty. Similarly situational crime prevention intends to do they same thing to other crimes, put a metaphorical speed bump in the way, and at least make it harder to commit those specific crimes. This type of prevention requires a belief that offenders make their own choices and that a less attractive option will prohibit an offense.

Environmental criminology examines how geographical location and features in that location affect crime. It argues that some environments are more prone to crime that others.

The seventh step is to learn about Crime Prevention through Environmental Design (CPTED) which is a set of design principles that are used to discourage crime. The concept is simple: Building and properties are designed to prevent damage from the force of the elements and natural disaster; they should also be designed to prevent crime. These principles can improve home offices and high-rise buildings (Deutsch).

Crime prevention through environmental design through changing neighborhoods in order to keep criminals off the street(Zahm, 2007).

When I was reading chapter two there is a question caught my attention in the “resreach Design: The Experiment” station on page 20. The question was why people commit crimes? And that got me what’s the reason behind that gets people to commit crimes, therefore I decided to search it up and look for some answers. From my research I found that the reason people commits crime because sometimes they didn’t manage to achieve their goals using the normal way such as academic or financial success. Maybe that’s why they decided to try another way be becoming a criminals, but that doesn’t mean that every person who fail to achieve their goal they will become criminal. From the website that I got my information mentioned that only the people who lack

The theory arose following Cohen and Felson (1979) research on the high urban crime rates during the 1960s. The theorists observed that America still reported a high incidence of crime when factors that are traditionally known to increase crime, such as slowed economic situation, had significantly improved. They argued that crimes occurs at specific times and places involving suitable objects or people (Felson & Cohen, 1979). Felson and Cohen proposed the three necessary elements and argued that the absence of any one would effectively prevent a crime from occurring (Lilly, J. R., Cullen, F. T. 2015). They recommended that structural changes in the routine activity patterns in society would help reduce crime events by altering the convergence of space

CTPED or Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design is defined as “The prevention strategy which outlines how the physical environments can be designed in order to lessen the opportunity for crime.” (Queensland Police Department.) CPTED not only is defined by this definition, but it focuses on four more characteristics that help to make this design work effectively, and smoothly. These four characteristics are: maximizing the risk that offenders face, maximizing the effort required by offenders to commit crimes, minimizing the benefits that offenders can gain from committing crimes, and finally minimizing the excuses for opportunities toward offenders. COP is defined as “Community policing is a philosophy that promotes organizational strategies, which support the systematic use of partnerships and problem solving techniques, to proactively address the immediate conditions that give rise to public safety issues, such as crime, social disorder, and fear of crime.” (Community Policing Defined." Community Policing Dispatch). CPTED and COP are methods that promote strong communities to deter crime, and provide the community with alternatives to stop crime from ever happening in the first place. As well as these definitions, the strategies of COP, and CPTED, these strategies are based off of the broken windows theory. The broken windows theory is the theory that states once criminals see an area that is under-patrolled, they will commit more crimes

The focus of this paper will be based upon different crime prevention strategies implemented by members of the communities, local and government authorities.

The ecological theory of crime, also known as social disorganisation of crime is a theory used to describe the difference in crime in association with physical environmental factors such as cultural and structural factors. In the 1970’s and 1980’s the term ‘environmental criminology’ was used until it became associated with environmental issues. This theory can also be defined as a positivist theory because it seeks to find out about human behaviour. For the ecological theory the causes of crime for example are found in the way of the physical environment, where people live and socially interact. This is what creates the conditions for criminal and non-criminal behaviour.