What is CPTED

 What is Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED;  pronounced sep-ted)?

CPTED is a method of influencing the design of our environment to:

 Enhance public safety.
 Encourage positive interaction and behaviours.

Many Police agencies across the world refer to this as the Bible of Policing. That is a sweeping statement but one which society readily understands and relates to in their everyday life.  At this point I would like to remind everyone prevention is better than cure.

How does CPTED work

The principle is a simple but effective method based on ownership, activity, access and minimizing risk.

This is achieved by:

 Promoting a sense of ownership through territorial influences. To do this, natural defined boundaries such as landscaping, signs and fences etc. are used to define public and private spaces.

 By using lighting, entry/exits routes and landscaping (to name a few), denying opportunities for criminal activity creating a real perception of detection for potential offenders.

 Utilizing natural (or not recognized) surveillance vicariously increasing visibility. 

Lighting and landscaping are the primary factors in this, creating a feeling a safety for the public (no one likes walking through a dimly lit tree lined alleyway) through natural surveillance. See and be seen.  Conversely would be offenders do not like feeling vulnerable to detection caused by lighting and open spaces.A great example of this would be the broken window theory developed in 1982 by Kelling and Wilson, where they theorized that a broken window is associated with disorder and crime. If left unattended then people’s attitude towards that environment is by default a negative one, leading in turn to more broken windows (social disorder and criminal activity). However, through pride in ownership, and never getting to the broken window, the process stalls. This is where Red Ram Consulting primarily concentrates and provides an area of expertise to their client base. By creating and maintaining safe spaces, people are more likely to return as they remember not what they bought but how they felt.  There are many other aspects to this theory which your Consultant Pete will be more than willing to discuss with you at the initial point of contact and moving forward.Once you have developed the above area of safety you are able to move to the second phase of CPTED, which perhaps the easiest part to achieve. This is maintenance, keep landscaping under control, keep areas tidy, replace damaged property, ensure all lights work etc.