Implementation of Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED)

• In Event: Poster Session

Abstract

Implementation of CPTED has received little attention. Its evaluations usually measure outcome and performance indicators while there is little regard for specific factors and mechanisms that might have impeded or facilitated the process. Identification of the mistakes that could be avoided in the future (Pressman & Wildavsky, 1984) and knowing “what worked” in a specific context therefore often remain unknown (King, Morris & Fitz-Gibbon, 1987, p. 9), which renders this process a “black box”.

CPTED is a crime prevention strategy that is in the course of the implementation process subjected to multiple variable factors; even more so because it crosses the boundaries between community (social) and situational crime prevention approaches. Factors internal and external to the delivering agency and an interaction between these factors within its socio-physical context characterise success of on-site delivery of an intervention. This can be seen as a dynamic input-process-output model.

Preliminary research into implementation of CPTED in Queensland, Australia indicates that projects rarely involve the community despite such directives in Queensland Crime Prevention Strategy, and that implementation at a local level is often arbitrary. Further research will aim to identify specific factors that might need to be given extra attention to increase implementation capacity.

Author

• Mateja Mihinjac, Griffith University