What Is CPTED: Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design
The modern security alarm has evolved to include motion sensors, live video streaming, 2-way communication, and more. Security systems have gained in popularity and affordability in the 150 years since, and they’re now a standard and effective way to protect your property. In fact, a home without one is 300% more likely to get burglarized.
But before all of those security solutions, the first step to securing your property starts with crime prevention through environmental design (CPTED). This approach is all about using the elements in the environment to help prevent crime — and it’s a must-have tool in your security strategy.
The good news is that burglaries in the United States have been steadily trending down from a high of 3.2 million in 1991. But they still happen. In 2023, larceny-theft was the most frequent type of property crime, with 4.5 million reported cases.
When it comes to securing your home or business, CPTED is an essential step. Read on to learn more about CPTED, how it works, and how to use it in your security system.
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What is CPTED?
Crime prevention through environmental design (CPTED) is a practice that changes a physical environment to make it less inviting for crime while also boosting community safety in a sustainable way. Think well-lit areas, clear signage, and clean landscaping. By thoughtfully designing spaces, CPTED creates environments that naturally deter crime.
If you’ve ever chosen a well-lit street over a dark one on your way home at night, you’ve experienced it. If you’ve installed motion sensors outside your home, you’ve used them. And if you’ve participated in neighborhood watch programs with strategically placed signs around the community, you’ve lived it.
Here are some examples of CPTED in action.
There’s a good chance that you come face-to-face with CPTED in your daily life. Here are some ways communities use CPTED to prevent crime:
- Lighting and visibility: Adequate lighting in public spaces such as parks, parking lots, and walkways ensures that potential hiding spots for criminals are minimized. This not only deters criminal activities but also provides residents and visitors with a sense of safety after dark.
- Natural surveillance: Designing buildings with plenty of windows and open sightlines can help establish “eyes on the street.” This increases the likelihood of potential criminal behavior being observed, thereby dissuading would-be offenders.
- Territorial reinforcement: Clear boundaries (such as fences, hedges, or changes in elevation), can signify ownership and care for a property, discouraging trespassing and vandalism. This encourages people to respect the property while also creating a sense of ownership among community members.
- Controlled access: Well-placed entrances, exits, and barriers like gates can help control who comes and goes. This makes it tougher for unauthorized people to get in and easier to notice anything suspicious.
- Activity support: Creating spaces that the community can use — like public plazas with seating, gardens, and parks — helps keep areas busy and safe.
What are the five principles of CPTED?
There are five overlapping pillars of crime prevention through environmental design:
The first two pillars limit the opportunity for crime. The third pillar encourages a degree of social control. The fourth and fifth pillars enhance the community’s ability to prevent crime through their activities and connectedness.
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Natural surveillance
In other words, “more eyes are better than none.”
If you increase the visibility of your property — through outdoor lighting, clear sightlines, low fences, and shrubs — you’ll increase the chance that a friend, neighbor, or stranger will see a crime happening and intervene or report it.
Read more about natural surveillance.
Natural access control
There’s public space, and there’s private space.
Sometimes those lines get a little blurry. Natural access control makes a clear distinction between the two with signs, fences, and other barriers. When it’s clear to everyone where people should (and shouldn’t) be, it stands out when someone ignores those conventions.
Read more about natural access control.
Territorial reinforcement
People generally respect the property of others. And when everyone knows it’s your property, they’re going to be mistrustful of anyone else using it.
Well-groomed landscaping, fences, lighting, clearly marked boundaries, walkways, and home security cameras broadcast to the world that this is your property. That means that trespassers are not welcome here.
Read more about territorial reinforcement.
Activity support
When you promote legitimate use of an area by legitimate users, you have more people around with more eyes on the surrounding area. This increases the risk of detection for suspicious individuals.
A neighborhood park can become a vibrant community space that naturally deters suspicious behavior. By enhancing the equipment and lighting, it can attract families and neighbors for recreational activities, fostering a safe and welcoming environment that benefits the surrounding homes.
Read more about activity support.
Maintenance
A well-maintained property will attract less crime than one that’s in need of care.
For example, a neighborhood full of broken windows and graffiti may attract a different crowd compared to one that is scrubbed clean and regularly repaired. If a property is well-maintained and cared for, it’s less likely to attract crime. The same applies to a neighborhood as a whole.
Why is CPTED important for property owners or managers?
In short: Because it helps keep people safe.
After you implement CPTED strategies, communities become more stabilized, crime decreases, and residents become more active in the community.
When CPTED is in place, residents tend to feel safer spending time outdoors, and there’s a greater feeling of community and belonging. Everyone is looking out for everyone else.
Studies have found that implementing crime prevention through environmental design principles resulted in a 30-84% drop in robberies.
“CPTED is essentially the premise that people with malevolent intent want to be clandestine and don’t want to be detected or observed. We can change the built environment to make them more observable, thereby creating fear that they’ll be caught either during the incident or afterward.” – Sean Ahrens, Security Market Group Leader, Affiliated Engineers
Using CPTED, you can take proactive steps to reduce or stop crime before it happens.
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