EW #187 P.E. is a registered professional engineer in the State of California, the owner of Security Design Sciences in Ventura, CA, and the publisher of Security Design Newsletter, a free quarterly publication focusing primarily on physical security issues.

Introduction
Over the last few years, I have noticed a resurgence of "Crime Protection Through Environmental Design" (CPTED). The term was originally coined by Dr. C. Ray Jeffery in his book of the same title nearly 20 years ago. The book deals with the assumption that proper design and effective use of the environment can lead to a reduction in the fear and incidence of crime, and to an improvement in the quality of life. The concept was described by Oscar Newman, an Architect, in his 1972 work "Defensible Spaces: Crime Prevention Through Urban Design", which was a study commissioned by the National Institute of Justice.

The CPTED Program
As you can see, CPTED is an approach to security design that has been around for a while. When CPTED was originally proposed, crime and fear of crime weren't nearly as prevalent as they are today. The renewed interest is gratifying to a security designer, because there is now increased emphasis on using CPTED methods to design facilities that work to limit criminal activity. CPTED has been acknowledged by such organizations as the National Association of Convenience Food Stores, the American Society for Industrial Security, the American Institute of Architects and the National Association of Urban Planning Educators. The State of Florida and Virginia have passed laws that require review and implementation of CPTED techniques to reduce crime and cost. The National Crime Prevention Institute provides one and two week courses on the subject that are excellent opportunities to initiate a team approach to CPTED, even for the corporate business person.

CPTED Concepts
The basic concept of CPTED is that the physical environment can be changed to impact criminal behavior in a way that will reduce the incidence and fear of crime and improve the quality of life. In a CPTED approach, a given design will impact on criminal activity if analysis and implementation of the four overlapping strategies, access control, surveillance, activity support and motivation reinforcement are included. While most security professionals are familiar with the first two terms, their knowledge is usually limited to the more traditional aspects of using hardware and outside personnel for these purposes (alarms, locks, card readers, guards and CCTV). These traditional access control and surveillance methods emphasize the use of mechanical and organized crime prevention techniques while overlooking, minimizing or ignoring attitudes, motivation and the use of the physical environment to achieve the same goals. The CPTED concept uses natural opportunities presented by the environment to impact crime in a positive manner. The concepts of activity support and motivation reinforcement suggests that the physical design of a facility can create or extend a range of influence that gives the occupants or users of the space a sense of ownership, and that potential criminals can sense that ownership and be dissuaded from committing a crime because of the perceived increase in risk to being observed, caught and punished.