Is It Just a Guessing Game? The Application of Crime Prevention through Environmental Design (CPTED) to Predict Burglary

ABSTRACT

Crime prevention through environmental design (CPTED) aims to reduce crime through the design of the built environment. Designing out crime officers (DOCOs) are responsible for the delivery of CPTED by assessing planning applications, identifying criminogenic design features and offering remedial advice. Twenty-eight experienced DOCOs from across England and Wales assessed the site plan for one residential development (which had been built a decade earlier) and identified crime risk locations. Predictions of likely locations were compared with 4 years’ police recorded crime data. DOCOs are, to varying extents, able to identify locations which experienced higher levels of crime and disorder. However, they varied widely in the number of locations in which they anticipated burglary would occur.

KEYWORDS:

• Crime prevention through environmental design (CPTED)
• burglary
• built environment
• police
• residential housing
• planning
• designing out crime officers (DOCOs)

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Previously referred to as architectural liaison officers (ALOs) or crime prevention design advisors (CPDAs).

2. As of April 2017, burglary dwelling and burglary other were reclassified as ‘residential burglary’ (ONS, 2017).