How Can Environmental Design Reduce Crime? Essay Example

Crime remains to be a social issue that governments and stakeholders strive to combat in everyday life. Some offenses constitute great worry within the community, especially to the most vulnerable groups like the old or disabled. A holistic approach involving enforcing laws, individual action, and environmental design is required to combat crime. Through environmental design (CPTED), crime prevention is a series of principles that impede crime and encourage harmony within a community as defined in Hoon’s guidebook. CPTED is guided by four main principles that are; Natural surveillance, access control, reinforcing territories, and maintenance. Also, we have another strategy that simply involves making a building less easy to enter forcibly. This is referred to as target hardening. This research paper aims to assert how environmental design can help reduce crime. Planners, architects, developers, and the Jackson Heights community, in this case, play a vital role in preventing crime by employing the CPTED as mentioned above principles.

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Order now

Planners and other stakeholders need to be aware of the crime-preventative measures through environmental design. Thus, raising the research question for this research paper. How can the Jackson Heights storefronts be improved to reflect a city of wealth through ecological design? Ultimately, breeding a minimal or no criminal activity in the zone. Our research seeks to confirm the hypothesis that the concepts of CPTED directly correlate to a reduction in crime levels. The field of study mainly focuses on Queens, located in 11372 Jackson Heights, New York. Jackson Heights are different color, ethnicities, faces, and spices, and people experience the world in a matter of few blocks. It is long four blocks tall and twenty-five blocks wide. The neighborhood has the challenge of not having public spaces. The rationale for the research field being one store compared to another store of the same chain in a different neighborhood. We will relay a bit of economic diversity as we progress in formulating our research.

LITERATURE REVIEW

The concept of "crime prevention through environmental design," was originally used by Jane Jacobs's 1961 classic, had an immense impact. In classical time, the concept was defined by; activity support, communal territories, natural watchout, and accessibility. The theoretical idea of this research was the layout of storefronts with advertising tactics of products and services. Many advertising agencies and hoteliers spotlight how what is placed on commercial food warmers influence purchase.

Borrowing from traditional concepts definition may as well be adopted in the modern era. Activity support can be done to encourage the use of public space through safekeeping activities. The logic is that the level of crime can be significantly discouraged in a community where there are more social activities that people can per take in. Jacobs states that active streets deter crimes such as rape, a theft that ends up to murder, cold blood killings, and other violent crimes. Research has shown that some elements of CPTED were able to reduce or mitigate acts of crime (Kajalo et al. 300-05).

Communal territories foster voluntary guardianship as effected by Newman in his urban plans. The design encourages individuals in the community to control it and contribute to enforcing laws against criminal offenses. Newman mentioned that residents' attitudes can shun away possible crime and, to be specific, that semi-private spaces comprising commercial and residential units would significantly boost territoriality. Territoriality is central to CPTED but, unfortunately, is often defined in a very limited way (Ekblom 7-28).

Jacob's idea of "eyes on the street" influenced natural surveillance. He suggests that a community that is easy on the lookout by members greatly shows a smaller number of crimes. The community becomes safer and conserved for people to gain. Further contributing to this ideology, Newman’s concept followed in his empirical study on American housing projects. He noted that the crime level is high in spaces that tend to be out of clears sight that is areas that are invisible to residents.

The motive behind the accessibility of buildings is to prevent criminals through physical barriers and enclosure. Newman's study revealed that places that have several escape throughs were more likely to increase crime rate; he suggests that clear escape routes and only the necessary one’s curb potential crime from taking place. His study did not explore suburban design as its focal point.

A deep relationship between communities must propel methods of preventing crime success. This involves a person to person interaction within the locality. A productive relationship can be defined as the ability of members to gather and interact at least once every year. The habit of congregating builds collective efficacy among residents based on social involvement and working hand in hand to overcome social problems. The building of this community interaction will, in turn, decrease the happening of crimes such as indoor burglary, motor theft, home invasion within residential and commercial areas.

In essence, the concept of crime prevention through environmental design has been chosen as a top list initiative for combating crime. This is because CPTED is one of the actions that suit social cohesion as one of the impetus of its success. More so, the measurement concepts of CPTED in research are not vast, as noted by (Minnery and Lim 330-41). Previous research on the topic pinpointed on territoriality as the only component. Both Minnery and Linn employed a common approach in their research, which was referred to as observation. This is approach has been discovered to be deficient and missing some valuable aspects.

Positive effects of CPTED. The progress of CPTED has birthed research and findings of the relation between the environment and crime. Much of the research have scrutinized public settings, commercial centers, and residential facilities. The two study fields discussed below share positive results regarding the implication of CPTED and reduced crime rates.

Five Oaks and Clason Point. Five Oaks neighborhood in Dayton, Ohio, was characterized by prevalent crime, drug dealing, and the presence of prostitutes. Newman (1996) assisted in the implementation of the access control concept of CPTED. It merely involved sub-divisions of the community, renaming, and provision of single access points. A year after implementation of the concept revealed impressive crime statistics. Generally, crime and violent crimes had reduced by 26 percent and 50 percent, respectively. Environmental modification significantly contributed to the decrease in the crime rate.

Similarly, modifications were undertaken in Clason Point in the Bronx, New York City. The activity support concept was employed in contrast to the idea used at Five Oaks. The modifications implemented were centralized with the sole aim of convening members of the community. The implication, the high rate of crime as experienced before the redesign had reduced by 54 percent in the following year. It was overly reducing theft-related crimes- robbery, burglary, battery, and assault by 61.5%.

However, we cannot disregard studies that do not contribute a positive implication as the field studies discussed above. One such study field is Lockwood Gardens in Oakland, California, characterized by low-class families. Security officers were employed, and street lighting was improved to encourage natural surveillance crime examination stat. Within four years proved to be inconsistent; hence no significant establishment of the relationship between crime and the environment.

METHODOLOGY

This research paper’s objective is to point out the components of Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design and their measurability. Fifty respondents were selected randomly with the aim of attaining the research objectives. The randomized selection process was carried out from commercial areas located in Jackson Heights, Queens, in New York. The participants involved in this survey were store owners or self-employed personnel in a family. Either the store owner or next of kin for the business was selected to provide the required responses. This is crucial as the research involves individual responsibility and attitude towards commercial property.

First-hand information was obtained from respondents by employing face-to-face interview techniques. Person to person communication was necessary to enable clarification of questions and responses. Also, the questions were open-ended for the sole purpose of allowing the interviewee freedom of expression. The data collection process took five working days from early morning to mid-afternoon and one weekend from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. At the end of the interview, the respondent was required to fill a close-ended questionnaire.

The research design was based on an earlier literature review of the components of CPTED. Here is in an in-depth identification of each element:

Supportive practices. These are the activities and practices that are able to congregate members of the community and establish a safe environment for interaction. Some of the items proposed and adopted include; children play programs such as tournaments, skits and drama festivals, group art, and craft projects. For adults, community cleaning programs, work out, and meditative sessions in the community town hall can boost security and safety.

Surveillance. This is the most vital component in the sense that every community member of Jackson Heights is able to monitor his or her surroundings. Some of the strategies implemented involve; keeping alert on strange noises and unusual occurrences within your vicinity and ensuring clear vision to the outside when in your residents.

Territory consciousness. This is being able to identify strangers around their residents. As such, the issues addressed in the questionnaire are; (i) is a person able to recognize an unfamiliar face within the area, (ii) I have organized my surrounding well enough to be easily identified, and (iii) my alarm systems are regularly checked and maintained. The questions were logical, i.e., required only True or False responses.

All components of crime prevention through environmental design were measured using a five-point grading scale of 1-strongly agree, going through to 5- strongly disagree with 3 being a neutral point. The measurement of sense of community (SOC) and fear of crime (FOC) utilized a 5-point Likert scale.

RESULTS

This research paper employed a mixed approach that resulted in obtaining both qualitative and quantitative data. Qualitative observations revealed sufficient reason that access issues were client-propagated in relation to the store design. Here is a result analysis as obtained from the methodological approaches employed.

A qualitative survey was done through strolling around the blocks and random stores as a customer. It constituted more than five shifts, especially during high traffic hours, i.e., morning, early afternoon, and early evening hours. The store pavements tended to be a bit narrow, thus preventing customers from moving freely. During rush hours, the congestion experienced allows crime such as pickpocketing to take place. One other familiar observation noted was the narrow rare access points for deliveries. This was especially the case in stores dealing with fast foods such as fries, burgers, snacks, and sodas. Often the case was blockage of employees as they made their deliveries.

Quantitative results obtained constituted 44% male respondents and 56% female respondents. A good number of them were in their late 20s and early 40s as they were either store owners or workers.