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 Have you ever wondered why some properties are victimized while others are not? What makes one property more susceptible to crimes than another?
Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED) holds some of these answers by providing a common sense way to improve the safety of your environment. CPTED works by eliminating criminal opportunities in and around your property. As a result, a criminal may avoid giving it a second and closer look. This keeps your property safer, by decreasing opportunities for crime.
How can you make your property safer?
CPTED doesn't have to be expensive or difficult to apply and can simply involve taking advantage of your property's natural surveillance, access control and territorial potential. Ask yourself:
- Are views from neighbouring properties or streets obscured by landscaping or fencing?
- Are there any hiding spots around my doors or windows?
- Are there dark or shadowed areas around the house where intruders could linger undetected?
If you answered "yes" to any of these questions, your property's natural surveillance potential needs to be improved. Consider adding a motion activated light and cutting back overgrown shrubbery so potential intruders can be seen.
Next, take a look at your property's "access control potential."
- Do people routinely violate your property/fence lines?
- Can this be done in an inconspicuous manner?
- Do people access your property in ways other than intended?
- Do any existing access routes lack natural surveillance?
- Is your patio furniture or other outdoor equipment in a spot that would make gaining access to an otherwise inaccessible window easy to open and gain entry?
If you answered "yes" to any of these questions, your property's access control needs to be improved.
- Consider better control of undesired movements onto your property.
- Install landscaping, fencing or barriers to increase the conspicuousness of anyone crossing a boundary or reinforce an existing boundary that's already been subject to trespass.
- When selecting fencing or landscape material, take into account maintenance requirements and the impact of mature landscaping on natural surveillance.
- For maximum landscaping effectiveness, consider getting some type of plant with thorns.
- Lastly, keep furniture or other equipment away from otherwise inaccessible windows, doors, or openings.
CPTED techniques are directed against crimes of opportunity. Where these techniques have been applied to problem settings, crimes of opportunity have decreased by as much as 90 per cent.
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