Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design

Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design

Certified protection professional course introduces and exposes a security professional to recognize crime and acquire mitigation skills to prevent its occurrence in the future. It offers exposure to the professionals on how specialists work in tandem with law enforcement and establish a synergy between optimizing the physical environment and scale criminal acts through the strategies. 

Crime prevention through environmental design (CPTED) forms a vital part of the course, with the topics focussing on tactical design and the effective use of the designed landscape, to reduce crime and its fear. Crime prevention through environmental design, under CPP training, aims at reducing and eliminating the opportunity for crime to happen in an environment. It promotes a positive interaction of the designed space by the users. Often known as the preventive, pro-active model, certified protection professional course

CPTED forms a critical component of the design for security services. The benefits of CPTED reach their optimal level when it is applied in the initial stage of the design process before the integral design elements are considered and decided. However, the strategy, according to the certified protection professional course, should not be operated solo, but rather should be implemented in conjunction with the community-based, environmental and social strategies.

The crime prevention through environmental design course constitutes five principles:

• Physical security

Physical security undertakes the measures that are used on individual spaces, such as personal houses. This enables a robust structure that can withstand an attack or is resistant to break and entry

• Surveillance

Surveillance incorporates an environmental design that ensures the residents of that location can observe their surroundings for any suspicious activity. This is usually facilitated by incorporating front doors onto the street, blank walls avoided and the street areas well illuminated. 

• Movement control

A locality that has high access to movement enables offenders to enter egress without any suspicion. Therefore, under certified protection professional course, the specialists learn to identify such areas and implement movement control. This principle of CPTED permits the identification of suspicious targets. 

• Management and maintenance

The 4th principle of CPTED ensures the processes of maintenance and management are streamlined and in place. It ensures that the space under development or fully developed is free from any signs of anomalies and disorder. 

• Defensible space

Defensible space pertains to the clearly defined and identified ownership of a locality or space in a neighborhood. For example, the parks, pavements, rear gardens, and home must be identified as private (e.g. inside the home), public (e.g. pavement); semi-public (e.g. front garden); semi-private (e.g. rear garden).  

Additionally, the certified protection professional course assists in managing the physical environment through three methods, viz; Natural, Organized and Mechanical. The natural way incorporates the basic behavioral provisions and security. The organized method inculcates formal, human security, such as police patrols. Under the mechanical method, security hardware is incorporated such as CCTVs, locks, etc. to offer a proactive security measure.  

The certified protection professional course recognizes CPTED to be a pattern of attitudes and behaviors directed at reducing the threat of crime and enhancing the sense of safety and security. 

Enabling a landscape of effective crime prevention, Netrika offers the crime prevention specialist certification, to help professionals identify, design, and execute the crime mitigation processes while evaluating and validating the project progress. The crime prevention classes are aimed at introducing the professionals to general crime prevention classifications, theories, definitions, concepts and models to be used as a foundation when designing a robust crime prevention program.