Introduction

Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED; pronounced “Sep-Ted”) is a multi-disciplinary approach to crime prevention that uses urban planning, architectural design and the urban maintenance and management of specific environments to influence human behaviour to reduce the risk of crime and the feelings of insecurity (see Annex E). Property crimes like theft, burglary and vandalism and violent crimes like assaults, robberies, terrorism (see Annex A for an overview) as well as feelings of insecurity have a significant negative impact on citizens’ quality of life, community cohesion and the security in the urban environment. Those living in deprived neighbourhoods and vulnerable groups1 are often the most seriously affected.

In this Technical Specification CPTED is defined as:

— an approach to prevent and/or reduce crime problems: crimes (specific types of crime including terrorism; see Annex A and B for further specifications) and feelings of insecurity (see Annex E);

NOTE 1 In this Technical Specification the word ‘crime problem’ is used for prevalence of one or more types of crime in a specific environment and/or the prevalence of feelings of insecurity; hence, crime problem = crime and/or feelings of insecurity.

NOTE 2 Prevalence is the proportion of a population who – in a specific environment – have a specific characteristic – becoming a crime victim and/or being fearful of crime – in a given time period.
— following a rational risk management approach (complying with ISO 31000:2018);
— through al multi-disciplinary, multi-agency or partnership process [5];
— by design, planning, economic/social/psychological approaches and management/maintenance in a particular physical, social and governance/organisational environment (city, town, neighbourhood, community or a specific place).

The process of applying CPTED is summarized in Figure 1. In this process the stakeholders choose strategies and measures to reduce identified crime risks. To help stakeholders make this choice they may use the strategies and measures as presented in Clause 5, Annex C.

Hence by adopting this Technical Specification the process described in Clause 6 is adopted while the definitive choice of strategies and measures (see Clause 5, Annex C) is left to the stakeholders in a specific project/environment and in the end to a Responsible Body (most often local and regional authorities issuing rules for urban planning, building/planning codes, regulations and permits, management and maintenance routines) involved in a concrete plan for building, reconstruction or the management of an area.

This Technical Specification is an addition to the regular planning / management processes that already exists in all member states of the EU, and these are not to be described here (e.g. planning and building laws, levels of government and their responsibilities, etc.). Those regular planning/management process are already firmly established and have not been, nor will be in the future, subject to this Technical Specification. The only additional new feature resulting from the adoption of this Technical Specification will be incorporation of measures to prevent and reduce crime problems.

PD CEN/TS 14383-2:2022

Crime prevention through building design, urban planning and city maintenance - Principles and process

Current, Under Review

Published:

31 Jul 2023