Is ‘Crime Prevention’ Just Another Over-Used Word?

The term ’Crime Prevention (CP)’ has been around since local policing was invented, as policing itself is quite simply put, ”the maintenance of law and order”,  but have we gotten to a point where crime prevention is just being thrown around town? 

The prevention of crime has been around since 1748, first being introduced in England by Henry Fielding ‘Father Of Crime Prevention’ who introduced the neighbourhood watch.

The first police department was the metropolitan police of London formed in 1829 by Sir Robert Peel who continued the work of Fielding and it has since flourished, picking up speed and more attention through the years. As times have changed, humans have become more at threat from ourselves, crime and terrorism, making CP more important than ever.

Now, this is all common knowledge but throughout my years working for the police and within the Security Sector I have realised how little people know about crime prevention from people who attended my university to family members, they are shocked to know that the police has a department dealing with planning applications to advise on architectural designs in hopes of reducing crime.

Back to the point of it, CP is just another word that’s starting to lose its meaning with large bodies like Secured by Design and BRE SABRE creating long lists of Do’s and Dont’s to keep it simple, are we just following blindly? is there any research anymore? or are we still using the research from the 60’s?

Manc-Hattan

Graphite Security now helping and promoting development within Greater Manchester with our new ‘NorthernPowerhouse Intuitive’

In my next blog I will dig deeper into how we assess a building and its layout using the teachings of Landscape Architecture and Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED), using these two methodologies is very unique and not really heard of in the security world but I believe the combinational between the study of human behaviour and architectural settings is the only way, in my opinion.

Things such as specifications of doors and windows come later (as important as they are), we must first understand human behaviour, their wants and needs before we run off to boarding up a building within military  standard doors- obviously that was a joke but you get my point.