Lindsay Smart, AICP, CPD
City of Durham, NC

In 2017, the West End and Lyon Park neighborhoods of Durham, North Carolina made a call for action in the City’s Lyon Park. The neighborhoods wanted lighting, cameras, call boxes, more foot patrols, and better maintenance for Lyon Park. The interest and advocacy for improvements to the park-initiated discussions with parks staff which launched a Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED) assessment of the park and surrounding neighborhoods. The process began with discussions with engaged park users and neighborhood residents to listen to their concerns and the development of a CPTED assessment tool for public park space. During the next six to eight months, assessments for land use, crime data, geographic proximity, demographic data, historic investments, user surveys, and the four CPTED principles (Natural Surveillance, Natural Access Control, Territory Reinforcement, and Maintenance) were performed. The assessments resulted in a series of recommendations that were presented during community meetings. The recommendations were well received and while not every single recommendation was supported, the community was enthusiastic to move forward with improvements and one focal point or activity generator. The City Council funded a design-build project to further explore the interests of the community and have something built for phase 1, while also collecting input for residents’ longer-term visions for park spaces. The project is underway and scheduled to be delivered by August 2023.

Dr. John K. Cochran, Professor & Chair
Department of Criminology, University of South Florida

Ray Jeffrey, an academic criminologist, is credited with birthing the idea of crime prevention through environmental design. In the passage of time CPTED has become an industry and academic criminology has so broadened the idea of environmental criminology that CPTED has been somewhat passed over. Most departments of criminology/criminal justice across North America have moved away from CPTED; at most a few programs give CPTED a week or two of overage in a broader course on crime prevention generally. This is unfortunate.  At the University of South Florida, we are re-discovering CPTED; we are creating an MA program in crime prevention that includes a stand-alone course in CPTED that will include CPTED credentialing.  We are also eager to re-new or research effort in applied research related to CPTED in the form of needs assessments, process evaluations, impact assessments, and/or cost-effectiveness studies.  This presentation is our story.

Captain Stephany Perea

Albuquerque Fire Department

It’s time to get fired up about nuisance abatement because the City of Albuquerque has taken a unique approach to reducing crime by utilizing firefighters. In 2019, Albuquerque Fire Rescue (“AFR”) launched the ADAPT Program, which is a nuisance abatement division within the Fire Marshal’s Office. The ADAPT Program utilizes an objective point-based criteria system to determine which properties are entered into the program. Additionally, the ADAPT Program takes a holistic approach to reducing crime by coordinating the enforcement efforts of multiple departments. This allows ADAPT to not only implement CPTED standards on nuisance properties but also reduce the resource drain on other departments by addressing the issues affecting them that are caused by such properties. By utilizing this collaborative approach, AFR has been able to reduce the amount of criminal activity on the properties it has addressed by an average of 62%. This fresh outlook could be just what you’re looking for to reignite your CPTED program.

Chief Inspector Jamie Kurnick
Gainesville, FL Police Department

In the City of Gainesville, we worked on several renovation projects with our Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA). This agency renovated a local park, an area of high pedestrian traffic, and new developments. When we worked in conjunction with the CRA, we implemented CPTED principals into three distinct projects. In our downtown park area, we have reduced calls for service by 80 percent after implementing CPTED principals into design and coordinated with the Parks and Recreation Division (PRCA) to bring programming to the area. The core principals of CPTED are not only based in design, but also in increasing the use of the space too. I want to share our success as an agency in implementing the dual strategies in areas to change behavior by all individuals who visit these locations.

Terry Conlon, CPD & Mohammad Kabir

Understanding the benefits of collaboration

Mechanical security, having reliable, robust and fit for purpose systems within your organization is key.

Physical security, having a well selected, professionally trained and measured physical security team is key.

CPTED security components, understanding the mechanism, its benefits and overall buy-in from stakeholders is key.

By having the holistic benefits of mechanical, physical and CPTED security components combined and how they complement one another we can begin to understand and address the myriad of external threats to our organization, its people, property and assets.

Both Terry Conlon and Muhammad Kabir will deep dive into the systematic layered approach to a collaborative defense and offence of threat and risk mitigation concerning these holistic layered security mechanisms both tangible and intangible.

When we immerse ourselves in a process of understanding then we reap the rewards of the layered threat and risk mitigation collaboration of physical, mechanical and CPTED enhanced security components.

Focus on the practice of CPTED by those in professional roles supporting the design and construction of the built environment.  Common roles would be Architects, Engineers, Design Consultants, Real Estate Professionals, Solutions Manufacturers, etc.

Lead Panelist: Mark Schreiber, CPP, CPD
Safeguards Consulting 

Joell McNew, SafeHorns,

Founding member and Current President

SafeHorns is a nonprofit organization not affiliated with the University of Texas System, we started as a grassroots coalition to improve safety on and around campus after the brutal murder of Haruka Weiser.

Benjamin Crum, AIA, CPD, PSP – Architectural Security Design Group / MCK Architecture

Architects seem to speak a different language and design projects can be a long, arduous endeavor. Learn the different phases of the architectural design process – from selecting your architect through project completion. Understand how and why security personnel MUST be involved in your design every step of the way. When CPTED and Security is treated as an afterthought, it becomes expensive to incorporate and ultimately concessions must be made – creating a disjointed and potentially unsafe building. Identify what decisions you need to make from project conception and create a strategy to achieve a cohesive design that finishes on budget.

Art Hushen, Executive Director – US CPTED Association

Overview of USCA activity in 2022 and goals for 2023

Conference location for 2024

Questions from membership

Closing remarks