Ways to Increase Crime Prevention There are a number of ways to prevent criminals from breaking into your home or business. Alarm systems, security cameras, window bars and gates and other security technology are vital to keeping your property safe from criminals. However, it has also been proven that proper design can improve crime prevention efforts by reducing crime and the fear of crime in a neighbourhood or property.
A combination of security technology and natural surveillance, access control and other techniques can make an area safer and drastically reduce crime. Crime prevention through environmental design is a multi-disciplinary approach to deterring criminal behaviour through design techniques.
The ideas of crime prevention through environmental design have been practised and refined for quite some time. Today these tactics are used in both residential and commercial environments to limit the opportunity for crime and to also reduce the fear of crime in a given area. Urban planners and those designing neighbourhoods and commercial areas such as office parks or shopping centres often take safety and security into account when creating a design.
Crime Prevention Tactics
There are several ways that you can use these tactics to protect your home or office. For example, a key aspect of crime prevention through environmental design is the idea of “natural surveillance”. This means creating an environment that maximizes visibility and increases the ability to spot suspicious people or activities. This technique can be used in your home quite effectively. For example, you should ensure that your home’s main entrance is clearly visible from the street and that there are no bushes or shrubs located nearby where criminals could hide. Installing motion-activated security lighting over all entrances will increase visibility at night and make it more difficult for criminals to act without being caught.
“Natural Access Control” is another crime prevention method that can be used to protect your home. Having a clearly defined point of entry will force criminals to attempt to enter your home through an entrance that is easily visible. Use waist-level, picket-type fencing and low, thorny bushes to steer criminals towards this main entrance while also giving them no hiding places. A criminal is much less likely to break in through a front door when he or she will easily be spotted. This is just one example of a crime prevention technique.
Property maintenance is also a key to preventing crime through environmental design. For example, a broken window could encourage a criminal to attempt to break into a property, or at the very least, cause the criminal to scout out this property for additional weaknesses. If broken windows, damaged bushes and clutter are quickly cleaned up or fixed, criminals understand that the property is under frequent watch. They will be less likely to strike for fear of being caught.
Visible security cameras can also be used to deter criminals. Anything that you can do that will cause a criminal to feel that he or she is likely to be caught committing a crime is a smart move. Criminals like to strike in dark, hidden areas whenever possible. Removing these areas from your home will keep you safer and reduce break-ins. This is what good crime prevention is all about.
There are a number of ways to prevent criminals from breaking into your home or business. Alarm systems, security cameras, window bars and gates and other security technology are vital to keeping your property safe from criminals. However, it has also been proven that proper design can improve crime prevention efforts by reducing crime and the fear of crime in a neighbourhood or property.