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Designers Need Broader Base for Crime Prevention Behavioural Study Goes Beyond Eyes on the Street
September, 2008
By Tom McKay
Behavioural-based design is a strategic design approach that aims to understand the predictable ways that people interact with their environment, and to develop the most appropriate physical settings for inducing desired behaviour. The concept evolves from the longstanding theories of crime prevention through environmental design (CPTED) but goes beyond the constraints and limitations of CPTED theory and its three main principles of natural surveillance, access control and territorial reinforcement.
One of CPTED's most fundamental limitations is the prescriptive way that it treats offenders and fails to take into account that not all offenders play by its rules. It presumes that an abundance of natural surveillance, access control and territorial reinforcement will reduce the fear and incidence of crime. Yet, graffiti vandals typically seek out highly visible locations, which flies in the face of conventional wisdom about natural surveillance.
The inherent assumption is that criminals prefer to operate in the shadows where they are less likely to be seen, but CPTED is ineffective when activity falls outside that logic. For example, with graffiti, CPTED practitioners potentially aggravate the problem by calling for the addition of light.
In reality, lighting these walls simply makes them more attractive in the eyes of the graffiti artists who are motivated by fame. Based on this motivation, it is easy to see why graffiti vandals often target the very same walls that have the best natural surveillance - and lighting merely increases that desire.
Another inherent weakness is the limited attention CPTED pays to what it calls the "normal" users of the environment - i.e. the individuals counted on to provide natural surveillance. Potential witnesses must first have a reason to look, and CPTED provides little insight into how to best accomplish that.
Behavioural-based design provides a logic that helps to provide some insight. Human behaviour is not static; it is forever evolving. At the same time, human behaviour drives physical design, which, in turn, can reinforce predictable human behaviour.
NO RIGID ASSUMPTIONS
Behavioural-based design is built on six main propositions:
1. All behaviours may be considered desired or unwanted depending on the setting.
2. Recurring behaviours are predictive by nature.
3. The reasons for recurring behaviour must be clearly understood.
4. Characteristics of a setting can be linked to desired or unwanted behaviours.
5. Desired behaviours may be induced by replicating the setting characteristics that are associated with the behaviour.
6. Unwanted behaviours may be discouraged through the manipulation or removal of associated setting characteristics.
It recognizes that characteristics cannot be definitively categorized such that:
* all so called "normal" users of the environment - people who are wanted according to CPTED's definition - always act in a positive way; and
* all so called "abnormal" users - those who are not wanted in that space - always act in a negative way, such as when loiterers actually do patronize a store.
A single individual can routinely alternate between what CPTED traditionally categorizes as a normal or abnormal user. For example, a skateboarder on plaza property decides to get off his skateboard and patronize a convenience store, only to get back on his skateboard and skateboard where prohibited on his way to a skateboard park.
In contrast, recognizing people's tendency to regularly bend or break the rules, behavioural-based designers would simply focus on whether the behaviour is desired or not without making a judgment about the perceived nature of the source. By focusing on behaviour as opposed to user types, behavioural-based designers can overcome the CPTED bias towards abnormal users.
PROFILING
Behavioural-based profiling seeks to identify, analyze and understand desired or unwanted behaviours. It begins the process in a CPTED-like manner by relying on observations and interviews with stakeholders to develop a clear understanding of how any given property and/or enterprise is intended to work. From there it:
* identifies the core behaviours that the stakeholders see as relevant to the success or failure of what they are trying to accomplish, then
* categorizes them as desired or unwanted behaviours.
At its most basic level, behaviour is instinctive or herd-like as people simply react to their environment. At a more complex level, behaviour may be setting-specific or effectively conditioned. People act differently at a library as compared to a baseball stadium for example.
Behaviour may also be the result of a subculture. Skateboard parks are a case in point. For many skateboarders, the appeal lies in the use and/or misuse of public space so a designated skateboard area often has no connection with the behaviour itself.
Behavioural-based profiling can also provide insight into inducing a desired behaviour, such as the problem of how to capture witness potential. Behavioural-based designers realize that people are motivated by self-interest and will most often be oblivious to things that don't directly involve themselves or fail to catch their attention and draw on their natural curiosity.
Behavioural-based designers are therefore interested in any research that documents what is likely to be seen and remembered. This assists in developing a profile for any specific behaviour and identifying the environmental characteristics needed to successfully induce desired behaviour.
APPLICATIONS IN THE FIELD
From a crime prevention perspective, many problems that have not been adequately addressed nor anticipated by CPTED are nevertheless recurring in nature and therefore predictable. Casual socialization can become problematic when the physical environment is used in unconventional and undesired ways to support the socialization needs of a particular group that prefer these settings to more conventional alternatives.
Rogue congregating and socialization points for teenagers routinely develop in readily accessible, high-traffic locations that tend to mimic conventional social settings and/or support colonization by teenagers. These typically include playground equipment, groupings of tables, and impromptu seating areas.
Though less common, rogue congregating and socialization points can develop in poorly observed, largely vacant, little used areas near beer or liquor stores. These typically serve disenfranchised adult males, such as those with drinking problems, who choose to meet outside their residence for the purpose of getting drunk.
CPTED's focus doesn't necessarily identify rogue congregating and socialization as cause for problematic activity. For example, a well designed plaza in Mississauga, Ontario was plagued with loitering drunks - a situation that defied an obvious CPTED solution since the property itself was well designed from a CPTED perspective.
The solution was found by investigating an adjacent property at the rear of the plaza that could be used as a rogue congregating and socialization point. A vacant field with a gentle swale in a corner that was not readily visible from the back of the plaza provided refuge for a group of men - and hundreds upon hundreds of discarded bottles - that were causing the problem at the plaza.
Although obvious in retrospect, it was not apparent prior to the discovery of the rogue congregating and socialization point. Rather, a marginal restaurant on the property itself had drawn some attention as a possible source of the problem. A behavioural-based perspective - namely, expectation of an adult oriented, rogue congregating and socialization point in proximity to a beer store - was the key factor in solving this problem.
As more emphasis is placed on behaviour and more is known about the environments that support it, the science of behavioural-based design will continue to evolve. This is already occurring on the marketing side of the food industry and to a lesser extent on the security side of the convenience store industry. CPTED practitioners should take a serious look at their practices then consider the potential of a behavioural-based approach to proactive design.
Constable Tom McKay, B. Comm., is a Crime Prevention Officer with the Peel Regional Police and the Chair of CPTED (Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design) Ontario. He can be reached at Thomas.McKay@peelpolice.on.ca, or see the web site at www.cptedontario.ca.
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