Landscaping, lights help deter criminals

The CPTED concept was the focus of a two-day workshop presented in April by the Springfield Police Department, Urban Neighborhoods Alliance, City Utilities, Springfield Building Development and the Community Partnership of the Ozarks

“Really, the whole theory behind CPTED is based on three principles – natural access control, natural surveillance, and territorial reinforcement. Territorial reinforcement is like … putting a longer screw into the door to make it more difficult (to break into); the natural access deals with the shrubs and the fences and the gates; and the natural surveillance just helps to increase the visibility,” said Bob Horton, UNA executive director.

Through CPTED, “You’re shaping the environment to reduce crime,” added Matt Brown, public relations officer for SPD.

The workshop was aimed at introducing CPTED to architects, city planners and building developers in order to make crime prevention part of a project’s planning stage.

“We know from experience that it’s a whole lot easier and cost effective to incorporate crime prevention in the building stages than to come back later on and try to retrofit and cut holes, remove walls, after the building is done,” Springfield Police Department Lt. Kevin Routh said.

Certain types of buildings might be required by law to incorporate CPTED in their design.

“There’s been a push on the Homeland Security side and also some regulations that are coming down from the federal level that will mandate some more CPTED in their planning, particularly government buildings, schools, any places where there will be large crowds gathering,” Routh said.

During the planning stage, developers can address problem areas that have the potential to become hiding grounds, or target areas for criminals.

“Often, in the past, apartment complexes always put the playgrounds … out of the way, so if the kids got loud, they wouldn’t bother anybody. Now, what you’re seeing … is that playgrounds are in the center of the complex, so everybody can watch what’s going on,” Routh said.

Parking areas are another area of concern for apartment complexes.

“If your parking lot is facing the street, instead of behind the building, criminals are less likely to commit crimes if there are large numbers of people driving up and down the street,” Brown said.

However, CPTED is not limited to projects that haven’t yet been built, and it’s not limited to multifamily dwellings, either.

“In March, we had a landlord training workshop, and one of the topics that was discussed was this CPTED,” Horton said.

Forest Park Apartments manager Deborah Lentz attended that workshop. “It’s basically reminding people how to landscape their yards with crime prevention in mind. So when you put the prickly bushes under your window, people aren’t going to want to break in if they’re going to get poked with thorns (or) versus mulch under the windows – putting pea gravel under the windows so you hear people walking up,” Lentz said.

When landscaping is already in place, trimming hedges so they don’t grow over three feet tall and keeping tree heights between three feet and five feet can eliminate hiding places and allow neighbors and passersby a clear view of people entering and leaving a property, Lentz said. Similarly, open fences, such as chain link, instead of privacy fences allow for better visibility, she said.

Ensuring that sliding glass doors are installed properly, with two screws in the header to make certain that the door can’t be lifted out of place, and replacing the half-inch screw on the faceplate of a deadbolt lock with a three-inch screw are common fixes that can prevent criminal access into a home or apartment, Routh said.

Well-lit areas, both in residential and business properties, are especially important.

“I think everyone thinks about landscape lighting only as an aesthetic improvement to their house. But landscape lighting lights the house up at night to the point where … if someone is trying to break into my house, the neighbor that is walking the dog, or the couple that’s driving by, might be able to catch that person in the act,” Horton said.

Routh said that additional lighting should be installed with caution because adding the wrong kind of extra light can actually create a spotlight effect and increase the shadows around the edges of that lighting. He recommends that business owners or landlords interested in enhancing the lighted areas around their properties speak with a lighting engineer.

Certain areas of Springfield have already seen improvement as a result of CPTED. The 1400 blocks of North Frisco and North Texas have seen significant change, Routh said.

“We had a lot of citizen participation; we had an officer specifically that contacted the city and had more lights installed; the citizens themselves went into their own yards, trimmed their shrubs down and just made it an area that was not conducive to crime. And we saw crime drop in that area drastically,” Brown said.

Horton said that even one homeowner or apartment complex owner can make a difference in the safety of the neighborhood. “If I’m out there, and I’m trimming the bushes, and I’m putting rock instead of mulch, and someone comes along and asks, ‘Why are you doing that?’…Then it almost snowballs so you get the person next to you doing it, and the person next to them doing it, and the person next to them.”

[[In-content Ad]]