CPTED Design Recommendations

Natural Surveillance/Visual Connection

• Provide an opportunity for people engaged in normal
everyday activity to observe the space around them. Place
activities where individuals engage in those activities so they
become part of the natural surveillance system without
interruption to their activity.

• Provide a good “visual connection” between residential
and/or commercial units and public environments such as
streets, common areas, parks, sidewalks, parking areas and
alleys. Place actively used rooms such as kitchens,
living/family room and lobbies to allow for good viewing of
parking, streets and/or common areas. Managers, attendants
and security personnel should have extensive views of these
areas.

• Provide for the ability to see into a room or space prior to
entering.

• Take advantage of mixed use if it exists and provide good
“visual connection” between uses. This may enable natural
surveillance during the day and evening, (i.e., a commercial
zone that becomes vacant in the evening or a residential zone
that is uninhabited during the day).

Natural Access Control/Spatial Definition

• Provide clear well-lit paths from the street to the development
through all parking and landscape areas, and within the
development to building entries.

• Avoid indistinct walkways and entries where occupants and
guests may become “lost or disoriented” or must search for
the correct entry or unit.

• Provide adequate lighting, width of path, definition of path
and ability to see a destination.

• Provide obvious physical security techniques such as locks,
lights, walls, gates and security signs.

Three CPTED Strategies

Natural Surveillance
Surveillance is a design concept directed
primarily at keeping intruders under observation.
Therefore, the primary thrust of a surveillance strategy
is to facilitate observation and to accomplish the effect
of an increased perception of risk. Surveillance
strategies are typically classified as organized (e.g.,
police patrol) mechanical (e.g., lighting) and natural
(e.g., windows).

Natural Access Control
Access control strategies are typically classified as
organized (e.g., guards), mechanical (e.g., locks), and
natural (e.g., spatial definition). This lesson plan
outline will concentrate on the third strategy of
natural access control. The primary thrust of an
access control strategy is to deny access to a crime
target and to create a perception of risk in offenders.

Territorial Reinforcement
The concept of territoriality suggests that
physical design can contribute to a sense of
territoriality. That is, physical design can create or
extend a sphere of territorial influence so potential
offenders perceive that territorial influence. For
example: low walls, landscape and paving patterns to
clearly define the space around a unit entry as
belonging to (and the responsibility of ) the residents
of that unit.