Crime Prevention Through
Environmental Design
(CPTED)
“People prone to commit crime are generally rational. They quickly identify places where they can offend with little risk of identification or capture”
Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED - pronounced 'sep-ted') is an approach that reduces crime by shaping the built environment with intentional design principles.
CPTED recognises that many crimes are the result of rational decision-making. By applying CPTED strategies, we can deter offenders by increasing the perceived risk and effort required to commit a crime while minimising potential rewards and opportunities.
CPTED primarily focuses on the opportunistic criminal - this means that a criminal assesses risk and determines if they can get away with a crime. The goal is to passively deter crime so that it's not worth the risk or there is insufficient reward.
There are six key strategies in CPTED:
-
Surveillance: increasing the ability to see and be seen. Natural surveillance discourages anti-social and criminal behaviour as criminals feel more likely to be seen and caught.
-
Territorial Reinforcement: distinguishing private and public spaces and encouraging community ownership of public areas. This means encouraging positive user groups that discourage negative/anti-social groups. Another important aspect is clarifying where you should and shouldn't be to discourage excuse-making.
-
Access Control: using physical controls and symbolic markers to restrict and encourage movement.
-
Space and Activity Management: creating formal uses for spaces to ensure maximum usage, facilitate good and easy management and limit excuse-making.
-
Environmental Maintenance: maintaining our urban environments and buildings to give the impression that they are cared for and that people oversee and watch.
-
The Three D's: This balances the three components - Design, Designation and Definition. All three must be in alignment to minimise vulnerabilities.
Do I need a CPTED report?
For many Council's, your Development Application will be required to include a Crime Prevention through Environmental Design (CPTED) or Safer by Design Report. Your local council or a town planning consultant will be able to tell you.
Do I need a CPTED Consultant?
If your project requires a development application, a CPTED consultant is essential to ensure compliance and improve safety outcomes. Councils require that CPTED reports be prepared by a qualified professional with NSW Police training, such as Kristy Cianci, to meet assessment standards.
Unlike security specialists or town planners, a CPTED consultant with architectural and urban design expertise can work directly with your design team to develop practical, integrated solutions. At The Design Partnership, we don’t just identify risks—we help shape real, workable design outcomes that align with planning, legislative, and operational requirements.
If you want to learn more about the role of a CPTED Consultant click here.
The Design Partnership CPTED Approach
The Design Partnership can carry out a CPTED assessment of your project, but as urban designers and architects, we can also work with you to optimise your design to reduce the risk to your development, its residents and the community.
Examples of design optimisation may feature:
-
Better placement of windows, doorways and balconies to maximise surveillance by local residents and the public.
-
Street and pathway layouts that minimise those out-of-the-way places criminals look for.
-
Landscaping recommendations that improve line-of-sight and eliminate the creation of entrapment pockets.
-
Anti-graffiti surfaces and graffiti removal management regimes to eliminate the signals of neglect, which take away the gratification craved by graffiti vandals.
-
Recommendations on the type and placement of lighting fixtures that are hard to damage and which fight the shadows that comfort criminals.
-
Safer locations for change rooms and public toilets – particularly in out-of-the-way parks and reserves.
-
Location and design of public shelters that encourage greater use by the community – while dissuading their occupation by anti-social individuals.
-
Wayfinding signage that provides unambiguous directions and which reassures the public they are in the right place.
-
Street furniture design and placement that dissuades occupation by anti-social individuals and groups – particularly at night.
-
Opportunities and recommendations for night-time place activation by businesses and the community.
-
Opportunities for public art assist with identity and ownership and provide a new reason for people to visit space.
CPTED - including evaluation, reporting and design - is a core component of our placemaking projects.
This example from Bendigo demonstrates how murals can help deter graffiti. The first image shows a mural-facing the carpark, which remains graffiti-free. In contrast, the second image captures the adjacent street-facing brick wall, which has significant graffiti. This wall forms the entry to the business, creating a poor first impression.
CPTED Experience & Expertise
Kristy Cianci was trained by the NSW Police force in Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED).
Kristy Cianci sits on three Urban Design Review Panels for local government where in addition to her role as an Urban Designer and Architect, Kristy undertakes CPTED review of projects.
Kristy Cianci is an expert witness in the Land and Environment Court for CPTED related matters.
Design CPTED Smarter
The roots of CPTED trace back to research in Chicago during the 1960s, with early work by criminologists and urban thinkers like Jane Jacobs, Oscar Newman, and C. Ray Jeffery. However, despite their findings on the link between urban design and crime, CPTED principles were largely overlooked worldwide, partly due to traditional policing approaches focusing on enforcement rather than prevention. Not until later decades did CPTED gain wider recognition as an effective crime prevention strategy.
In Australia, local authorities began to recognise CPTED's importance following the introduction of guidelines under Section 79C of the (NSW) Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979. These guidelines provided a formal framework for the assessment of the built environments from a safety perspective. This led to the gradual integration of CPTED into urban planning and development. Over time, other states followed suit, embedding CPTED principles into planning policies and development assessment processes. However, even today, CPTED is sometimes applied inconsistently or only considered late in the design process.
If a development unintentionally creates opportunities for crime—such as poor surveillance, weak access control, or hidden entrapment spaces—a CPTED assessment can help identify vulnerabilities. However, if construction has already occurred, addressing these risks can be costly and may not fully resolve the issues. Retrofitting CPTED solutions often involves adding surveillance infrastructure, restricting access to certain areas, or modifying landscaping and built forms—measures that can be expensive and less effective than a well-designed space from the outset. For example, a poorly designed car park with blind spots and isolated stairwells may require costly structural changes to improve visibility and safety.
The smarter approach is to integrate CPTED principles from the beginning of the design process. Early consideration allows for crime prevention to be seamlessly embedded into the built environment rather than awkwardly retrofitted. Not only does this save costs in the long run, but it also improves the overall functionality, safety, and usability of spaces. Well-designed CPTED environments create a sense of ownership and security for users while reducing the need for intensive security measures.
Ultimately, CPTED is not just about preventing crime—it's about designing places that feel safe, function well, and support the needs of communities from the outset rather than relying on expensive fixes after the fact.
Learn more about our other Services
