Defensible Space: Burglars and Police Evaluate Urban Residential Design

Crime Prevention through Housing Design

“…Authors such as Mawby (1977), Bottoms (1974), Wilson (1978) and Merry (1981) have criticised Newman on the grounds of methodological weaknesses as well as the presentation of findings. Others suggest that the term 'defensible space' contains a 'rat's nest of intertwining hypotheses' (Rubenstein et al, 1980 p. 6), making it difficult to measure and define (Cozens et al, 2001), and that Newman overemphasised the physical environment at the expense of socio-economic and demographic variables (Wilson, 1978;Poyner, 1983;Moughtin and Gardner, 1990). Despite these criticisms, much of the appeal of Newman's work lies in its promise of practical benefits in terms of crime reduction; Newman's later work applied his theory to residential housing projects within Ohio and New York (Newman, 1995) to reveal lower levels of crime and fear of crime, and higher levels of occupancy, property sales and property values.…”

“…• Increasing surveillance (Reppetto, 1974;Winchester and Jackson, 1982;Brown and Altman, 1983;Coleman, 1986;Taylor and Gottfredson, 1987;Van der Voordt and Van Wegen, 1990;Cromwell and Olson, 1991;Brown and Bentley, 1993;Groff and LaVigne, 2001;Nee, 2003). • Managing and maintaining developments (Zimbardo, 1970;Finnie, 1973;Wilson and Kelling, 1982;Taylor and Gottfredson, 1987;Skogan, 1990;Cozens et al, 2001, 2002a, 2002b, 2002cand Armitage, 2006a). …”

“…In a series of studies, Cozens et al (2001Cozens et al ( , 2002aCozens et al ( , 2002b) used photographs of five housing designs to probe the perceptions of convicted burglars, planning professionals, police and young adults to establish which property type was considered to be most vulnerable to burglary. Vulnerability was measured by perceptions of risk of being noticed or approached by neighbours, residents' pride in their property, clarity of property boundaries and potential opportunities for offenders to hide.…”

“…Winchester and Jackson (1982) Multi-dwelling units are perceived by burglars, planners, police and young adults to be more vulnerable to crime than single dwelling units. Cozens et al (2001Cozens et al ( , 2002aCozens et al ( , 2002b Planners, young adults and burglars perceive semi-detached housing to be the safest property type. Cozens et al (2001Cozens et al ( , 2002aCozens et al ( , 2002b Police perceive detached housing to be the safest property type.…”

Crime prevention through environmental design in Western Australia: planning for sustainable urban futures

“…Furthermore, Wilson and Kelling's highly infl uential 'Broken Windows' thesis [81] stressed the vital importance of maintaining the built environment as a physical indicator for levels of social cohesion, informal social control and reducing fear of crime. Subsequent work in this area has repeatedly supported these fi ndings [66,[82][83][84][85][86][87].…”