Environmental manipulation: concepts and applications

Environmental Manipulation as a Crime Prevention Strategy

With the assumption that little can be done to change criminal behavior John Worrall looks at environmental manipulation as a strategy to control crime. Environmental manipulation is the practice of rearranging the physical environment in order to make crime more difficult to commit. Environmental criminology is unique in that the focus is on what can be done about crime rather than on why offenders commit crime.

Situational Crime prevention is based on the premise that criminals will be deterred from criminal activity if the environment is not conducive to success. Worrall asserts criminal offenders can be managed through environmental manipulation. A rational offender is described as a criminal who weighs the costs and benefits of their actions before they act. If the opportunity to commit an offense is blocked, or if the chances of a successful outcome are reduced to the point that the offender feels committing the offense is not worth the risk involved then it goes to reason that a rational offender will be less likely to commit an offense.

Crime Prevention through Environmental Design

Crime Prevention through Environmental Design (CPTED) is intended to reduce situational opportunities for criminal behavior. Worrall frames his analysis around different types of offenders and environments. Crime pattern theory looks at the relationship between known criminals and the places they visit. It focuses on the chances that the potential offender will consider a particular site in the first place. Territorial Functioning and Defensible Space are cognitions that work to reduce criminal activity. When law abiding citizens demonstrate an attachment to the areas immediately surrounding them and the physical appearance suggests that residents care for their surroundings and what happens there, then criminal activity will be inhibited. Along the same lines incivilities deals with the notion that low level breaches of community standards indicate erosion of conventionally accepted norms and values enhancing people's fear of crime and signaling that a particular area is out of control, possibly increasing the incidence of crime (298).