Instituition
Potential for crime: The huge area itself presents difficulties of monitoring by police personnel to prevent crimes. Apart from the official entrances to the garden there are places on the southern side where the walls have weakened considerably over the years. There are gaps in the wall enclosure enabling anti social elements to get inside the garden without anyones's notice. Thieves,robbers and other types of criminals anyway can easily get access to the garden through the official entrances. This is because due to heavy influx of people on all days,the security personnel cannot check the credentials of each and every person entering the garden. There is a jogger's track which runs circularly inside the garden. Many people of all ages use this track in the mornings and evenings for their daily walking routine. As mentioned earlier there is heavy green cover parallel to the track. Any thief or group of thieves can hide behind the bushes and suddenly ambush a lone jogger. Women and children are also at high risk when moving inside the garden. There are lot of isolated stretches/spaces which are open invitation for privacy minded individuals to relax. But these are also attracting criminals to their potential victims. A number of cases of theft,assault have already been reported to the police. Murders have also taken place near the southern side where the protection is weak.
Recommendations to improve crime prevention through CPTED: This approach involves many disciplines to deter criminals from acting through design of environment. The strategies adopted effectively influences the criminals and prevents them from committing the criminal acts.(International CPTED Association)
Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design theory claims that a crime free climate can be created in the community right from the beginning. This will involve coordinated actions of police officers,town planners and resident groups among others. The goal is prevention of crime through the design of a real environment that has a positive influence on behavior of human beings. The principle is appropriate design and competent use of buildings and public properties. This leads to less fear in the minds of citizens and the crime rate reduces automatically. The overall effect is the citizens experience a better quality in their lives. (Basic CPTED Workshop Description)
The practical strategies listed below have the objective of creation of social and environmental circumstances which provide no opportunity for any type of criminal activity.
1. Maximizing risk to criminals by increasing the chance of their detection,posing different types of challenge and creating doubts in their minds.
2. Increasing the effort required by the criminals to commit crime.
3. Creating zero motivation to commit the crime by employing various methods.
4. Street lights are increased.(Crime Prevention through Environmental Design)
The goal is reducing the opportunities for occurrence of crime. This can be achieved by usage of real design features that prevent crime, simultaneously encouraging lawful usage of the environment. Surveillance is used as the prime weapon in the protection. Criminals do not act when there are closed circuit television,cameras or witnesses near by. Bright lighting is one of the best deterrent against criminals. Their activities are discouraged.(Gardner,1995)
In the present scenario implementing CPTED gives good results.
References
International CPTED Association. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.cpted.net/
Basic CPTED Workshop Description. (n.d.). Retrieved from
http://www.ncpc.org/training/training-topics/crime-prevention-through-environmental
-design-cpted-/basic-cpted-workshop-description
Crime Prevention through Environmental Design. (2014, August 25). Retrieved from
https://www.police.qld.gov.au/programs/cscp/safetyPublic/
Gardner, R. A. (1995). CPTED. Retrieved from
http://www.crimewise.com/library/cpted.html
