ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the basic principles of place-based crime prevention within the contexts of the four theories with which it is generally associated: defensible space, crime prevention through environmental design, situational crime prevention and environmental criminology. Our aim is to discuss these theories and the principles that are derived from them so that their applications to real world circumstances – US and British projects, interventions and case studies – will be clearly demonstrable in the chapters that follow. Although ‘New Urbanism’ is not generally considered to be a primary place-based crime prevention theory, we also explore its design principles and strategies, since they have been widely claimed by some architects and planners for their potential to reduce crime and the fear of crime in communities. We conclude the chapter with a discussion of crime displacement, one of the key issues that has bedevilled place-based crime prevention theory and practice from its origins.
