ABSTRACT
Crime Prevention through Environmental Design (CPTED) began to develop in the early 1970s as a response to an increase in crime and fear in urban areas. However, although over four decades have passed, the inconsistencies in the definition and measurement of CPTED have resulted in various subjective interpretations of this concept. Therefore, advancing research in CPTED requires clarifying the theoretical conceptualisations and empirically validating an integrated CPTED model. Amajority of previous studies linking environmental factors to victimisation are Euro-centric. Rarely are such studies performed in Asian cultures. CPTED evolved in Western countries with commonalities of culture and built environment; transferring CPTED to other regions poses many challenges given the variations in culture and climate. Preliminary investigations also revealed that CPTED frameworks in previous studies were usually developed based on the application of exploratory analysis, but little attention has been paid to cross-validating the measures using confirmatory analysis, e.g. by employing structural equation modelling (SEM) in a particular context. The purpose of this study is to develop and validate a CPTED model for urban neighbourhoods in an Asian setting. This work addresses the following research questions: What constitutes the realm of principles of CPTED? Is each principle/construct equally important in predicting crime risk? The results of the structural model support the existing literature, which associates high presence of CPTED with low victimisation, thus broadening its application to include the Asian context. The CPTED measurement scale can be applied to a wide range of landed residential properties, as tested in the Malaysian context. The results revealed that the CPTED scale is reflected by four main principles, namely, surveillance, access control, territoriality, and management and maintenance. The chapter concludes with a comparison between the CPTED guidelines in Malaysia and the empirical results obtained here.
