ABSTRACT
TED KITCHEN AND RICHARD H. SCHNEIDER1 Introduction We believe that the complex relationships between crime, the fear of crime and the design of the built environment merit far more attention from planners and other professionals concerned with the quality of place than hitherto they have received. Many arguments could be advanced in support of this view, but for us one of the most significant comes from the typical reactions of local communities when asked to identify the things that matter most to them in determining their perceptions of the quality of life in the places they live. If planning is to be successful in helping to create places of quality for people, then it must engage with those things that people say about their places that really do make a difference; it cannot simply rely on the views of planners about these matters or on the intervention of police, who by themselves have limited ability to deter crime in large urban societies like Britain and the USA. Crime and the fear of crime (and particularly violent crime) consistently score very heavily in local quality of life studies,2 and there can be little argument that there are significant environmental components that influence (for good or ill) both the opportunity for crime and people’s fear that a crime is likely to be committed. And yet, without suggesting that the cupboard is entirely bare, planning literature and practice do not tend to place a major emphasis on the relationships between crime and the design of the built environment. We believe that this needs to change, and our joint work is designed to contribute to the achievement of this objective.
