Question

Improving community street lighting using CPTED: A case study of communities in the United States.

Why is Street lighting so important?

Please cite two sources

Length: 2-3 paragraphs

Answer 1

Crime prevention through environmental design (CPTED) is an agenda for manipulating the built environment to create safer neighborhoods.

It originated in America around 1960, when urban renewal strategies were felt to be destroying the social framework needed for self-policing. Architect Oscar Newman created the concept of ‘defensible space’, developed further by criminologist C. Ray Jeffery who coined the term CPTED. Growing interest in environmental criminology led to detailed study of specific topics such as natural surveillance, access control and territoriality. The "broken window" principle that neglected zones invite crime reinforced the need for good property maintenance to assert visible ownership of space. Appropriate environmental design can also increase the perceived likelihood of detection and apprehension, known to be the biggest single deterrent to crime. And there has been new interest in the interior design of prisons as an environment that significantly affects decisions to offend.

IT IS SO IMPORTANT BECOZ--CPTED strategies rely upon the ability to influence offender decisions that precede criminal acts. Research into criminal behavior shows that the decision to offend or not to offend is more influenced by cues to the perceived risk of being caught than by cues to reward or ease of entry. Certainty of being caught is the main deterrence for criminals not the severity of the punishment so by raising the certainty of being captured, criminal actions will decrease. Consistent with this research, CPTED based strategies emphasise enhancing the perceived risk of detection and apprehension

Street lighting provides a number of important benefits. It can be used to promote security in urban areas and to increase the quality of life by artificially extending the hours in which it is light so that activity can take place. Street lighting also improves safety for drivers, riders, and pedestrians.

Street lighting provides a number of important benefits. It can be used to promote security in urban areas and to increase the quality of life by artificially extending the hours in which it is light so that activity can take place..

Street lighting also improves safety for drivers, riders, and pedestrians. Driving outside of daylight hours is more dangerous – only a quarter of all travel by car drivers is between the hours of 7pm and 8am, yet this period accounts for 40% of fatal and serious injuries to the same group