Willan Publishing - Crime-free Housing in the 21st Century

'Politicians, police and the press are always looking for a way to cut crime and keep it down. Here it is. No police chief, architect or planner should be without it. In fact they should be held accountable if they haven't read it. Whoever or whatever you are, if you have any interest in crime, design or public policy this book will give you a new way of looking at things.'
- Nick Ross, BBC Crimewatch UK, Chairman, Jill Dando Institute of Crime Science Advisory Board 'This book shows the extent to which crime in residential environments can be controlled through design and planning. It is much needed. That design and planning can contribute to the control of crime is not new, and there have been other books, theories and official guidance on this topic. The value of this one lies in the strength, scale and detail of the research evidence presented, and the consequent prime role it gives to design in creating self policing and crime free environments of the future'
- Barry Webb (in the introduction to this book)

This book sets out to investigate the relationship between crime and the design and planning of housing, and to produce practical recommendations to help architects and planners to reduce crime. It builds upon and updates research originally published in Crime Free Housing (1991), providing an easily accessible, high quality and well presented account of crime and housing layout.

The recommendations of this book focus on ways of reducing four different types of crime through better design:

burglary – a strategy to discourage people trying to break into houses
car crime – a strategy for providing a safe place to park cars
theft around the home – a strategy for protecting the front of house, items in gardens, sheds and garages safe
criminal damage – a strategy to minimize malicious damage to property

Crime-free Housing in the 21st Century

Barry Poyner