Architecture as Crime Control

Neal Kumar Katyal The Yale Law Journal, Vol. 111, No. 5 (Mar., 2002), pp. 1039-1139

Architects have suggested that crime can be prevented by manipulating the design and placement of many simple items, such as doors, bus stops, and park benches. Today's airports prevent crime by replacing bathroom entrance doors with right-angle entrances that permit the warning sounds of crime to travel more freely and that reduce the sense of isolation. Countries throughout the world, such as Australia,Canada,Great Britain, Japan, and the Netherlands have used architectural design techniques to prevent crime. The 2000 Sydney Olympics self-consciously employed architecture to reduce crime by modifying landscapes, restricting access to sites, changing parking patterns,and creating visibility around stadiums.

Unfortunately, for the past six decades, American criminal law has focused on the specific characteristics of offenders (such as economic status, race, age, employment status, and mobility) and has largely ignored the location of crime.20 just as individuals can be recidivists, so too can certain places. Minneapolis,for example, three percent of locations are responsible for fifty percent of calls to which police respond, and similar patterns occur in other cities.

April 26th, 2008 / 1 Comment / Tags: environmental psychology / Trackback