Background: Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED) is a globally recognized approach for reducing crime and fear by manipulating the built environment. However, CPTED assessments often focus narrowly on physical design, neglecting the synergistic effects of technological interventions and community engagement. This is particularly relevant in contexts like Japan, where local safety is a product of urban planning, advanced technology, and robust community participation (machizukuri). This study addresses a critical gap by developing and applying a holistic framework to assess CPTED implementation.

Methods: This study introduces and applies a tripartite CPTED assessment framework based on three core components: Space (physical environmental features), Devices (technological security hardware), and Activities (community-based prevention efforts). Using the medium-sized Japanese city of Kakogawa as a case study, we conducted a multi-faceted data collection process. This included systematic environmental audits in diverse urban zones, GIS mapping of surveillance devices from municipal data and field surveys, and a comprehensive analysis of official documents to catalogue community safety activities.

Results: The findings reveal a varied landscape of CPTED implementation. While commercial areas and transport hubs showed high concentrations of security devices, certain residential areas and public parks exhibited significant weaknesses in spatial design, such as poor lighting and limited natural surveillance. Community activities, primarily driven by traditional neighborhood associations, were widespread but geographically uneven. Critically, the integrated analysis showed a disconnect between the three components in several areas, indicating a lack of a coordinated strategy and highlighting zones of potential vulnerability where environmental weaknesses were not compensated for by devices or activities.

Conclusion: The Space, Devices, and Activities framework provides a more comprehensive and nuanced method for evaluating urban safety measures than traditional CPTED audits. For policymakers in Kakogawa and similar cities, our findings underscore the need to move beyond siloed interventions towards an integrated strategy that strategically aligns physical design improvements, technology deployment, and community mobilization to create safer urban environments.

Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED), urban safety, environmental criminology, situational crime prevention

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