I’m Having a C. Ray Jeffery Moment – by Tom McKay

I’m Having a C. Ray Jeffery Moment

Author – Tom McKay

Who is C. Ray Jeffery you say?  There-in lies the problem.  C. Ray Jeffery coined the term Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design in 1971 and wrote the first book on the subject.  I had the opportunity to meet and listen to C. Ray Jeffery during his Opening Remarks at the 4th annual International CPTED Association (ICA) conference held in Mississauga in September of 1999 having taken a leadership role in organizing the conference as a Director of the ICA at the time

Jeffery began his remarks by stating that “when I published the book Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design in 1971 it was a plea to study crime in terms of the science of ecology and a call for interdisciplinary research”.  He then went on to say that “immediately after publication of this book other versions of crime prevention (through environmental design) emerged”.  

Specifically, he noted that Newman’s Defensible Space, published in 1972, was “based on architecture and without criminology, ecology, or urban planning” having referenced “territoriality, 

 

surveillance, image, and safe zones” which he stated were “Newman’s concepts and not mine”

He then went on to opine that “these (Newman’s) ideas were picked up in the 1970’s by the U.S. federal government, private corporations such as the Westinghouse Corporation, and by academics” which effectively hijacked the very concept that he had created. He summed up his feeling by stating that “there is no CPTED in the federal programs, in the training programs established by the National Institute for Crime Prevention, or in the efforts to prevent crime through environmental design”.

Why highlight this rather surprising admission by the originator of CPTED that for all intents and purposes made it “unrecognizable” in his eyes from the very concept that he created?  This brings me to the title of this piece, I’m Having a C. Ray Jeffery Moment, and where I find myself now.

For me it has to do with the direction that we are headed with the on-going development of successive CPTED “generations”, that currently stands at three.  In my view, the generational approach runs the very real danger of confusing the utility of traditional concepts, especially in circumstances where the application of traditional CPTED will suffice.  It further runs the risk of trivializing and/or burying traditional concepts in an increasingly unwieldy model that bears little resemblance to the traditional CPTED flowchart that served a generation of well-rounded and experienced crime prevention officers and other practitioners very well.  That is not to say that 2nd Generation CPTED doesn’t complement traditional CPTED practices in circumstances where conventional methods aren’t producing the desired result for any number of social reasons. 

But let’s not forget or otherwise overlook the fact that the importance of social factors was well known and practiced long before 2nd Generation CPTED was ever thought of or espoused, as people are inherently social by nature.  What’s more this information is not locked in some vault, but is accessible to those who wish/wished to seek it.

In that regard, I urge you to research Sally Merry’s 1981 study, entitled Defensible Space, Undefended.**  Critical aspects of her study as presented in the Advanced CPTED course that I teach, include the following points:

• Found that architectural strategies alone (good defensible space) are not adequate
• Made a critical distinction between space that is defensible and space that is defended
• Studied robbers who assessed social factors as well as design features
• Tried to determine the social conditions necessary for invoking informal social control
• Found social cohesion a critical factor

Sound familiar? So too the social fabric was nurtured and supported by both the police and the public alike through programs of the day including Neighbour’s Night Out, Neighbourhood/Vertical Watch, Crime Free Multi-Housing, newsletters and the since, scaled back Block Parent program not to mention Crime Prevention Through Social Development initiatives.

And let’s not also forget or overlook that this was during a time when people knew their neighbours, thanks to simple three-foot fences that promoted back-yard conversations where friendships were made; out-door play with their neighbours’ children was a daily occurrence and a sense of community which was built on face-to-face contact without the “benefit” or use of a computer or smart-phone screen.  After-all, how many people do you know who are immersed in their screens, like the family I saw entering a Quebec City hotel lobby then sat together for twenty minutes without uttering a word as they were pre-occupied by their “smart” phone screens.  

My point is that traditional neighbourhoods, like traditional CPTED, were alive and well pre 2nd and Third Generation CPTED, without having the benefit of a concept dedicated to building community.  For me, CPTED’s need to evolve, has led to an almost two-decade effort directed at developing a behavioural based approach which is dedicated to first studying/understanding human behaviour then developing environments that can nurture and support the desired ones.  By pursuing a clean break from a CPTED’s deterministic model in favour a behavioural one, I recognized that any effort to morph traditional CPTED in favour of a version or versions that were inspired by any single person or group of individuals ran the risk of being shrugged off by those already vested in the traditional ways.

And let’s be real, with the advent of each new successive generation of CPTED, the value and utility of traditional CPTED alone, runs the risk of becoming buried, lost or otherwise trivialized, some evidence of which I’ve already seen.  I’m not saying that successive generations of CPTED don’t have a place, particularly in a generation that doesn’t know anything different than a privacy fence or has their face buried in an electronic screen.  I am simply saying that many newer practitioners are in danger of not fully recognizing and appreciating the utility of the traditional concept such as when the owner of a business is looking for practical measures to prevent a break-in or discourage motor vehicle thefts or thefts from motor vehicles while sitting in the parking lot as I have documented in numerous case studies and articles while working for a police service as traditional CPTED is in danger of no longer being portrayed as a stand-alone piece, in favour of it being portrayed as something that’s incomplete.  One simply needs to compare the traditional CPTED model with the first through Third CPTED generation representation that resembles the concentric rings of a tree, to appreciate the degree to which it has changed hence the concern over recognizability.

Call me nostalgic but I fervently espouse and agree with a quote that I reference in my course from USA Today.  That is:

 “when you think about the America we love in our nostalgic minds… what was different?  It wasn’t that people had more locks, they had more community.”

Maybe, just maybe, it’s not so much that we have found our way, but simply forgotten how we got here or haven’t given serious thought as to where we might be going?  After-all, for CPTED to be the practical and adaptable, user-friendly crime prevention tool that has proved itself time and time again, it has to remain a nimble, understandable and proprietary concept that can bring near instant relief when its principles are put into practice.  Anything less runs the risk of turning off people who seek relief in the here and now.  

In the end, I can’t help but think that CPTED is still primarily about “helping various objectives to do a better job of achieving their primary objective”, for instance sales, with the expectation of reducing opportunity crime by 80% and, on some occasions, by even more.  

Next time, why I think that we could all benefit from the development of a fresh concept that seeks to understand behaviour before attempting design. 

* CPTED: Past, Present, and Future, Opening Comments at the 4th Annual ICA Conference, Mississauga, Canada, Sept 20, 1999 Professor C. Ray Jeffery ICA Newsletter, April 2000, Vol. 3, Issue 7

** Defensible Space Undefended, Social Factors in Crime Control Through Environmental Design, Sally E. Merry Urban Affairs Quarterly, June 1981