Examining the strategies of place design and management for situational crime prevention

Since late 1970 the study of the role of environment in crime occurrence has remarkably grown and during its short life, it has made a new field of study: environmental criminology. This article seeks to answer two basic questions: Which strategies could be beneficial to environmental prevention of crime? How could the potential powers within social places be managed to prevent crimes?In this article, first environmental prevention strategies are explained. Environmental prevention of crime utilizes five fundamental strategies: promoting the amount of citizen's natural surveillance on behaviors in environment; promoting official surveillance; watching over entrances and exits and promoting the resident's territorial sense. The common factor in these strategies is that all of them are preventing crime with an attitude of making changes in environment. So, they attempt to enhance the amount of citizen's and local resident's participation in crime reduction as the first step and in the second one, to reinforce the efficacy of means, strategies and potential powers of environment. The research then explains the place management strategies of crime reduction. Place management for crime prevention requires the utilization of management’s strategies i.e. planning, organizing and supervision. Social places managers, first of all, study the environment under surveillance and the crimes occurred in it. Secondly, by using design and management strategies identify the potential powers of environment which can naturally prevent crimes and plan to promote their effectiveness. In the third step, they organize preventative means and potentials to reach the mentioned goal and by properly arranging them, they reduce the rate of crimes in environments which are under their surveillance. And finally, evaluate the efficacy of plans and the organized and if needed, render relevant changes.