From fear to familiar - Reclaiming Oppenheimer Park through SafeGrowth

Source: Google Earth imagery, Oppenheimer Park, Vancouver, Canada.
Screen capture by G. Saville

Guest blog – Ekin Buran & Dixon Ng

Ekin Buran is Programs Manager at the Strathcona Community Policing Centre and Dixon Ng is Victim Services Worker at the Chinese Community Policing Centre in Vancouver, British Columbia. They were two of five members of a SafeGrowth team  from a training program in Vancouver last year. Both have worked in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside for over three years, focusing on community safety and crime prevention. Through their project work, they apply SafeGrowth strategies to the community they serve and care about. This story describes one of their projects.

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Oppenheimer Park sits on the unceded territory of the Coast Salish Peoples in Vancouver’s historic Japantown. The baseball field where the Vancouver Asahi once played is still active today. The Asahi were a Japanese Canadian baseball team based in the Powell Street area from 1914 to 1941 and became a symbol of perseverance and community pride during a period of widespread discrimination. Totem poles, cherry blossom trees, and cedar trees remain part of the landscape, reflecting both Indigenous and Japanese Canadian history.

Yet despite its deep history and ongoing community life, Oppenheimer Park is often discussed mainly in terms of safety, especially by those less familiar with the space. Media coverage and public discussions frequently focus on encampments, drug use, and police presence, shaping how the park is perceived before people ever visit it.

Our goal was to begin a planning process that could change that perception by building on the park’s existing strengths. Over the past year, following a multi-month SafeGrowth training workshop organized through the Strathcona Community Safety Association, our team began applying the SafeGrowth approach in and around the park.

Walkways in the park on a quiet day

Recognizing that meaningful crime prevention and safety programming is a long-term effort built on collaboration and trust, we began by focusing on relationships. Using the SafeGrowth approach and principles from Third Generation CPTED, we identified two initial goals: 1) to strengthen partnerships among organizations already working in the neighbourhood; 2) to engage more residents by helping them become familiar with the park and its assets.

LEARNING FROM THE PARK 

Our team of five works across four organizations in the neighbourhood, and at least one of us is in and around the park almost every day. We walk through it, meet people there, and park nearby, which gives us a close view of how important this space is to the people who use it.

Our research included observing park activity, conducting safety audits and CPTED assessments, and interviewing park users, nearby residents, and local organizations. Our guiding question was simple: how might safety grow from the relationships, strengths, and sense of belonging that already exist in the park?

We found strong appreciation for the park, clear interest in greater community use, and the Fieldhouse acting as an important anchor for positive activity. We also observed that fear of serious violence appeared stronger than reported incidents, with most calls involving property-related offences.

A survey commissioned by the Vancouver Police Department found that 74% of respondents were concerned about crime in Downtown Vancouver, and more than one-third said those concerns led them to avoid neighbourhoods such as the Downtown Eastside, which includes the Oppenheimer Park area. 

Some data was available through a survey commissioned by the Vancouver Police

Our research uncovered that:

• There is a strong appreciation for the park as a place to rest, connect, and spend time outdoors

• Many people expressed care for the park and a desire to see more neighbours enjoying it

• The Fieldhouse is one of the park’s greatest strengths, providing coffee, workshops, and an indoor gathering space that anchors positive activity

• Fear associated with violent crime was not proportionate to actual risk according to the data which revealed most incidents involving property offences rather than serious violence.

INITIAL COMMUNITY-BUILDING STEPS

Strengthening Local Partnerships

To achieve this goal, we began introducing ourselves to surrounding businesses, community groups, housing providers, daycare centres, and the Oppenheimer Fieldhouse. We wanted to learn more about organizations already active in the neighbourhood and explore ways to collaborate and strengthen connections between groups that do not always interact.

These early conversations helped build trust and created a foundation for joint activities in the park.

Summer Playground Event

In partnership with the Fieldhouse and a local daycare centre, we co-hosted a Summer Playground Event in 2025 that brought more than fifty families into the park. Following this event, another daycare approached us about hosting a similar activity, which is now planned for summer 2026.

Last year's summer playground event to activate the park.
Another is planned for this summer. 

Neighbourhood Walking Club

We organized group walks in and around Oppenheimer Park to encourage participants to spend time in the space, learn about its history, and connect with one another. During these walks, residents shared that the park felt less intimidating than they had previously believed. Spending time in the park together helped participants feel more comfortable and begin to see the space as more welcoming.

Walking club around the park - building familiarity and dispelling fears 

Community Workshops and Gatherings

We began participating in the Fieldhouse’s monthly community gatherings and co-leading workshops, including emergency preparedness sessions, fraud awareness workshops, seasonal events, and informal coffee chats. These activities created opportunities for community members to gather, meet their neighbours, and socialize in a familiar setting.

A number of Fieldhouse programs helped provide crime prevention
education and pro-social activities 

LOOKING AHEAD 

Early results are promising. Seniors already using the park expressed interest in joining future walks. Dozens of neighbourhood families attended park events, and additional daycare providers have requested similar activities. Residents are becoming more comfortable using the park for everyday visits, increasing casual use and natural surveillance. The Fieldhouse continues to grow as a focal point for pro-social activity and community interaction.

These early steps reflect a broader SafeGrowth principle: Safety grows when familiar faces, shared activities, and local leadership become part of everyday life.

Our long-term goal is to sustain this work by increasing resident leadership and involvement. Lasting change in Oppenheimer Park will not come from one event or one project, but from continued presence, relationship-building, and shared responsibility. Oppenheimer Park is gradually evolving into a more connected and welcoming community space shaped by the people who use it every day.

Is CPTED placemaking?

Placemaking with community gardens in Calgary's East Village - site location
of this year's walking tour at the 2026 CPTED Conference

by Larry Leach

Is CPTED placemaking? 

I had that question asked of me in a recent meeting when I was describing CPTED. At first, I was taken aback. It seemed surprising CPTED is still unknown these days. But it is a legitimate question. 

The question took me down a path looking at how CPTED is increasingly viewed through a placemaking lens in some quarters and as a technical security tool, in others. It is basically the difference between 1st Generation CPTED and 2nd Generation CPTED. 

In Calgary, since 2025, there has been several funding opportunities for placemaking, beautification, and space activation. Programs such as Good Places Project Grants ($500-$15,000), supports murals, seating, and small public space improvements. 

Others, such as those through the Federation of Calgary Communities ($2.8 million over three years), seeks neighbourhood events, and resident-led initiatives focused on social inclusion and connection. Some grants are modest, but collectively they create real opportunities for communities to shape their own spaces.

At the same time, some funding streams support traditional secrurity measures with few references to community-building. These include cameras, security infrastructure, and other hard-target improvements by the Civic Partner Community Safety Grant ($2 million), are traditional1st Gen CPTED tactics. 

Empty parking lot in Calgary - dark, risky, and in need of attention.
But what kind?

Some funding avenues seek youth programming to prevent gang involvement and supporting local organizations, such as the Alberta Crime Prevention Grant (up to $150,000 per year). Others such as the Neighbourhood Grants provide up to $1,000 for resident-led projects focusing on social inclusion, anti-racism,and community connectivity. 

Are these grants for CPTED? Perhaps not in the traditional sense, but in more advanced forms, they fit perfectly into the capacity-building program objectives of SafeGrowth.

FUNDS EXIST

Contrary to popular perceptions, it turns out there are many available resources if you look hard enough. Keep in mind, the opportunities here describe only the government related grants in my city. They do not cover opportunities in the non-profit sector, philanthropic groups, and corporate good-neighbour funding. 

We have discussed many times in this blog how funding can emerge from unexpected sources when a community organizes itself properly and learns grant writing skills. These sources include small amounts with big impact, such as the growing phenomenon of micro-grants recently examined by the Council on Criminal Justice study “Small Grants, Big Impact: How Microgrants can Boost Community Safety and Justice.” 

They also include sources for multi-year funding from diverse sources. For example, one 2018 blog describes how a non-profit, community development corporation in Philadelphia has, through their 10 year neighbourhood plan, leveraged multiple funding sources for over $100 million to build over 200 units of affordable housing over the years.

Placemaking near Amsterdam's Historic Museum - sometimes popups can activate a place with eyes-on-the-street - photo Flickr, CC BY-SA 3.0 

HOW TO KNOW WHAT WORKS

There are plenty of great funding opportunities, even if many are small in scale. The challenge is deciding which approach is appropriate. A mural, a bench, or a neighbourhood event may strengthen connection and informal guardianship. In other situations, cameras or access control may be justified. In many cases, the real need may be something else entirely.

How do you know if a neighbourhood needs cameras and fences, or whether there is a risk for gang activity? How do you know if there is something else the community needs? How do you answer those questions? 

Some CPTED programming mentions risk assessment and some CPTED projects include research. But not all, and certainly not enough. That is what led to the growth of SafeGrowth and its action-research/local expert method of community research to answer those questions. 

 

Look at the stats and the maps - but ultimately the best way to learn
an area is to walk with those who know it day and night.

We use the resident experts who live in the community to tell us what the community needs are. The truth is, without collaborative community/expert risk assessments, we may be solving a problem that may not exist or - more importantly - we may miss the problem that needs fixing but has no funding.

Without a careful look at local assets, risks, and community priorities, it is difficult to know which direction makes sense. That is why the International CPTED Association produced a white paper on CPTED methodology in which they insist that CPTED must evolve beyond design checklists and check sheets. 

That process may lead to placemaking. It may lead to targeted security measures. Often it leads to a mix of both. The key is that the solution emerges from the community context rather than being assumed in advance.

So is CPTED placemaking?

It can be.

The problem isn't the underpass

Poor underpass design, placement and maintenance are only part of the problem

by Mateja Mihinjac

Few examples of pedestrian public infrastructure have as much potential to go wrong as pedestrian underpasses. Nearly every city I’ve visited has at least one that has become problematic.

I have blogged on this in the past such as underpass graffiti and homelessness. But the problem is bigger than that. The problem centres around participatory design and ongoing stewardship.

Underpasses can separate pedestrians from traffic, but many urban designers treat them as a last resort. New Zealand Transport Agency guidance notes that at-grade crossings are usually preferred because they keep pedestrians visible and the street active, which supports perceived safety.

Underpass in Ljubljana, Slovenia - a much too-common example of neglect and fear in underpasses around the world 

The tradeoff is predictable. Underpasses often feel isolated, attract neglect, and can be hard to use for older adults, people with disabilities, and parents with strollers.

Research on fear of crime consistently shows that enclosed pedestrian tunnels and underpasses can generate strong perceptions of danger when lighting, visibility, and maintenance are poor.

Because of these concerns, street design guidelines increasingly favour at-grade crossings such as raised crosswalks, traffic calming measures, and pedestrian-priority streets that keep pedestrians visible and integrated into everyday street activity.

A SENSE OF DISGUST & INFRASTRUCTURE LIABILITY

A few days ago I came across an article about one of the underpasses in Ljubljana that has been problematic for years. Recently, the city has decided to close it completely. The underpass runs beneath a busy arterial road and connects a large shopping mall with nearby residential buildings and local services. 

This pedestrian underpass in Ljubljana was built to protect people from traffic. Today, it is closed because it became unsafe to use. 

I remember using the underpass several times a few years ago. Each time I dreaded it. The tunnel was dark and smelled strongly of urine. One entrance was covered with graffiti tags. A section of the corridor was often flooded with stale smelly water. People loitered there for long periods. 

On one occasion a couple of years ago, a man in the underpass approached me asking if I offer “special services,” after saying he only wanted to ask me a question during my walk to the shopping mall. More than fear, the experience produced a sense of disgust — the feeling that this space had been abandoned by those responsible for managing it.

A closed underpass - why were problems allowed to grow in the first place?  

After years of decay, the city eventually closed the underpass completely. What makes the situation even more striking is that the tunnel sits next to one of the most prestigious residential developments in Ljubljana, currently the tallest building in the city.

The article reports the decision to close it came from “professional assessment of the current state of the infrastructure, safety risks and the sensibility of its continued use”. It also reports on people’s complaints concerning the homeless, faeces, urine, syringes, vandalism and rubbish that kept accumulating in the underpass. 

No decision has yet been made whether this closed underpass will eventually reopen. It raises questions: What engineers are responsible for this? Who are the decision-makers? What are they saying? How did they neglect this for so long? One can only imagine what conversations are going on behind closed doors. And that leads to the true problem- the design process! 

IT ISN’T THE UNDERPASS…IT’S THE PROCESS

When cities close infrastructure because it feels unsafe, something usually went wrong long before the first complaint. This is not simply about lighting failures or graffiti. It is about a system that failed to monitor, maintain, and adapt.

Some cities are beginning to recognise that infrastructure like pedestrian tunnels cannot be evaluated by engineers alone.

Steven Eisenhower bicycle Tunnel, Nijmegen, the Netherlands
- photo Steven Vance, CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons

A useful example comes from Toronto, where the Glen Road Pedestrian Bridge and Tunnel Environmental Assessment incorporated extensive public consultation. Community feedback helped identify safety concerns and guided improvements to ensure the infrastructure actually worked for those expected to use it.

PRACTICAL LESSONS LEARNED

From a CPTED and SafeGrowth perspective, the Ljubljana underpass displayed several familiar warning signs. Poor natural surveillance created hidden spaces, weak territorial reinforcement meant the area felt like it belonged to no one, and low activity levels reduced informal guardianship. Over time, maintenance declined and limited community engagement allowed problems to persist largely unnoticed.

None of these issues appeared overnight. They develop gradually as stewardship declines.

Modern CPTED guidance recognises that design alone cannot maintain safe places. Ongoing stewardship and community involvement are essential. Technical guidance such as the Queensland Transport and Main Roads Department’s underpass design guidelines provide useful direction.

Australian urban design guidelines developed by social planner Wendy Sarkissian

SafeGrowth engages residents and local users in diagnosing problems and shaping solutions. Community knowledge often identifies risks long before they appear in official reports. Without that feedback loop, infrastructure can slowly decay into places people avoid.

SafeGrowth emphasises participatory safety planning, where residents, practitioners, and local agencies discuss design and management issues together. In these processes, the social planning principles championed by social planner Wendy Sarkissian remain especially valuable. 

Pedestrian underpasses are not inherently unsafe but closing them may sometimes be necessary. The real question is why the problem was allowed to grow in the first place.

Safe cities do not maintain themselves. They depend on stewardship and the people who care enough to protect them.

What a high-profile abduction might teach us about neighborhood design

The saguaro cactus surrounds the Catalina foothills where the
Nancy Guthrie abduction took place 
Photo by By Tyrv, CC BY-SA 4.0 Wiki Commons

by Gregory Saville

The American news has been filled with the tragic, and as yet unsolved, story of Nancy Guthrie, the 84-year-old mother of NBC Today co-anchor Savannah Guthrie, believed to have been abducted in the early morning hours of February 1, from her home in the Catalina foothills near Tucson, Arizona. Doorbell camera footage shows a masked, armed individual on her front porch the night she vanished. Despite an intensive police investigation, no suspect has yet been identified and Nancy remains missing. 

Naturally, this story has sparked widespread public concern and last week I was contacted by a reporter working on what has now become a national story. Why were there not more cameras? Why was there no gate? Does living in a high-end neighborhood provide less protection than we assume?

These questions surface every time crime touches an affluent enclave. The underlying belief is that wealth and spacious design should produce security. When that belief collapses, the impulse is to fortify. The truth is that crime is not confined to one income bracket. Crime opportunity, however, is not evenly distributed and social conditions with environmental structure shape when and where those opportunities arise. 

The Catalina foothills residential area near Tucson, Arizona. Sprawling properties, winding roads, privacy and separation - photo Google Earth screenshot

The problem is not the absence of cameras. That is a misunderstanding of how safety works. Crime prevention is not about recording or repelling after the fact. Safety emerges from neighborhood social conditions and from routine patterns of daily life in walkable and friendly settings. This is about urban design and neighborhood life, not about adding more gadgets.

 

ARCHITECTURES-OF-SEPARATION 

Over the years, I have visited the Catalina Foothills of Tucson, a place where residential privacy and separation are set within that high desert landscape covered with the magnificent saguaro cactus. 

Property lots are large, homes sit far apart, vegetation and terrain interrupt sightlines, and routine walking is rare aside from hikers with backpacks. Residents move between home and vehicle, vehicle and arterial road, rarely intersecting in shared public space. These conditions reduce routine visibility. In targeted crimes, offenders often study locations in advance and select environments where access is straightforward and routine activity is predictable. 

Residential style in the Catalina foothills, with a police"Neighborhood Watch" crime prevention sign - photo Google Earth street view screenshot

For example, in 2019 I wrote a chapter in a forensic science text called offender target selection and spatial forensics describing how crime locations follow offender decisions about where social and physical opportunities are most favorable. 

Those patterns show up in criminologist (and former SafeGrowth blogger) Martin Andressen’s book Environmental Criminology: Evolution, Theory, and Practice. They show up in crime analyst Deborah Osborne’s forthcoming revised edition of Elements of Crime Patterns. Clearly, this is not new knowledge. We have understood crime pattern theory for years. 

The theory does not resolve the full picture of crime, but it begins to help us understand why crimes occur in some places and not others. 

When high-profile crimes like the Guthrie abduction occur, the public impulse often turns toward techno-solutions. People imagine that adding cameras, fences, and other architectures-of-separation close the gap between vulnerability and safety. But decades of research in urban studies and in criminology, particularly by criminologists like Robert Sampson, suggest that heavy reliance on fortification can weaken everyday interaction and informal oversight.

Cell phone addiction - digital connection but personal isolation 
Photo Andi Graf, CC0, via Wiki Commons

We do not need more fragmentation in social life. We already live in a time of cell-phone addictions and reduced face-to-face interaction. Design choices that further fragment daily contact risk weakening the informal neighborhood awareness that helps prevent crime.

A NEW PATTERN

There is a different pattern that is rooted in active neighborhoods where people routinely see one another and recognize what is usual and what is not. Environments that support casual interaction, visible frontages, walkable connections, and shared local spaces create conditions where unusual events become conspicuous rather than concealed. 

In such contexts, residents are more likely to notice something out of place, to recognize a pattern that does not fit, and to raise an alarm. In the Guthrie case, some elements of that pattern did exist since a neighbor noticed a “suspicious man” near her home a few weeks before the abduction, but did not report that until after the crime. 

There are many ways to design residential living where a sense of connection
aligns with beautiful topography

Why would someone related to a national celebrity choose a different kind of residential neighborhood with more people, especially when recognition can bring intrusion. A mother may not want to be approached about her daughter’s latest broadcast or asked for donations. That is entirely understandable. 

But, there is another way to think about this. Our upcoming book, Hope Rises, on the social ecology of safety, elaborates on how communities and designers can build environments that support everyday awareness and prevention long before any technology is needed. There are places where this balance already exists in both rural and urban places. Consider an urban example with famous actors like Robert DeNiro in the same neighborhood where Jane Jacobs wrote Death and Life of Great American Cities over 60 years ago. 

BALANCE ALREADY EXISTS   

In parts of New York’s Greenwich Village and Tribeca, residents like actor Robert De Niro live not behind isolated compounds but within dense streets where shopkeepers, doormen, and neighbors recognize the everyday rhythm of the block. That familiarity does not eliminate privacy. Instead it creates a quiet form of guardianship. People know when something does not belong, and that awareness becomes its own protective layer. 

In a connected neighborhood, familiarity can create a protective buffer around even the most famous residents. People may respect boundaries, but they also notice when something does not fit the usual rhythm of the street.

Too often, more cameras, higher gates, private patrols, and eventually automated AI surveillance systems become the default solution. Such solutions are already dominant in gated suburbs across the world. The long-term effect is not only financial cost but social fragmentation. As we retreat further behind walls, everyday familiarity declines and trust erodes. Quality of life narrows.

When crime like this touches a community, questions about cameras and fortification are natural. But the deeper conversation is about how we arrange our environments so that privacy can coexist with oversight, so that homes are part of a living neighborhood rather than isolated estates, and so that safety emerges from connection as much as from precaution. Until then, we hope Nancy Guthrie returns safe and sound. 

When new stadiums arrive, what happens to the life already there?

Public presentation of the new NFL Denver Bronco Stadium - Press from across the country, national media, local reporters, and hundreds of community members came to hear about their proposed future   

by Gregory Saville

We walked across cracked sidewalks and street litter beside the deteriorating railway grounds known as Denver’s Burnham Yard, only a few blocks from the Art District on Santa Fe. I found myself wondering what this place will look like in five years when the massive new Denver Broncos football stadium rises from this worn industrial landscape.

It brought to mind the role of Third Places as community activators, how they are the core of neighborhood life, and how fragile they are. Third Places have made previous appearances in this blog about creating social life out of industrial decline, and how art co-ops lower crime.

Anchoring the Art District is the Denver Art Society (DAS). It stands as a Third Place and cultural anchor that artists built through years of volunteer effort and community commitment, and I could not ignore the uneasy questions that follows so many large development projects across North America: When the stadium arrives, will this cultural nexus survive as part of the new district? Or will it be pushed aside in favor of land uses that generate revenue but leave the streets quiet between scheduled events?

The unique Third Place that is the Denver Art Society

during the monthly First Friday artwalk 

Stadium projects are often justified on economic grounds and those claims depend as much on sustained daily activity in addition to event crowds. When the stadium falls silent after events, what will happen on Santa Fe? Economic vitality cannot depend on rare bursts of activity separated by long stretches of inactivity. Healthy urban districts depend on steady patterns of daily presence that keep streets occupied, like what happens every day at DAS. As Jane Jacobs demonstrated, eyes on the street help keep public spaces alive and safe.

Long before Burnham Yard attracted such interest, artists had already transformed the Santa Fe corridor into a place of daily cultural production. It hosts open studios, exhibitions, music performance venues, and cultural anchors such as Su Teatro Cultural and Performing Arts Center, the Colorado Ballet Academy, and the Center for Visual Art at Metropolitan State University of Denver. 

Through co-ops like DAS, artists mentor young creators and welcome visitors into shared and safe spaces where participation matters.

Denver's First Friday monthly artwalk is among the busiest,
and liveliest, in the country

History warns that when large developments arrive in districts already shaped and restored by artists, the outcome often follows a familiar pattern. Artists transform overlooked industrial areas into places people want to visit and experience. Their presence attracts attention and investment. Rising land values create pressure for redevelopment that favors larger and more profitable uses. The cultural anchors that made the district desirable struggle to survive within the new economic landscape they helped create.

THE PUBLIC MEETING

On Feb 13, I attended a Denver Bronco public presentation that revealed both the scale of public interest and the limitations of conventional participation processes. I stood with hundreds of residents and two city councilwomen to learn about the proposed stadium and its surrounding development. 

Over 700 community members attended the new stadium announcement - one city planner described attendance as the largest he has seen 

We have learned repeatedly in our SafeGrowth work that, if large development projects are to fulfill their economic promise, they must become part of a living district rather than stand apart from it. Protecting and strengthening institutions like the Denver Art Society is not an obstacle to economic development but a prerequisite for its long-term success.

THE CHOICE FOR THE FUTURE

The choice facing Denver is not simply where to locate a stadium. It is whether to build upon the existing cultural foundations on Santa Fe that already support year-round creative life and economic activity, or to repeat a familiar pattern of displacement that replaces community assets like the Denver Art Society with occasional spectacle and inactive streets.

The future of Burnham Yard will reveal whether lasting economic vitality in Denver grows from the daily life of its communities, and whether the cultural institutions that built the Art District on Santa Fe will remain part of that future or become another casualty of progress that failed to recognize the value already present.

Caveat Emptor - When CPTED standards fail the test

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, the original evidence-based detective. He understood what professional standards require - verified facts, not confident claims.

by Gregory Saville

Caveat emptor: Let the buyer beware.

That warning exists for a reason. Professional standards are not casual suggestions. Cities rely on them to shape public investment and guide policy. A standard implies established evidence, professional consensus, and independent review. Without those foundations, the word “standard” is meaningless.

For years, I have read and helped create CPTED standards for municipalities and governments. Most recently I came across some "national CPTED standards" though I'm unsure what makes them national or from where they derive their authority. For practitioners and city officials unfamiliar with how standards are developed, such claims may appear credible. The language sounds authoritative. But standards are not created by declaration. Their authority emerges through evidence and multidisciplinary collaboration.

CPTED has a long and well documented history. Since its early development in the 1970s, its principles have evolved through research, application, and field tests and they appear in peer reviewed studies, books, and professional publications.

Standards come from findings; findings come from verified evidence and data

For example, the International CPTED Association (ICA) has published a scientific CPTED bibliography documenting over 600 studies. It also publishes The CPTED Journal, a peer-reviewed journal with the latest research studies on the field.


This is what professional legitimacy looks like. Evidence is published. Methods are documented. Claims are subject to independent review.

GLOBAL ISO STANDARDS 

Most recently, CPTED entered the International Organization for Standardization process. ISO standards are developed through rigorous evaluation by international technical committees representing multiple disciplines and countries. The global CPTED standard is ISO 22341:2021, and ICA experts helped draft the initial framework and later iterations adopted by ISO. For governments around the world, these standards provide developers, planners, and public officials with verified guidance grounded in scientific evidence and international professional consensus.

Standards do not originate from a private consulting firm presenting its own framework or a self-proclaimed expert at a conference. They emerge from broad professional review from experts, academics, and researchers with years of CPTED research and experience. And they do not gain legitimacy through branding or repetition. Their authority comes from the integrity of their development process.

This distinction is not theoretical. It has practical and legal consequences.

The first professional ISO CPTED standard by the International Standards Organization

A GLOBAL CPTED VOICE

The International CPTED Association publishes methodological guidance, including the CPTED Methodology White Paper, to ensure CPTED practice rests on evidence.
 It publishes ICA guidebooks, professional training programs, and ISO standards about evidence via transparent and accountable processes. These resources reflect decades of collective work by practitioners and researchers worldwide.

They also show how CPTED is tested and verified. That is the foundation of any legitimate professional standard.

The stakes are significant. When a municipality or region adopts CPTED standards, it assumes those standards reflect the best available knowledge. But most government attorneys are not trained in CPTED or risk mitigation and cannot assess legitimacy of CPTED standards in their municipal policy. Some might assume their standards are grounded in research and recognized by the professional community, when they are not. That is an error with consequences for public safety, public investment, and public trust.

NASA advisor and astrophysicist Carl Sagan championed the Baloney Detection Kit - facts through evidence and data. Photo: Kenneth C. Zirkel, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

THE BALONEY DETECTION KIT

Due diligence matters. Before adopting any CPTED standard, practitioners and clients should ask the simple questions once proposed by famed astrophysicist and NASA advisor, Professor Carl Sagan in his Baloney Detection Kit. They should consider how the standard was developed and tested. They should ask whether the process was objective and independently verified. They should ask who reviewed the work and what evidence exists to support the claims behind each standard. And most important, they should assess whether the standard reflects teh collective knowledge and research in the profession.

CPTED has matured into a global discipline because it remains grounded in evidence and professional accountability. If its standards carry weight, they only do so because they were earned through scientific validation and international recognition.

In CPTED, as in every serious profession, a standard cannot be declared. It must be demonstrated. Most important, a standard is not defined by who publishes it, but by who recognizes it. Caveat emptor still applies.