Towards Automating Crime Prevention through Environmental Design (CPTED) Analysis to Predict Burglary

The design of the built environment (such as housing developments, street networks) can increase the opportunity for crime and disorder to occur. For example, a housing development with poor surveillance can provide an opportunity for offenders to commit residential burglary and avoid detection. Crime Prevention through Environmental Design (CPTED) aims to reduce crime and disorder through the design and manipulation of the built environment. The police typically play an important role in the delivery and application of CPTED by assessing planning applications, identifying design features that may provide an opportunity for crime and offering remedial advice. In England and Wales, it is common practice for police specialists – Designing out Crime Officers (DOCOs) – to review architectural site plans during the planning process. However, owing to significant cuts to policing budgets, the number of DOCOs in post is reducing whilst the demand for new housing is on the increase. In this novel work, it is demonstrated that key knowledge about the opportunities for crime and disorder within the built environment can be elicited from a purposive sample of 28 experienced DOCOs, encoded in a domain model and utilised by Automated Planning techniques to automatically assess architectural site plans for future crime risk.