NCJ Number
176277
Journal
Law Enforcement Technology Volume: 25 Issue: 11 Dated: November 1998 Pages: 59-61
Date Published
1998
Length
3 pages
Annotation
Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED) is a tool for identifying, preventing, and solving crime problems and can be used by police school resource officers to improve the school grounds and prevent crime through physical changes.
Abstract
The National Association of School Resource Officers spends 1 day of its 3-day advanced training course teaching CPTED to participants. CPTED concepts taught include target hardening, natural surveillance through design features, territorial reinforcement through sidewalks and other features, and natural access control through the use of fences and other features. Later, participants take instant cameras and notes to a nearby school to do a CPTED assessment. The first action of a student resource officer must be to promote communication with administrators, teachers, students, and parents and to survey these groups to pinpoint problem areas. The main goal is to solve existing problems, but the student resource officer should also identify situations that could cause future problems. The campus should be reassessed once a year, prior to the beginning of a new school year. One school resource officer has established a group called the Safe Team at his school. The Safe Team consists of juniors or seniors who are interested or were recommended by faculty. They meet monthly to discuss past issues, the impact of changes, recent incidents, and the promotion of the school's Hot Tips line. Photographs