NCJ Number
79580
Date Published
1980
Length
11 pages
Annotation
This review assesses Malt Associates' analysis of how the physical street environment acts as an accessory or deterrent to street crime.
Abstract
Archival crime data for outdoor crimes in 1971 were plotted and analyzed for seven police reporting areas in Jacksonville, Fla. Four high and four low-crime sites were selected for further study. Data were collected on each with regard to physical characteristics of buildings in the area, pedestrians' perceptions of the relationship between environmental factors and criminal behavior, offenders' perceptions of the physical characteristics which serve as either a deterrent or promoter of crime, and police perceptions of the relationship between environmental factors and criminal behaviors. The study concluded that pedestrians, police, and offenders agree that certain environmental factors are conducive to the incidence of street crime. Environmental factors associated with high crime sites included unpaved and narrow streets, poor quality of neighborhood commercial units, intrusion of commercial uses into residential neighborhoods, obsolete physical structures, inadequate security maintenance of public spaces, and recessed entries to commercial structures. The combination of definitional problems, the weak survey design, and the limitation in the sampling procedures, however, tended to produce overdrawn conclusions. Further, the study did not demonstrate a causal connection between physical design characteristics and crime-related behaviors. For the original report, see NCJ 32556.