Crime Prevention through Environmental Design: Defensible Space and Protected Space
The author of the paper analyzes key theoretical approaches to environmental design that have been actively used in the last 30 or 40 years as an element of the crime prevention system. One of the approaches includes the creation of spaces with a total video surveillance system that are maximally protected from external influences. Z. Bauman’s metaphors of «meaningful spaces», «devouring spaces» and «non-spaces» are used to characterize them. The author draws attention to the fact that the creation of many such spaces is costly not only in the financial terms: these spaces could considerably reduce the intensity and change the character of human communication. An alternative environmental strategy of crime prevention - defensible space - was offered by American architect O. Newman in 1960s. Its core idea is the creation and support of such architectural solutions that can maximize close human communication and form local communities acting as key agents of surveillance and control. The author combines environmental design ideas with the analysis of key clauses from the UN Manual on the Prevention of Crime of September 7, 1990 that, among other things, implements the ideas of defensible and protected space within the framework of situational and community approach. Visibility effects achieved though environmental design are a relatively inexpensive and convenient crime prevention measure. The reconstruction of the Central Park of Culture and Recreation (Moscow) is an example of using the «defensible space» concept in Russian practice. On the whole, different elements of formal and natural observation are analyzed through the visual sociology concept of «surveillance assemblage». In conclusion the author discusses the prospects of integrating environmental design methods in the research agenda of Russian criminology and the necessity of conducting empirical studies in Russia.