Knowledge about bombs and terror has proliferated to a point that virtually any terrorist or criminal can find out the information to build a pipe bomb to a nuclear bomb or develop killer toxins to carry out their particular missions. The targets of the future will be cities, utility companies, government buildings or agencies, technology companies and high-profile corporate entities.

Yet, with all of the catastrophic effects of terrorism in the past and the huge potential for damage in the future, acts of terrorism are relatively infrequent. The overall damage to society and the criminal justice system is less than loss of life and property from ordinary street crime. The societal damage from guns far exceeds the damage from any bomb.

As the role of the security designer and the architect gets redefined for the 21st century, the threats and risks of crime and terrorism are ever present. But is there really a difference between designing against terrorism and designing against crime?

Today we need basic, minimum-security standards for building design. The federal government has now established a minimum standard of care for federal buildings.

However, in the private sector, the American Society of Testing Materials Premise’s Liability Committee, which was developing minimum-security guidelines for multi-tenant residential housing environments, was disbanded due to lobbying pressure. This effort was resurrected with the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) in 2004. The NFPA regulates fire protection and life safety requirements, and security is definitely considered part of a life safety issue. In 2006 NFPA adopted the NFPA 730 Guide for Premises Security and the NFPA 731 Standard for the Installation of Electronic Premises Security Systems. In the public sector, the General Services Administration Security Standards were adopted after the Oklahoma City federal building bombing.

Today there is a solution to the lack of private-sector security standards. It’s called Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED).

And can it make a difference in preventing acts of terrorism? Absolutely!

Promising processes

CPTED and Defensible Space Planning are planning processes, as compared to fortressing or target hardening. They emphasize problem-seeking before rushing into problem-solving. They start with a threat and vulnerability analysis to determine the weakness and potential for attack. Both criminal behavior and terrorist activity reflect only a difference in the level and types of threats. The process and challenges are the same.

When designing against crime or terrorism, a security consultant must resist the rush for quick answers. What the CPTED process does is ask questions about 1) natural access control; 2) natural surveillance; 3) territorial reinforcement; 4) legitimate activity support; and 5) management and maintenance strategies.

The answers to these questions can result in increasing the effort to prevent crime or terrorism, increasing the risks to perpetrators, reducing the rewards for acts of crime or terrorism and removing excuses for not obeying the rules or behaving appropriately.

The CPTED process provides direction to solving the challenges of crime and terrorism organizationally and mechanically and using the natural design of architecture and circulation flow. It should be part of the redesign process of schools and universities, office buildings, government buildings, housing and retail spaces and corporate America.

Crime versus terrorism

The real threat to buildings and their users is from street crime, not terrorism. Buildings need the same level of attention to preventing crime that they give to fire prevention. Just as fire disasters led to a uniform fire protection standard, security standards will provide a minimum standard of care.

Protecting people, information and property must be a high priority for all buildings. Terrorism prevention may be more newsworthy and marketable in government buildings, but schools, public housing, convenience stores, residential housing, retail and commercial buildings should not be ignored. For example, even family planning clinics are subject to pro-life terrorist activity!

The future of infrastructure protection and CPTED depends on how events unfold over the next few years. The reorganization of many agencies under the umbrella of the Department of Homeland Security is one of the most significant changes in government structure in decades.

I have seen the positive difference that CPTED and Community Oriented Policing has made to public housing in the last 10 years. I have seen the difference made in designing safer schools and convenience stores. I have seen transportation centers designed to be safe and well organized. Our built environment can be built strong and safe, yet aesthetically pleasing and unobtrusive.

Will we all begin to assess the performance of our buildings in the face of threats of terrorism and crime? Will decisionmakers be willing to invest the resources to do risk assessments for properties and operations? Will our political structures be willing to require security and CPTED in all new infrastructure for our cities under the mandate of code or regulation?

There is so much unutilized potential and opportunity to make a difference. It is my hope and desire that the next generation of architects and urban planners will use CPTED to reduce the vulnerability of our buildings and infrastructure to terrorist threats and subsequently reduce the vulnerability of people and property to crime and workplace violence. HST

Randall Atlas Ph.D., AIA, CPP. Atlas Safety & Security Design, Inc. Miami, Florida. He is the author of the book, 21st Century Security and CPTED: Designing for Critical Infrastructure Protection and Crime Prevention (2008), published by CRC Press.