Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design in Supermarkets: A New Product or Past Its Sell by Date

Crime Prevention through Environmental Design (CPTED) is a crime reduction approach that aims to prevent crime through the design (pre-build) or manipulation (post-build) of the built environment. A staple food within the research pantry of academia and suggested as a main ingredient in the recipe to design out crime, yet rarely considered for the interior space of supermarkets and how the principles may deter shoplifters from committing crime.

A space or environment is predominantly designed with the end user in mind; home buyers, the driver of a car, employees within an office, those that are the benefactors of a process that makes the user feel comfortable in their surroundings and induced to continue to use them. This is largely the case for the retail environment. However, some shoplifting offenders are committing offences in the same space each day. So, who are the main benefactors and users of the design and layout of retail environments – the shopper or the shoplifter?

This research draws upon the experience of ex-shoplifters (n=5) in exploring their considerations, attractions and behaviour when committing theft from shop offences, specifically in supermarkets, in order to elicit how their decision-making is influenced by environmental design and physical cues. It also explores the principles utilised by the interior space designers of supermarkets (n=2), in order to identify where designing out crime currently features within the process of determining the layout of the supermarket environment.

The findings of the research suggest that the principles of CPTED are applicable within the supermarket environment and that the behaviour of offenders could be influenced by the effective implementation of these principles. However, there is also a need to dispel the haze of ambiguity encircling some of the components of CPTED to assist clarity of application, understanding amongst practitioners and to encourage their subsequent use.