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Evaluating CPTED Measures on Streets of Urban Residential Neighbourhoods Using Structural Equation Model

Charu Dhawan* | Sabir Ali**

* Ph.D Scholar & Urban Planner, A-86, Amar Colony, Lajpat nagar-IV, New Delhi, India. ** Ph.D Guide, Professor & Geographer –Urban Planner, Trilokpuri, Delhi, India.

ABSTRACT

Taking into account streets as one of the most significant element of built environment, this article is an attempt to

explore the link between the perception of residents towards the physical environmental design features of urban

streets and crime incidence committed against women using crime prevention through environmental design (CPTED)

approach, whereof a limited empirical research has been done till date. Theoretically, this study appraises the impact

of CPTED strategies on streets through determining residents’ acceptance and confidence by employing the

Confirmatory Factor analysis (CFA) using AMOS. Validation is carried out by testing higher order dimensionality of the

CFA model driven first order solution by examining a second-order model with three main dimensions, namely,

Natural Surveillance (NS), Territorial Reinforcement (TR) and Maintenance (MAN). A survey on the perception of

residents towards the CPTED elements on streets was conducted in two urban residential neighbourhoods (municipal

wards) of National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi located within the hotspot districts of crime against women (CAW).

In all 200 samples were taken (N≥150) as it gives reasonable weightage to use CFA for establishing confirmatory test.

The results of the study signify that the Territorial Reinforcement (TR) and Maintenance (MAN) dimensions attained

good fit indices with the value of standardised coefficients at r = 0.84 and r = 0.74 respectively, where the values of

GFI, NFI, TLI & CFI exceeds 0.9 and RMSEA value stands at less than or equal to 0.08.

Key Words: Crime Prevention through Environmental Design (CPTED); residential streets; Confirmatory Factor Analysis

(CFA); Crime against Women (CAW)

INTRODUCTION

Street crimes, explicitly committed against women in urban neighbourhoods have emerged as one of the prevalent

challenges in cities around the world. In the last three decades urban planners, geographers, architects,

environmental psychologists have tried to address the gap and explored women’s relationship with the built

environment (Ahrentzen, 2003).

(Jacob, 1961) firstly introduced the significance of urban planning principles in revitalising street life that would result

in deterring street crimes. She presented the theory “eyes on street” suggesting an active street life could cut the

opportunities for street crime. “Defensible space” theory introduced by Newman (1972) was one of the first of its

kind which presents the ways in which the residential streets could be designed and modified to minimise the

opportunity of crime. He advocated that the residents themselves create defensible spaces by manipulating design

and layout of the physical environment of streets so as to facilitate surveillance, supervision and maintenance.

(Abdullah, Razak, Salleb & Sakip, 2012) mentioned four approaches to crime prevention, namely (a) social approach,

(b) enforcement of policed control system, (c) crime perpetrators approach (d) CPTED approach.

LITERATURE REVIEW

It has been studied that women’s fear of crime is highly linked with the physical settings of the space which

encompasses concealed spaces with limited view and minimum escape routes (Fisher & Nasar, 1992). The

researchers have also linked the physical condition of streets with fear of crime stating, - a woman feels unsafe where

she senses threatening environmental behaviour in the form of incivilities present, such as – damaged streets or

structures around, inadequate lighting on streets at night and presence of graffiti on walls, broken and discontinued

walkways along the street, over grown vegetation blocking the view, in comparison to streets which are clear, litter

free and without visual barriers (Lewis & Maxfield, 1980)

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Over the last two decades crime against women (CAW) drew more attention as serious and adverse crime, all over

the world in general and in NCT of Delhi in particular (Viswanath & Mehrotra , 2007). According to the NCRB reports

of various years, the proportion of IPC crimes committed against women in India has increased at an alarming rate of

9.2% in the year 2009, further increasing to 11.2% during the year 2013. Delhi has the distinction of being the capital

city of India attaining the highest rank in rate of crimes committed against women as compared to any other

megalopolis (Narayanan, 2012). According to Narayanan, women constantly face fear of physical and sexual

harassment in Delhi while using public open spaces, roads, streets and transport facilities etc. Moreover, a study

conducted by International Centre for Research on Women (ICRW), in collaboration with UN women, Delhi

Government and a Delhi based NGO – JAGORI, during October- November 2012, in different parts of Delhi, had taken

information from about 2,000 women and 1,000 men aged between 16 to 49 and reported that only 5% of the

women in Delhi feel safe in public spaces. According to the report 57.3% women feel unsafe on streets.

The CPTED theory introduced by Crowe (2000) is based on the principle- “the physical environment can be

manipulated to reduce fear of crime and criminal activities, thereby improving quality of life”. CPTED focused on

crime prevention through four main dimensions –

i) Natural Surveillance (NS) - natural surveillance increased visibility of public and semi-public spaces, creating

defensible space by – (a) increasing likelihood of noticing potential offender on streets of residential

neighbourhood, (b) increasing sense of security among residents being constantly under supervision of other

residents on the streets.

ii) Territorial Reinforcement (TR) – the concept of reinforcing perception of possessiveness, creating a sense of

‘ownership’ and ‘responsibility’ among residents thereby reducing the opportunities of crime by discouraging

illegitimate users.

iii) Access Control (AC) – The controlled access to the residential streets and restricting accessibility of places by

deploying manual or mechanical means help in identifying the illegitimate user and hence reducing incidence of

crime.

iv) Maintenance (MAN) – routine maintenance of built environments including streets for effective use

communicates a positive image to the users and ensures continued use of space thereby increasing the sense of

safety among the residents.

Subsequently, in the present work, the measurement of perception and responsibility towards the CPTED elements

on streets in urban residential neighbourhood was conducted using only three elements namely – Natural

Surveillance (NS), Territorial Reinforcement (TR) and Maintenance (MAN); keeping Access Control (AC) element

excluded, as it is assessed using physical observation based on a checklist.

METHODOLOGY

The purpose of the study was to understand the residents’ perception and awareness towards the CPTED elements

on existing physical environmental design features of streets in residential neighbourhoods witnessing higher rate of

CAW incidence in NCT of Delhi. The present study included two urban neighbourhoods (municipal wards) of NCT of

Delhi namely - Tilak Nagar and Dabri, which are located in the hotspot districts of CAW, based on the NCRB reports.

The total population of these neighbourhoods was recorded as approximately 50,000 in each (Census, 2011) with a

mix of middle and upper middle income group residents, categorised as able to afford medium cost houses. The

development was predominantly plotted in nature with grid –iron street pattern. A structured questionnaire survey

was conducted which dispensed with face-to-face interviews, ensuring residents truly understood the questions that

were asked. 100 residents were randomly selected from each neighbourhood of different age groups above 18 years,

comprising a total of 200 respondents in all. The study involved both male (38%) and female (62%) respondents. The

respondents involved in the study were the residents owning houses in the respective neighbourhoods and living

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there for more than 5 years. The survey was conducted on weekends, from 10:00 am to 6:00 pm and required an

average of 30 to 40 minutes by a respondent to answer the questionnaire completely.

RESULT AND DISCUSSIONS

The objective of this paper was to conduct validation of people’s opinion and perception construct towards the

CPTED elements of existing physical environmental design features of urban streets in selected neighbourhoods

based on three dimensions – Natural Surveillance (NS), Territorial Reinforcement (TR) and Maintenance (MAN). Each

of these dimensions consisted of 5 items (indicator variables). All the items were measured using 8 point Likert scale:

1- strongly agree, 2- fairly agree, 3- agree, 4- slightly agree, 5- slightly disagree, 6- disagree, 7- fairly disagree and 8-

strongly disagree (Abdullah, Razak, Salleb &Sakip,2012). The validation of people’s perception construct towards the

CPTED elements was performed by means of confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) using AMOS and SPSS software. CFA

is a measurement model, developed by correlation between latent variables and number of indicators (items) and

error manifests. Structural equation modelling (SEM) is a statistical method of evaluating whether the model fits the

data by achieving goodness-of-fit providing the covariance in the observed data compared with the expected if the

model is true. The goodness-of-fit indices such as NFI (normed fit index), CFI (comparative fit index) and GFI

(goodness of fit index) are exploited to evaluate the model fit in AMOS. It is proposed that the values of NFI, CFI and

GFI range between 0 and 1, where the values >0.90 signify acceptable fit of model to the data and a close fit of the

data to the model is established when CFI > 0.95 & TLI (Tucker-Lewis Index) > 0.95 and RMSEA (Root Mean Square

Approximation) between 0.03 and 0.08 or less is considered to be good (Hair, Black, Babin & Anderson, 2006). For the

present work the indices used to evaluate the goodness-of-fit of the model are GFI, NFI, CFI, TLI and RMSEA, chi-

square and chi-square/df. The measurement model for each dimension construct namely – Natural Surveillance (NS),

Territorial Reinforcement (TR) and Maintenance (MAN) of CPTED elements in the first- order was developed as shown

in Figure-1

Figure-1: A First-order CFA model for CPTED measure

Figure -1 illustrates the first- order CFA model for one of the dimensions, Natural Surveillance as latent variable,

measured by 5 items (item 1 to item 5) entitled as indicator variable and each of the items retains a measurement

error. Similarly every dimension of CPTED element would endure the first-order CFA model.

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The result of the first-order CFA model for all the three dimensions of CPTED elements is shown in Table – 1

Table -1 : Result of First-order CFA model for the dimensions of CPTED elements

CPTED Dimension

Value of the fit indices

CMIN DF P CMIN/DF GFI NFI RFI TLI CFI RMSEA

Natural Surveillance (NS) 2.55 1 0.110 2.55 0.995 0.998 0.978 0.987 0.999 0.08

Territorial Reinforcement (TR) 2.13 2 0.343 1.07 0.996 0.998 0.992 0.999 1.000 0.01

Maintenance (MAN) 2.37 1 0.123 2.37 0.995 0.997 0.973 0.984 0.998 0.08

The first-order models for all the three CPTED dimensions have attained good fit between the models and the data.

The Chi-square value (χ2) for NS measurement model is insignificant (χ

2(1) = 2.5, p>0.05), shows good fit between the

model and data. The values for the fit indices of GFI, NFI, TLI, CFI exceeds 0.90 and the value of RMSEA is 0.08.

Similarly, the Chi-square value (χ2

) for TR and MAN measurement model is not significant (χ2(2) = 2.1 andχ

2(1) = 2.3,

p>0.05), shows good fit between the model and the data, also the values for the fit indices of GFI, NFI, TLI, CFI

exceeds 0.90 and the values of RMSEA are 0.01 and 0.08 respectively.

To determine the reliability value of the data collected, the Cronbach’s Alpha (α) was calculated using SPSS software

through internal consistency for each dimension and it was found that all the three dimensions have reasonably

acceptable reliability value as it exceeds 0.70 (Hair, Black, Babin & Anderson, 2006). The result of the reliability value

(α) of each dimension of CPTED measures and corresponding factor loading (λ) of each item obtained from first-order

CFA model are shown in Table – 2

Table - 2 : Results of the people perception measurement model against CPTED measures

CPTED Dimension

Item Item name

Description of Items Factor Loading (λ)

Reliability (α)

Natural Surveillance

(NS)

Item 1

st2.1a Shops on the ground floor of the houses keep check on the strangers on the streets. 0.81

0.87

Item 2

st2.1b Busy streets with people’s movement throughout the day restrain offenders from committing crime. 0.70

Item 3

st2.1c

Narrow lanes with inadequate lighting during the day and night confine residents to keep watch, invite criminal activities, especially against women.

0.70

Item 4

st2.1d

Presence of dark blind corners with least supervision on the streets provides opportunity to offenders to perform illegal actions and activities.

-

Item 5

st2.1e Streets with Cul-de-sacs and dead ends with no monitoring become hotspot for crime against women. 0.88

Territorial Reinforceme

nt (TR)

Item 1

st2.2a Demarcation of public and private spaces on streets would help in controlling crime incidence against women. 0.32

0.84

Item 2

st2.2b

Buffer spaces between private property and streets in the form of seating platforms/ house extension areas would discourage strangers to intrude.

0.41

Item 3

st2.2c Installation of street furniture invites residents to assemble frequently resulting in deterrence to crime. -

Item 4

st2.2d

Installation of gates at street level imparts a sense of ownership among the residents, foster them to look after their surroundings

-

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Item 5

st2.2e Fencing around the house provides a sense of belongingness and responsibility among residents. 0.65

Maintenance (MAN)

Item 1

st2.4a

Well maintained and continuous walkways along the street contribute to the feeling of self-defence among residents, especially women.

0.50

0.85

Item 2

st2.4b Well maintained streets with clean edges enhance walkability hence reduce fear of crime. 0.62

Item 3

st2.4c Unmaintained broken street lights generate poor visibility and dark dingy spaces at night are problematic for women. 0.29

Item 4

st2.4d Presence of graffiti/ hoardings/ banners on streets, obstruct vision add to a feeling of insecurity. -

Item 5

st2.4e Presence of unmonitored public conveniences along the streets generates a feeling of insecurity among women. -

Note: (-) indicates items removed from the measurement model process

Further, the results derived from first-order CFA model for every latent variable (i.e. NS, TR and MAN) for CPTED

perception construct (refer Table -2) was used for second –order model. In second order-model, CPTED performed as

the latent variable and all the three dimensions which acted as latent variable in first –order were exploited as

observed variables for CPTED construct. Again, the CFA was applied on the model construct (refer Figure -2) to

determine whether the extracted items from the first-order model as defined by the hypothesis, fitted the data

sufficiently. The goodness of fit was ensured using the value of fit indices such as GFI, NFI, TLI, CFI, exceeds 0.90 and

the value of RMSEA is less than 0.05 (Schreiber, Stage, King, Nora, & Barlow, 2006). The hypotheses second – order

construct used in the present study is shown in Figure -2

Figure - 2: CFA hypotheses second - order model for CPTED measure

The results of second –order CFA model as shown in Figure – 3, indicate the model fit as the value of Chi-square (χ2) is

not significant (χ2 (19) = 12.56, p> 0.05) and Chi-square/df = 0.661. Further, in the model fit the values of GFI= 0.988,

NFI = 0.990, RFI = 0.977, TLI = 1.012, CFI= 1.0000 and RMSEA = 0.000 illustrate that the model fitted the data very

well.

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Figure -3 : A second - order CFA model of people perception on CPTED measure

It was found from Figure - 3 that the Territorial reinforcement (TR) was best measured by three indicators namely -

Item 1 (st2.2a), Item 2 (st2.2b) and Item 5 (st2.2e), also Maintenance (MAN) was best achieved by three indicators

namely - Item 1 (st2.4a), Item 2 (st2.4b) and Item 3 (st2.4c) whereas Natural Surveillance (NS) was obtained by four

indicators namely - Item 1 (st2.1a), Item 2 (st2.1b), Item 3 (st2.1c) and Item 5 (st2.1e) respectively. On the basis of the

value of standardised coefficient (r) between the latent variables and CPTED construct, it was determined that the

CPTED construct was found to be best measured mainly by two dimensions namely – Territorial Reinforcement (TR)

and Maintenance (MAN) whereas the Natural surveillance (NS) dimension contributed barely. It was extracted that

the Territorial Reinforcement (TR) dimension with r = 0.84 represented CPTED more significantly than the

Maintenance (MAN) dimension with r = 0.74 respectively. The double – headed arrow in the Figure – 3 represents the

covariance between the two measurement variables which is based on the modification indices and the level of

covariance between the two errors. It was observed that the level of covariance between the two errors namely e8

and e9, also e6 and e7 were high. It indicates that that the Item 1 (st2.4a) error was highly correlated with the

measurement error of Item 2 (st2.4b) in Maintenance (MAN) variable and Item 2 (st2.2b) error was also highly

correlated with the measurement error of Item 5 (st2.2e) in the Territorial Reinforcement (TR) variable.

CONCLUSIONS

The purpose of the study was to examine the understanding of residents’ perception towards the CPTED measures on

existing physical environmental design features of streets in neighbourhoods with relatively higher rate of CAW

incidence. The findings of this study evidenced that there is a significant relationship between CPTED practice and

CPTED perception towards CAW on streets in urban neighbourhoods. The Territorial Reinforcement (TR) and

Maintenance (MAN) dimensions of CPTED practices proved to be significant to reduce crime incidence committed

against women on the streets in the urban neighbourhoods of NCT of Delhi. This study also imparts indication to

various different agencies involved in urban planning and design process to ensure the application of CPTED elements

in urban residential neighbourhoods, especially on the environmental design features of streets to control crime

incidence perpetrated against women. This paper also acquaints that the perception, awareness and sensitivity of

residents towards CPTED elements have a direct association with CPTED practice and restraining rate of CAW. It is

recommended that in future studies a detailed investigation on all the three dimensions i.e. (NS, TR and MAN) of

CPTED must be conducted in other housing typologies like – privately owned flatted development, government

housing, employer housing etc. to further understand the affiliation between these variables.

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