035 Defensible Space
An environment designed to deter crime through markers, surveillance, and signs of ownership.
• There are three key features of defensible spaces: territoriality, surveillance, and symbolic barriers.
• Territoriality refers to clearly defined spaces of ownership, like community markers, gates, walls, hedges, and fences.
• Surveillance refers to features that promote being seen, like external lighting, mailboxes located in well-trafficked areas, and well-maintained courtyards.
• Symbolic barriers refer to things that indicate ownership, like swings, flowers, and lawn furniture.
• Deter crime by marking territories to indicate ownership, increasing opportunities for surveillance, reducing features that allow concealment, and using symbolic barriers to indicate activity and use.
See Also Affordance • Archetypes • Prospect-Refuge
