Parks

Safety & Security

"So-called "undesirables" are not the problem. It is the measures that are taken to combat them that are the problem... The best way to handle the problem of undesirables is to make the place attractive to everyone else." --William H. Whyte
  • Planning, Designing and Maintaining Safer Parks: Introduction

    An excellent guide that shows how physical and social factors affect perceptions of safety and actual safety in parks - and how to use a range of integrated tools to enhance park safety. From Toronto Parks & Recreation.

  • Understanding Personal Safety

    A look at the issues surrouding the concept, perceptions, and realities of personal safety in parks and other public spaces. From Toronto Parks & Recreation's Planning, Designing and Maintaining Safer Parks.

  • Evaluating Park Safety: The Safety Audit Process

    A tool based on users' experiences and feedback, which can help in assessing a park in terms of fear of crime and perceptions of safety. From Toronto Parks & Recreation's Planning, Designing and Maintaining Safer Parks.

  • Making Your Park Safer

    Advice from New York City's Partnerships for Parks on activities that can crowd out crime, what to do about specific crime problems, and working with the police. Some info is NYC-specific, but it's an overall excellent resource.

  • Community Policing and Change

    William Bratton, former commisioner of the NYPD, discusses the impact of policing with the community, through partnership and empowerment.

  • Neighborhood Reclaims Meridian Hill Park in Washington, DC

    This success story shows how a group of volunteers in Washington, DC worked to turn a neighborhood park with an astonishing murder rate into a haven and center of community activity.
    Project for Public Spaces' Urban Parks Institute

  • Cohesive Neighborhoods are Safer Neighborhoods

    Do parks decrease violence? Information from SCIENCE magazine and a Harvard University study.

  • Safety Survey

    An online survey in PDF format, focusing on safety in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. From Friends of Recreation and Parks.

  • The Tipping Point

    This New Yorker article from 1996 by Malcolm Gladwell has become a minor classic fusing concepts of safety, sociology, and urban life with disease research.

  • Crime Prevention

    Useful park-related information on enhanced street lighting and efforts to reduce phone vandalism, from an Australian survey of crime prevention programs and methodologies.

  • Crime Prevention through Design

    An annotated bibliography (of print resources) on environmental design and security. Annotated and posted by Sean Michael of Washington State University.