The purpose of this study is to expand the CPTED principle to schools and communities in Korea. To apply the CPTED principles to schools, we will uate the safety level of schools, and finally provide a guideline for school safety.
For this study, we will introduce the successful cases which were adapted by other countries and review the current rules and laws related to school safety in Korea. Also, we will survey the schools and students to figure out locations where there is a fear of crime in schools.
In this paper, we introduce how the U.S., U.K. and Japan adapted the CPTED principle to schools and how effective it was for school safety.
U.S. schools using the CPTED principle have characteristics emphasizing the basic principle and security system including school maintenance programs. Due to the stringent regulations of U.S. gun policy, schools have adopted gun control policies and an emergency protocol. In the construction stage, they emphasize the principle of natural surveillance. As for maintenance, a record is kept for all affairs such as crime, deviance, incidents, delinquent behavior by students, maintenance workers, and outsiders.
Schools in the U.K. utilize CPTED principles by SBD. Although adapting CPTED principle in schools are not required, there are selective benefits for schools which adapt CPTED and encourage the application of CPTED principles in schools. CPTED in the U.K. consists of the basic idea of CPTED as providing the building scheme, assignment, and detailed standard to build a check list. Japan's CPTED guide covers safety tips for crime, natural disasters, and other emergencies. Japan's guidelines advise the initial CPTED principles which should be considered at the first stage of building a plan, and emphasizes crime prevention policy by the expected building function. The current school related laws in Korea do not indicate specific crime prevention issues on it, although there are some regulations for disaster and crime prevention.
In addition to the review of school related laws in Korea, we will examine the level of school safety in terms of CPTED principles. Before starting the examination, the survey team developed a tool to uate school safety in Korea. The tool includes the basic principle of CPTED such as surveillance, access control, territoriality, and the school maintenance program, school boundary, building interior, building exterior, environmental factors surrounding the school. Each of the criteria is added to provide a total score. A total of 30 schools were selected in Seoul, Incheon and Kyonggido using quota sampling.
The result shows that there are no schools with an excellent or a good level by the CPTED uation tool. Most schools were found to be at a moderate or poor level in terms of safety. We compared the total score by the school level to find the differences among elementary schools, middle schools, and high schools. The result shows that middle schools are the worst in terms of safety. Elementary school had the highest safety score. Additionally, we compared the score by the place in school. A detailed explanation will be discussed in the text.
The crime rate by self-report of 1759 students by convenient sampling of 30 schools selected were surveyed about offenses and victimization in schools. The result shows that the classroom is the most risky place in schools indicating the highest frequency of crime among students. The other location of crimes occurred in hallways, restrooms, playgrounds in terms of school violence, delinquent behavior, and crime. Students experienced crimes and school violence in locations such as the school wall, main entrance, and play ground. We tried to find a relationship between the crime rate and safety score in schools. However there was no evident correlation between them. We then tried comparing if crimes occurred at specific places and the safety score using the t-test. However, we failed to find a pattern between the two groups among the various locations.
Based on these results, we will suggest how to institutionalize CPTED to keep safer schools in Korea.
In conclusion, we found schools were free from crime, however, many personnel in school believe schools as being a safe place..
Regardless of the seriousness of victimization, even one crime may affect the increase of fear of crime. We need to acknowledge the importance of regular education and maintenance programs of school safety. Also, school personnel should carefully think about the issue of risk and safety in schools.
Based on the results of CPTED, we developed the CPTED guideline. We found that most schools were at risk in terms of crime and safety. To ensure safety, CPTED applications should be selected in the first stage of school construction and a regular maintenance program should be adopted. Like the U.K. SBD program, giving benefits to schools that adopt the CPTED principle may be an effective strategy and ensure a regular audit system is in place to uate the safety level of schools. When the CPTED guide is applied to the field, a strict regulation and flexibility on application will be required for the various school environments.
For safer schools and crime prevention, the application of CPTED and an aggressive safety policy is suggested. For the effective operation of safety programs, it would be suggested for students, teachers, and school personnel to actively participate in the program.