Capital News Service
LANSING – Community-engaged environmental projects helped reduce crime in Flint, a new study found.
Researchers looked at Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design as strategies for combating crime in Flint’s central area – the University Avenue Corridor.
“Residents who collaboratively planned and implemented neighborhood improvements – for example, boarding abandoned homes and mowing vacant lots – reported feeling closer to neighbors and relying on each other to solve problems,” according to the study in the American Journal of Community Psychology.
It used crime data from 2015 to 2018.
Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design strategies are physical, social and broad-ranging. They include installing cameras and motion detectors, removing trees that obstruct sightlines, parades, educational events and establishing neighborhood groups.
“We found that the streets that had the most intense Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design activity did better over time on both violent crime and gun violence,”
said one of the authors of the study, Laney Rupp of the University of Michigan Prevention Research Collaborative.
“The takeaway seems to be that doing more of this, and in a more community-engaged fashion, seems to make a difference,” Rupp said.