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Show Notes: Expanding CPTED: Designing Safer Communities with Terry Conlon | Episode #41

Travis

Overview

#041 – In this next episode, I was joined by Terry Conlon, a global leader in Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED) and the author of The CPTED Paradigm – A Holistic Approach to Crime Prevention.

Today’s conversation explored what CPTED is, how it’s applied differently across global communities, how to sell the idea to decision makers, the central role of people in the process, and why CPTED should be accessible to everyone. Terry also shared how he’s working to bring these concepts to a wider audience.

Terry brings nearly three decades of experience in physical security and crime prevention. He is the Founder and President of the European Institute of Crime Prevention, President of Safer Spaces International, and a Director at RFC Security Group.


Highlights from This Episode

  1. CPTED as a Cornerstone of Security: Terry emphasizes that Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED) is foundational to any effective security strategy.
  2. Security Is an Enabler: By making spaces safer, businesses improve reputation, increase customer confidence, and ultimately drive commercial activity.
  3. Context Shapes Application: In Europe, CPTED implementation often contends with religious and cultural divides, while in the U.S. it leans heavily toward mitigating active shooter risks.
  4. Community Champions Matter: Successful projects often hinge on trusted local voices advocating for safer spaces, helping to build buy-in where outside consultants might not.
  5. Small Changes, Big Results: From revolving doors that displaced loiterers in Manhattan to vegetation design in neighborhoods, subtle design adjustments can dramatically reduce crime risk.

Memorable Quotes:

RESOURCES MENTIONED

Books:

Organizations

Events

Use CONTROL + F to search the transcript below if you want to learn more!

Transcript from this episode

*Note: this transcript was generated using automated software, and may not be a perfect transcription. But I hope you find it useful.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the Security Student Podcast. In this next episode, I was joined by Terry Conlin, who is a global leader in crime prevention through environmental design, also called SEPTED. He's also the author of The SEPTED Paradigm, A Holistic Approach to Crime Prevention. And in today's conversation, we explored what SEPTED is, how it's applied differently across global communities, because he does bring a global perspective to the conversation, doing much of his work in Europe. Also, we discussed how to sell the idea of SEPTED to decision makers, the central role of people in the process of implementing SEPTED programs, and why SEPTED should be accessible to everyone. Terry also shared how he's working to bring these concepts to a wider audience, not just those of us working in security. He also brings nearly three decades of experience in physical security and crime prevention. He is the founder and president of the European Institute of Crime Prevention, president of Safer Spaces International, and a director at RFC Security Group. It was an absolute honor to sit down with Terry for this discussion, and I think you'll find his perspective both insightful and also very practical in the work that you all are doing. I hope you enjoy the following conversation. And as a reminder, if you want to support the podcast, please open up your Spotify or Apple podcast app and click follow, so you never miss a show. Cheers. Terry, I'm very excited to welcome you. You're really our first podcast guest that's going to help us dive into the idea of crime prevention through environmental design, and you bring a really unique perspective because you do projects in Europe, in the US, all over the world. So I think it'll be really cool to hear about some of the initiatives you're driving, about the recent book you published, and then also generally for others who may be less familiar with SEPTED, getting your general perspective and then even challenges you might see implementing SEPTED across some of the different cultures. So I'm very excited, very grateful to welcome you, Terry. Amazing. Thank you so much for having me. Really looking forward to today's conversation. Thanks, Charles. Of course. And I think one interesting place to get started, Terry, could you share how you got first involved in physical security and SEPTED? Did you start off like some of us where we were running around wearing a duty belt as a security officer? Did you really start it off at grassroots as a security officer? Working for minimum wage, and the initial objective was to work less hours for more money. That was the first goal. And luckily, I was able to achieve that at a young age, and I graduated through the ranks quite quickly and into supervisory roles, operations, and started my own business in 2002, I think it was 2001. So I originally came into the industry in 1996. So I started my own business, security was always a passion of mine. Again, I didn't really want to stand back in those years. What a difference we could do with SEPTED, our physical security or design against security officer, just trying to do this job and do the best that he could. But again, I kind of ties in really well with SEPTED and the community engagement, social engagement. My old professor used to say he got two ears and one mouth, he used them in that ratio. So I discovered really, really quickly that I needed to listen, that I needed to understand that I didn't know anything. And even today, I don't know anything compared to what I will know next year or the year after. And I've always surrounded myself with good people. And to be honest and to be fair, every single individual I've worked with in the US is amazing. Everybody. Europe, not so much. Most people are, but every single individual and organization has been welcoming, has been shared with me and voice versus. So as an officer in the beginning, didn't know much, didn't really know where I wanted to go, but I discovered really, really quickly that I can make a difference. I didn't know what it was going to be. But again, within retail where I was, it was maybe make an impact on shrink, maybe reduce anti-social behavior, but I could do something. And then over the years, as I've begun to study more, get involved with more organizations and more great people, I figured that me and my own couldn't do everything. But if I was with good people that had a good network, a good understanding and accepted is so important when it comes to bridging the gap between so many industries. And that's why I love it so much because I'd have a conversation with an architect, with an urban designer, with a politician, with a security officer, with everybody. And if you speak the accepted language, you understand the holistic approach to reducing crime. And we might talk about it a bit later on, but empowering communities and driving commercial activities within business. And that's ultimately what I try to do. Make people aware that, yes, we're going to try and mitigate potential threats. But we're also going to empower your employees, your students, we're going to empower your campus, your businesses, to be something more powerful than it could be based on the fact that the risk is lowered, you're more prepared. Thus, you become more appealing as a school, as a business, or as a resident. So when we look at SEPTED and we look at security, oftentimes we see security as a, but I don't, but some people do, see security as an unnecessary cost. When you look at it holistically, you realize really, really quickly. If your business or college or university or a resident is safer, people tend to linger longer. People want to be in that space. Hence, they're going to spend more dollars where your business is. So we got to get that message across. So for me, SEPTED has just been the cornerstone of what I do and what I have done. And that transcends all of the industries from retail, residential construction, any type of industry where there's a threat and every industry suffers a threat. SEPTED is so powerful when it comes to mitigation at this place. Yeah. And I think too, being able to have that perspective of being the security officer, it gives you a different way of looking at SEPTED. I remember when I first did, I did an NICP's National Institute of Crime Prevention. I did their basic and advanced SEPTED course. And then once I did that course, it really gave me the language for understanding some of the challenges that I was seeing a decade prior. I could remember back being a residential security officer working at a billionaire's residence. And I could think back to a time when someone would try to jump the fence or to gain access to one of the properties. And looking back, now that I have this lens of SEPTED, I could see, oh, this was the perfect area. The lighting was poor. It was at a time of day when you have less volume of pedestrian traffic. It was an area that was kind of concealed and hidden away. So you had all of these factors. At the time, I didn't have the language to describe it or to say, you know, there's something about this area that might be, that might need our attention. But once you have that language for understanding SEPTED, you really can see it in every context. It almost doesn't matter which aspect of security or which aspect of design. So I just find it so applicable to all areas. It really, really is. And again, we spoke a moment ago about the different industries. So whether you're an architect, or some great architects of all SEPTED, we've got law enforcement. So if you look at the state of Florida, they brought in the House Bill H370, where there is a statute now in place in terms of multi-family. So a lot of law enforcement involved with that, physical security consultants. What we don't want to see is we don't want to see a migration of people jumping on the bandwagon, so to speak, and offering poorer levels of service. And I've seen this, I've witnessed this, where assessments have taken place, and they've been less than worthy of what they should have been. So it's really important that people get as much information. We do want to move to a space where we see all states, all countries with a certain level of code and legislation around the inclusion of SEPTED. And we don't want to see the SEPTED guy at the table let nobody take seriously, because we have so many important topics and conversations to have. So we got to see it move forward. It is beginning to move forward. Again, something that people are very much unaware of, there's so much funding available for low to medium levels. So whether you're a place of worship, whether you're a school, and there are some great people out there acting as consultants that will help you. And I know many of them, it's just a pity that some of the schools and some of these businesses were not aware of where to get the funding because it is there, like millions of dollars in funding to help low to medium level security risks. And that's something I would like to see in terms of some of a widespread codification or legislation and easier access. It's kind of like the IRS, they don't usually come banging at your door if they owe you money. But if you want money, they come looking for you. So I'd like to see where grants are more public. People are made more aware of the funding that's available. And again, to help schools and help businesses access that funding because information is power and if you don't know where to get it, you're not going to go for it. Right. Yeah. And I've seen a number of security consultants here in the US where they do put a big emphasis on educating some of their clients, whether it's schools, whether it's religious institutions, because you have many of these grants that come from local state, federal government for improving security in these areas. And something as fundamental as SEPTED about designing the space in the proper way, which seems to be like, like it should be the foundation before purchasing ridiculous expensive technology that isn't going to be as reliable as designing the environment. So I think that's such an important area. And maybe that's a good transition for us, Terry. Could you explain to our audience what SEPTED is? Maybe if they're less familiar with SEPTED? Yeah. So when I talked to anybody and they say, and we spoke before we came on, my wife and my kids are nearly at advanced stages of SEPTED now, just by hanging out with me. We got those four generations of SEPTED and we always start with the natural surveillance, natural access control, territorial reinforcement and maintenance as the cornerstone. To begin with, put it really, really important for me. People will always say, what's your favorite aspect of SEPTED? Is it lighting? Is it natural surveillance? For me, people are always the threat and people are always the answer. So the social and community engagement is so, so, so important. You can have your adaptive integrated technology really, really important also. But the cornerstone of achieving your ambition of reducing or mitigating a threat or even displacing that threat is having every stakeholder on board. So for me, if I was to put SEPTED into a short reference point, it would be the possibility of bringing every stakeholder to the table for moral backgrounds and having them all on the same page, working towards the same ambition of reducing crime, but also empowering communities and businesses to prosper. That's where we got to move from. We got to think outside of the box that, yes, designing schools and designing properties in a way that they feel safe and they flow safe is really important, but then people linger longer and then the value and the reputation of your property is really significantly heightened and that's what SEPTED can do. You mentioned before hundreds and thousands of dollars on CCTV access control systems that are amazing. Some of the tech that's out there is amazing, but all it takes is for somebody to leave the door ajar, somebody to tailgate through. The system won't always pick up one that especially at schools. So if you spend a ton of money on a secure vestibule and the cleaner nibs out the back to have a cigarette or leaves the door ajar and then you're left exposed because of human behavior. So we talk about SEPTED and the culture. It's getting the buy-in from everybody. So why should somebody look in a certain direction? Why should somebody report something? What is the benefit individually and collectively? And I think with SEPTED and the community engagement, it's making people aware of their responsibilities as an individual, but also the responsibility to everybody that frequents that place and again in the hope of reducing and mitigating any potential threats. And I see that idea of responsibility being especially important in places like schools or maybe organizations that don't necessarily have the same amount of funding as others because comparing one of these smaller organizations to a corporate environment, in a corporate environment, you're going to have larger staff where they could actually monitor every little, every access control event, everything happening on the video surveillance system. But with those smaller organizations, the thing about the technology is that you need someone on the other end who's going to take action when something happens. So it's at least in my mind, it seems like SEPTED and design is the foundation because it's always going to be there. It's always going to be reliably taking place before you start adding on technology, which has so many other requirements and prerequisites for it to actually have the intended effect that the user spending all the money expected to have. Absolutely. And never for one moment do we want people to think that if you're a SEPTED advocate, you're excluding or moving away from technologies, it's a huge part of what we do in terms of integrated technology, especially the way AI behaves, CCTV is moving out. Suthi, Suthi is important. But to your point, we had two stores side by side from the same chain. Realistically, within the same demographic, we ran one with SEPTED training and we provided the store with additional SEPTED support and did not provide the other store as a case study. We reduced the shrinkage level on the store that provided the SEPTED training to, whilst the one that didn't receive it remained the same. Now, it didn't decrease or increase, but it remained the same. But we made a positive impact in terms of implementing and integrating a Red Route system, which is specifically trafficking your staff, your security team through vulnerable parts of the store that may be occupied by potential criminals. So that in line with other recommendations...than before I went and that will happen again and again and again. So when you have the opportunity to work with people, take that opportunity, listen, share and move forward together. That's my biggest, biggest thing that I would say to everybody. If the opportunity comes to speak with somebody about it, take the opportunity to work with somebody, work with them. It's so important to learn from different people. We spoke about the assessments, how somebody views a threat compared to how I view it may differ, how their recommendations may differ from my recommendations. And again, it's only by having that perspective and the philosophy that you can then integrate their views into your own views and perhaps make yourself even better. I think that's such an important part, like you mentioned, being able to read other people's recommendations or having to explain your recommendations to someone else. Because I think really it's like teaching someone else about your way of thinking, about your approach to the problem and then getting immediate feedback when they challenge you. And they say, well, did you think about this? What about, how does that relate to this specific community? Is this culturally aligned? Is this going to work for the long term? So like being able to get immediate feedback and challenges to your perspective and to get other ideas. I think that's so important for growth. And then also, yeah, getting out there to some of these different professional organizations when they're holding conferences, being able to network and talk with and learn from others. And then also just having their business card for later on when you do run into a challenge and you think, you know, Travis isn't qualified for this. But I know the person that I met at this conference 60 days ago, I know their expert in this very niche area, being able to call upon some of these people who have very unique perspectives and unique experience. That's, it just magnifies the work that we're able to do for our clients at the end of the day. Absolutely. And it's so important. I still do it to this day. Yesterday I texted somebody, I needed some resources and I got it within an hour. And again, I think what people find difficult, some people find difficult from conversations I've had, they find it difficult to network and they find it difficult to get out there. But we've all had to do it. We all still do it. And 95% of the time people are really, really welcoming. People will share with you because we all started somewhere or we all going to need support or help at some point. So I think once you overcome the obstacle of being able to walk into a room and speak to people, you're going to be on the right road because I still do it to this day. I'll walk into a room on my own and just start talking to people because that's what you got to do. So I think if you can overcome that, that negativity of being fearful and striking up a conversation or even reaching out to people all of the time, all of the time. Most of the time they come back really, really, really warmly and sometimes not so warmly. But if you don't reach out, you'll never know. Yeah, that's absolutely true. And it's like a snowball effect. Once you go to one conference, you meet a handful of people, you go back to the conference again. Now you know 2% of the people in the room, you come back again. Next time you know 10%. So it just keeps snowballing as you start getting to some of these conferences and just getting out there shaking hands and learning and just having a genuine interest in the work that other people are doing. So I think that's important. I think if you have a passion and ability from what you do and a love for what you do, this will shine through a million times. People will just warm to you and they'll want to share and listen to you. It takes time, but be persistent and stick at it. Yeah, I think that's fantastic advice. And let's see. Are there any other areas or any other topics that you wanted to discuss today? Terry, before we close. There's a couple of speech engagements coming up. And some in Ireland and some in the US. I'm going to be doing one in Dublin on the 15th of October, which is an AIB bank and Irish Smalls and Media Enterprise conference. On the 15th of October, 9am to 1pm in the city centre. That's going to be really, really good. That's specifically around climate prevention in retail. So again, we look at it from that perspective. Then I'm going to a young offenders detention centre to try and motivate them and inspire them in terms of their future. So we're going to talk about SEPTED from the other side of the fence and how people feel when they are intruded upon or when they are attacked. And perhaps open people's minds up to how they made people feel and how they feel. But again, ultimately, a job is to inspire people that no matter how low you get, whether you're a young offender, that there is a pathway forward again to hard work, dedication and discipline. And November is going to be ISCE East in Java Centre, New York. Then December is going to be the inside school safety summit or Orange Beach in Alabama. And that's going to be the last one before the end of the year. So yeah, so a couple of two in New York, two in the US and two in Dublin. So a nice mix. Yeah. And when you talk about the young offenders, I know you're a big fan of boxing, but it brings me back to the story of Mike Tyson. How Mike Tyson, he grew up essentially without a father, without a father, without a mother. He grew up in the hood robbing, stealing. He ends up going to Juvie, where he runs into basically a lower level boxing coach who kind of gets him into boxing, eventually connects him with Customado, who essentially adopts him, raises him up, convinces him he's going to be the greatest ever. But it all kind of started with him going to a juvenile detention centre, but magically getting connected with someone who inspires him to start learning boxing. So being able to connect with people who are in that stage of their life, it could be, you know, it could be the difference between them dying in some kind of violent incident or them becoming the greatest heavyweight boxer ever. And I think that's why SEPTED is so important, because the engagement part, being able to pay it forward and help people, and being really, really sincere and genuine about wanting to help people, because everybody needed some support at different levels in their life for different reasons. But I think you mentioned if we can impact one person, just to make a change, or do something a bit better, whether that's true security or SEPTED or anything, it's a job well done. And that's what we're all about. So my good friend Rodney Andreessen, I'm sure if you know Rodney, he's in Jacksonville. Oh, yeah, yeah. And great guy, great guy. And he always says that's me about paying it forward. And it's so important that if you're lucky enough to get the lift halfway up, that you send it back down to somebody and allow the privilege of coming halfway up as well. So really important that we do what we do. We don't forget where we came from. And if we get the opportunity, that we can have one person. And it's only a couple of hours in my time, it's really, really important. Yeah. And I think that's the perfect way to wrap up the podcast with that emphasis on paying it forward when we've all had so many people lift us up along the way to also pay it back when we get that random cold message on LinkedIn where someone's trying to get into some new aspect of the security industry or they're trying to learn about a topic, just being willing to set aside a little bit of time to help that other person when you know along the way that so many others made that effort that sacrificed for you. Usually, I just finish on Romans 8, 21, God is for you, who can be against you. And that's all I say to everybody. That's one of the most powerful things you can ever hear. So never give up. Keep on trying. Meet everybody. Be sincere. Don't be a dormant. It will help people and it will help you in the level. Yeah, I love that. I love that. That's great. So, Terry, I really appreciate you sharing your time with me today. We covered so many interesting topics. And I think a lot of these are, I think a lot of these will be some really new, interesting ideas because so many others, they don't practice SEPTED day to day and as thoroughly as you. So for them to be able to come to this podcast and look at some of the key ideas you laid out for how to sell SEPTED at the end of the day to someone who's like an executive who's not necessarily a security director or security practitioner. Or even just hearing about some of these creative ways that you're seeing SEPTED applied in Europe and the US. I feel like this is going to be so educational for our users and then for our listeners. And then they're going to have some great resources that they could go to at the end of the day, whether it's the EICP, whether it's US SEPTED and then of course your book. So Terry, I am very grateful for you sharing your time with me today. Thank you very much. Have a great weekend. Thanks, you too. And that concludes today's episode. Remember, show notes from today's chat can be found online at thesecuritystudent.com, which includes a transcript, links to resources mentioned, and a quick summary of big ideas we touched on today. Final note, if you're finding my podcast useful and you want to help me in a very meaningful way, please go to the Apple Podcasts app and write a quick review stating why you love the podcast.
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