Crime Prevention through Environmental Design course held in Riga

Latvia hosted CEPOL course 45/2012 ‘Crime Prevention through Environmental Design’ on 11-15 June 2012. The activity was held on the premises of the State Police of Latvia in Riga. Twenty participants and nine trainers form 15 EU Member States plus Turkey and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia attended the course.

Throughout the week high level lecturers took the floor. Lecturers were invited from different Member States taking into account their professional experience and making sure that the topic was covered from as many perspectives as possible, not only the police side, but also the public’s and architects’. The course proved that implementation of CPTED in Central and Eastern Europe will be topical for a long time. Participants from Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia and the Czech Republic acknowledged that these ideas are only in the process of being developed in their countries and still a lot of things, including additional training sessions for professionals, need to take place to truly implement this concept. This situation is not comparable with, for example, the Netherlands, Denmark or Ireland where these ideas have been a part of the planning process for approximately 20 years. Participants also acknowledged that they very much enjoyed the multidisciplinary approach to the topic as well as site visits and practical tasks in the working groups. The Latvian organisers were pleased to host the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and Turkish participants who were themselves very much inspired to hear about the CPTED concept and informed the course about their intentions to bring these ideas back home and even organise special events to promote them.

The course also raised a lot of interest from the mass media and interest in changing the environment for a safer and better life in cooperation with police services.