Safety and Crime Prevention

GOAL: To improve the safety of neighborhoods and residents’ perceptions of safety in their neighborhoods so that children and families become more physically active.

1. Keep Communities Safe and Free From Crime to Encourage Outdoor Activity

The Issues and the Research: While unsafe environments are usually associated with violence, they also can include dilapidated, inadequate physical infrastructure that is unsafe for physical activity. Parents’ perceptions of safety in their neighborhoods, from concerns about traffic to strangers, can determine the level of activity in which their children engage.^1,2 Women in lower-income and African-American and Latino neighborhoods, in particular, feel unsafe more often and therefore spend less time outdoors. For instance, women who perceived that their neighborhoods were unsafe walked 20 percent less than those who said their neighborhoods were safe.³ Another recent study found that adolescent girls in high-crime areas were less active outdoors than those in neighborhoods with lower crime rates.⁴ A study of Chicago residents demonstrated that youth living in safer neighborhoods engaged in physical activity for an additional 49 minutes per week than youth living in unsafe neighborhoods.⁵ In underserved communities, access to safe places to play, such as school playgrounds during after-school hours, improves the likelihood that children will be physically active.^6,7

Potential Stakeholders

Policy-makers
State and local elected and appointed officials
School officials (e.g., state boards of education, local school boards and school administrators)

Other Government and Community Stakeholders
Public health officials
Law enforcement agencies
Nonprofit organizations and federal programs such as Safe Routes to School, alcohol prevention programs and Community Oriented Policing Services
Local businesses
Community volunteers and neighborhood associations (community coalitions)

Policy and Program Options

Street patrol
Local policy-makers can increase policing in high-crime areas, pedestrian walkways and parks. Police departments can work with communities to receive input on danger zones.

Safe Routes to School
State, local and school officials can support Walk to School or Safe Routes to School programs (see “Support Walk to School and Safe Routes to School Programs”).

Watch groups
Local policy-makers can work with community members to employ alternative policing strategies, such as neighborhood watch groups.

Problem-oriented policing
Local policy-makers can adopt problem-oriented policing, which promotes the systematic analysis of problems to identify potential solutions and partnerships with organizations and communities to reduce crime.

Community design and aesthetics
Local policy-makers can adopt community design strategies that discourage crime. For example, they can ensure safe, attractive walking environments by providing appropriate lighting, building design features that promote eyes on the street (such as front porches and active storefronts with windows overlooking sidewalks), and pedestrian-friendly sidewalks and streets. They also can rehabilitate vacant properties and clean up gang graffiti and debris.

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1 Committee on Physical Activity, Health, Transportation, and Land Use. Does the Built Environment Influence Physical Activity? Examining the Evidence. (Special Report 282). Washington: Transportation Research Board/Institute of Medicine, March-April 2005. Available at www.trb.org/news/blurb_detail.asp?id=4536.
2 Timperio A, Crawford D, Telford A, et al. “Perceptions About the Local Neighborhood and Walking and Cycling Among Children.” Preventive Medicine, 38(1): 39-47, January 2004.
3 Bennett G, McNeil L, Wolin K, et al. “Safe to Walk? Neighborhood Safety and Physical Activity Among Public Housing Residents.” Public Library of Science Medicine, 4(10): 1599-606, October 2007.
4 Gomez J, Johnson B, Selva M, Sallis J, et al. “Violent Crime and Outdoor Physical Activity Among Inner-city Youth.” Preventive Medicine, 39(5): 876-881, March 2004.
5 Molner B, Gortmaker S, Bull F, et al. “Unsafe to Play? Neighborhood Disorder and Lack of Safety Predict Reduced Physical Activity Among Urban Children and Adolescents.” American Journal of Health Promotion, 18(5): 378-386, May 2004.
6 Farley T, Meriwether R, Baker E, et al. “Safe Play Spaces to Promote Physical Activity in Inner-City Children: Results From a Pilot Study of an Environmental Intervention.” American Journal of Public Health, 97(9): 1625-1631, September 2007.
7 Choy L, McGurk M, Tamashiro R, et al. “Increasing Access to Places for Physical Activity through a Joint Use Agreement: A Case Study in Urban Honolulu.” Preventing Chronic Disease, 5(3): A91, July 2008.