C. Ray Jeffery

Clarence Ray Jeffery, born in 1921, was an American criminologist and professor at Florida State University who coined the term Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design, known by the acronym CPTED, in his 1971 book of the same name. Jeffery's approach shifted criminology's attention away from the individual offender and toward how the design of the physical environment, including features such as lighting, sightlines and the layout of buildings and public spaces, could be used to reduce the opportunity for crime, a broader formulation than the similar but narrower built-environment model developed independently around the same time by the architect Oscar Newman. Jeffery's CPTED concept went on to influence urban planning, architecture and policing practice internationally, becoming a standard framework taught in criminology and criminal justice programs and applied by crime prevention practitioners worldwide.