The Bellingham Police Department is committed to building partnerships with community members in a variety of ways to keep Bellingham a beautiful and safe community. We have staff trained in Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED) pronounced "sep-ted". We can be a resource to you before building or remodeling.

If our community does not pay attention to these design principles, we can inadvertently create environments that are conducive to criminal activity. We would then take on much more liability concerns than we intended.

The basic premise of CPTED is the proper design and effective use of the built environment can lead to a decrease in crime or fear of crime and improve the quality of life.

There are three basic overlapping design principles of CPTED: Access Control, Natural Surveillance and Territorial Reinforcement. These principles can help create an environment that increases the perception of risk for a potential offender.

For a free analysis or more information contact the Bellingham Police Department.