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The purpose of this paper is to respond to the need for comparative studies on methodologies for implementing Crime Prevention through Urban Design and Planning (CP-UDP) at the local level, particularly in peripheral Europe where CP-UDP’s top-down standards have poor dissemination and acceptance. This paper debates how local partnerships can help reduce crime and how a CP-UDP-based model can be introduced into municipal planning.

The paper discusses the challenge of CP-UDP in the framework of a post-crisis Europe and Europe 2020. Because there is a large gap between theory and practice, lack of a shared holistic approach, and scepticism, or lack of knowledge, of public authorities, at local-level planning professionals and the police have devised bottom-up initiatives based on interdisciplinary partnerships with the community. The paper describes, discusses and compares the implementation of such approaches in Lisbon (Portugal) and Vilnius (Lithuania).

The paper addresses the processes and challenges of establishing synergies and working relationships between police officers, public officials and the community, and it discusses six main causes for its (un)success. When these conditions were met, crime and social constraints reduced.

Lessons learned are deemed crucial to disseminate knowledge and best practices, paving the way for proper top-down policies and planning legislations in these and other countries.

This paper analyses the potentialities and shortcomings of local-level implementation of CP-UDP strategies as an alternative to failed top-down strategies in two realities mostly unknown of the international scientific community. The case study material is previously unpublished internationally.

The purpose of this paper is to combine both Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED) and space syntax for the more detailed and overall analysis of built environment in terms of crime. The author is aiming to verify the designed research methodology by its application in cities that are similar in terms of size and population, and are very different in culture and location: New Haven (USA) and Kaunas (Lithuania).

Based on CPTED strategies the factors of urban environment are analyzed, such as topological depth from private space to a public space, density of entrances and windows, street’s constitutedness, inter-visibility, land use, blind walls, segment’s accessibility, greenery, lighting, objects of small architecture, graffiti. Space syntax method is applied for the analysis of the following topological properties of urban spaces: integration, choice, depth, connectivity.

The combination of both methods revels that choice and depth of urban spaces are related to robberies, and connectivity and depth are related to thefts from motor vehicles in New Haven. Integration and depth are related to thefts from motor vehicles in Kaunas. According to the correlation analysis results, in Kaunas more robberies happen in common use areas, and more thefts from cars happen in the spaces with blind walls and dense abandoned greenery. In New Haven more thefts from motor vehicles happen in spaces with blind walls. In both cities with the increase of the topological depth the thefts from motor vehicles increase too.

Based on the research results recommendations on urban planning and design are developed. The implementation of the recommendations might make New Haven and Kaunas safer.