Safety audits are a method of assessing personal safety concerns. They can be used by people who want to take positive action to make public spaces safer. Safety audits can lead to an improvement in the physical environment in ways that will reduce the opportunities for crime, making public places like neighbourhoods, parks and streets safer for everyone.
Safety audits focus on working together to increase people's safety in public and semi-public places such as:
- parks
- bus stops
- streets
- the workplace
- colleges and universities
- underground parking garages
- school yards
- washrooms in shopping malls
- the transit system
- laundry rooms
- parking lots
- parkades
- recreation centres, and
- anywhere you feel unsafe
Safety audits help crime prevention by reducing opportunities for crime, particularly violent crime, in public places. Safety audits allow local people to provide accurate and useful information to planners, designers and service providers. They also provide an opportunity for the community to have a say about what
contributes to their feelings of safety in their neighbourhoods, thereby encouraging better use of public space.
Safety audits aim to:
- identify possible crime sites in public spaces;
- address crime-related safety concerns by making recommendations to appropriate authorities and owners of space directed at removing or reducing opportunities for crime; and
- help the community to monitor the implementation of recommendations.
