C. Ray Jeffery

C. Ray Jeffery was an American criminologist and psychologist best known for founding the concept of Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED). He served as a professor at Florida State University and was one of the earliest proponents of integrating behavioral science, biology, and environmental design into criminological theory. Jeffery’s interdisciplinary perspective challenged mainstream criminology and laid the foundation for modern approaches in situational and environmental crime prevention.

In his landmark 1971 book Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design, Jeffery introduced the idea that the built environment can be strategically designed to reduce opportunities for crime. Unlike later popularizations of CPTED, Jeffery’s approach was holistic and drew on behavioral psychology, learning theory, and neuroscience. He criticized narrow, purely architectural interpretations of his work—such as those by Oscar Newman—for neglecting the behavioral and cognitive aspects of crime. Jeffery also contributed to the development of biosocial criminology, arguing that both biological and environmental factors must be considered in understanding deviant behavior.