While work in planning around violence prevention has traditionally focused on crime prevention through environmental design, this research suggests a broadened role for spatial planning, related to social service provision, evidence-based ‘whole of government’ coordinated action, and engendering changes in attitudes towards public and private space.

Specifically, the paper focuses on community safety indicators as an evaluation tool for local government policies and programs.

This paper briefly outlines the state of crime prevention and community safety initiatives in Australia and Canada, followed by an analysis of practical and theoretical dilemmas in getting to the first stage of community safety planning, that of problem identification.