Abstract
<title>Abstract</title> <p>Crime prevention through environmental design (CPTED) is embedded in statutory planning across many jurisdictions, and consultant-authored reports are the instrument through which it enters development assessment. Almost nothing is known systematically about what these reports contain. We report a content analysis of 100 CPTED reports lodged with State Significant Development applications in New South Wales, Australia, coded against 34 variables in nine analytical domains, the largest systematic examination of CPTED reporting to date. The reports deploy the language of risk without its method: 77% identify threats, but only 15% present a risk matrix and 9% a risk register. The analytical chain from site context to risk-linked recommendation completes in 16% of reports, and presentation quality (92%) outruns process rigour (17%) by 75 percentage points. Evidenced community engagement is nearly absent (surveys 6%). The deficit is structural and consistent across firm type and firm tier, unchanged by ISO 22341:2021, and flat across a decade of practice. Drawing on audit-society and regulatory-ritualism theory, we argue that these reports function as compliance artefacts rather than risk instruments, the product of a regime that verifies submission rather than substance, and identify reform levers.</p>