Luckily plenty of work has been done to show how that can happen. A new publication released at Rio+20 has a chapter co-written by myself and my ICA friend and South African architect Tinus Kruger that shows how environment and crime fit together.
The book is titled Sustainable Cities and authors include the Secretary-General for the Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) Sha Zukang, Executive Director of UN Habitat Joan Clos, the Mayor of Rio de Janeiro, Eduardo Paes and Danish Minister of Transport, Henrik Dam Kristensen.
More details can be found on the Rio+20 Sustainable Cities website.