CPTED, or Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design, is the practice of shaping a physical environment so that it discourages crime before any technology is involved. It works through sightlines, lighting, landscaping, access routes, territorial definition, and how a space signals that it is watched and cared for.
It is frequently the cheapest security intervention available, and it is the one most often skipped, because nobody sells it as a product.
CPTED is particularly effective for facilities with public or semi-public exposure: campuses, municipal buildings, healthcare sites, parks and recreation facilities, transit-adjacent properties, parking structures, and any site that has to stay open and welcoming while still being controlled.
It also matters most before construction. A design review during planning costs a fraction of retrofitting the same protection into a finished building, and it avoids the security theater of bolting cameras onto a layout that created the problem.
CPTED is not a substitute for a security program. It reduces opportunity and it shapes behavior, but it does not stop a determined, targeted attack. Anyone selling it as a complete answer is overselling. Its correct role is as the foundation layer that makes everything above it work better and cost less.
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Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design. It is a body of practice concerned with how the design and management of a physical space influences the likelihood of crime occurring there.
Frequently, yes. Many CPTED corrections are low cost or no cost: trimming landscaping that blocks sightlines, relighting a parking area, changing a door swing, moving a dumpster away from a wall, or restoring maintenance. It rarely replaces electronic systems entirely, but it often reduces how much of them you need.
During design, before construction. Retrofitting environmental protection into a finished building costs many times more than getting the layout, lighting, and sightlines right on paper. That said, a review of an existing site almost always surfaces worthwhile corrections.
Tell him what you are protecting and what prompted the question. He will tell you honestly what the work involves and whether he is the right person for it.