The city of Clovis was carefully planned many years ago to create a deterrant for crime. You cannot enter a neighborhood and exit easily. The design is one that unless you pick on a corner house on a main street, it is difficult to get out of a neighborhood. The same design was applied to business and shopping centers. (It's funny to see a crook try and evade the local police here...if you turn on a city street...you are caught...period.) Every house here was built with built-in alarms as well.
I don't know if the design had any effect on the extremely low crime rates here in town but i can say it didn't hurt.
The city immediately adjacent to Clovis (Fresno) has one of the highest per capita crime rates in the state. Clovis has one of the lowest. I'll take my windy streets and cul-de-sacs any day.