Adrienne Helms

Crime Prevention Specialist, CPTED Practitioner – Associate Instructor

Adrienne is a crime prevention specialist and has served as Secretary for the Piedmont Regional Crime Prevention Association since 2011. She served as Crime Prevention Specialist and Public Information Officer for Manassas City Police Department from 2011 to 2017. In this high-speed role she was responsible for the development and execution of Manassas City Police’s Comprehensive Crime Prevention, Community Outreach, and Media Plans. In addition to coordinating various programs such as Rape Aggression Defense (R.A.D.) Self-Defense and MCPD’s presence at events and online, she spearheaded the City’s Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED) review processes and initiatives using her formal education and experience as an urban planner and certified CPTED Practitioner. She has completed security and lighting surveys on over 100 properties for individual residents, apartment complexes, government facilities, Manassas Regional Airport (HEF), schools, commercial enterprises, and religious organizations throughout Northern Virginia.

 Adrienne has taught crime prevention classes on everything from identify theft prevention to missing child prevention to advanced self-defense for women. She has attended innumerable community meetings to discuss citizen concerns about registered sex offenders, vehicle theft, phone scams, and more. She has presented for countless groups of school-aged children and professional groups to include real estate agents, social workers, philanthropists, and teachers about how to organize a more secure work environment, respond to an active shooter incident, and detect and respond to the signs of human trafficking. She has organized a myriad of well-received events such as youth camps, police station tours, National Night Out, and Police Open Houses to give police and residents an opportunity to positively interact and learn from each other, and drawing on her partnerships with local, state, and federal agencies, has brought crime prevention services such as VIN etching – a vehicle theft prevention method – directly out into the community at no cost to the public.

Since resigning from law enforcement, she continues to conduct research in CPTED for Historic Properties and teach law enforcement professionals and community groups on a volunteer basis through RAD Systems, the Piedmont Regional Crime Prevention Association, and various academies. Adrienne attained her Bachelor of Arts from College of Charleston in Urban Studies and a Masters of Urban & Regional Planning from Virginia Tech. She is certified as a Crime Prevention Specialist through the National Crime Prevention Association. She is also an advanced self defense instructor through Rape Aggression Defense Systems, Inc.