The purpose of the competition is to encourage the development and execution of projects that reduce crime and fear of crime as well as to promote the knowledge of Best Practices for crime prevention internationally.

The winning project of the annual ECPA competition receives a prize of 10.000 euro. The winner is chosen by an international jury consisting of judges from each of the member countries. The requirements for the nominated projects are that the project should offer a community based solution, they have to focus at the prevention of municipal crime with tangible results and they have to be replicable by interested parties. Furthermore, the projects shouldn't affect the quality of life
adversely.

The origins of ECPA lie in the Netherlands. Since 1987 Belgium, Great Britain, Sweden, Denmark and France have joined the competition and in 2001 Portugal announced the intent to participate. Each country participates with one project of their choice and the winner acts as the host of the award ceremony in the following year. This year, Belgium will be hosting the competition. The nominee for the ECPA will be chosen by the National Council for Crime Prevention, from the best projects available.

The ECPA is connected to the EUCPN (European Crime Prevention Network), in which the National Council for Crime Prevention functions as one of the representatives of the Finnish crime prevention work.