scholarly journals Does the association between flows of people and crime differ across crime types in Sweden?

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Manne Gerell
Keyword(s):  
Hot Spots ◽  
Routine Activity ◽  
Train Station ◽  
Pattern Theory ◽  
Crime Pattern Theory ◽  
Crime Types ◽  
Crime Counts ◽  
Important Object ◽  
Object Of Study ◽  
High Crime

Places with persistently high levels of crime, hot spots, are an important object of study. To some extent the high levels of crime at such hot spots are likely to be related to flows of people. City center locations with large flows of people are quite often also hot spots, e.g. hot spots for pick pocketing at a central train station, or hot spots for assault in the nightlife district. This can be related to crime pattern theory, or to the routine activity perspective, which both suggest that flows of people can affect crime. The present study attempts to explore and quantify whether there are differences in the association between flows of people and crime for different crime types. The analysis considers locations with high crime counts for six crime types in the city of Malmö, Sweden. For each crime type, hot spots are identified and mapped, and in order to explore whether, or how, these are related to flows of people, the crime levels are then analyzed in relation to the number of people who boarded a local bus (N=33,134,198) nearby. The paper shows that all six crime types are associated with flows of people, although less so for arson and vandalism. This is hypothesized to be due to the relatively constant target availability for these crimes as opposed to the other crime types studied.

scholarly journals Does the Association Between Flows of People and Crime Differ Across Crime Types in Sweden?

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Manne Gerell
Keyword(s):  
Hot Spots ◽  
Routine Activity ◽  
Train Station ◽  
Pattern Theory ◽  
Crime Pattern Theory ◽  
Crime Types ◽  
Crime Counts ◽  
Important Object ◽  
Object Of Study ◽  
High Crime

AbstractPlaces with persistently high levels of crime, hot spots, are an important object of study. To some extent, the high levels of crime at such hot spots are likely to be related to flows of people. City center locations with large flows of people are quite often also hot spots, e.g., hot spots for pick pocketing at a central train station, or hot spots for assault in the nightlife district. This can be related to crime pattern theory, or to the routine activity perspective, which both suggest that flows of people can affect crime. The present study attempts to explore and quantify whether there are differences in the association between flows of people and crime for different crime types. The analysis considers locations with high crime counts for six crime types in the city of Malmö, Sweden. For each crime type, hot spots are identified and mapped, and in order to explore whether, or how, these are related to flows of people, the crime levels are then analyzed in relation to the number of people who boarded a local bus (N = 33,134,198) nearby. The paper shows that all six crime types are associated with flows of people, although less so for arson and vandalism. This is hypothesized to be due to the relatively constant target availability for these crimes as opposed to the other crime types studied.

Place Managers and Crime Places

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
John E. Eck
Keyword(s):  
Hot Spots ◽  
Routine Activity Theory ◽  
Health Centers ◽  
Routine Activity ◽  
Regulatory Agencies ◽  
Place Management ◽  
Bus Stop ◽  
The People ◽  
Safety Function ◽  
High Crime

Place management theory—a part of routine activity theory—explains why a relatively few places have a great deal of crime while most places have little or no crime. The explanation is the way place managers carry out their four primary functions: organization of space, regulation of conduct, control of access, and acquisition of resources. Place managers are those people and organizations that own and operate businesses, homes, hotels, drinking establishments, schools, government offices, places of worship, health centers, and other specific locations. They can even operate mobile places such as busses, trains, ships, and aircraft. Some are large—a multi-story office tower for example—while others are tiny—a bus stop, for example. Place managers are important because they can exercise control over the people who use these locations and in doing so contribute to public order and safety. Consequently, it is important to understand place management, how it can fail, and what one can do to prevent failures. Place management has implications beyond high-crime sites. When crime places are connected, they can create crime hot spots in an area. The concentration of high crime places can inflate crime in a neighborhood. Moreover, place management can be applied to virtual locations, such as servers, websites, and other network infrastructures. There is considerable evaluation evidence that place managers can change high crime locations to low crime locations. Research also shows that displacement to other places, though possible, is far from inevitable. Indeed, research shows that improving a high crime place can reduce crime at places nearby places. Although much of this research has studied how police intervene with place managers, non-police regulatory agencies can carry out this public safety function.

scholarly journals A framework for estimating crime location choice based on awareness space

Crime Science ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sophie Curtis-Ham ◽  
Wim Bernasco ◽  
Oleg N. Medvedev ◽  
Devon Polaschek
Keyword(s):  
Location Choice ◽  
Empirical Work ◽  
Routine Activity ◽  
Pattern Theory ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Crime Pattern Theory ◽  
Reliable Knowledge ◽  
Crime Pattern ◽  
Behaviour Type ◽  
Selection Of

Abstract This paper extends Crime Pattern Theory, proposing a theoretical framework which aims to explain how offenders’ previous routine activity locations influence their future offence locations. The framework draws on studies of individual level crime location choice and location choice in non-criminal contexts, to identify attributes of prior activities associated with the selection of the location for future crime. We group these attributes into two proposed mechanisms: reliability and relevance. Offenders are more likely to commit crime where they have reliable knowledge that is relevant to the particular crime. The perceived reliability of offenders’ knowledge about a potential crime location is affected by the frequency, recency and duration of their prior activities in that location. Relevance reflects knowledge of a potential crime location’s crime opportunities and is affected by the type of behaviour, type of location and timing of prior activities in that location. We apply the framework to generate testable hypotheses to guide future studies of crime location choice and suggest directions for further theoretical and empirical work. Understanding crime location choice using this framework could also help inform policing investigations and crime prevention strategies.

Using environmental criminology theories to compare ‘youth misuse of fire’ across age groups in New South Wales

2016 ◽  
Vol 50 (1) ◽  
pp. 100-122 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kamarah Pooley ◽  
Claire E Ferguson
Keyword(s):  
Activity Theory ◽  
New South ◽  
New South Wales ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
Routine Activity Theory ◽  
Routine Activity ◽  
Pattern Theory ◽  
Crime Pattern Theory ◽  
South Wales ◽  
Crime Pattern

Youth misuse of fire is a substantive community concern. Despite evidence which indicates youths account for a significant proportion of all deliberately lit fires within Australia, an absence of up-to-date, contextually specific research means the exact scope and magnitude of youth misuse of fire within Australia remains unknown. Despite research suggesting commonalities exist between youth misuse of fire and juvenile offending more broadly, misuse of fire is rarely explained using criminological theory. In light of this gap, a descriptive analysis of youth misuse of fire within New South Wales was performed. Routine Activity Theory and Crime Pattern Theory were tested to explain differences in misuse of fire across age groups. Results suggest these environmental theories offer useful frameworks for explaining youth misuse of fire in New South Wales. It is argued that the Routine Activity Theory and Crime Pattern Theory can be employed to better inform youth misuse of fire policy and prevention efforts.

Crime Location Choice

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stijn Ruiter
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Location Choice ◽  
Routine Activity ◽  
Spatial Choice ◽  
Pattern Theory ◽  
Crime Pattern Theory ◽  
Random Utility Maximization ◽  
Theoretical Perspectives ◽  
Temporal Aspects ◽  
Crime Pattern

Crime is unevenly distributed in space. This chapter discusses the uneven spatial patterns in crime from an offender decision-making perspective. It describes the main theoretical perspectives in environmental criminology (the rational choice perspective, routine activity approach, and crime pattern theory) and reviews the empirical research with an emphasis on studies that have used a discrete spatial choice framework for analyzing individual crime location choices. The strength of the discrete spatial choice framework, several of its assumptions, and its link with random utility maximization theory are discussed. The chapter concludes with several challenges for future crime location choice research, including challenges regarding temporal aspects of criminal decision making, planned versus opportunistic crimes, and solved versus unsolved crimes.

Documentary credit fraud against banks: analysis of Korean cases

2015 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 457-474 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chang-Ryung Han ◽  
Hans Nelen ◽  
Matthew Youngho Joo
Keyword(s):  
White Collar Crime ◽  
Case Reports ◽  
Routine Activity Theory ◽  
Routine Activity ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Pattern Theory ◽  
Opportunity Structures ◽  
Crime Pattern Theory ◽  
Criminological Perspective ◽  
New Type

Purpose – This paper aims to explore the feature and mechanism of a new type of documentary credit fraud that victimizes banks’ issuing letters of credit (L/C), harming neither the importer nor the exporter and seeks to suggest possible measures to tackle it. Design/methodology/approach – This study analyzed 30 cases of documentary credit fraud against banks that were detected by the Korea Customs Service (KCS) and interviewed three key customs investigators to interpret the case reports more accurately and gain a deeper understanding into the mechanisms governing the fraud. This study draws on routine activity theory and crime pattern theory to analyze the opportunity structures of this fraud. Findings – This study found that the importer that engaged in the fraud cases had established a solid business relationship with the exporter and had established trust with the victimized banks; the banks, despite the fact that they had their own risk management systems to screen out unqualified L/C applicants, were defrauded by the offending importers and exporters. Unlike ordinary documentary credit fraud, fraud against banks can be tackled by customs because the offender and the victim typically operate in the same jurisdiction, and this type of fraud often results in trade-based capital flight and money laundering, which is the target of customs enforcement. Research limitations/implications – As this paper is based on case reports of the KCS, it is inappropriate to generalize the findings or to apply the findings to other contexts. Nevertheless, the opportunity structure elaborated upon in the course of this paper may prove useful in devising measures to tackle this type of fraud elsewhere. Originality/value – Documentary credit fraud against banks is relatively unexplored, in particular from criminological perspective. This study can contribute to a refinement of the application of opportunity perspective to white-collar crime.

scholarly journals Hot Spots Policing in a High Crime Environment: An Experimental Evaluation in Medellín

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniela Collazos ◽  
Eduardo Garcia ◽  
Daniel Mejia ◽  
Daniel Ortega ◽  
Santiago Tobon
Keyword(s):  
Hot Spots ◽  
Experimental Evaluation ◽  
Hot Spots Policing ◽  
High Crime

Personalized crime location prediction

2016 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 422-450 ◽  
Author(s):  
MOHAMMAD A. TAYEBI ◽  
UWE GLÄSSER ◽  
MARTIN ESTER ◽  
PATRICIA L. BRANTINGHAM
Keyword(s):  
Law Enforcement ◽  
Urban Crime ◽  
Crime Analysis ◽  
Urban Landscapes ◽  
Location Prediction ◽  
Prevention Strategies ◽  
Pattern Theory ◽  
Activity Spaces ◽  
Crime Pattern Theory ◽  
Crime Pattern

Crime reduction and prevention strategies are vital for policymakers and law enforcement to face inevitable increases in urban crime rates as a side effect of the projected growth of urban population by the year 2030. Studies conclude that crime does not occur uniformly across urban landscapes but concentrates in certain areas. This phenomenon has drawn attention to spatial crime analysis, primarily focusing on crime hotspots, areas with disproportionally higher crime density. In this paper, we present CrimeTracer1, a personalized random walk-based approach to spatial crime analysis and crime location prediction outside of hotspots. We propose a probabilistic model of spatial behaviour of known offenders within their activity spaces. Crime Pattern Theory concludes that offenders, rather than venture into unknown territory, frequently select targets in or near places they are most familiar with as part of their activity space. Our experiments on a large real-world crime dataset show that CrimeTracer outperforms all other methods used for location recommendation we evaluate here.

A Tale of Two Theories: Whither Social Disorganization Theory and the Routine Activities Approach?

2021 ◽  
pp. e20210013
Author(s):  
Jen-Li Shen ◽  
Martin A. Andresen
Keyword(s):  
Social Disorganization ◽  
Census Data ◽  
Property Crime ◽  
Routine Activities ◽  
Routine Activity ◽  
Social Disorganization Theory ◽  
Theoretical Frameworks ◽  
Social Phenomena ◽  
Crime Types ◽  
Routine Activities Approach

Social disorganization theory and the routine activities approach have been extensively applied separately as theoretical frameworks for the spatial analysis of crime, with general support. As hypothetical explanations for complex social phenomena, criminological theories can impact how studies are framed and how the crime problem is approached. Thus, it is important to evaluate theories continuously in various geographical, as well as contemporary contexts. This study uses both theories in tandem to examine their ability to explain 2016 property crime in Vancouver, Canada, using 2016 census data. Both theories found moderate support. Of particular note is that all of the variables designated as proxies for ethnic heterogeneity in social disorganization theory were either not statistically significant or negative, consistent with the immigration and crime literature. Additionally, almost all variables, when statistically significant, were found to have consistent results across crime types. These results bode well for the continued use of social disorganization theory and the routine activity approach in spatial analyses of crime.

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