Combining insights from two distinct research traditions—the communities and crime tradition that focuses on why some neighborhoods have more crime than others, and the burgeoning crime and place literature that focuses on crime in micro-geographic units—this book explores the spatial scale of crime. Criminologist John Hipp articulates a new theoretical perspective that provides an individual- and household-level theory to underpin existing ecological models of neighborhoods and crime. A focus is maintained on the agents of change within neighborhoods and communities, and how households nested in neighborhoods might come to perceive problems in the neighborhood and then have a choice of exit, voice, loyalty, or neglect (EVLN). A characteristic of many crime incidents is that they happen at a particular spatial location and a point in time. These two simple insights suggest the need for both a spatial and a longitudinal perspective in studying crime events. The spatial question focuses on why crime seems to occur more frequently in some locations than others, and the consequences of this for certain areas of cities, or neighborhoods. The longitudinal component focuses on how crime impacts, and is impacted by, characteristics of the environment. This book looks at where offenders, targets, and guardians might live, and where they might spatially travel throughout the environment, exploring how vibrant neighborhoods are generated, how neighborhoods change, and what determines why some neighborhoods decline over time while others avoid this fate. Hipp’s theoretical model provides a cohesive response to the general question of the spatial scale of crime and articulates necessary future directions for the field. This book is essential for students and scholars interested in spatial-temporal criminology.

Crime statistics are ubiquitous in modern society – but how accurate are they? This book investigates the science of crime measurement focussing on four main questions: how do we count crime? How do we calculate crime rates? Are there other measurements of crime? What are the issues surrounding crime statistics? All too often we take the measurement of crime at face value when there is, in fact, a science behind it. This book specifically deals with issues related to spatially-referenced crime data that are used to analyse crime patterns across the urban environment. The first section of the book considers alternative crime rate calculations. The second section of the book contains a thorough discussion of a measure of crime specialisation. Finally, the third section of the book addresses a number of aggregation issues that are present with such data: crime type aggregations, temporal aggregations of crime data, the stability of crime patterns over time, and the importance of spatial scale. This book builds on a growing body of literature on the science of crime measurement and offers a comprehensive account of this growing subfield of criminology. The book speaks to wider debates in the fields of crime analysis, environmental criminology and crime prevention and will be perfect reading for advanced level undergraduate and graduate students looking to find out more about the measurement of crime.

One of the key methods of reducing and dealing with criminal activity is to accurately gauge and then analyse the geographical distribution of crime (from small scale to large scale areas). Once the police and government know what areas suffer most from criminal activity they can assess why this is the case and then deal with it in the most effective way. Crime mapping and the spatial analysis of crime data have become recognised as powerful tools for the study and control of crime. Much of the emerging demand for more information and detailed crime pattern analysis have been driven by legislative changes, such as the UK's new Crime and Disorder Act which has placed a joint statutory duty on Police Forces and Local Authorities to produce crime and disorder audits for their areas. The book sets out methods used in the fields of Geographical Information Systems and highlights areas of best practice, examines the types of problems to which spatial crime analysis can be applied, reviews the capabilities and limitations of existing techniques, and explores the future directions of spatial crime analysis and the need for training. It centres on a series of case studies highlighting the experiences of academics and practitioners in agencies centrally involved in the partnership approach to crime prevention. Practitioners and academics not only in the UK but also worldwide should be interested in the book as an up-to-date information resource and a practical guide.

Putting Crime in its Place: Units of Analysis in Geographic Criminology focuses on the units of analysis used in geographic criminology. While crime and place studies have been a part of criminology from the early 19th century, growing interest in crime places over the last two decades demands critical reflection on the units of analysis that should form the focus of geographic analysis of crime. Should the focus be on very small units such as street addresses or street segments, or on larger aggregates such as census tracts or communities? Academic researchers, as well as practical crime analysts, are confronted routinely with the dilemma of deciding what the unit of analysis should be when reporting on trends in crime, when identifying crime hot spots or when mapping crime in cities. In place-based crime prevention, the choice of the level of aggregation plays a particularly critical role. This peer reviewed collection of essays aims to contribute to crime and place studies by making explicit the problems involved in choosing units of analysis in geographic criminology. Written by renowned experts in the field, the chapters in this book address basic academic questions, and also provide real-life examples and applications of how they are resolved in cutting-edge research. Crime analysts in police and law enforcement agencies as well as academic researchers studying the spatial distributions of crime and victimization will learn from the discussions and tools presented.

Crime science is precisely what it says it is: the application of science to the phenomenon of crime. This handbook, intended as a crime science manifesto, showcases the scope of the crime science field and provides the reader with an understanding of the assumptions, aspirations and methods of crime science, as well as the variety of topics that fall within its purview. Crime science provides a distinctive approach to understanding and dealing with crime: one that is outcome-oriented, evidence-based and that crosses boundaries between disciplines. The central mission of crime science is to find new ways to cut crime and increase security. Beginning by setting out the case for crime science, the editors examine the roots of crime science in environmental criminology and describe its key features. The book is then divided into two sections. The first section comprises chapters by disciplinary specialists about the contributions their sciences can make or have already made to crime science. Chapter 12 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 3.0 license. https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/tandfbis/rt-files/docs/Open+Access+Chapters/9780415826266_oachapter12.pdf

The study of crime has focused primarily on why particular people commit crime or why specific communities have higher crime levels than others. In The Criminology of Place, David Weisburd, Elizabeth Groff, and Sue-Ming Yang present a new and different way of looking at the crime problem by examining why specific streets in a city have specific crime trends over time. Based on a 16-year longitudinal study of crime in Seattle, Washington, the book focuses our attention on small units of geographic analysis-micro communities, defined as street segments. Half of all Seattle crime each year occurs on just 5-6 percent of the city's street segments, yet these crime hot spots are not concentrated in a single neighborhood and street by street variability is significant. Weisburd, Groff, and Yang set out to explain why. The Criminology of Place shows how much essential information about crime is inevitably lost when we focus on larger units like neighborhoods or communities. Reorienting the study of crime by focusing on small units of geography, the authors identify a large group of possible crime risk and protective factors for street segments and an array of interventions that could be implemented to address them. The Criminology of Place is a groundbreaking book that radically alters traditional thinking about the crime problem and what we should do about it.