The Law of Crime Concentration at Places: Editors’ Introduction

Braga, Anthony A.; Andresen, Martin A.; Lawton, Brian

doi:10.1007/s10940-017-9342-0

Cited by 36 publications

(25 citation statements)

References 12 publications

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“…In this paper we provide a contribution to the spatial crime concentration literature (see Braga et al 2017 for a detailed review) by examining crime concentration levels in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, Uruguay, and Venezuela. We hypothesise that crime is highly concentrated in Latin American urban contexts.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Crime concentration at micro-places in Latin America

Chainey

Pezzuchi²,

Rojas³

et al. 2019

Crime Sci

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Research on crime concentration at micro-places has had a very western-industrialised focus. In this paper we provide results on crime concentration for 42 cities in Latin America. The results suggest that crime is concentrated at higher levels in Latin American cities than in western-industrialised contexts. Reasons for this do not appear to be related to population size, average street length, numbers of crimes or crime rates. The results offer an indication of the crime reduction opportunities that could come from the implementation of programs that are precisely targeted to the micro-places where crime has been observed to highly concentrate, such as hot spot policing.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Crime concentration at micro-places in Latin America

Chainey

Pezzuchi²,

Rojas³

et al. 2019

Crime Sci

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“…Indeed, in a recent systematic review of 44 studies that empirically examined crime concentration at place, not one study emanated out of Africa (see Lee et al, 2017). We believe that in doing this research we have provided a number of answers to the empirical questions posed by Braga et al (2017). First, this study demonstrates that crime across three different categories in South Africa spatially concentrates at the micro-geographic unit of analysis providing initial support to Weisburd's law of crime concentration in an African context.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 96%

“…In a recent editorial Braga et al (2017) summarised contemporary empirical and theoretical developments in 'place-based' criminology. Their main focus was 'to advance the empirical study of the law of crime concentration at places' (p. 422) by highlighting important empirical questions related to key elements of the law as put forth by Weisburd (2015).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…the street segment or street block) was not used. We are well aware of the need, as outlined by Braga et al (2017), for micro-spatial units of analysis such as street segments to be used to better understand the spatial patterning of crime; however in less developed contexts, such as the favelas in Brazil, and townships in South Africa, a substantial proportion of these areas are informal. In the more formal regions of the township there are delineated streets as would be common in developed countries; however in the more informal areas of the township there is no clearly defined street network and no street blocks per se making any inference regarding street level risk difficult to ascertain.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The spatial concentration and stability of crime in a South African township

Breetzke

Edelstein

2018

Secur J

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The law of crime concentration at places motivates that a small number of locations are responsible for a disproportionate amount of crime. Research applying the law has largely been confined to the United States and Europe with much less known about spatial crime concentrations and their stability in less developed contexts, particularly in Africa. In this study we explore the spatial concentration of crime in a setting axiomatically different from the West, namely Khayelitsha, a township on the outskirts of Cape Town in South Africa. Specifically, we describe rape, robbery and assault concentrations in Khayelitsha from 2008 to 2015 and examine the extent to which these concentrations change over time. Similar to international research we found that crime in Khayelitsha spatially concentrates and that these concentrations are remarkably stable. Practical implications of these findings are discussed in the context of a historically unique post-apartheid South African spatial setting.

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“…For resource targeting purposes, knowing whether the areas where crime has increased are the areas where crime has previously concentrated or whether the crime increase is associated with other areas is important for informing prioritization strategies. Additionally, very little is known at present about why crime concentrates in some micro-places and not in others (Braga et al, 2017;Steenbeck and Weisburd, 2016;Weisburd, 2015;Weisburd and Telep, 2014). Our examination of the patterns of crime concentration during a period of 1 A study by the Inter-American Development Bank (Jaitman and Ajzenman, 2016) examined crime concentrations but only for all crime rather than any specific crime types.…”

Section: The Law Of Crime Concentration and Measures Of Spatial Crimementioning

confidence: 99%

The dispersion of crime concentration during a period of crime increase

Chainey

Monteiro

2019

Secur J

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Extensive empirical evidence shows that crime concentrates in place, with these findings being important for helping to target police resources. Little is known, however, about whether these crime concentration areas are where crime increases the most during a period of crime increase. Using data from the seven largest cities in the state of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, we show that during a period of crime increase the locations most responsible for the increases were the micro-places where crime previously concentrated. We argue that the increases in crime in areas of crime concentration were mainly due to these places offering stable favourable conditions for crime. The study introduces a simple indexthe Crime Concentration Dispersion Index -that helps police agencies determine where to target resources during a period of crime increase and offers results that provide an important Latin American urban perspective to the literature on crime concentration.

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The Law of Crime Concentration at Places: Editors’ Introduction

Cited by 36 publications

References 12 publications

Crime concentration at micro-places in Latin America

Crime concentration at micro-places in Latin America

The spatial concentration and stability of crime in a South African township

The dispersion of crime concentration during a period of crime increase

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