Trajectories of Crime at Places: A Longitudinal Study of Street Segments in the City of Seattle*

Abstract

Studies of crime at micro places have generally relied on crosssectional data and reported the distributions of crime statistics over short periods of time. In this paper we use official crime data to examine the distribution of crime at street segments in Seattle, Washington, over a I4-year period. W e go beyond prior research in two ways. First, we view crime trends at places over a much longer period than other studies that have examined micro places. Second, we use for their thoughtful comments and advice in revising our paper. We owe a special debt to Daniel Nagin for his guidance in applying the trajectory approach to micro crime places. CRIMINOLOGY VOLUME 42 NUMBER 2 2004 283 1. It should be noted that a few early criminologists did examine the "micro" idea of place as discussed here (see Shaw et al., 1929). However, interest in micro places was not sustained and did not lead to significant theoretical or empirical inquiry.

Do Crime Hot Spots Exist in Developing Countries? Evidence from India

“…The findings in Minneapolis have proven to be robust (Andresen and Malleson 2011;Braga et al 2010;Pierce et al 1988;Taylor et al 2011;Telep et al 2014;Weisburd et al 2004;Weisburd 2015;Weisburd and Amram 2014;Weisburd and Green 1995;Weisburd et al 1992), even when examining longer expanses of time. In a 14 year study of Seattle Washington, Weisburd and colleagues (2004) discovered that between 4 and 5 percent of street segments accounted for approximately 50 % of incident reports.…”

“…A hot spot can be and has been discussed operationally as any place with a disproportionate amount of crime ranging from a street address (Sherman et al 1989), street segment (Weisburd et al 2004), clusters of street segments and intersections (Ratcliffe et al 2011), and even clusters of police beats (McGarrell et al 2001). While few standards exist in their identification, there is generally an agreed upon sentiment memorialized by Sherman and Weisburd (1995), who argued that hot spots are locations that are small enough such that the whole of the place is within the line of sight of a single central location.…”

“…In the United States, it is a commonly established finding that a small number of locations are responsible for a disproportionate amount of crime (Braga et al 2010;Pierce et al 1988;Sherman et al 1989;Taylor et al 2011;Telep et al 2014;Weisburd et al 2004;Weisburd 2015 1 ). These micro locations exhibit a number of unique characteristics that support an environment for crime to cluster including a concentration of major arteries, truants, concentrated poverty, poor lighting (Weisburd et al 2012), bars and taverns (Roncek and Maier 1991), malls (Weisburd et al 2009), physical disorder (Weisburd et al 2012), high schools, fast food restaurants, and ATMs and banks (Haberman and Ratcliffe 2015).…”

The Trajectories of Crime at Places: Understanding the Patterns of Disaggregated Crime Types

“…This is a considerable concentration of criminal events, reminiscent of the study by Wolfgang et al (1972) finding that a small percentage of offenders commit a significant portion of criminal events. Weisburd et al (2004), studying crime concentrations in Seattle, Washington, found that approximately 5 % of street segments accounted for 50 % of all calls for police service; this high degree of spatial concentration was consistent over a 14-year time period, indicating a high degree of stability in these spatial concentrations-more on the measured stability is discussed below. Subsequent research by these authors confirmed this spatial concentration in other contexts (Weisburd et al 2009b(Weisburd et al , 2012.…”

“…Often referred to as group-based trajectory modelling, this method is a semi-parametric clustering technique that identifies subgroups of observations (street segments and intersections in the crime and place literature) that follow a similar pattern of change over time (Andruff et al 2009). Weisburd et al (2004) were the first to apply trajectory modelling to the crime and place literature, using street blocks in Seattle, Washington, 1989Washington, -2002. The purpose of their study was to identify the presence, or lack thereof, of geographically defined developmental trajectories similar to those found for individuals.…”