A topological representation of the criminal event
The criminal event has five dimensions: space, time, law, offender, and target or victim. These five components are necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of a crime. However, criminological research has typically focused on one or two dimensions instead of analyzing all the dimension...
| Authors: | ; |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
2002
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| In: |
Western criminology review
Year: 2002, Volume: 3, Issue: 2 |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (kostenfrei) |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Keywords: |
| Summary: | The criminal event has five dimensions: space, time, law, offender, and target or victim. These five components are necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of a crime. However, criminological research has typically focused on one or two dimensions instead of analyzing all the dimensions simultaneously. This paper introduces a theoretical framework to deal with multiple dimensions of the complex crime phenomenon. Using the concept of metric spaces, the notion of distance and topology are introduced in the space of criminal events. This mathematical technique allows one to consider clustered events simultaneously in space, in time, law and other dimensions. It describes how crime clusters form ‘hot spots’ in the spatial dimension as well as ‘burning times’ in the temporal space and ‘stinging laws’ among the thousands of statutes. The paper illustrates these ideas with different kinds of metric spaces and provides a unifying framework for analyzing criminal events. The mathematical representation presented in this work also allows different ways of visualizing and analyzing the criminal events and associated patterns that transcend the spatial boundaries of crime. This mathematics enables deeper insight into the complex question of crime and its distribution. |
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