RT Article
T1 Spatial Concentration of Opioid Overdose Deaths in Indianapolis: an Application of the Law of Crime Concentration at Place to a Public Health Epidemic
JF Journal of contemporary criminal justice
VO 35
IS 2
SP 161
OP 185
A1 Carter, Jeremy G. 1982-
A2 Mohler, George
A2 Bradley, Ray
LA English
YR 2019
UL https://krimdok.uni-tuebingen.de/Record/1740781732
AB The law of crime concentration at place has become a criminological axiom and the foundation for one of the strongest evidence-based policing strategies to date. Using longitudinal data from three sources, emergency medical service calls, death toxicology reports from the Marion County (Indiana) Coroner’s Office, and police crime data, we provide four unique contributions to this literature. First, this study provides the first spatial concentration estimation of opioid-related deaths. Second, our findings support the spatial concentration of opioid deaths and the feasibility of this approach for public health incidents often outside the purview of traditional policing. Third, we find that opioid overdose death hot spots spatially overlap with areas of concentrated violence. Finally, we apply a recent method, corrected Gini coefficient, to best specify low-N incident concentrations and propose a novel method for improving upon a shortcoming of this approach. Implications for research and interventions are discussed.
K1 Crime concentration
K1 Opioid overdose concentration
K1 Emergency medical services data
K1 Corrected Gini coefficient
K1 Low-N events
DO 10.1177/1043986218803527