RT Article
T1 The Law of Crime Concentration: An Application and Recommendations for Future Research
JF Journal of quantitative criminology
VO 33
IS 3
SP 635
OP 647
A1 Levin, Aaron
A2 Rosenfeld, Richard 1948-2024
A2 Deckard, Michael
LA English
YR 2017
UL https://krimdok.uni-tuebingen.de/Record/1764279689
AB Objective We address four outstanding empirical questions related to the “law of crime concentration” (Weisburd in Criminology 53:133–157, 2015 ): (1) Is the spatial concentration of crime stable over time? (2) Do the same places consistently rank among those with the highest crime counts? (3) How much crime concentration would be observed if crimes were distributed randomly over place? (4) To what degree does the spatial concentration of crime depend on places that are crime free? Methods The data are annual counts of violent and property crimes in St. Louis between 2000 and 2014. Temporal stability in the spatial inequality of crime is measured by computing the fraction of crimes that occur in the 5% of street segments with the highest crime frequencies each year. The spatial mobility of crime is measured by computing the number of years each street segment appears in the top 5% of street segments. Poisson simulations are used to estimate the fraction of crimes that could appear in the top 5% of street segments on the basis of chance alone. The impact of crime-free locales on the spatial concentration of crime is evaluated by comparing results from analyses that include and exclude crime-free street segments from the crime distributions. Results The concentration of crime is highly unequal and stable over time. The specific street segments with the highest crime frequencies, however, change over time. Nontrivial fractions of street segments may appear among the 5% with the highest crime frequencies on the basis of chance. Spatial concentration of crime is reduced when crime-free street segments are excluded from the crime distributions. Conclusions The law of crime concentration is not a measurement artifact. Its substantive significance, however, should be assessed in future longitudinal research that replicates the current study across diverse social settings.
K1 Criminology of place
K1 Hot spots policing
K1 Crime concentration
DO 10.1007/s10940-016-9332-7