Abstract
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 favorable conditions for crime. The study introduces a simple index—the Crime Concentration Dispersion Index—which 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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Notes
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. Another study by the Development Bank of Latin America examined patterns of crime concentration in Bogatá, Colombia (Mejía et al. 2015).
Other crime concentration measures have been proposed (e.g., Bernasco and Steenbeek 2017) but have received little application to date to allow for comparison.
Andresen’s S Index software is available here: http://www.sfu.ca/~andresen/spptest/spptest.html.
Ratcliffe’s Dispersion Calculator software is available here: http://www.jratcliffe.net/software/dispersion-calculator/.
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Chainey, S.P., Monteiro, J. The dispersion of crime concentration during a period of crime increase. Secur J 32, 324–341 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41284-019-00165-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/s41284-019-00165-x