Spatial & temporal mapping of future criminal risk as a catalyst for enforcement & reduction activity

Derek Johnson, Northumbria University, England

 Jan/Feb 2005 analysis identifies near repeat phenomena.

Feb/March reduction intervention devised

April reduction intervention begins in pilot areas January 2006 evaluation shows overall reducing levels of burglary crime across the town - additional 6% reduction in intervention areas Near repeat phenomena no longer apparent (i.e. not statistically significant)

Ripleys K analysis residential burglary 10 months pre & post intervention.

Pre intervention Post intervention

 Near repeat offences still taking place

Serial offenders responsible? Common offenders? Identify & describe personal space-time patterns?

Predict future burglary locations?

93,000 92,500 92,000 91,500 5+7 91,000 2 13 6 3 90,500 407,000 407,500 8+12 408,000 408,500 409,000 409,500 1 10 11 9 4

93,000 92,500 92,000 y 91,500 5+7 91,000 2 13 6 3 90,500 407,000 407,500 8+12 408,000 408,500 409,000 409,500 1 10 11 9 4

Time -----------> Distance ----->

x x x x x

Close offences

Area

period Volume Detected % detected No of offenders 1,254 404 22.35 18.57 350 260

Area 1 02-06 5,610 Area 2 02-06 2,175 Offender Data

No of offenders > 9 burglary offences In Bournemouth or Poole

>1 identifiable series of burglary crimes within offending history

44
No of series Volume 29 457

14

Histogram of inter event distances

14 12 5

Histogram of future nearest neighbour distances Frequency

4

10

frequency

8 6 4 2 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

3
2 1 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Distance bins (Km)

Distance Bins (Km)

Q1 Min. Distance 0.523

Std dev. 2.406

Mean 2.145

Median 1.084

Skew 1.323

Range 6.441

6 5 4
Frequency

Histogram of minimum distance time spans

2
1 0
0 6 12 18 24 30
Bin - days

mean 6.25 median 4.50 total days 40.00 min interval 1.00 max interval 21.00 std 6.30 pskew 0.83 Quartile 1 3.00

 Serial offenders display near repeat behaviour

Serial offenders are consistent over time, particularly with regard to what they consider to be close in distance Time and distance parameters can be calculated for ongoing real time crime series

1 Event 1 2 3

23 X

34 X

5 4

6 5

76

10

11

1012

13 11

4
5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

X X
X

X
X

X X X
X X X

So now we know.
Offenders commit near repeats Tend to commit near repeats at about the median distance from a previous offence location And at about the median time lapse from a previous offence Low space/time index scores describe a distance from a previous offence where no offending is likely until a certain amount of time has elapsed

Ashton, J., Brown, I., Senior, B., Pease, K. 1998. Repeat Victimisation: Offender Accounts. International Journal of Risk, Security and Crime Prevention. v3: pp269 279. Johnson, D. 2007. The Near repeat burglary phenomenum. in Chainey, S. & Ratcliffe, J. (eds) Crime mapping case studies: practice and research. Chichester: John Wiley & sons - Forthcoming. Johnson, S.D., Bowers, K.J. and Pease, K. 2005.Predicting the future or summarising the past? Crime mapping as anticipation. in Smith, M., Tilley, N. (eds) Crime Science. New approaches to preventing and detecting crime. Cullompton: Willan Publishing. pp145 - 163. Levine, N. 2004. Crimestat: A Spatial Statistics Program for the Analysis of Crime Incident locations. Ned Levine and Associates, Houston TX, and the National Institute of Justice Washington D.C. Townsley, M., Homel, R., Chaseling, J. 2000. Repeat Burglary Victimisation: Spatial & Temporal Patterns. The Australian & New Zealand Journal of Criminology. v33, 1:pp37-63.

Derek.Johnson@Northumbria.ac.uk