A New Tool for Identifying Space and Time Hot Spots on a Street Network

• In Event: Spatial and Temporal Analysis

Abstract

Recent work by Weisburd and Groff identified the 5% of street segments in Seattle that contributed 50% of all crimes and looked at crime trajectories for street segments over time. Beginning with the Brantingham’s work on environmental Criminology, researchers have emphasized the importance of studying micro-environments to understand crime patterns. Hot spot research has contributed to both applied and academic research on crime since the rebirth of geographic Criminology in the early 1990’s. Recognizing the importance of these earlier studies, in this presentation a new tool for analyzing hot spots along a street network will be demonstrated using crime reports from West Englewood, a Chicago high crime area. The tool identifies hot spots in space and over time, tests their significance, and visualizes them as three dimensional street networks. Hot spot patterns for robbery, burglary, drug related incidents, and auto theft have very different patterns that are similar to patterns found in previous research.

Authors

• Shino Shiode, Birkbeck, University London

• Narushige Shiode, University of Warwick

• Richard L. Block, Loyola University, Chicago

• Carolyn Rebecca Block, Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority (Retired)