An Analysis of the Criminogenic Spatiotemporal Influences of Land Use Features on Street Robberies with RTM

• In Event: Crime and Place: Facilities, Land Use, and Crime

Abstract

In environmental criminology, it is widely accepted that crime risk is affected by the legitimate and illegitimate activities hosted at places. Studies exploring this influence use the concepts of environmental criminology to explain how land use features can promote criminal behavior. However, studies based on place-based indicators provide an incomplete picture of crime emergence. Studies assume a temporally uniform crime-generating influence of land use features, ignoring the social relevancy of these features at different times. Furthermore, the spatial influences of these features are operationalized arbitrarily. This study examines the criminogenic spatiotemporal influences of land use features on street robbery risk in the City of Newark, NJ using the principles of Risk Terrain Modeling (RTM). This study uses a twofold analytical strategy. The spatial element of the study identifies which land use features have a criminogenic influence on street robbery risk, how their spatial influence extents change, how they influence risk in relation to one another, and how their combined spatial influences affect risk. The spatiotemporal element examines how these effects change across different times of the day and different days of the week.

Authors

• Yasemin Irvin-Erickson, Rutgers University

• Leslie W. Kennedy, Rutgers University

• Joel M. Caplan, Center on Public Security, Rutgers University

• Eric Piza, John Jay College of Criminal Justice