Public Greenspace and Crime

• In Event: Neighborhood Institutions and Crime

Abstract

Public greenspaces constitute a major land use across our urban environments. Conceptualized as features that comprise an important component of the environmental backcloth, criminological theory stresses the role of such features in their capacity to act as crime generators, attractors or detractors. In this paper we examine the extent to which certain types of public greenspace and their surrounding neighbourhoods have the potential to encourage a diversity of routine users given the presence of certain park utilities (for example, playgrounds and exercise equipment). We then consider how the presence of these utilities might differentially influence crime events at different times of the day and night. Through the spatial integration of crime incident data, census data and a systematic approach to the development of greenspace typologies, this study progresses previous research on the impact of public greenspace on crime across urban neighborhoods.

Authors

• Anthony Kimpton, University of Queensland

• Jonathan Corcoran, University of Queensland

• Rebecca Leigh Wickes, University of Queensland