Crime and place concentrations in the silent majority: Assessing the law of crime concentrations in small jurisdictions.

• In Event: Communities and Place: Crime Concentrations

Abstract

Weisburd (2015) proposed the law of crime concentration at places, which states that for a defined unit of analysis, the concentration of crime will fall within a narrow bandwidth of percentages for a defined cumulative proportion of crime. Much of the published research on crime and place concentrations use large cities, despite making up a small portion of the United States’ land mass. We assess whether the propositions regarding spatial concentrations hold true for smaller jurisdictions. Using different spatial concentration indices, we examine how robbery, burglary, and theft from auto concentrate in three police jurisdictions in or around the Cincinnati Metro area. We discuss the implications of our findings for theory testing and applied crime prevention in small jurisdictions.

Authors

• Jillian Grace Shafer, University of Cincinnati

• Cory P. Haberman, University of Cincinnati