Risk, Place, and Drug Crime: Examining the Built Environment’s Impact on Drug Offenses

• In Event: Communities and Place: Super Controllers, Risk Terrain Models, and Crime

Abstract

This study applies Risk Terrain Modeling (RTM) to analyze felony drug arrests in a large urban setting, assessing how environmental factors and locations in the built environment influence felony drug-related offenses. Grounded in environmental criminology, this research integrates routine activities theory, crime pattern theory, and the journey to crime framework to explore the spatial dynamics of drug activity and police responses. It hypothesizes that specifically identified types of locations function as crime attractors and generators, increasing the opportunity and likelihood of drug-related arrests. Analyzing 2,916 felony drug incidents from January 2022 to August 2024, this study employs risk terrain modeling software to identify high-risk locations and assess their relative influence on criminal activity. The results provide at least partial empirical support for the theoretical frameworks indicating that particular environmental features and locations significantly correlate with increased probabilities of drug-related crime, with some locations exhibiting exponentially greater relative risk scores. The research provides a valuable starting point for police administrations and policymakers to examine how specific locations in the built environment can increase the probability of drug crime being committed and utilize this information to guide police resource deployment and other governmental responses to drug-related crime.

Authors

• David Dickie, Tarleton State University

• Olga Semukhina, Tarleton State University