Results From a Street Level Analysis of Homicide Incidents in a Caribbean City

• In Event: Place and Spatial Conditions: Advancing Existing Evidence and Measurement

Abstract

This paper is about a mix method study of 490 (n) homicide incidents committed in public settings and recorded by police for a Caribbean city with chronic gang presence, policing with community and focused area interventions to strengthen social control. The study investigated the mean number of street segments (the distance between two intersections officially named streets) featuring in homicide locations compared with other segments identified for incident such as lanes and roadways. The investigation revealed that the practice of reporting and collapsing incidents into broad categories such as urban or public, masks important variation across microgeographic units because they are qualitatively and culturally different. A movement away from generalization in reporting of incidents to reporting on micro-geographic areas is discussed in relation to status of knowledge on micro-geographic areas as units of analysis. Researchers studying crime at place or homicide incidents in Global South cities will find this presentation interesting.

Author

• Tarik Weekes, University of the West Indies