Sexually Oriented Businesses and Ambient Crime in a Southern City

• In Event: Transport, Land Use and Crime

Abstract

Sexually-oriented businesses (SOBs) such as strip clubs are often viewed as “hot spots” of criminal activity and can be treated differently than other establishments in city zoning codes and ordinances. With data from calls to police made over a five-year period in a medium sized southern city, we tested the hypothesis that the presence of an SOB increases crime in the area surrounding the business. Using a series of interrelated analytical techniques including geographic information systems (GIS), exploratory spatial data analysis (ESDA), buffer zone mapping, and block-level analysis of rates of crime, we established the location of crime hot spots. To avoid the problem of computing rates of crime per 1,000 people in commercial areas with few residents, we used ambient population measures developed by Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The results of all the analyses were consistent: no evidence of crime clustering due to the presence of an SOB. Non-SOB, alcohol-serving establishments located in high-density, lower-socioeconomic status areas have higher rates of crime surrounding them; while such establishments located in more affluent, lower-density areas are typically surrounded by less crime. The presence of a sexually oriented business is not the catalyst for a crime hot spot in any given area.

Authors

• Amy D'Unger, Georgia Tech

• Lesley Williams Reid, University of Alabama

• Deidre Oakley, Georgia State University