Hot Spots of Mental Health Issues: The Concentration and Overlap of Mental Health Calls for Service and Crime in Place

• In Event: Crime and Place: Spatial Patterns of Mental Health Issues and Violence

Abstract

A strong body of research has established the concentration of crime in a small number of street segments or “hot spots” throughout urban cities, recently coined as the “law of crime concentration.” Additionally, the police are the primary emergency response for calls involving someone with a mental illness or experiencing a mental health crisis. The spatial distribution of mental health-related calls for services is less well-known and the extent to which these calls are concentrated on a small number of street segments, similar to traditional crime calls for service is understudied. Using call for service data from a large city on the East coast, the current study examines whether mental health calls for service are concentrated on street segments, and if so, whether these “mental health hot spots” are spread throughout the city or clustered in space. Furthermore, we map the locations of mental health service and treatment providers and to examine whether service providers partially explain the patterning of mental health calls for service. Finally, we use survey data from 450 street segments in Baltimore to explore the relationship between mental health calls for service and self-reported mental health problems of residents living on the street.

Authors

• Clair White, George Mason University

• David Weisburd, Hebrew University and George Mason University

• Victoria L Goldberg, George Mason University