Crime-Place Networks: Eliminating Infrastructures for Criminal Activity

• In Event: Communities and Place: Concentrations of Crime and Poor Health

Abstract

Crime is concentrated in space, and many police interventions are designed to reduce crime by focusing resources in violent hotspots. However, targeted police interventions often fail to produce sustainable crime reductions in historically violent locations. Recent crime-place theory and investigative work suggests that places are often connected in ways that are not addressed through traditional place-based policing efforts. This presentation describes methods recently used to identify and disrupt crime-place networks that facilitate crime in chronically violent hotspots. We describe how crime-place networks operate and provide examples of investigative techniques and responses that have disrupted crime-place networks to produce more substantial and longer-term reductions in crime.

Authors

• Tamara D. Madensen-Herold, University of Nevada, Las Vegas

• William Sousa, University of Nevada, Las Vegas

• Stacey L. Clouse, University of Nevada, Las Vegas

• Joshua W. Donnelly, University of Nevada, Las Vegas