NCJ Number
160731
Date Published
1995
Length
33 pages
Annotation
Criminologists and crime prevention practitioners are increasingly aware of the importance of places of crime, and a focus on crime places contrasts with a focus on neighborhoods.
Abstract
A place is a very small area, usually a street corner, address, building, or street segment. Place level explanations emphasize crime events, while neighborhood theories usually highlight the development of offenders. Three perspectives suggest the importance of places for understanding crime: rational choice, routine activity, and crime pattern theories. Although these perspectives are mutually supportive, routine activity and crime pattern theory provide different explanations for crime occurring at different places. Several areas of research can assist in understanding the importance of places, including crime concentration about particular facilities such as bars, the high concentration of crime at some addresses and the absence of crime at others, preventive effects of various place features, offender mobility, and offender target selection. Concern has been expressed that efforts to prevent crime at specific locations will only move it to other unprotected locations. Recent research, however, indicates that these fears may be exaggerated and that the opposite effect occurs under some circumstances. Instead of crime displacing, benefits of prevention efforts diffuse to unprotected locations. 118 references, 2 notes, and 1 figure