Abstract

Keywords

۱٫ Introduction

۲٫ Literature review

۲٫۱٫ City of Buenos Aires Police (CBAP) organization

۳٫ Data and methods

۴٫ Results

۴٫۱٫ Spatial descriptive statistics

۴٫۲٫ Distance decay analysis and the buffer zone hypothesis

۵٫ Discussion

۶٫ Conclusion

Appendix.

References

Abstract

This paper discusses the empirical strategy used to test which approximation to journey-to-crime theory is more appropriate for modelling the crime deterrent effect of police stations. Using crime spatial analysis, this paper tests whether monotonic criminal distance decay from police stations or a buffer zone in the vicinity of police stations is the most appropriate way to model criminal behavior. The aim of the paper is to detect fixed patterns of spatial distribution of crime in relation to the location of police stations, independent of other variables. A new high-frequency daily dataset of the years 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019 with reported property crimes (robbery, theft, car robbery and theft) and personal crime (homicide) in the City of Buenos Aires, is used to model the paper’s findings. The authors found empirical evidence of a non-random spatial concentration for all crimes. It was also found that the commission of crimes increases exponentially as the distance from the nearest police station increases, until reaching an interval of 500–۶۰۰ m, at which point, it begins to descend once again. Evidence seems to show that police stations have a deterrent effect on crime.

۱٫ Introduction

Modelling criminal location choice is fundamental for researchers and practitioners. Understandably, then, one of the most developed areas of research in recent years (other than offender/victims-based characteristics) to explain the spatial distribution of crime, is precisely, the geography of offenders. The majority of studies attempt to model journey-to-crime based on the hypothesis that either a) there is monotonic criminal distance decay from offenders’ homes, similar to that of the majority of human mobility (for example, the study by Gimpel et al., 2008; on voting patterns), or b) there is a buffer zone near offenders’ homes with significantly reduced criminality (O’Leary, 2011). Both hypotheses have implications for theories explaining criminal behavior (Rengert, Piquero, & Jones, 1999). However, studies attempting to prove the existence of a buffer zone, have had mixed empirical findings. For example, the recent literature review by Bernasco and van Dijke (2020) identifies 108 studies on the relationship between the frequency of crime and offenders’ homes, of which, only 33 provide solid evidence for the existence of a buffer zone, while the remaining 75 have contrary evidence.