Environmental Criminology: Testing Some Area Hypotheses

Abstract

Environmental criminology offers one way in which research into the geography of crime may develop. Its focus upon the place at which an offence occurs aligns well with geographical approaches centrally interested in location, territory and urban environments as influences upon patterns of criminal events. From the available research literature four area hypotheses are identified, three of which fall clearly within the limits of environmental criminology; the fourth retains a link with wider criminological concerns with causation and the distribution of offenders in space. Residential crime, taken to mean burglary and theft from dwellings, tends to show spatial clustering in particular parts of the city in what are termed vulnerable areas. Data from Swansea are used to test these area hypotheses and to exemplify research in environmental criminology. All of the hypotheses are found to have something to offer but some may have to be used in a selective way. Environmental criminology offers a particular kind of approach which lends itself to the formation of short-term policies for crime prevention.