Property and Personal Crime in Istanbul

Abstract

In recent studies on urban safety, close relationships between physical and demographic characteristics have been found in crime levels in cities. In many countries social, political and economic turmoil have been the main reasons for the increase in urban crime and violence in the last 50 years. In physically deprived environments, the most important factors that increase urban crime are socially isolated communities, economic discrimination and lack of equality in political citizenship rights. In developing countries, it is difficult to obtain data about crime and safety. For this reason, there are very few studies on crime compared to developed countries. In the research in this paper, the similarities and differences of crime ratios against property and persons in Istanbul are compared with those in other countries. For this purpose, the spatial distribution of crimes committed were analysed on a comparative basis between 1998–2002 in 32 districts displaying different characteristics in terms of distance to the centre, use of land, value of land, physical and demographic features. The research revealed that the crime rates in Istanbul against property and persons were in parallel with developed countries. The districts which have mixed use (residential and commercial, residential and industrial), high population increase, high number of households, high density and high land value, property and personal crime levels are high; when date of becoming a district is recent and the size of the district is large, property and personal crime levels are low.