Place Of Crime Research Articles

Autopsy following death by homicide in 644 cases

The objectives of this study are to determine the cause of death and based on the wounds, to analyze the different epidemiological variables on homicide in Dakar.Included were all homicides cases where an autopsy was performed and these results recorded in the autopsy register. The data collected in our work included, identity, sex, age, place of crime (location), the cause of death (the causative agent and the anatomical region injured) and the mechanism of death (the pathophysiological phenomenon causing death).On average 56 cases of homicide a year are reported, ranging from 44 cases in 2005 to 80 cases in 1999. Extrapolated to the population of Dakar this corresponds to 1.9 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants. Victims aged over 55 years represented only 4.03% of all victims. 6.52% of cases were infanticide. The crimes mainly took place in the suburbs of Dakar (51.42% of cases). Hand held weapons were used in 578 cases (89.7%) followed by firearms in 44 cases (6.8%).The study of the age of the victims has some interesting points. The homicide of elderly people in Senegal was relatively low in contrast to what is found in a developed country. The youthfulness of our population also explains the large number of homicide victims between 21 and 25. Infanticide is a particular problem in Senegal. In our study, 50.6% of homicides were found in the suburbs of Dakar followed by the peripheral area which accounted for 29.3% of homicides. The incidence of homicide can be directly correlated with the level of economic development. This frequency is much higher where incomes are low and particularly affect young males.The study of this phenomenon should lead to better prevention. The victim-type in Dakar is a young man, aged 20–25 years, killed by an instrument with an injury to the skull, neck, heart or main arteries, causing bleeding and death.

The CR‐Ω+ Classification Algorithm for Spatio‐Temporal Prediction of Criminal Activity

We present a spatio‐temporal prediction model that allows forecasting of the criminal activity behavior in a particular region by using supervised classification. The degree of membership of each pattern is interpreted as the forecasted increase or decrease in the criminal activity for the specified time and location. The proposed forecasting model (CR‐Ω+) is based on the family of Kora‐Ω Logical‐Combinatorial algorithms operating on large data volumes from several heterogeneous sources using an inductive learning process. We propose several modifications to the original algorithms by Bongard and Baskakova and Zhuravlëv which improve the prediction performance on the studied dataset of criminal activity. We perform two analyses: punctual prediction and tendency analysis, which show that it is possible to predict punctually one of four crimes to be perpetrated (crime family, in a specific space and time), and 66% of effectiveness in the prediction of the place of crime, despite of the noise of the dataset. The tendency analysis yielded an STRMSE (Spatio‐Temporal RMSE) of less than 1.0.

Geografia przestępczości. Uwagi na temat przestrzennych analiz przestępczości przy wykorzystaniu technik cyfrowych

The article discusses the issue of digital technologies use for practical applications of the principles of modern ecologic currents in criminology. The phenomenon of crime is not distributed evenly in time and space. Detailed analysis of this regularity is possible owing to crime map making. The tradition of such map making originates in the 19th century and roots from the cartographic school. Their representatives conducted analyses basing on the data coming from French police statistics. More advanced studies on spatial distribution of crime, whose authors created theoretical conceptions attempting at explaining this phenomenon, originate from the Chicago school. In our times, with the advancement of computerisation, technical capabilities of modern computers and availability of good and reliable software, crime maps are becoming an even more easily accessible and effective tool in the analysis of the phenomenon of crime. Geographic information system (GIS) is the technology currently employed for spatial analyses. It allows introducing, storing, processing and visualising geographical data. Geocoding technology enables translation to geographic coordinates and digital map making containing information on the criminal events in a given city. GIS is used in criminological analyses in two main areas: digital crime map making and geographic profiling. Crime mapping is a tool for spatial analyses of criminal incidents which consists in putting together the time and place of crime to investigate spatial patterns of criminal behaviours and hot spots. It also enables to analyse criminal incidents according to various spatial variables e.g. to compare crime scene locations with locations like bars or schools, with demographic data concerning investigated areas etc. The idea of crime mapping has its roots in theoretical assumptions of environmental criminology which seeks relations between crime and its environmental and geographic determinants. Studies on crime scene locations are related mainly to the idea of hot spots, that is places where more criminal incidents than the average are reported. Crime maps are a useful tool which enables the analysts equipped with adequate criminological knowledge to seek the reasons for concentration of criminal activity in the area. In practice, digital maps are used by the police to obtain geographical data about a given area and to manage police units. Advanced use of GIS is made in everyday work of police forces in the USA and UK. Maps can also allow the data on crime statistics on a given area to be accessed by local communities. Geographic profiling is another GIS application enabling use of criminological knowledge. It allows to establish the most likely estimated place of residence of serial offenders. A profile is made based on information concerning crime location and other places of significance to the incident (eg. place where the corpse was abandoned).

Governing through globalised crime: futures for international criminal justice

1. The New Globalisation - Modernity to Risk Societies 2 .Crime and Risk - Nexus between Crime and Globalisation 3. A Review of Global Crime Problems - Studies of Crime as Global Risk 4. Risk and Security - Studies of Global Crime Control Responses in the Context of International Security 5. International Criminal Justice and Governance 6. Governing Through Globalised Crime 7. Tensions Between Globalised Governance and Internationalised Justice 8. The Crucial Place of Crime and Control within the Transformation of Globalised Cultures 9. Global Governance and the Future of International Criminal Justice Transformed

Rotation and intensity invariant shoeprint matching using Gabor transform with application to forensic science

Shoe marks at the place of crime provide valuable forensic evidence. This paper presents a technique for rotation and intensity invariant automatic shoeprint matching. Multiresolution features of a shoeprint have been extracted using Gabor transform. Rotation of the shoeprint image has been estimated using Radon transform and is compensated by rotating the features in opposite direction. The performance of the proposed algorithm has been compared with the technique in which the features have been determined using Fourier transform and its power spectral density. Shoeprint database has been generated by inviting participants to tread on an inkpad and then stamp on a piece of paper. Euclidian distance classifier has been used to find a suitable match. The performance of the proposed algorithm has been evaluated in terms of correct recognition rate computed using best match score at rank ‘1’ and cumulative match score for the first four matches with rotation, intensity and/or mixed attacks. A good matching performance has been achieved with rotation attack; typically 91 percent at rank ‘1’ and 100 percent at rank ‘2’ for full prints. Performance of the proposed technique is better even for partial shoeprints. Experimentation has also been carried out by perturbing shoeprint images with Gaussian white noise, salt and pepper noise to evaluate the robustness of the proposed technique.

Crime as an issue during the 2005 UK general election

Politicians are fond of telling interviewers that their focus should be on the `real issues' or `what matters most to the people'. This research note considers the place of crime as a `real issue', specifically during the national general election held in the UK in May 2005. According to research by Ipsos MORI (May 2005), at the time of the election the issues that mattered most to people were crime (40 per cent), the health service (36 per cent), race relations/immigration (27 per cent) and education (26 per cent). Crime was clearly important to the public, but how was this reflected in the policies of the main parties and the media coverage of the campaign?

Living on the edge in an ancient imperial world: Aztec crime and deviance

The ancient Aztecs created the largest empire in the prehistory of Mesoamerica. During this brief period (1428–1521 AD), Aztec life was complex and volatile. This article treats the place of crime and deviance within this dynamic setting, exploring (1) the Aztec historical and institutional context for living a proper (and improper) life, (2) recorded and expected realms of criminal and deviant behaviour, (3) opportunities for malfeasance and those who took advantage of them and (4) the manner in which Aztec institutions and powerful individuals dealt with crime and deviance. These dimensions provide the basis for an explanatory discussion of the presence or absence of organised crime in Aztec life.

A new efficient method of fingerprint image enhancement

Fingerprint images frequently have poor characteristics, because these traces are captured in crime places and are left on objects of different structure. For this reason, a lot of fingerprints have to be rejected they are useless in identification processes. Fortunately, in some cases, low quality fingerprints can be additionally analysed by means of special algorithms. In this paper, a new fingerprint enhancement method has been presented. In the proposed approach, quality of image is enhanced by means of convolution of a given image and Gaussian kernel. Finally, the local binarisation is applied. Results obtained from the experiments have demonstrated and presented the efficiency of the method.

Introduction: urban stability and civic liberties

One of the most widespread stereotypes about modern urban life claims that it is more dangerous and crime-ridden than life in the country. Journalists use the evidence of delinquency-rates in big cities to argue for the presence of contemporary crime waves. The police apply new methods of crime prevention such as the so-called ‘zero tolerance’ strategy first in large metropolises. The tabloid press detects ‘murder capitals’. The film industry loves scenes from urban life in their thrillers and we love to watch them. Evidence used in the popular press seems to prove an almost natural link between urban life and crime. This connection, however, is not a contemporary phenomenon. In his famous Enquiry into the Causes of the Late Increase of Robbers Henry Fielding described the streets of London in 1751 as places of crime and insecurity. Archives of towns and cities are full of court proceedings and criminal records dating from the late middle ages, when town magistrates started to take measures against so-called delinquency – a contemporary legal term. Violence, in particular, seems to have been endemic in towns and cities. It could be tempting, therefore, to conclude that the link between urban life and crime is self-evident, if not to say timeless. However, historical statutes and town records can also be read in a rather different way. In both normative sources and court proceedings we can discern a clear will to ensure peace and stability in towns and cities. Without this will, our sources would simply not exist, for crime and conflict would have gone by unnoticed and unrecorded.

Effects of Hot Spots Policing on Crime

This Campbell systematic review synthesizes the existing published and non‐published empirical evidence on the effects of focused police crime prevention interventions at high‐activity crime places and will provide a systematic assessment of the preventive value of focused police crime prevention efforts at crime hot spots. The review also examined whether focused police actions at specific locations result in crime displacement.Studies that used randomized controlled experimental or quasi‐experimental designs were selected. Nine eligible studies were included in this review.The results of this systematic review support the assertion that focusing police efforts at high activity crime places can be effective in preventing crime. Whatever the impact, we need to know more about the effects of hot spots policing approaches on the communities that the police serve.

Crimes, Frontiers, and Stories of Extermination: Violence in Argentine Literature

Crimes, Frontiers, and Stories of ExterminationViolence in Argentine Literature Carolina Rocha (bio) The Corpus Delicti: A Manual of Argentine Fictions. By Josefina Ludmer . Translated by Glen S. Close . (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2004. Pp. 400. $39.95 cloth.) La Violencia del Azar: Ensayos Sobre Literatura Argentina. By Cristina Iglesia . (Buenos Aires: Fondo Cultural Económica, 2003. Pp. 200.) Sueños de Exterminio: Homosexualidad y Representación en la Literatura Argentina Contemporánea. By Gabriel Giorgi . (Rosario, Argentina: Beatriz Viterbo, 2004. Pp. 204.) In recent years, the study of violence has occupied scholars who specialize in Latin American literature: they have either examined works that deal with the topic of political, class, ethnic, and sexual aggression, or they have scrutinized the creation and propagation of discourses that used violence as a technique, muffling or censoring certain groups. In other words, literary critics have looked at the ways in which power is exercised within societies dividing its members, and the silencing of dissident and/or minority voices as reflected in literary works. In addition, the study of borders or lines that separate or make contact possible between opposing groups has also been addressed. For the specific case of Argentine literature, I have in mind Letrados Iletrados (1999), a collection of essays compiled by Ana María Zubieta. Parallel to this interest in violence, attention has also focused on the formation of national communities, commonly taken as political bodies. This metaphor of countries as political bodies has allowed the representation of national communities as targets where violence can be inflicted, or as perpetrators prone to generate internal and external aggression. These two ideas, violence as a physical and/or mental form of aggression inflicted on certain groups and the exclusions and omissions that take place during the process of national self-definition, are analytical concerns prevalent in the three books reviewed. [End Page 157] A common focus of these books dealing with nineteenth and twentieth-century Argentine literature is the examination of literary works that not only purport to mirror the conventional culture of the nation, but also of texts that transgress those dominant discourses. Therefore, these authors aim to shed light on the ways violence has shaped Argentine society as well as its literature. The first two books reviewed in this essay concentrate primarily on nineteenth-century literary works that intended to found both the nation and a national literary tradition. Because of the foundational role of nineteenth-century literature, twentieth-century literary works are constantly in dialogue with their precursors, and the tracing of those discussions is tackled—albeit in different degrees—in these three books. The first book examined here, The Corpus Delicti: A Manual of Argentine Fictions, is the long-awaited translation of Josefina Ludmer's El cuerpo del delito (1999). Displaying her broad knowledge of Argentine intellectual history and literary criticism, Ludmer begins her study by identifying the central place of crime as a tool to found a culture within the framework of a capitalist economy. Because crimes generate a web of relationships between victims and criminals, Ludmer holds that they articulate beliefs, words, and bodies and also allow an examination of the validity and implementation of laws. Her analysis starts with fictional novels published after 1880, when Argentina was organized by liberal authorities and entered into the world market as an import economy. In the first chapter "From Transgression to Crime," Ludmer argues that because of the passing of education and civil registry laws, fictional and autobiographical works of this period consisted predominantly of stories of education and marriage. To illustrate her argument, Ludmer examines Miguel Cané's Juvenilia (1884) and La gran aldea (1884) by Lucio V. López and concludes that "the patricians of the cultural coalition define their national identity as at once political and familial" (24). Ludmer aptly clarifies that the stories of education by Cané and López represent the two political positions of the ruling elite, namely, the porteñista and the provincial viewpoints. She reads the gesture of peaceful coexistence of these contrasting perspectives among members of the liberal elite—an original development in Argentine politics that up to that moment had been plagued by civil strife and...

Hot spots policing and crime prevention: A systematic review of randomized controlled trials

Crime scholars and practitioners have argued that police actions should be focused on high-risk crime places rather than spread thinly across the urban landscape. This review examines five randomized controlled trials of the effects of concentrating police enforcement efforts on crime hot spots. The findings of these evaluations suggest that focused police actions can prevent crime and disorder in crime hot spots. A meta-analysis of the effect sizes from the five experiments reveals a statistically significant mean effect size for hot spots policing interventions; this suggests overall reductions in citizen calls for service in the treatment hot spots relative to the control hot spots. These studies also suggest that focused police actions at specific locations do not necessarily result in crime displacement. Although these evaluations reveal that these programs work in preventing crime, additional research is needed to unravel other important policy-relevant issues such as community reaction to focused police enforcement efforts.

Fatal Head Injury in Homicidal Victims

Homicide represents one of the leading causes of death, and the head is the target in the majority of cases. The objective of the present study was to analyze the pattern of head injury among homicidal death victims. Information was obtained by interviewing the accompanying persons, post-mortem examination and perusal of hospital records. Most of the victims were predominantly male and belonged in the age group 21-30 years. Blunt weapons caused the majority of the injuries. Defence wounds were present in 48% of the victims. The street was the place of crime in the majority of cases (46.7%) and in most of the cases there was more than one offender. Multiple assaults were seen on the body in 70% of cases. The skull was fractured in more than 80% of victims and intracranial haemorrhages were seen in 47 victims. Out of 77 cases, 55 victims showed intracranial lesions along with injuries to the skull and scalp. Associated fatal injuries were most commonly present on the neck and chest. The majority of the victims died instantly or within 24 hours. Blunt force is commonly used when the head is the target. Defence wounds, when present, are indicative of the homicidal nature of the attack, and multiple strokes present over the body indicate determination on the part of the accused to end the life of the victim.

The Walt Disney World Underground

This article has grown out of a larger project on representations of subterranean space in the modern city. It explores the meanings of the “utilidors,” the underground infrastructure of the Magic Kingdom, within the broader experience of the space of Walt Disney World. It relates this experience to a particular mode of representing the modern city as divided between its respectable, aboveground spaces and its hidden, underground spaces. The author concludes by suggesting some of the insights the power of Disney’s spatial divisions can provide in thinking about current images of the city as simultaneously a site of “Disneyfication” (e.g., the new Times Square) and as a place of ruin, crime, and decay.

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Hidden Targets, Hidden Harms: Community Safety and Sexual Minority Communities

This paper focuses on the social and political climate in which the emphasis on concepts such as community safety, community cohesion and social exclusion is currently being expanded, in order to accommodate to the recent developments in England and Wales in which hate crimes, whether racially motivated or a result of homophobia, are increasingly being taken seriously by local authorities and police forces in England and Wales. It is within this context that social detachment, non-participation in 'civic culture', and a lack of confidence in government and in the police are seen as being social problems that must be resolved through confidence-building, consultation and encouraging participation, especially in relation to minority communities. The main focus of the paper is devoted to exploring the special place of hate crime in the expanding conceptual landscape of the 'community safety' ethos following the Crime and Disorder Act 1998, with particular attention being paid to homophobic and transphobic incidents.

The Effects of Hot Spots Policing on Crime

In recent years, researchers have argued that police actions should be focused on high-risk crime places rather than spread thinly across the urban landscape. This review examines the available evaluation evidence on the effects of concentrating police enforcement efforts on crime hot spots. Five randomized experiments and four nonequivalent control group quasi experiments were identified. The findings of these evaluations suggest that focused police actions can prevent crime and disorder in crime hot spots. These studies also suggest that focused police actions at specific locations do not necessarily result in crime displacement. Unintended crime prevention benefits were also associated with the hot spots policing programs. Although these evaluations reveal that these programs work in preventing crime, additional research is needed to unravel other important policy-relevant issues such as community reaction to focused police enforcement efforts. (Abstract Adapted from Source: The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 2001. Copyright © 2001 by SAGE Publications) Program Effectiveness Program Evaluation Prevention Program Crime Prevention Crime Intervention Police Intervention Law Enforcement Intervention 01-05

The Effects of Hot Spots Policing on Crime

In recent years, researchers have argued that police actions should be focused on high-risk crime places rather than spread thinly across the urban landscape. This review examines the available evaluation evidence on the effects of concentrating police enforcement efforts on crime hot spots. Five randomized experiments and four nonequivalent control group quasi-experiments were identified. The findings of these evaluations suggest that focused police actions can prevent crime and disorder in crime hot spots. These studies also suggest that focused police actions at specific locations do not necessarily result in crime displacement. Unintended crime prevention benefits were also associated with the hot spots policing programs. Although these evaluations reveal that these programs work in preventing crime, additional research is needed to unravel other important policy-relevant issues such as community reaction to focused police enforcement efforts.

FEAR, TV NEWS, AND THE REALITY OF CRIME*

Data from a 1997 survey of 2, 250 Florida residents are used to assess whether and how the reality of crime influences the relationship between watching TV news and fear of crime. Local crime rates, victim experience, and perceived realism of crime news operationalize the reality of crime and are included in ordinary least squares (OLS) estimates of the TV news and fear of crime relationship. These measures of reality are also used as contexts for disaggregating the analysis. Local and national news are related to fear of crime independent of the effects of the reality of crime and other controls. Local news effects are stronger, especially for people who live in high crime places or have recent victim experience. This contextual pattern of findings is consistent with a conclusion that TV news is most influential when it resonates the experience or crime reality of respondents.

PROBLEM‐ORIENTED POLICING IN VIOLENT CRIME PLACES: A RANDOMIZED CONTROLLED EXPERIMENT*

Over the past decade, problem‐oriented policing has become a central strategy for policing. In a number of studies, problem‐oriented policing has been found to be effective in reducing crime and disorder. However, very little is known about the value of problem‐oriented interventions in controlling violent street crime. The National Academy of Sciences' Panel on the Understanding and Control of Violent Behavior suggests that sustained research on problem‐oriented policing initiatives that modify places, routine activities, and situations that promote violence could contribute much to the understanding and control of violence. This study evaluates the effects of problem‐oriented policing interventions on urban violent crime problems in Jersey City, New Jersey. Twenty‐four high‐activity, violent crime places were matched into 12 pairs and one member of each pair was allocated to treatment conditions in a randomized block field experiment. The results of the impact evaluation support the growing body of research that asserts focused police efforts can reduce crime and disorder at problem places without causing crime problems to displace to surrounding areas.