Measuring the Built Environment with Google Street View and Machine Learning: Consequences for Crime on Street Segments

Journal of Quantitative Criminology - Despite theoretical interest in how dimensions of the built environment can help explain the location of crime in micro?geographic units, measuring this...     

The Influence of Community Areas,Neighborhood Clusters,and Street Segments on the Spatial Variability of Violent Crime in Chicago

Objectives

The influence of three hierarchical units of analysis on the total spatial variability of violent crime incidents in Chicago is assessed. This analysis seeks to replicate a recent study that found street segments, rather than neighborhood units of analysis, accounted for the largest share of the total spatial variability of crime in The Hague, Netherlands (see Steenbeek and Weisburd J Quant Criminol. doi: 10.1007/s10940-015-9276-3, 2015).

Methods

We analyze violent crime incidents reported to the police between 2001 and 2014. 359,786 incidents were geocoded to 41,926 street segments nested within 342 neighborhood clusters, in turn nested within 76 community areas in Chicago. Linear mixed models with random slopes of time were estimated to observe the variance uniquely attributed to each unit of analysis.

Results

Similar to Steenbeek and Weisburd, we find 56–65 % of the total variability in violent crime incidents can be attributed to street segments in Chicago. City-wide reductions in violence over the observation period coincide with increases in the spatial variability attributed to street segments and decreases in the variability attributed to both neighborhood units.

Conclusions

Our results suggest that scholars interested in understanding the spatial variation of crime across urban landscapes should be focused on the small places that comprise larger geographic areas. The next wave of “neighborhood-effects” research should explore the role of hierarchical processes in understanding crime variation within larger areas.

     

The Spatial Dimensions of Gentrification and the Consequences for Neighborhood Crime

This study examines neighborhood economic improvement, what is occurring in nearby neighborhoods, and the consequences for neighborhood crime rates. Negative binomial regression models are estimated to explain the relationship between the increase in average home values (a component of gentrification) and crime in Los Angeles between 1990 and 2000. We find that the spatial context is important, as gentrifying neighborhoods located on the “frontier” of the gentrification process have significantly more aggravated assaults than gentrifying neighborhoods surrounded by neighborhoods also undergoing improvement. Furthermore, this effect is stronger in neighborhoods that began the decade with the highest average home values. Our findings indicate that the extent to which neighborhoods are more or less embedded in a larger process of economic improvement, and where the neighborhood is at in the economic development process, has differential effects on neighborhood crime.     

基于犯罪现场勘查学视野下的犯罪现场环境论

犯罪现场环境是相对于狭义犯罪现场的外部条件,不仅是一个延展空间,更是内外在要素与联系的拓展。犯罪现场环境是犯罪嫌疑人犯罪及社会活动的基础。狭义的犯罪现场环境是指发生犯罪行为的场所以外的地理空间环境。广义的犯罪现场环境是指与犯罪行为有关的人、事、物、时、空、信息在具体犯罪行为以外的客观存在。研究犯罪现场环境可以从地理空间环境、时间环境、心理环境、物质环境、数据空间环境等维度来系统构建。犯罪现场环境与犯罪嫌疑人犯罪行为的关系不是直接的因果关系,是一种相关性的跨界关系。研究犯罪现场环境可以从犯罪嫌疑人的活动轨迹及外部条件来分析侦查方向和范围,不仅对于个案发现侦查线索和破案证据具有指引意义,有助于犯罪现场分析与重建,也能够从类案或整体上映射犯罪自然和社会条件。     

Measuring the Distribution of Crime and Its Concentration

Objectives

Generally speaking, crime is, fortunately, a rare event. As far as modelling is concerned, this sparsity of data means that traditional measures to quantify concentration are not appropriate when applied to crime suffered by a population. Our objective is to develop a new technique to measure the concentration of crime which takes into account its low frequency of occurrence and its high degree of concentration in such a way that this measure is comparable over time and over different populations.

Methods

This article derives an estimate of the distribution of crime suffered by a population based on a mixture model and then evaluates a new and standardised measurement of the concentration of the rates of suffering a crime based on that distribution.

Results

The new measure is successfully applied to the incidence of robbery of a person in Mexico and is able to correctly quantify the concentration crime in such a way that is comparable between different regions and can be tracked over different time periods.

Conclusions

The risk of suffering a crime is not uniformly distributed across a population. There are certain groups which are statistically immune to suffering crime but there are also groups which suffer chronic victimisation. This measure improves our understanding of how patterns of crime can be quantified allowing us to determine if a prevention policy results in a crime reduction rather than target displacement. The method may have applications beyond crime science.

     

利用影响力受贿罪若干问题解读

《刑法》第388条之一是关于利用影响力受贿罪的规定,该法条来源于《刑法修正案(七)》第13条之增设性规定,旨在从严预防和惩治贿赂犯罪。尤其是针对以往不具有国家工作人员身份的人(主要是国家工作人员的"身边人"以及离职的国家工作人员和他们的"身边人"等)索取或收受贿赂后因惩处缺位而借以逃脱法律制裁的状况,立法上作出了相应的改进。然而,在增设了利用影响力受贿罪这一罪名后,必须考虑其与原有的贿赂犯罪罪刑体系如何衔接与协调,特别是有必要对该罪的罪名确定、主体范围、行为特征以及司法适用等问题进行深刻地解读。     

The Influence Of Drunkenness and Alcoholism on Crime and The Struggle Against Them

Drunkenness and crime. One of the consequences most dangerous to society of the use of alcoholic beverages, particularly strong ones, is their stimulation of crime. This is evident, for example, in the high percentage of persons committing crimes of self-interest, of violence, and also of negligence while inebriated. This is why study of the relation between crime and the consumption of alcoholic beverages is of particular importance in developing the system of measures for prevention of crime.     

Urban Environment, Genetics, and Crime

Gene-environment interactions are important for the development of much human behavior. We examined the possibility that a genetic propensity to criminal behavior interacts with the type of environment in which an individual is raised. Using a cohort of adoptees, we found evidence for independent contributions of biological parent criminality (genetic influence) and urban environment rearing to prediction of adoptee criminality, but no evidence for a gene-environment interaction involving these factors.     

犯罪热点成因:基于空间相关性的解释

随着犯罪地理学的兴起,犯罪聚集分布及热点相对稳定分布的原因亟待释疑。鉴于热点的空间属性,从空间相关性出发,在制图验证犯罪聚集性和热点稳定性的前提下,以回归分析筛选空间变量,发现标志性建筑等五种因素在63.7%的程度上影响盗窃密度变化;创建空间滞后模型,量化犯罪自相关对空间相关性的影响,发现标志性建筑对盗窃犯罪有较强吸引力,商业点密度等因素与犯罪呈线性正相关,公交站点密度等因素与犯罪呈非线性关系,且存在犯罪临界值。这种从相关到因果的分析思路为犯罪原因研究带来了经验到量化、模糊到精确、定量到定性的方法论改进,从聚焦稳定热点、依靠数据决策、评估犯罪风险、借力城市设计方面为创新立体化防控提供了理论支持。     

危害环境罪的主观罪过研究

在危害环境罪中,往往存在两个相互联系的危害后果,对这两个危害结果,行为人的主观心态也多有不同.因而,危害环境罪存在复杂罪过的情形.我国也应在刑法典中对危害环境罪的因过形式进行明确的规定,同时同一罪名中应当分别规定故意犯罪与过失犯罪.     

Heterogeneity in the Frequency Distribution of Crime Victimization

Objectives

Tests the idea that the frequency distribution typically observed in crosssectional crime victimization data sampled from surveys of general populations is a heterogeneously distributed result of the mixing of two latent processes associated, respectively, with each of the tails of the distribution.

Methods

Datasets are assembled from a number of samples taken from the British Crime Survey and the Scottish Crime Victimization Survey. Latent class analysis is used to explore the probable, latent distributions of individual property crime and personal crime victimization matrices that express the frequency and type of victimization that are self-reported by respondents over the survey recall period.

Results

The analysis obtains broadly similar solutions for both types of victimization across the respective datasets. It is demonstrated that a hypothesized mixing process will produce a heterogeneous set of local sub-distributions: a large sub-population that is predominantly not victimized, a very small ‘chronic’ sub-population that is frequently and consistently victimized across crime-type, and an ‘intermediate’ sub-population (whose granularity varies with sample size) to whom the bulk of victimization occurs. Additionally, attention is paid to the position of very high frequency victimization within these sub-populations.

Conclusions

The analysis supports the idea that crime victimization may be a function of two propensities: for immunity, and exposure. It demonstrates that zero-inflation is also a defining feature of the distribution that needs to be set alongside the significance that has been attached to the thickness of its right tail. The results suggest a new baseline model for investigating population distributions of crime victimization.     

城市犯罪的移动空间盲区及其综合治理

移动空间的依托——公共交通工具,是城市人的活动发生空间位移时的主要运载体,对其犯罪盲区实施科学的综合治理是防控城市公共交通载体犯罪的有效途径.移动空间是一种很特殊的空间实体,存在许多犯罪盲区的致盲因素.对移动空间盲区实施综合治理,既要注重对所有类型移动空间盲区的共性对策,也要注重不同类型移动空间盲区的综合治理各有侧重.     

环境犯罪立法完善研究——以截短的犯罪构成为视角

为了应对环境犯罪的新挑战,充分发挥刑法防范风险的机能,刑法的介入时间必须提前,介入范围必须扩大。以截短的犯罪构成理论为视角,分析我国环境犯罪的立法现状,提出了转变立法理念、改进罪刑体系与犯罪构成要件,以及完善污染环境罪、破坏植物资源犯罪、与环境相关联的走私犯罪、渎职犯罪等个罪的建议。     

DENSITY, DELINQUENCY, AND DESIGN Formal and Informal Control and the Built Environment

This study reviews the literature concerning the general impact of the physical environment on social disorganization, crime, and juvenile delinquency, with a specific focus on the relationship between household density, building density-design, and juvenile delinquency. Two perspectives on control are shown to have developed in an environmental context. One emphasizes the capacity of the built environment to impair informal social control, and the other focuses on the attraction of the same environments for agents of formal social control (the police). A path model is presented. showing that building density-design is an independent predictor of marijuana use and supporting the view that the physical environment can affect informal control. The model also shows that building density-design is a significant predictor of police presence. thus giving empirical support to the notion that the physical environment can affect formal control.     

嗜尸性昆虫证据在案发现场的分布研究

为了明确案发现场昆虫证据的分布,为法医昆虫学现场昆虫证据收集提供借鉴,我们利用猪尸体进行模拟,对现场昆虫的分布进行了调查,重点观察了大头金蝇、丝光绿蝇、绯颜裸金蝇、厚环黑蝇、阎甲科、隐翅甲科、埋葬甲科和皮蠹科昆虫的活动情况。结果表明,昆虫标本主要分布于尸体上及现场约10米范围的地面和地下,据此我们提出了法医昆虫学现场取样规范。     

Risky Reports: Crime Risk Assessments and Spatial Governance

The identification, assessment, and minimization of crime risk has permeated practices that extend well beyond traditional criminal justice responses. This article analyses crime risk assessment reports and the guidelines and processes through which they are produced for large-scale commercial and residential developments and redevelopments, taking New South Wales Australia as a case study. The article suggests that although the crime risk assessment guidelines and reports deploy a language of risk, there is a messiness and inconsistency to the crime risk assessment process that raises significant questions its normative utility. The article concludes that the language and promise of risk minimisation can silence or ‘black box’ what appear to be coherent regulatory process making them little more than symbolic gestures.     

The Influence of New Technologies on the Visual Attention of CSIs Performing a Crime Scene Investigation

Currently, a series of promising new tools are under development that will enable crime scene investigators (CSIs) to analyze traces in situ during the crime scene investigation or enable them to detect blood and provide information on the age of blood. An experiment is conducted with thirty CSIs investigating a violent robbery at a mock crime scene to study the influence of such technologies on the perception and interpretation of traces during the first phase of the investigation. Results show that in their search for traces, CSIs are not directed by the availability of technologies, which is a reassuring finding. Qualitative findings suggest that CSIs are generally more focused on analyzing perpetrator traces than on reconstructing the event. A focus on perpetrator traces might become a risk when other crime‐related traces are overlooked, and when analyzed traces are in fact not crime‐related and in consequence lead to the identification of innocent suspects.     

我国三大经济圈地域环境与犯罪

长江三角洲、珠江三角洲、环渤海三大经济圈地区是当前我国经济最发达、人口最稠密、城市化程度最高的地区,同时也是我国犯罪高发、万人犯罪率最高的地区。三大经济圈地域环境与犯罪之间具有一定的内在联系。本文分析了三大经济圈地区东部沿海沿边位置、交通枢纽地位、城市空间环境、地域气候环境对犯罪活动的影响,从而对全面把握三大经济圈区域犯罪特点,因地制宜地采取针对性措施,预防和减少犯罪,具有积极意义。     

论受贿罪选择客体及其对定罪量刑的影响

受贿罪是实践中案发率非常高的腐败犯罪,作为刑法学界研究较为深入的一个犯罪,其概念、构成要件、与它罪的区别、证据的判断、运用等问题的探讨已经有一个大致的眉目。然而,站在另一个平台和视角,学界对于受贿罪选择客体的研究却甚少。本文从一个细微的切入点探究了受贿罪选择客体及其对定罪量刑的影响。