“A Plague on both Your Houses?”: Risks,Repeats and Reconsiderations of Urban Residential Burglary

Research has shown that mapping techniques are useful in forecasting future crime events. However, the majority of prospective mapping techniques has focused on the event-dependent influence of instigator incidents on subsequent incidents and does not explicitly incorporate the risk heterogeneity of the setting. The study here discussed is a modest attempt to address this issue by using a two-step process: first, using risk terrain modeling, we operationalized the “environmental backcloth,” (the risk heterogeneity of an area) to forecast locations of residential burglaries in the urban city of Newark, New Jersey. Second, using the near repeat calculator, we assessed the variability of underlying risk between different types of residential burglaries. A discussion of the findings and the joint utility of these approaches is provided.     

基于DEA模型的我国政府社会管理职能绩效评价研究——以30个省(直辖市、自治区)为统计样本的实证分析

政府社会管理职能绩效评价是政府管理中的一个重点和难点问题。本文采用数据包络分析模型对中国30个省(直辖市、自治区)的政府社会管理职能绩效进行时空差异分析和实证评价。研究发现,30个省(直辖市、自治区)的政府社会管理职能绩效具有空间差异性、雁行形态和区域梯度性、时间动态变化性、结构复杂性特征。为进一步提高我国政府社会管理职能绩效,本文提出了有关对策建议。     

Extraction of the relevant population from a forensic database

Evaluation of forensic evidence using Bayesian statistics requires the formulation of hypotheses. Many hypotheses, especially those presenting the defence viewpoint imply that traces can be attributed to an arbitrary member of a relevant population. The exact items or persons that comprise the relevant population may vary from case to case. Therefore, the statistical evaluation of evidential value based on databases cannot make use of a fixed set of items or persons. In the current paper, methodology is presented to filter the contents of a database such that only items that are considered relevant are selected. Six scenarios, including those related to fibre, textile, and glass evidence are described, together with the hypotheses and relevant populations that may be evaluated by an expert. In addition, we show how items representing the defined relevant population can be extracted from a database using SQL code. Images of the items in the (filtered) relevant population provide an overview of the selected items and hence direct feedback to the examiner. In this way, erroneous codes or unwanted side effects can be identified and corrected. It is concluded that the filtering procedure is effective in cases where the relevant population is demarcated accurately.     

Cores and Peripheries: Spatial Analysis of Housing Choice Voucher Distribution in the San Francisco Bay Area Region, 2000–2010

This study uses spatial regressions and spatial statistics to examine the changes in the distribution of Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) households within an expanded San Francisco Bay Area region. From 2000 to 2010, the density of HCV households grew disproportionately across the region, and areas of significant increase emerged in both the region’s urban cores and its rural periphery. Furthermore, the destination communities shared a set of common characteristics. In 2010 HCV households were more likely to locate in areas with lower housing prices, lower percentages of educated people, higher rates of poverty, and higher percentages of African American households when compared with the region as a whole. These findings suggest that voucher holders locate where housing is affordable. We conclude that in regions with tight housing markets, supply matters. This study also introduces housing researchers and policy makers to a methodological approach that addresses what is known in geostatistics as a change of support problem.     

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.     

Journey to murder: examining the correlates of criminal mobility in sexual homicide

Although the empirical research on the journey to crime seems to indicate that most crimes are committed close to home, only a few studies have specifically examined the journey to crime in cases of sexual homicide. Using a sample of 214 sexual homicide cases, the current study investigates, using logistic regression, offenders who travel during the crime to those offenders who commit their crime, all at the same location. Current findings suggest that sexual murderers who engage in intra-crime travel tend to use a vehicle in the commission of their offence, target adult victims who are involved in the sex trade and move the body post murder.     

内战域内蔓延的影响条件：选举支持与地理环境

理解内战中武装冲突波及范围的影响因素对当事国和国际冲突管理机制都具有重要意义。既有研究普遍认为,选举事件和地理环境要素可能对国内冲突发生和发展过程起显著作用,但关于这些因素如何作用于内战的域内蔓延路径仍存在深入讨论的空间。不同于现有文献的常见解释,通过讨论选举中地方投票支持情况和社会经济地理环境对各地武装冲突爆发的作用,并以斯里兰卡内战案例中的次国家行政单元为经验观察对象,在同一分析框架内考察两类条件在内战蔓延过程中的实际影响。实证研究发现,不同单元之间的武装冲突风险存在空间集聚效应;相比于自然地理条件,反映社会经济地理条件的城乡距离更加显著地影响本地冲突风险;较短的城乡距离在增加当地冲突风险的同时也会增加临近单元的冲突风险;地方对中央政府的选举支持在调节武装冲突发生和风险蔓延方面的作用并不稳健。     

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.     

Mobilizing for a ‘Europe from below’: network,territory, and place in the anti-austerity Blockupy movement

In March 2015, the anti-austerity movement, Blockupy, protested the inauguration of the ECB's new premises. This article explores Blockupy's construction of a sociospatial imaginary of a ‘Europe from below’. The article: (1) analyses the construction of the transnational Blockupy network, (2) compares the territory of the elite's austerity Eurozone with that of a different ‘Europe from below’, and (3) shows how the ECB premises have been the central place of European austerity and protest. This approach supplements recent debates on multispatiality, and shifts the lens used to analyse crises from a structural one to one emphasizing ongoing politicization ‘from below’.