Crime concentrations and micro places: An empirical test of the “law of crime concentration at places” in Belgium
| DOI | 10.1177/0004865818807243 |
| Published date | 01 September 2019 |
| Date | 01 September 2019 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Article
Australian & New Zealand Journal of
Crime concentrations and
Criminology
2019, Vol. 52(3) 390–410
!
micro places: An empirical
The Author(s) 2018
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test of the “law of crime
DOI: 10.1177/0004865818807243
journals.sagepub.com/home/anj
concentration at places”
in Belgium
Wim Hardyns
, Thom Snaphaan
and
Lieven JR Pauwels
Ghent University, Belgium
Abstract
This study examines the extent to which crime concentrations occur at micro places, in
order to test Weisburd’s law of crime concentration at places, in two large Belgian cities.
Police-registered crime data for the period 2004–2012 were used. Analyses were conducted
at the grid level (using 200 meters by 200 meters grid cells), as a proxy for behavior settings.
This study assesses Weisburd’s theoretical proposition and by (partly) replicating prior
empirical research, we conclude that the findings are in line with those from prior studies
regarding crime concentration at micro places. Finally, opportunities and avenues for future
research on crime places are discussed.
Keywords
Crime statistics, environmental criminology, grid cells, law of crime concentration,
micro places
Date received: 28 April 2018; accepted: 25 September 2018
Introduction
Micro places are small geographical locations that in recent years have gained increasing
prominence in empirical research in the field of environmental criminology.
Corresponding author:
Thom Snaphaan, Department of Criminology, Criminal Law and Social Law, Ghent University, Universiteitstraat 4,
9000 Ghent, Belgium.
Email: Thom.Snaphaan@UGent.be
Hardyns et al.
391
The criminology of place focuses primarily on these micro-units of analysis, such as
addresses, street segments, or clusters of these units (Weisburd, Bruinsma, &
Bernasco, 2009). When reviewing the existing literature on the criminology of place, it
is immediately clear that these micro-units often have disparate definitions, and hence,
they are operationalized differently too. For example, Sherman, Gartin, and Buerger
(1989) define a “place” as: “a fixed physical environment that can be seen completely
and simultaneously, at least on its surface, by one’s naked eyes” (p. 31), while Eck and
Weisburd (1995) define micro places as “specific locations within the larger social envi-
ronment” (p. 3). As stated by Payne (2018): “The definition of ‘place’ often depends on
the research question and on pragmatic concerns such as data availability and degree of
error in the data” (p. 146). Madensen and Eck (2013) bring conceptual clarity and
provide a theoretical meaningful distinctions among place aggregations by distinguish-
ing (1) proprietary places,1 (2) proximal places,2 and (3) pooled places.3
Within environmental criminology in general and the criminology of place in partic-
ular the focus is not so much on the “why” of deviant behavior as on why concentra-
tions of crime arises “in specific places and at specific times.” This tradition has its
origins in diverse urban traditions: it combines aspects of situational crime prevention
(Weisburd, Bernasco, & Bruinsma, 2009), urban planning and urban design (for urban
design, see Jeffery, 1971), and urban architecture (see Newman, 1972). As a result,
features of physical space and criminal opportunity (Eck & Weisburd, 1995) also
acquire a place alongside the much more established social ecology (Byrne &
Sampson, 1986; Reiss & Tonry, 1986; Wikstr€
om, 2007), which placed significantly
more emphasis on neighborhoods (higher aggregation levels than micro places) as
breeding grounds or magnets for crime concentrations and fear of crime (Covington
& Taylor, 1991).
One of the main findings from research within the criminology of place is that crime
is concentrated within a relatively limited number of micro places (Weisburd, 2015;
Wilcox & Eck, 2011). Repeated assertions concerning crime concentrations in different
contexts have resulted in the formulation of a universal law, also called the law of crime
concentration at places. This law has so far been tested mainly, but not exclusively, in the
context of the United States (Lee, Eck, SooHyun, & Martinez, 2017; Telep & Weisburd,
2018). In this contribution we will examine whether this law of crime concentrations also
applies at the level of micro places in a West European context. As Favarin (2018)
states: “the generalizability of the law of crime concentration is missing important
information pertaining to non-US cities, especially in Europe” (p. 3). As social laws
are supposed to have a general nature and thus applicable in different context, every
additional test informs us of the robustness of the relationship. Additionally, every new
test may be seen as a potential falsifier of the theory (Bruinsma & Pauwels, 2018;
Opp, 2014). In this light, it might be interesting for readers on the other side of the
world (e.g. New Zealand) to read about a test in an unprecedented context with an
unconventional operationalization of micro places.
The structure of this contribution is as follows. We start with an outline of
Weisburd’s proposition. Then, we provide a nonexhaustive overview of studies on the
so-called law of crime concentration at places. Next, we discuss the aims of our study,
the data and methods used, and the results. We conclude by asking what this contribu-
tion means for (future) empirical research within the criminology of place.
392
Australian & New Zealand Journal of Criminology 52(3)
Weisburd’s propositions on the law of crime concentration
at places
As will be set out in the next section, there is strong empirical evidence that crime is not
proportionally and randomly distributed across (micro) places. Regarding the concen-
tration of crime at micro places, Weisburd (2015) postulated a series of propositions
with the aim to give an impetus to the policy regarding crime control and the etiology of
the criminology of place; to unravel the crime–place connection to say it in his own
words (Weisburd & Eck, 2018).
The search after a general law was the starting point of the study of Weisburd, Groff,
and Yang (2012; Telep and Weisburd, 2018). In this study, Weisburd et al. (2012) came
to five conclusions based on their longitudinal research on crime concentrations in
Seattle, Washington, which indicate the importance of micro places:
1. Crime is highly concentrated at so-called hot spots, that is to say, a small number of
places is responsible for a large proportion of crime (cf. Sherman et al., 1989).
2. The concentration of crime is consistent over time and crime is also concentrated in
the same places.
3. Crime is highly variable at the micro level; the use of higher aggregation levels results
in a loss of information.
4. Crime is not the only factor to vary significantly at the micro level; social and con-
textual characteristics of places also vary at the micro level.
5. Crime relating to space is predictable and this makes it possible, in addition to
understanding crime concentrations, to adopt effective prevention strategies at the
hot spots in question.
Thereafter, in 2015, Weisburd formulated his general law of crime concentration at
places: “for a defined measure of crime at a specific microgeographic unit, the concen-
tration of crime will fall within a narrow bandwidth of percentages for a defined cumu-
lative proportion of crime” (p. 138). Essentially, the law claims that for specific types of
crime a limited range of percentages of micro places will be responsible for a specific
concentration of crime (e.g. 25 or 50% of the crime in a city). The emphasis on the type
of crime is important, given that the concentration of crime differs to the extent that
other crime types are studied.
Weisburd (2015) goes on to maintain:
I have focused on a first law of the criminology of place - the law of crime concentration at
places. I have presented new evidence showing that the law applies with startling consis-
tency both across cities and within cities across time. The data suggest that the law of crime
concentration is a “general proposition of universal validity” (Sutherland, 1947:23), anal-
ogous to physical laws observed in the natural sciences. (p. 151)
This is what Popper would have called a “bold statement”: general validity is a strong
claim, which calls for replication studies in multiple cultural settings. The concept of
“law” should not be interpreted as a covering law (Hempel, 1963). However, descriptive
empirical social laws raise questions. Such descriptions require an adequate explanation
Hardyns et al.
393
of the conditions and mechanisms behind the empirical law (see Bruinsma & Pauwels,
2018 for a discussion).
Since 2015, this law of crime concentration is increasingly being studied within the
criminology of place tradition. First, Weisburd et al. (2016) have concretized the general
law by setting the threshold for 50% of crime at approximately 4% of the micro places
and 25% of crime at less than 1.5% of the micro places.
Later, Bernasco and Steenbeek (2017) state that the criminology of place “has not yet
developed common standards for reporting and summarizing crime concentrations”
(p. 452) and the law of crime concentration does not close this gap, because this law
does not prescribe how crime concentration at places should be measured. Using cumu-
lative percentage statements, as the definition of the law hints to, results in using defined
cutoff values, such as 25 or 50% of crime in a city, which are arbitrary (Lee, 2017). In
order to overcome this,...
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