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Violent crime incidents occurring in Irvington, New Jersey, in 2007 and 2008 are used to assess the joint analytical capabilities of point pattern analysis, hotspot mapping, near-repeat analysis, and risk terrain modeling. One approach to crime analysis suggests that the best way to predict future crime occurrence is to use past behavior, such as actual incidents or collections of incidents, as indicators of future behavior. An alternative approach is to consider the environment in which crimes occur and identify features of the landscape that would be conducive to crime. Thanks to advances in geographic information system technology and federally funded (free) software applications such as CrimeStat III or the Near Repeat Calculator, these methods have recently been made more accessible to "average" users. This study explores the information products that each method offers for the purposes of place-based violent crime forecasting and resource allocation. Findings help to answer questions about where, when, and why violent crimes occur in a jurisdiction. Ways in which event-dependent and environmental crime analysis techniques can be utilized as complementary instruments in a crime analyst's tool kit are discussed in detail. (Contains 13 notes, 5 figures, and 7 tables.)

This study assesses the extent of residential segregation among 15,246 people diagnosed with psychiatric disabilities and receiving Medicaid (MA) in Philadelphia, and an identically sized group of MA recipients serving as matched controls. Results indicate that overall levels of residential segregation among this group were modest at their most extreme, were not markedly different from a control group of Medicaid recipients without any record of treatment for severe mental illness, and were substantially reduced after taking poverty into account. There were, however, localized areas in Philadelphia that showed distinct concentrations of persons with psychiatric disability, suggesting there may be a subgroup that is more at-risk for living in areas with elevated concentrations of persons with serious psychiatric disability. (Contains 3 tables and 6 figures.)

This study analyzed administrative data from the New Jersey State Parole Board to determine the extent to which victim and nonvictim input impacted parole release decisions. Positive and negative input, in both verbal and written forms, was studied for a representative sample of 820 parole-eligible adult inmates. Victim input was not found to be a significant predictor of parole release; measures of institutional behavior, crime severity, and criminal history were significant. Though insignificant, verbal input had a greater effect than written input. Results suggest that the impact of victim input is not generalizable across different types of offenders or across different paroling jurisdictions. It can no longer be assumed that victim rights laws and public participation at parole guarantee victim-desired outcomes. Keywords: public; participation; decision-making; statements; violent; nonviolent; offender DOI: 10.1891/0886-6708.25.2.224

The Atlantic City Police Department intervened to reduce robberies with an evidence-based approach grounded in problem-oriented policing. Informed by risk terrain modeling and hot spot analysis, police commanders implemented a place-based intervention focused around convenience stores. Target areas throughout the city were reprioritized each month to create a dynamic deployment strategy that efficiently allocated resources to the most vulnerable places. Risk reduction actions, such as business checks, were favored over law enforcement against people. Robberies significantly decreased by 63% within four months. There was a significant spatial diffusion of benefits and there were fewer arrests, as should be expected with fewer crimes and a tactical place-based, not person-oriented, approach. Implications for policy and practice are discussed within the contexts of rapid evidence-based police responses to urgent crime problems, police culture, and data analytics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we explore the conditions under which clearance rates improve by looking at the experience across New York City. Using one agency provides a control on the administrative differences that appear across other jurisdictions that have been studied, usually through cross-national analysis. Our analysis uses Risk Terrain Modeling (RTM) to identify environmental features that relate to closed versus open homicide cases using two years of New York City Police Department (NYPD) data. This analysis is supplemented with an investigation of precinct-wide social structure variables to examine how context matters in influencing closure rates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines temporal variations in the spatial influence of environmental features, such as bars and vacant buildings, on criminal behavior across microlevel places. Specifically, 17 environmental risk factors and their spatial influences are identified for calendar year 2014 street robberies in Jersey City, NJ. To explore temporal variation, risk factors and their spatial influences on crime are identified across 12 discrete 2-hr time intervals. The results demonstrate that the risk factors for street robbery varied across the course of a day. In fact, mapping the most vulnerable places for street robbery revealed that while many of the same environmental features remain high risk throughout the day, their influence varied. These results suggested that there was a temporality to robbery and that it is likely due to the interaction between physical vulnerabilities from the built environment and social behaviors of people at these places. This demonstrates the importance of considering the temporal dimension of criminal behavior as results show that people use and interact with their environment differently throughout the course of the day. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study uses Risk Terrain Modeling (RTM) to analyze how nine different alcohol outlet types differentially influence the likelihood of aggravated assault and street robbery at micro-level places in New York City. Separate models were conducted for each of New York's five boroughs to account for the differing environmental characteristics across the city. Results suggest that spatial influence of crime risk differed across alcohol outlet types, with off-premise grocery stores having the largest influence on the likelihood of both aggravated assault and street robbery and on-premise bars/taverns having a strong influence only on the likelihood of street robbery. In addition, although certain alcohol outlets affected crime in each borough, the spatial influence of others was more volatile. It is clear not all alcohol outlet types are equally criminogenic across boroughs. Thus, crime reduction efforts should be unique and localized according to the risk associated with outlet types and place. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]