ALT Crime rates per capita are used virtually everywhere to rank and compare cities. However, their usage relies on a strong linear assumption that crime increases at the same pace as the number of people in a region. In this paper, we demonstrate that using per capita rates to rank cities can produce substantially different rankings from rankings adjusted for population size. We analyze the population–crime relationship in cities across 12 countries and assess the impact of per capita measurements on crime analyses, depending on the type of offense. In most countries, we find that theft increases superlinearly with population size, whereas burglary increases linearly. Our results reveal that per capita rankings can differ from population-adjusted rankings such that they disagree in approximately half of the top 10 most dangerous cities in the data analyzed here. Hence, we advise caution when using crime rates per capita to rank cities and recommend evaluating the linear plausibility …

ALT Abstract: Much research has shown that the first lockdowns imposed in response to the COVID-19 pandemic were associated with changes in routine activities and, therefore, changes in crime. While several types of violent and property crime decreased immediately after the first lockdown, online crime rates increased. Nevertheless, little research has explored the relationship between multiple lockdowns and crime in the mid-term. Furthermore, few studies have analysed potentially contrasting trends in offline and online crimes using the same dataset. To fill these gaps in research, the present article employs interrupted time-series analysis to examine the effects on offline and online crime of the three lockdown orders implemented in Northern Ireland. We analyse crime data recorded by the police between April 2015 and May 2021. Results show that many types of traditional offline crime decreased after the lockdowns but that they subsequently bounced back to pre-pandemic levels …

ALT Abstract of the article 'A systematic review on spatial crime forecasting’ – full text available at https://doi.org/10.1186/s40163-020-00116-7

ALT Abstract of the paper 'Do offenders avoid offending near home? A systematic review of the buffer zone hypothesis’ – full text available at https://doi.org/10.1186/s40163-020-00118-5