Author/Authors :
A. Bowen, Daniel Division of Violence Prevention - National Center for Injury Prevention and Control - U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention , M. Anthony, Kurtis Division of Violence Prevention - National Center for Injury Prevention and Control - U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention , A. Sumner, Steven Division of Violence Prevention - National Center for Injury Prevention and Control - U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Abstract :
Background: Beyond alcohol retail establishments, most business and property types receive
limited attention in studies of violent crime. We sought to provide a comprehensive examination of
which properties experience the most violent crime in a city and how that violence is distributed
throughout a city.
Methods: For a large urban city, we merged violent incident data from police reports with
municipal tax assessor data from 2012-2017 and tabulated patterns of violent crime for 15
commercial and public property types. To describe outlier establishments, we calculated the
proportion of individual parcels within each property-type that experienced more than 5 times the
average number of crimes for that property-type and also mapped the 25 parcels with the
highest number of violent incidents to explore what proportion of violent crime in these block
groups were contributed by the outlier establishments.
Results: While the hotel/lodging property-type experienced the highest number of violent crimes
per parcel (2.72), each property-type had outlier establishments experiencing more than 5 times
the average number of violent crimes per business. Twelve of 15 property-types (80%) had
establishments with more than 10 times the mean number of violent incidents. The 25 parcels with
the most violent crime comprised a wide variety of establishments, ranging from a shopping
center, grocery store, gas station, motel, public park, vacant lot, public street, office building,
transit station, hospital, pharmacy, school, community center, and movie theatre, and were
distributed across the city. Eight of the 25 parcels with the highest amount of violent crime,
accounted for 50% or more of the violent crime within a 400-meter buffer.
Conclusions: All property-types had outlier establishments experiencing elevated counts of
violent crimes. Furthermore, the 25 most violent properties in the city demonstrated remarkable
diversity in property-type. Further studies assessing the risk of violent crime among additional
property-types may aid in violence prevention.
Keywords :
Mapping , Violent Crime , Land Use , Pattern Theory , Crime Attractors
