Citation

Verma A. J. Crim. Justice 1998; 26(5): 425-435.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1998, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/S0047-2352(98)00021-X

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Crime is inherent in our society and the routine activities of everyday life ensure that circumstances will be created that will facilitate criminal behavior. The very nature of society–the need to go out and work and interact with others–initiates processes and situations that will encourage some people to be deviant and others to become victims. Criminal victimization is a deterministic part of our society but who will fall victim and who will become the offender remains uncertain. Crime, therefore, is characterized both by randomness and determinism, a situation that suggests the application of chaos theory for its study. This article argues that crime is a complex event that is the culmination of several processes emanating from the past. A method called R/S technique, based upon chaos theory, is used in an attempt to provide a different insight into the phenomenon of temporal crime data. This analysis uses an illustrative example to demonstrate that police calls for service data have a memory effect that can be identified by its fractal dimension. The technique suggests a new way to look at how the police system is functioning and raises questions about the situational factors.