Citation

Hart TC, Fitch CH. Crime Prev. Community Safety 2022; 24(1): 14-29.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2022, Holtzbrinck Springer Nature Publishing Group -- Palgrave-Macmillan)

DOI

10.1057/s41300-021-00135-9

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Street robbery incident location data recorded over a 3-year period were aggregated into a sample of crime panels (N = 78) and used to construct a series of prospective hot spot maps, based on kernel density estimation. Panels of crime data were analyzed to determine whether the predictive accuracy of prospective hot spot mapping varied by victims' race and ethnicity.

RESULTS from this exploratory study showed that the predictive accuracy of forecasts varied between three groups compared (i.e., White, Black, and Hispanic victims), even after the racial and ethnic composition of each crime panel analyzed was considered. Current findings raise concerns about the potential impact that crime forecasting could have on racial and ethnic minorities, including less protection for some communities of color, but increased police-public contact for others. Implications for place-based policing and on the future of scholarship in this area are discussed.

Language: en

Keywords

Disparities in proactive policing; Place-based policing; Racial bias