Ecological analysis of urban offence and offender data

Abstract

Ecological analysis, the statistical analysis of data aggregated by areas, has a long history in academic research into crime and disorder. The modern roots of this form of analysis date back to the Chicago School of Sociology in the 1920s and 1930s and from which social area analysis and factorial ecology grew after the Second World War. This work suggested spatial frameworks for partitioning urban areas for the purpose of identifying associations between the social, economic, demographic and other characteristics of small areas and crime and disorder rates. Geographical analyses are also relevant to practical policing because of the territorial nature of policing and because operational and strategic decisions relating to crime prevention are sometimes geographically targeted. This chapter reviews the background to and the nature of ecological analysis in crime and disorder research. It reviews examples of such analysis in studies of the geography of offences, offending and area profiling. This chapter also reviews some of the current challenges and future prospects for small area ecological analysis and concludes with comments on the value of this form of analysis in crime prevention.