Burglary Prediction, Theory, Flow and Friction

Publication Summary

One requisite of efficient crime prevention is an understanding of where crime will most likely happen next. Accordingly, understanding the spatial and temporal distribution of crime is one of the primary aims of environmental criminology. There have been many advances, both theoretical and empirical. However, whilst many of the theories generated and the respective findings are often complimentary, a greater understanding of how to predict the future locations of crime could potentially be reached if it were possible to unify the central ideas. In this chapter our aim is to conceptualise one way in which this may be achieved for the crime of burglary, focusing on the generation of short-term predictions – what happens in the next few days – rather than on yearly or monthly forecasts. To do this, some of the main theories and approaches to studying crime will be discussed and a simple way of bringing them together suggested.