page 1page 2page 3page 4page 5page 6page 7page 8page 9page 10page 11page 12page 13page 14page 15page 16page 17page 18page 19page 20page 21page 22page 23page 24page 25page 26page 27page 28page 29page 30page 31page 32page 33CRIME PLACES IN CRIME THEORYbyJohn E. EckCrime Control Institute,and the University of Maryland, College ParkandDavid WeisburdHebrew UniversityAbstract:Criminologists and crime prevention practitioners are increasinglyawareofthe importance of places of crime. A place is a very small area,usually a street corner, address, building, or street segment. A focus on crimeplaces contrasts with a focus on neighborhoods. Neighborhood theoriesusually highlight the development of offenders. while place level explana-tions emphasize crime events. Three perspectives suggest the importanceofplaces for understanding crime: rational choice; routine activity theory; andcrime pattern theory. Though these perspectives are mutually supportive,routine activity theory and crime pattern theory provide different explana-tions for crime occurring at different places. Five areasofresearch help usunderstand the importance of places: crime concentration about particularfacilities (e.g., bars); the high concentrationofcrime at some addresses andthe absence of crime at others; the preventive effects of various placefeatures; the mobility of offenders; and studies of how offenders selecttargets. Concern has been expressed that efforts to prevent crime at specificlocations will only move it to other, unprotected locations. Recent researchsuggests that these fears may be exaggerated, and that under some circum-stances the opposite effect occurs: instead of crime displacing, the benefitsofthe prevention efforts diffuse to unprotected locations. This paper con-cludes with a review of the 14 original articles in this volume.Following a rape at an Orlando motel, the victim sued the motel owners.She claimed that the crime was foreseeable and that the motel had nottaken sufficient precautions to prevent such incidents.1Address correspondence to: John Eck, Department of Criminology and CriminalJustice, Suite 2220 LeFrak Hall, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742.1© Reprinted with permission from Criminal Justice Press2JohnEEckandDavidWeisburdA proposal to locate a checkcashing business in a neighborhood drewthe ire of a San Francisco neighborhood association. The association.fearing increased street muggings, complained to zoning and other cityagencies in an attempt to stop this establishment from opening (Bolton,1993).Police in Oakland, CA developed a drug enforcement program thatfocused on nuisance addresses rather than problem people. They callit beat health, because they believe that the problem locations are thesource of drug and other nuisance problems in Oakland neighborhoods(Green, 1993).A study found that about 15% of Milwaukee's taverns were responsiblefor over half of tavern crimes in that city (Sherman et al., 1992).These examples provide only a glimpse of the growing recognition ofthe role of place in crime and crime control. Law suits that hinge on theability of claimants to show that buildings and parking lots are unneces-sarily dangerous abound in our civil courts (Bates and Dunnell, 1994).Local newspapers are full of community protests against drinking estab-lishments, sex shops, or 24-hour stores that are seen as magnets forcrimes and criminals. Community advocates suggest taking legal actionagainst the owners of places that disrupt neighborhoods (Cadwalder et al.,1993). Police programs that focus on where crimes happen rather thanthe offenders who commit them are developing in cities and townsthroughout the country, at the same time that a series of academic studiesshow that crime is concentrated at specific places even within neighbor-hoods that have high crime rates.Concern with the relationship between crime and place is not new. Asearly as the first half of the nineteenth century, French scholars analyzedthe distribution of crime across regions with differing ecological and socialcharacteristics (see Guerry, 1833; Quetelet, 1842). in the U.S., advocatesof the pioneering "Chicago School" of sociology carefully examined thelocation of crime in the city of Chicago. They concluded that characteristicsof the urban environment are critical to explaining the emergence of crimein specific communities (see Burgess, 1925; Thrasher, 1927; Shaw andMcKay, 1942). However. these early attempts to understand the relation-ship between crime and place took a "macro" approach—looking ataggregates of places such as regions, states, cities, communities andneighborhoods—rather than a "micro" approach that examines the placesthemselves.Recent interest in crime and place has focused on micro-level relation-ships. Such studies began with efforts to identify the relationship betweenCrime Places in Crime Theory3specific aspects of urban design (Jeffrey, 1971) or urban architecture(Newman, 1972) and crime, but broadened to take into account a muchlarger set of characteristics of physical space and criminal opportunity(e.g.,Brantingham and Brantingham, 1975, 1977, 1981; Mayhew et al.,1976; Duffala, 1976; Rengert, 1980, 1981; Stoks, 1981; Le Beau, 1987;Hunter, 1988). These studies drew distinctions between the site in ques-tion and the larger geographical area (such as neighborhood, community,police beat, or city) that surrounds it.Places in this micro context are specific locations within the largersocial environment. They can be as small as the area immediately next toan automatic teller machine or as large as a block face, a strip shoppingcenter, or an apartment building. Often places are thought of as addresses,specific types of businesses, or blockfaces.This volume is dedicated to the micro-level examination of crime andplace. Our concern is not with the larger social and ecological units thatare often the focus of social programs and crime prevention efforts.Sherman et al. (1989) suggest that this new focus on small discrete areasis radical enough to be properly seen as a distinct new area of study incriminology. Though it is a departure from prior criminological work, aswe will show next, the criminology of places fits neatly within severalexisting theories of crime.In developing this anthology, we sought to bring together major newwork about crime and the concept of place. The advent of high-speed,cheap computing, widespread use of computer-aided dispatch systems bythe police, and