Book Review: Spatial Policing: The Influence of Time, Space and Geography on Law Enforcement Practices

• Author: George Kikuchi
• DOI: 10.1177/0734016811416000
• Published date: 01 March 2012
• Date: 01 March 2012
• Subject Matter: Book Reviews

survey and interviews. Additionally, the authors undermine their own qualitative analysis by their

honest appraisal that thousands of reasons explain why people become homeless with thousands

of different experiences. The research, however, helps paint a broader picture of homeless women.

Hard Live, Mean Streets is well written and provides powerful portraits of the women who have

experienced homelessness and violence. The mixed methodology presents a fuller, richer under-

standing of the population. Despite the geographical limitations, the overall population in the

current study tends to resemble profiles of homeless women from the National Survey of Homeless

Assistance Providers and Clients (1996). The experiences of the women in this study, however, may

differ from other homeless women because of self-selection bias and their efforts to seek help from a

shelter. The research is exploratory and employs Routine Activities as a theoretical framework.

The research is applied work and Routine Activities theory, which is virtually untestable, appears

to serve only as a template to satisfy the critique of ‘‘what’s the theoretical explanation?’’

The book makes an important contribution to the literature as a foundation for future policy and

how, perhaps, the criminal justice system has failed to respond to the special needs of victimized

homeless women. The book is well-suited as supplementary text for graduate students in a variety

of courses such as women and crime, social problems, and special topic seminars. The extensive

literature review and comprehensive nature of the text makes it an essential reference for other

scholars examining homelessness, gender issues, and violence.

Hard Lives, Mean Streets is the thirteenth book in Northeasten’s series on Gender, Crime, and

Law edited by Claire Renzetti. This successful series features high-quality research that examines

important topics such as prostitution, women in prison, and females working as police officers and

defense lawyers in the criminal justice system. The four authors of Hard Lives, Mean Streets have a

combined record of research excellence in homelessness, intimate partner violence, stalking, and

sexual assault. Jana L. Jasinski is an Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Central

Florida whose work includes coauthorship of Partner Violence (1998) and numerous journal articles

on domestic violence. Jennifer K. Wesley is an Associate Professor at the University of North

Florida. James D. Wright, who has researched homelessness for over 25 years, is a Distinguished

Research Professor of Sociology, University of Central Florida. Wright is the author of Address

Unknown: The Homeless in America (2009). Elizabeth E. Mustaine’s research areas include sexual

assault, stalking, and sex offenders. She is an Associate Professor at the University of Central

Florida.

C. E. Crawford

Spatial Policing: The Influence of Time, Space and Geography on Law Enforcement Practices. Durham, NC: Carolina

Academic Press, 2010. xvii, 214 pp. $28.00. ISBN 978-1594605666

Reviewed by: George Kikuchi, California State University, Fresno, CA, USA

DOI: 10.1177/0734016811416000

Readers of the book, Spatial Policing: The Influence of Time, Space and Geography on Law

Enforcement Practices, edited by Charles E. Crawford, will be pleasantly surprised as they discover

how the rich complexities of space shape neighborhood levels of crime and criminal behaviors of

individuals.

Flipping through the pages of the book may lead to some initial confusion as the book does not

contain any maps at all, even though the title claims to be about Spatial Policing. Many textbooks on

spatial analysis of crimes have appeared in recent years largely due to the widely available applica-

tions of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) in present-day policing. Spatial Policing is different

from these GIS and crime textbooks, in that the book offers theoretical understandings of how space

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