Tracking Risk for Crime Throughout the Day: An Examination of Jersey City Robberies

• Author: Grant Drawve,Leslie W. Kennedy,Jeremy D. Barnum,Joel M. Caplan,Christine H. Neudecker
• Date: 01 June 2021
• DOI: 10.1177/0734016820981628
• Published date: 01 June 2021
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article

Tracking Risk for Crime

Throughout the Day:

An Examination of Jersey

City Robberies

Joel M. Caplan

1

, Christine H. Neudecker

1

, Leslie W. Kennedy

1

,

Jeremy D. Barnum

2

, and Grant Drawve

3

Abstract

This study examines temporal variations in the spatial influence of environmental features, such as

bars and vacant buildings, on criminal behavior across microlevel places. Specifically, 17 environ-

mental risk factors and their spatial influences are identified for calendar year 2014 street robberies

in Jersey City, NJ. To explore temporal variation, risk factors and their spatial influences on crime

are identified across 12 discrete 2-hr time intervals. The results demonstrate that the risk factors for

street robbery varied across the course of a day. In fact, mapping the most vulnerable places for

street robbery revealed that while many of the same environmental features remain high risk

throughout the day, their influence varied. These results suggested that there was a temporality to

robbery and that it is likely due to the interaction between physical vulnerabilities from the built

environment and social behaviors of people at these places. This demonstrates the importance of

considering the temporal dimension of criminal behavior as results show that people use and

interact with their environment differently throughout the course of the day.

Keywords

ecology and crime/spatial analysis, crime/delinquency theory, crime prevention, law enforcement/

security

There is a large and growing literature examining the geography of crime that repeatedly concludes

crime concentrates in particular places over time (Andresen, Curman, & Linning, 2016; Andresen,

Linning, & Malleson, 2016; Curman et al., 2015; Groff et al., 2010; Sherman et al., 1989; Weisburd

et al., 2004). This spatial focus can be joined with a temporal element to examine spatiotemporal

1

School of Criminal Justice, Rutgers University–Newark, NJ, USA

2

Center for Applied Research and Management, Police Executive Research Forum, Washington, DC, USA

3

Department of Sociology and Criminology, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, AR, USA

Corresponding Author:

Joel M. Caplan, School of Criminal Justice, Rutgers University–Newark, 123 Washington Street, 5th Floor, Newark, NJ 07102,

USA.

Email: jcaplan@rutgers.edu

Criminal Justice Review

2021, Vol. 46(2) 259-273

ª2020 Georgia State University

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DOI: 10.1177/0734016820981628

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