Exploring crime generators and attractors: a hybrid of theoretical, computational and empirical approaches

The concept of crime generators and attractors is one which has been widely accepted in environmental criminology since its inception in 1995 by Brantingham and Brantingham. However, despite being well-known and frequently referenced, this concept has been under-investigated when compared with other tenets of this field. Not only does this mean that the theory underpinning this concept is under-developed and sometimes misunderstood, but the potential societal benefits of its understanding are currently limited. Given that the primary difference between crime generators and attractors is the motivation of those offending there, improved understanding of these processes could allow more tailored policing strategies, and thus crime reduction, in these spaces. This thesis aims to critically appraise key assumptions of crime generators and attractors, in order to gain an understanding of their relevance to modern-day cities. Separated into four parts, this work shall explore this concept theoretically, through a scoping literature review; computationally, through the design and implementation of an agent-based model; and empirically, through analysis of offence data. The culmination of these bodies of work identifies that there is limited understanding of the processes which lead to the formation of crime generators and attractors. Crime patterns which emerged from the computational research were not found in the corresponding empirical work. This could suggest that greater theoretical understanding of these mechanisms is required. Moreover, although a number of different methods were used to attempt to empirically classify a space as either a crime generator or attractor, the results were inconsistent, further suggesting insufficient understanding of this concept. This thesis proposes the addition of qualitative research to develop knowledge on crime generators and attractors in future.