The Utility of Crime Harm Measurement in the Spatial Analysis of Police Reported Victim Based Crime

Crime rates and published statistics are usually calculated using the unweighted volume of crime as though offences have parity. The use of unweighted crime volume in the spatial and temporal study of crime has led to the understanding that crime is concentrated, non-random in its location and that this concentration is stable over time (Weisburd et al, 2017, Lee et al, 2017). Recently there has been an emergence of work that incorporates a weighted measure of crime to the spatial analysis. The most influential crime harm index was created by Sherman et al (2016). The Cambridge Crime Harm Index was developed with a UK focus using sentencing guidelines as the basis for the weighting. Numerous country specific iterations have developed since. However, despite this recent emergence of work on crime harm several research gaps remain.

This thesis has utilised the Cambridge Crime Harm Index, across three empirical papers to better understand the benefit that analysing crime weighted by harm in addition to unweighted crime volume can bring to the understanding of the geographical distribution of crimes, and therefore to policing. Crime data from two English police forces were analysed in addition to publicly available datasets and quantitative analytical methods employed. Analysis from both force areas indicates that, in line with previous findings, crime harm is more concentrated than volume. Crime volume and harm can be combined to identify areas for targeted police attention. The broad location of the offence has an influence on the level of crime volume and harm experienced with environmental factors having differing impact. Crime volume and harm may have a differing relationship with social frontiers which may be impacted by location. However, methodological decisions can influence the direction of those relationships. These findings have implications for policing and the use of harm in crime reporting and prevention.