Repeat Victimization and Hot Spots: the Overlap and Its Implications for Crime Control and Problem-oriented Policing

Repeat victimization and crime hot spots have both been growth areas in the study and practice of policing and crime control in recent years. Since their convergence seems both inevitable and desirable, this chapter studies the relationship with two key aims. The first is to describe and explore the relationship. The second is to try to move toward suggestions of whether and how they might most fruitfully be integrated to result in the most effective crime control and policing strategies. This chapter examines the overlap between repeat victimization and hot spots in relation to high-crime areas and repeat offending for different crime types. The paper concludes by suggesting that crime control and problem-oriented policing should benefit from a synergy if the approaches are integrated. Several benefits for policing and crime control are identified. Two growth areas of criminological research and criminal justice practice in recent years are the study of crime "hot spots" and repeat victimization. Hot-spot policing is based upon the empirical findings that certain locations demand a lot of police time and attention, and so focusing effort upon them may lead to less crime and/or, calls for Crime Prevention Studies, volume 12, pp. 221-240 222 — Graham Farrell and William Sousa service. Preventing repeat victimization is emerging as an important area for policing and crime control. Academic studies over the last quarter century have shown that the same people and places are more likely to be repeatedly victimized. However, it is only in the last decade or so that recognition has grown that an appropriate crime control strategy might be to respond to one crime by trying to prevent the next. As well as preventing crime, efforts using this strategy to date seem popular among victims, and it's always nice to have a satisfied customer. Common to both repeat victimization and hot-spot approaches to crime control is a focus upon clusters of crime and a desire to improve the efficiency with which scarce resources are targeted upon the crime problem. A convergence of the two seems not only inevitable but also desirable. Hence this paper is exploratory in nature and has two main aims. First, it seeks to delineate some of the nature of the relationship between repeat victimization and hot spots and suggest some hypotheses that might be tested. Secondly, it aims to tease out some of the potentially important implications for crime control and policing. That hot spots and repeat victims do generally coincide has already been shown in one English city (Johnson et al., 1997). The present paper concludes that some hot spots will contain more repeat victimization than others, and that there will be variation by crime type. Repeat victimization may be more intense and likely to occur more quickly within hot spots. In some instances, a crime control strategy that prevents repeat victimization may be appropriate. In others, a strategy targeting hot spots may be appropriate. For an important segment, an integrated response based around preventing repeat victimization in hot spots, or combining tactics from the portfolios of each strategy, may be more appropriate still. In high-crime areas, focusing upon repeat victimization for some crimes will allocate crime control resources to hot spots as a matter of course. The use of repeat victimization and hot spots as performance indicators for problem-oriented policing should be a means of implementing the approaches, as well as ensuring new and innovative tactical applications. It is important for research to begin to explore and understand where, when and how these different strategic applications might be applied. Research to examine and understand the relationship between repeat victimization and hot spots, and the influence upon them of offending and repeat offending, needs to be undertaken. The pursuit of such a research agenda should lead to an integrated policing strategy that is greater than the sum of the parts as a result of synergy between the strategies. Repeat Victimization and Hot Spots — 223 The first section of this paper briefly reviews the major milestones in the literature on the policing of hot spots and repeat victimization. This sets the context for what follows. The second section presents definitions of the concepts in question. Where possible, the most commonly used and easily understood definitions are used. The intention is that these should conform with definitions of practical utility for policing. While defining the concepts sounds simple (after all, haven't we already got definitions since we've already talked about the concepts?), clarity of concepts is almost certainly a prerequisite to developing effective policing responses for different situations. The overlap between repeat victimization and hot spots is then examined in relation to high-crime areas and repeat offending, as well as in relation to different types of crime. The paper concludes by suggesting some of the potential implications for crime control and policing. Much empirical work in measuring the overlap between repeat victimization, hot spots and repeat offending remains to be undertaken. However, the relationship is almost certainly to be important for policing and related research. The present paper therefore concentrates upon the development of conceptual building blocks, the formation of a theoretical framework informed by empirical evidence where available, and the development of hypotheses for testing. It is intended that these should provide a platform upon which to begin research designed to construct empirically proven crime control responses. MILESTONES IN THE STUDY OF HOT SPOTS AND REPEAT VICTIMIZATION Hot spots are reviewed first because this concept is more established than that of repeat victimization in the American policing repertoire. This review is followed by a review of work on repeat victimization and its overlap with hot spots.