关键词: 犯罪地理, 两抢两盗, 区位熵, 长春

Abstract:

Criminal geography which is one of the important branches in terms of crime studies is highly valued for its practicality. The studies concerning criminal geography in China are still at the beginning stage. More practical studies are needed so as to provide suggestions for the policing work. Different types of crimes usually have various distribution patterns as well as influential factors, which in turn requires deeper understanding in order to make wiser measures to counter crimes. Based on the crime data collected at the police-precincts level in Changchun, we choose the robbery, forcible seizure, vehicle theft and burglary as studies subjects and examine their distribution patterns in 2008 using the method of location quotient. Further, the influential factors of each crime are explored using the regression analysis and the mechanisms are also discussed. The results show that different crimes display various patterns and characteristics in terms of the spatial distribution. Generally, the robbery and forcible seizures tend to concentrate in the central part of the city and become less in the peripheral suburbs, while vehicle theft and burglary rates present an opposite pattern that the outside police-precincts are prone to higher crime risks. The regression analyses indicate that robbery, forcible seizures, vehicle theft are associated with some influential factors significantly in varying degrees. The robbery rates of Changchun are proved to be positively associated with the density of main roads and the proportion of commercial land use, and negatively related to the variables of the existence of vast industrial area and the number of high-rise buildings. The regression results also indicate that the forcible seizures rates are positively correlated to the variables of population density, the service activities as well as the existence of main commercial area. Meanwhile, the vehicle theft rates show a positively relationship with the existence of vast industrial area, while it exhibits negative relationship with the variables of the length of main roads and the distance between the centroid of the Jiedao and the nearest main roads. All the significant relationships between the different crime rates and respective influential factors can be explained according to the relevant theories and the specific socioeconomic characteristics of Changchun. The regression models indicate that the crime rates are a function of the characteristics of people in an area as well as the environment and characteristics of the area where people reside or work. However, we fail to build up a regression model with respect to burglary rates, which may be due to the fact that the variables we selected to conduct the regression analysis for burglary rates are too general and not able to explain the variance of burglary rates in Changchun. Finally, according to the conclusions drawn in the study, some implications for city management are proposed in the last part of this study.

Key words: criminal geography, robbery, forcible seizures, vehicle theft and burglary, location quotient, influential factors, Changchun