More crime in cities? On the scaling laws of crime and the inadequacy of per capita rankings—a cross-country study

Abstract Crime rates per capita are used virtually everywhere to rank and compare cities. However, their usage relies on a strong linear assumption that crime increases at the same pace as the number of people in a region. In this paper, we demonstrate that using per capita rates to rank cities can...

Descripción completa

Guardado en:

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autor principal:	Marcos Oliveira
Formato:	article
Lenguaje:	EN
Publicado:	BMC 2021
Materias:	Crime rate Population size City Urban scaling Ranking Complex systems Science (General) Q1-390 Social pathology. Social and public welfare. Criminology HV1-9960
Acceso en línea:	https://doaj.org/article/86e406a55ff64f289cc6707ef28a4b0d
Etiquetas:	Agregar Etiqueta Sin Etiquetas, Sea el primero en etiquetar este registro!

id	oai:doaj.org-article:86e406a55ff64f289cc6707ef28a4b0d
record_format	dspace
spelling	oai:doaj.org-article:86e406a55ff64f289cc6707ef28a4b0d2021-12-05T12:03:34ZMore crime in cities? On the scaling laws of crime and the inadequacy of per capita rankings—a cross-country study10.1186/s40163-021-00155-82193-7680https://doaj.org/article/86e406a55ff64f289cc6707ef28a4b0d2021-12-01T00:00:00Zhttps://doi.org/10.1186/s40163-021-00155-8https://doaj.org/toc/2193-7680Abstract Crime rates per capita are used virtually everywhere to rank and compare cities. However, their usage relies on a strong linear assumption that crime increases at the same pace as the number of people in a region. In this paper, we demonstrate that using per capita rates to rank cities can produce substantially different rankings from rankings adjusted for population size. We analyze the population–crime relationship in cities across 12 countries and assess the impact of per capita measurements on crime analyses, depending on the type of offense. In most countries, we find that theft increases superlinearly with population size, whereas burglary increases linearly. Our results reveal that per capita rankings can differ from population-adjusted rankings such that they disagree in approximately half of the top 10 most dangerous cities in the data analyzed here. Hence, we advise caution when using crime rates per capita to rank cities and recommend evaluating the linear plausibility before doing so.Marcos OliveiraBMCarticleCrime ratePopulation sizeCityUrban scalingRankingComplex systemsScience (General)Q1-390Social pathology. Social and public welfare. CriminologyHV1-9960ENCrime Science, Vol 10, Iss 1, Pp 1-13 (2021)
institution	DOAJ
collection	DOAJ
language	EN
topic	Crime rate Population size City Urban scaling Ranking Complex systems Science (General) Q1-390 Social pathology. Social and public welfare. Criminology HV1-9960
spellingShingle	Crime rate Population size City Urban scaling Ranking Complex systems Science (General) Q1-390 Social pathology. Social and public welfare. Criminology HV1-9960 Marcos Oliveira More crime in cities? On the scaling laws of crime and the inadequacy of per capita rankings—a cross-country study
description	Abstract Crime rates per capita are used virtually everywhere to rank and compare cities. However, their usage relies on a strong linear assumption that crime increases at the same pace as the number of people in a region. In this paper, we demonstrate that using per capita rates to rank cities can produce substantially different rankings from rankings adjusted for population size. We analyze the population–crime relationship in cities across 12 countries and assess the impact of per capita measurements on crime analyses, depending on the type of offense. In most countries, we find that theft increases superlinearly with population size, whereas burglary increases linearly. Our results reveal that per capita rankings can differ from population-adjusted rankings such that they disagree in approximately half of the top 10 most dangerous cities in the data analyzed here. Hence, we advise caution when using crime rates per capita to rank cities and recommend evaluating the linear plausibility before doing so.
format	article
author	Marcos Oliveira
author_facet	Marcos Oliveira
author_sort	Marcos Oliveira
title	More crime in cities? On the scaling laws of crime and the inadequacy of per capita rankings—a cross-country study
title_short	More crime in cities? On the scaling laws of crime and the inadequacy of per capita rankings—a cross-country study
title_full	More crime in cities? On the scaling laws of crime and the inadequacy of per capita rankings—a cross-country study
title_fullStr	More crime in cities? On the scaling laws of crime and the inadequacy of per capita rankings—a cross-country study
title_full_unstemmed	More crime in cities? On the scaling laws of crime and the inadequacy of per capita rankings—a cross-country study
title_sort	more crime in cities? on the scaling laws of crime and the inadequacy of per capita rankings—a cross-country study
publisher	BMC
publishDate	2021
url	https://doaj.org/article/86e406a55ff64f289cc6707ef28a4b0d
work_keys_str_mv	AT marcosoliveira morecrimeincitiesonthescalinglawsofcrimeandtheinadequacyofpercapitarankingsacrosscountrystudy
_version_	1718372329016262656

More crime in cities? On the scaling laws of crime and the inadequacy of per capita rankings—a cross-country study

Ejemplares similares