Objectives

To examine the influence of street block slope on robbery in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Methods

Data visualizations were used to examine how street block slope varies across the city. Negative binomial regression models were used to estimate the influence of street block slope on robbery net of betweenness, facility composition, and socio-demographics.

Results

A 1% increase in street block slope was associated with roughly 4.5% fewer street block robberies per foot of street block length. Street blocks with a higher expected usage potential, measured via betweenness, were also observed to have higher expected robbery levels. In addition, numerous facilities and neighborhood socio-demographic characteristics linked to higher robbery levels.

Conclusions

Steeper street blocks may have fewer robberies because they make the physical costs for committing robberies too high, are too difficult to escape from, and/or provide fewer robbery opportunities due to relatively lower usage. Moreover, more robberies appear to occur on street blocks with higher betweenness due to more potential opportunities there. Finally, the influence of facilities and community characteristics were largely consistent with theoretical expectations and past studies. Future studies should continue to examine how topography influences aggregate crime levels and offender decision making in other settings to bolster the external validity of the present findings.

中文翻译：

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抢劫的地形：坡度重要吗？

目标

在俄亥俄州辛辛那提检查街道街区坡度对抢劫的影响。

方法

数据可视化用于检查街道街区坡度如何在整个城市中变化。使用负二项式回归模型来估计街道街区坡度对中间性、设施构成和社会人口统计学的抢劫网络的影响。

结果

街区坡度每增加 1%，每英尺街区长度的街区抢劫案就会减少约 4.5%。通过介数衡量，具有更高预期使用潜力的街道街区也被观察到具有更高的预期抢劫水平。此外，许多设施和社区社会人口特征与较高的抢劫水平有关。

结论

陡峭的街道街区可能会发生较少的抢劫案，因为它们使实施抢劫的实际成本过高，难以逃脱，和/或由于使用率相对较低而提供较少的抢劫机会。此外，由于那里有更多的潜在机会，在中间性较高的街道街区似乎发生了更多的抢劫案。最后，设施和社区特征的影响与理论预期和过去的研究基本一致。未来的研究应继续研究地形如何影响其他环境中的总体犯罪水平和罪犯决策，以加强当前研究结果的外部有效性。