Metro stations are criminogenic places that radiate and/or absorb crime. In this paper, we assess potential theft transmission in these places and their surrounding areas using police recorded data from the São Paulo metro system in Brazil. The study classifies whether metro stations are crime absorbers, crime radiators, or both, by time of day and day of the week. Time series data were used to test the empirical model (panel vector autoregressive) and Granger tests for temporal precedence. Findings show that ‘theft waves’ recorded in the metro stations often precede in time those that occur in the stations' surrounding areas. However, on weekdays, during off-peak hours, the opposite might happen: stations absorb some of the crime that spills over from criminogenic surrounding areas into the stations. Since there is evidence of transmission of crime from one environment to another, in both directions, better cooperation between police responsible for security in the surrounding areas and the metro security staff might improve crime prevention initiatives in these transit settings.

地铁站是辐射和/或吸收犯罪的犯罪场所。在本文中，我们使用来自巴西圣保罗地铁系统的警方记录数据评估了这些地方及其周边地区的潜在盗窃传播。该研究按一天中的时间和一周中的哪一天对地铁站是犯罪吸收者、犯罪辐射者还是两者都进行了分类。时间序列数据用于测试经验模型（面板向量自回归）和时间优先级的格兰杰测试。调查结果表明，地铁站中记录的“盗窃浪潮”往往早于车站周边地区发生的盗窃浪潮。然而，在工作日，在非高峰时段，可能会发生相反的情况：车站吸收了一些从犯罪发生区蔓延到车站的犯罪。