Identifying crime generators and spatially overlapping high-risk areas through a nonlinear model: A comparison between three cities of the Valencian region (Spain)

The behavior and spatial distribution of crime events can be explained through the characterization of an area in terms of its demography, socioeconomy, and built environment. In particular, recent studies on the incidence of crime in a city have focused on the identification of features of the built environment (specific places or facilities) that may increase crime risk within a certain radius. However, it is hard to identify environmental characteristics that consistently explain crime occurrence across cities and crime types. This article focuses on the assessment of the effect that certain types of places have on the incidence of property crime, robbery, and vandalism in three cities of the Valencian region (Spain): Alicante, Castellon, and Valencia. A nonlinear effects model is used to identify such places and to construct a risk map over the three cities considering the three crime types under research. The results obtained suggest that there are remarkable differences across cities and crime types in terms of the types of places associated with crime outcomes. The identification of high-risk areas allows verifying that crime is highly concentrated, and also that there is a high level of spatial overlap between the high-risk areas corresponding to different crime types.