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Capture-Recapture for Hidden Crime Populations×Crime Concentration Index×
FieldCriminologyCriminology
FamilyProcess / pipelineProcess / pipeline
Year of origin19951989
OriginatorInternational Working Group for Disease Monitoring and Forecasting (modern multi-list synthesis); Sheila Bird & Ruth King (criminal-justice applications)Lawrence Sherman, Patrick Gartin & Michael Buerger; David Weisburd
TypePopulation-size estimation from overlapping incomplete listsDescriptive concentration measure for crime across micro-places
Seminal sourceBird, S. M., & King, R. (2018). Multiple systems estimation (or capture-recapture estimation) to inform public policy. Annual Review of Statistics and Its Application, 5, 95–118. DOI ↗Sherman, L. W., Gartin, P. R., & Buerger, M. E. (1989). Hot spots of predatory crime: Routine activities and the criminology of place. Criminology, 27(1), 27–56. DOI ↗
AliasesMultiple Systems Estimation, Mark-Recapture for Hidden Populations, Dark-Figure Population Estimation, Lincoln-Petersen Crime EstimationCrime Concentration at Place, Hot-Spot Concentration Measure, Cumulative Crime Concentration, Law of Crime Concentration
Related34
SummaryCapture-recapture, known in criminology and public health as multiple systems estimation, infers the size of a hidden population — undocumented homicide victims, trafficking victims, problem drug users, undetected offenders — that no single source counts completely. By examining how much two or more incomplete lists overlap, it estimates how many cases were missed by all of them: the 'dark figure' of crime. Borrowed from wildlife ecology, the method was synthesized for human populations by the International Working Group in 1995 and brought to criminal-justice policy by Bird and King.The crime concentration index quantifies how unevenly crime is distributed across micro-geographic places such as street segments or addresses. Building on Sherman, Gartin, and Buerger's 1989 discovery that a small fraction of addresses produces most calls for police service, and formalized in Weisburd's 2015 'law of crime concentration', it expresses the share of all crime accounted for by the most crime-prone places.
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ScholarGateCompare methods: Capture-Recapture for Hidden Crime Populations · Crime Concentration Index. Retrieved 2026-06-24 from https://scholargate.app/en/compare