Crime Hot Spot Analysis
Crime hot spot analysis identifies the places where crime concentrates far more than chance — the small number of street segments, blocks, or addresses that account for a large share of incidents. Building on Sherman and Weisburd's landmark demonstration that crime clusters tightly in space and that patrolling those clusters deters offending, the method uses spatial statistics such as the Getis-Ord Gi* local statistic to separate genuine, statistically significant clusters from random noise and to classify each place as a hot spot, a cold spot, or neither.
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Sources
- Sherman, L. W., & Weisburd, D. (1995). General deterrent effects of police patrol in crime "hot spots": A randomized, controlled trial. Justice Quarterly, 12(4), 625–648. DOI: 10.1080/07418829500096221 ↗
- Getis, A., & Ord, J. K. (1992). The analysis of spatial association by use of distance statistics. Geographical Analysis, 24(3), 189–206. DOI: 10.1111/j.1538-4632.1992.tb00261.x ↗
How to cite this page
ScholarGate. (2026, June 22). Hot Spot Analysis of Crime Concentration. ScholarGate. https://scholargate.app/en/criminology/hot-spot-analysis-crime
Which method?
Set this method beside its closest kin and read them side by side — the library lays the books on the table; the choice is yours.
- Crime Concentration IndexCriminology↔ compare
- Hot Spot AnalysisSpatial analysis↔ compare
- Kernel Density Crime MappingCriminology↔ compare
- Near-Repeat AnalysisCriminology↔ compare