CRIME HOTSPOT EMERGENCE IN MEXICO CITY: A COMPLEXITY SCIENCE PERSPECTIVE

D. Hernã Ndez (), Marco A. Jimã‰nez and J. A. Bautista
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D. Hernã Ndez: Posgrado en Ciencias de la Complejidad, Universidad Autónoma de la Ciudad de México (UACM), San Lorenzo No. 90, Col. del Valle, Ciudad de México 03100, México
Marco A. Jimã‰nez: Posgrado en Ciencias de la Complejidad, Universidad Autónoma de la Ciudad de México (UACM), San Lorenzo No. 90, Col. del Valle, Ciudad de México 03100, México2Centro de Investigación en Computación, Instituto Politécnico Nacional, Ciudad de México, México
J. A. Bautista: Posgrado en Ciencias de la Complejidad, Universidad Autónoma de la Ciudad de México (UACM), San Lorenzo No. 90, Col. del Valle, Ciudad de México 03100, México

Advances in Complex Systems (ACS), 2023, vol. 26, issue 02, 1-25

Abstract: We present a dynamic model based on the theories proposed by environmental criminologists to explain the emergence of crime hotspots within cities; a pervasive phenomenon that is largely independent of cities size and cultural differences. The model is defined on a multiplex network that represents a city spatial tiling with its corresponding urban transport infrastructure, allowing to explore the relation between crime hotspot locations and the network topological features. It also allows to explore the effects that cities time evolution and police checkpoints might have on the emergence of crime hotspots. For Mexico City, the model shows that heterogeneous distributions of criminal activity arise from a diffusion-driven instability, as a self-organizing process. The results obtained for this city are in line with several insights from environmental criminology, such as the relationship between urban layout and crime hotspots locations, or the conceptual label assigned to specific locations as crime generators. They also uncover new relationships between cities design and crime hotspot locations, and suggest that routine activity theory alone cannot explain the emergence of heterogeneous crime distributions.

Keywords: Pattern formation; network theory; social complexity; crime dynamics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wsi:acsxxx:v:26:y:2023:i:02:n:s0219525923500042

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DOI: 10.1142/S0219525923500042

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