16.2 A Basic Understanding of Environmental Criminology

Environmental criminology is an umbrella term used to encompass a variety of theoretical approaches (Felson, 2017; Gibbs & Boratoo, 2017). At the most basic level, those who study environmental criminology are primarily focused on the criminal event and not the individual criminal (Sidebottom & Wortley, 2016). That is, they are interested in the spatial distribution of crime, victimisation, or offenders in society: “They want to know whether there are differences in the distribution of crime, victimization, or perpetrators across cities, neighbourhoods, or smaller units of analysis” (Bruinsma et al., 2018, p. 3). Exploring the physical and social characteristics of these spaces can help in understanding the distribution of crime (Snaphaan & Hardyns, 2019). For example, the number of police officers patrolling a location is an important source of information for an environmental criminologist. Also, the social composition of a neighbourhood and even the physical layout of a street are important factors to consider (Bruinsma et al., 2018).