The Law of Concentration Applied to the Spatial and Temporal Study of Crime

Authors

  • Lucía Summers Center For Geospatial Intelligence And Investigation (Gii) School Of Criminal Justice And Criminology Texas State University United States

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.24310/bc.30.2024.20695

Keywords:

Law of concentration, Pareto principle, Crime prevention, Crime analysis

Abstract

The law of concentration, or Pareto principle, affirms that 80% of consequences come from 20% of causes. Applied to crime, the law posits that crime is not distributed randomly or uniformly in space or time, but rather that most crime happens in the most criminogenic places and temporal units, in line with these 80/20 proportions. This article presents this law, illustrates its application using original analyses and summaries from other studies, and explains the methodology for creating cumulative and Lorenz curves, and for measuring levels of concentration using the Gini coefficient. The implications of the law of concentration for crime prevention are also discussed.

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Additional Files

Published

2024-10-15

How to Cite

Summers, L. (2024). The Law of Concentration Applied to the Spatial and Temporal Study of Crime. Boletín Criminológico, (30). https://doi.org/10.24310/bc.30.2024.20695