The Institute for Mathematical Behavioral Sciences Colloquium Series presents:

"The Mechanistic Origin of Crime Hotspots”
with Jeff Brantingham, Department of Anthropology, UCLA

April 8, 2010
4:00-5:00 p.m.
Social Science Plaza A, Room 2112

About the talk:
The routine activity theory of crime urges us to think of crime pattern formation in mechanistic terms. Crimes only occur where motivated offenders encounter suitable targets in the absence of effective security. Hotspots will emerge where such basic physical conditions persist and are reinforced by crime events. Brantingham and co-researchers developed a formal mathematical model based on the principles of routine activity theory and show that it alone is sufficient to describe when crime hotspots will form. In his talk, he will further explore this model by asking what happens when police attempt to suppress crime hotspots. The results provide the first mechanistic explanation for when you should see crime displacement and when you should get real crime reductions.

For further information, please contact Janet Phelps, jjphelps@uci.edu.