Are There Non-Business Days for Crime? A Small-Area Bayesian Spatiotemporal Analysis of Crime Patterns

ABSTRACT

Criminal behavior may be different on weekends and holidays compared to business days. Understanding the distinctive crime patterns on non-business days is useful for crime research and crime control. This study contributes to the literature by explicitly investigating the small-area spatiotemporal variation in five types of major crimes between business days and non-business days using a Bayesian modeling approach in Old Toronto, Canada. The results show that criminal activity varies between business days and non-business days, influenced by the types of crimes, geographic locations, and local neighborhood characteristics. Compared to business days, on non-business days, southern areas with high business and entertainment activity exhibit increased assault and robbery levels, while northern residential areas experience reduced activity of break and enter, auto theft, and theft over $5,000. Nonetheless, spatial crime hot spots generally remain consistent between the two date categories, with some hot spots presenting an exacerbation of criminal activity during non-business days. A few sociodemographic variables and built environment features are associated with the spatiotemporal variation in crime. These findings demonstrate the spatiotemporal variation in criminal behavior and crime patterns between business days and non-business days and highlight the need for customized crime control measures at the small area level.

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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Renan Cai

Renan Cai is a PhD candidate in geography at the University of Waterloo. The primary focus of his research is to utilize spatial statistics and spatiotemporal modeling techniques to investigate the socioeconomic and demographic characteristics of urban neighborhoods.

Su-Yin Tan

Su-Yin Tan is Dean, Vice President of Academics and Research at the International Space University, France. She is also an Associate Professor, Teaching Stream in Geomatics and Director of the Applied Geomatics Research Laboratory at the University of Waterloo, Canada, jointly appointed to the School of Planning and the Department of Geography and Environmental Management. Her specialization is in geographic information systems, remote sensing, and spatial data analysis methodologies in a range of application areas, such as crime, public health, climatology, and ecosystem modeling.