Identifying repeat victimization with GIS

Until recently most attempts at identifying repeat victimization locations have focused on searching address fields in police records. Problems with inaccurate data entry and variation in address format make this method fraught with difficulty and time consuming to correct. This study of burglary suggests that a standard GIS package, searching geo-referenced crime locations can dramatically improve the time and accuracy of identifying repeats. The research presented here appears generally consistent with other published work in that the period of highest risk is immediately after an initial burglary. The study covers a longer period than usual. Two years ' worth of data raises issues regarding definitions of repeat victimization. The benefit to crime prevention of identifying repeat victimization has been widely recognized (Anderson et al. 1995;Ellingworthe£a £ 1995; Farrell and Pease 1993), but the process of accurately distinguishing the repeat locations has always been difficult. While the under-reporting of crime to the police is also well documented (Hough and Lewis 1989; Mayhew etal. 1993; Tilley 1995), it remains a reality that police recorded crime data are still one of the best sources of information on local crime distribution in this country. Computerized systems for recording police crime data have been setup within forces bu