2018/09/01 by Andrew V. Papachristos, Sara Bastomski · 84 citations
Health Professions · Mathematics · Social Sciences · #Computer science #Crime Patterns and Interventions #Criminal behavior #Criminology #Diffusion #Distribution (mathematics) #Economic geography #Geography #Homelessness and Social Issues #Mathematics #Sociology #Space (punctuation) #Spatial network #Statistics #Survey data collection #Urban, Neighborhood, and Segregation Studies
paper · doi:10.1086/699217
published in American Journal of Sociology 124(2), 517-568 (University of Chicago Press)
openalex publication_date 2018/09/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/25
The unequal spatial distribution of crime is an enduring feature of cities. While research suggests that spatial diffusion processes heighten this concentration, the actual mechanisms of diffusion are not well understood as research rarely measures the ways in which people, groups, and behaviors connect neighborhoods. This study considers how a particular behavior, criminal co-offending, creates direct and indirect pathways between neighborhoods. Analyzing administrative records and survey data, the authors find that individual acts of co-offending link together to create a “network of neighborhoods,” facilitating the diffusion of crime over time and across space and, in so doing, create pathways between all Chicago neighborhoods. Statistical analyses demonstrate that these neighborhood networks are (1) stable over time; (2) generated by important structural characteristics, social processes, and endogenous network properties; and (3) a better predictor of the geographic distribution of crime than traditional spatial models.