Great Problems, Great Minds Seminar Series: New Approaches to the Exploration of the Spatial and the Temporal Patterns of Crime

Join the Social Sciences Colloquium at the Department of Social Sciences for this Great Problems, Great Minds seminar series event featuring guest speaker Naru Shiode, a senior lecturer in human geography and geographic information science in the Department of Geography, Geology, and the Environment at the School of Engineering and the Environment, Kingston University, who will give a talk on “New Approaches to the Exploration of the Spatial and the Temporal Patterns of Crime.” This event will take place on Wednesday, January 17, from 5–6:15 p.m. over Zoom.

Abstract

Fifty percent of crime takes place in a small number of high-crime places which comprise about 5 percent of the streets in any city. Detecting such crime hotspots and administering targeted policing in those high-risk places have proven effective in reducing crime. However, it is unclear whether these operations are administered at the right scale and intensity (rather than over-policing or under-policing), as the existing range of methods is not designed to identify the exact location, extent, as well as timing of emerging crime hotspots, and to monitor their changes in detail. Drawing on recent research with Shino Shiode on crime patterns in Chicago and London, this talk focuses on our recent research in which we developed spatial-temporal methods capable of detecting and monitoring hotspots of high-risk events with 99 percent accuracy to help inform the relevant police forces about where, when, as well as at what rate and intensity a crime hotspot is growing. This talk also reports on the seasonality of different crimes (i.e., which crimes resonate with which other crimes temporally), and the collocation of different crimes (i.e., which crimes occur in the same areas as which other crimes) to understand the composition of crime hotspots.

Bio

Naru Shiode works mainly on the analysis and interpretation of changing patterns of risks, as well as the formulation of crime intervention strategies and their policy implications. He has published 38 peer-reviewed journal articles in top journals, such as Urban Geography, International Journal of Geographical Information Science, and Transactions in GIS. He also published 12 book chapters. His research has been supported by the British Academy and the Leverhulme Trust, the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, and the Japan Science and Technology Agency. Past projects have been led mainly through collaboration with partners, such as the London Mayor’s Office, Westminster City Council, Jaguar Land Rover, and the National Health Service. Shiode holds a Ph.D. in Built Environment from University College London, University of London, and a master’s degree and a bachelor’s degree in urban engineering from the University of Tokyo. He has previously taught at the State University of New York at Buffalo, Cardiff University, Warwick University, and King’s College London.

The Great Problems, Great Minds seminar series explores the major problems facing humanity as we move into the heart of the twenty-first century. To see the full schedule and videos from previous events, visit the seminar series page. For more information, contact Associate Professor of Social Sciences Hao Huang at hhuang48@iit.edu.

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