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- A Crime concentration is a spatial area to which high levels of crime incidents are attributed. A crime concentration can be the result of homogeneous or heterogeneous crime incidents. Hotspots are the result of various crimes occurring in relative proximity to each other within predefined human geopolitical or social boundaries. Crime concentrations are smaller units or set of crime targets within a hotspot. A single or a conjunction of crime concentrations within a study area can make up a crime hotspot. Some of the early works in crime analysis aimed to identify hotspots of crime within big regions. These regions could extend as large as states, counties, a group of counties, cities, neighborhoods and police beats. The aim of this approach was to focus on large areas, rather than specific addresses or locations hosting crime events as part of a larger environment. This is important because not all locations are equal generators of crime and not all provide equal opportunity for offenders to conduct criminal activity. Thus, crime concentrations are smaller groups of crime uniformly or randomly distributed within a hotspot's geographical domain; this is because not all hotspots have the same crime composition and patterns. In other words, a hotspot can be composed by multiple layers of crime intensity. Thus, each one has its own variations or rhythms of crime distribution. Therefore, it is each hotspot's composition that dictates what measures need to be employed as crime reduction strategies. Hotspots are the foundation of crime concentrations because it is from the hotspot's earlier theories and studies that the analysis of crime concentration was derived. Hotspots can be expressed in the form of dots, lines or polygons and even shades of color as in the case of kernel density which estimates the likelihood of a crime event occurring within a given region; this is done through crime mapping which refers to the allocation of individual or multiple crime incidents on a map by utilizing a computer software package such as ArcMap 10.1, a Geographic information system. The different forms of hotspots and consequently crime concentrations are studied and explained by various theories and measured by several spatial and temporal analysis techniques. These techniques generally rely on statistical algorithms for the creation of surface maps. One of predominant theories that explains crime congregations is Crime opportunity theory. It explains that "rather than concentrations of offenders or the absence of social controls, opportunity theories suggest that analysts should look for concentrations of crime targets". Repeat victimization%20theory Victimisation victimization theory examines why some areas or targets are repeatedly victimized. Broken windows theory also explains that an area that becomes abandoned or if the guardians and managers cease to be in control of an establishment, then other guardians and managers become less motivated to enforce social controls, consequently allowing criminal activity to increase. Lastly, one of the most influential crime concentration theories is the Crime Place Theory because it focuses on criminal events on specific locations rather than a large view at the high crime density area. (en)
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