Police Perceptions of the Long- and Short-Term Spatial Distribution of Residential Burglary

This paper seeks to explore police officer perception of the spatial distribution of residential burglary over different time periods. Using a survey of officers across three English police basic command units (BCUs), it examines the accuracy of their impressions of the locations of crime over the preceding year and the preceding two weeks. It also explores how these perceptions might affect the deployment of resources and police action. The results suggest that whilst officers have a good idea of where burglary occurred over the preceding year, they are less accurate for the recent distribution of risk because short-term hotspots are indeed significantly more unstable than long-term hotspots. The short-term predictive power of both one-year and two-week retrospective perceptions is very limited. Tactical advantages will only be afforded by the swift and routine identification of emerging short-term hotspots.