The Spatial Distribution of Social Deviants in Luton, England

THE study on which the present paper is based was designed to test the relevance to British conditions of certain widely-held hypotheses concerning the relationship between urban structure and the spatial patterning of social deviancy. Attempts to explain the areal variation in ’problem behaviour’ have a long history. Some of the earliest treatises on criminology, for example the early nineteenth century works of A. M. Guerry, R. W. Rawson and J. Fletcher,1 1