Abstract
This paper takes advantage of a natural experiment involving subway station closures to examine how subway ridership is associated with the impact of robbery victimization within spatial network buffers immediately surrounding subway stations in Bronx (County), New York. The New York City subway system is the busiest in the USA, with an annual ridership estimated at 1.8 billion people. Key findings of this research include noteworthy relationships between robbery hot spots and subway stations, as well as substantial reductions in robbery frequency during temporary subway station closures, with larger reductions occurring in closer proximities to the subway stations. There was also a significant robbery pattern “normalization process” that occurred after the closed subway stations were reopened where robbery frequency returned to historically “normal” pre-closure levels. These notable decreases of crime in and around subway stations during the station closure time periods, as well as the prominent increases in robbery when subway stations reopened, should be taken into consideration when planning transit maintenance, conducting crime prevention initiatives, and scheduling crime control strategies.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Adams, W., Herrmann, C., and Felson, M. (2014). Crime, transportation and malignant mixes, in Safety and security in transit environments, pp 181–195, December, 2014.
American Public Transportation Association (2010). Public transportation fact book, April 2010. Available at: https://www.apta.com/resources/statistics/Documents/FactBook/APTA_2010_Fact_Book.pdf
American Public Transportation Association. (2017). Retrieved from https://www.apta.com/wp-content/uploads/2017-APTA-Fact-Book.pdf
Block, R. L., & Block, C. R. (1995). Space, place, and crime: hot spot areas and hot places of liquor-related crime. In J. E. Eck & D. Weisburd (Eds.), Crime and place (Vol. 4, pp. 145–183). Monsey, NY: Criminal Justice Press.
Block, R., & Block, C. (2000). The Bronx and Chicago: street robbery in the environs of rapid transit stations. In J. Mollenkopf (Ed.), Analyzing crime patterns: frontiers in practice. London: Sage.
Boggs, S. L. (1965). Urban crime patterns. American Sociological Review, 30, 899–908.
Branas, C., South, E., Kondo, M. C., Hohl, B. C., Bourgois, P., Wiebe, D. J., & MacDonald, J. M. (2018). Citywide cluster randomized trial to restore blighted vacant land and its effects on violence, crime, and fear. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Mar 2018, 115(12), 2946–2951.
Brantingham, P., & Brantingham, P. (1984). Patterns in crime. New York: Macmillan.
Brantingham, P. L., & Brantingham, P. J. (1995). Location quotients and crime hot spots in the city. In C. Block, M. Dabdoub, & S. Fregly (Eds.), Crime analysis through computer mapping (pp. 129–150). Washington, DC: Police Executive Research Forum.
Bratton, W. (1996). Cutting crime and restoring order: what America can learn from New York’s finest. Speech presented to the Heritage Foundation on October, 15, 1996.
Ceccato, V. (2013). Moving safely: crime and perceived safety in Stockholm’s subway stations. Lanham: Lexington.
Clarke, Ronald V. 2010. Crime science. In The Sage handbook of criminological theory. , edited by Eugene McLaughlin and Tim Newburn Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Clarke, R., & Eck, J. (2005). Crime analysis for problem solvers in 60 small steps. Washington, DC: Office of Community Oriented Policing.
Cohen, L., & Felson, M. (1979). Social change and crime rate trends: a routine activity approach. American Sociological Review, 44(4), 588–608.
Clarke, Ronald V. 2002. Thefts of and from cars in parking facilities. Problem-Oriented Guides for Police Series, No. 13. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Community Oriented Policing Services.
Clarke, R., & Eck, J. (2007). Understanding risky facilities. Problem Specific Guide Series. Washington, DC: Office of Community Oriented Policing, U.S. Department of Justice. Clarke, R., & Felson, M. (Eds.).
Cui, Lin., and Walsh, Randall. (2014). Foreclosure, vacancy, and crime. Working Paper 20593, National Bureau of Economic Research, Cambridge, MA. October, 2014.
Drawve, G., Moak, S. C., & Berthelot, E. R. (2016). Predictability of gun crimes: a comparison of hot spot and risk terrain modelling techniques. Policing and Society, 26(3), 312–331.
Eck, J., Clarke, R., & Guerette, R. (2007). Risky facilities: crime concentration in homogeneous sets of facilities. In Crime prevention studies (Vol. 21). Monsey (New York): Criminal Justice Press.
Farrrell, G., & Pease, K. (1993). Once bitten, twice bitten: repeat victimization and its implications for crime prevention. In Crime prevention unit paper 46. London, UK: Home Office.
Felson, M. (2003). The process of co-offending. In M. Smith & D. Cornish, Crime prevention studies: theory for practice, in situational crime prevention (Vol. 16,pp. 149–167). Monsey, NY: Criminal Justice Press.
Felson, M., & Boivin, R. (2015). Daily crime flows within a city. Crime Science, 4(2015), 31.
Gale, J. A., & Coupe, T. (2005). The behavioural, emotional and psychological effects of street robbery on victims. International Review of Victimology, 12(1), 1–22.
Geographic Online Address Translator. (2016). GOAT User Guide. http://a030-goat.nyc.gov/goat/UserGuide
Groff, E. R. (2011). Exploring ‘near’: characterizing the spatial extent of drinking place influence on crime. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Criminology, 44(2), 156–179.
Groff, E. R., Weisburd, D., & Yang, S.-M. (2010). Is it important to examine crime trends at a local “micro” level?: a longitudinal analysis of block to block variability in crime trajectories. Journal of Quantitative Criminology, 26, 7–32.
Harries, K. D. (1991). Alternative denominators in conventional crime rates. Environmental Criminology, P 147–165, 1981, Paul J Brantingham and Patricia L Brantingham, ed. - See NCJ-87681).
Herrmann, Christopher R. (2012a). Risky businesses: a micro-level spatiotemporal analysis of crime, place, & business establishment type. Unpublished PhD Thesis: New York: The City University of New York.
Herrmann, Christopher R., 2012b. Exploring street-level spatiotemporal dimensions of violent crime in Bronx, NY (2006–2010). Crime Modeling and Mapping Using Geospatial Technologies Series. Ed. Leitner, M. Springer, 2012.
Herrmann, Christopher R. (2015). The dynamics of robbery and violence crime hot spots. Special Journal Issue – Spatiotemporal Patterns of Crime: The Dynamics of Shifting Crime Risk in Urban Areas. Crime Science 2015, 4:33. October, 2015.
Irvin-Erickson, Y., & La Vigne, N. G. (2015). A spatio-temporal analysis of crime at Washington, DC metro rail: stations’ crime-generating and crime-attracting characteristics as transportation nodes and places. Crime Science, 2015(4), 14.
Jeffery, C. R. (1977). Crime prevention through environmental design (Second ed.). Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
Johnson, R. And Ratcliffe, JH. (2012). When does a drug market become a drug market? Finding the boundaries of illicit event concentrations. In Crime modeling and mapping using geospatial technologies (Vol. 8, pp. 25–48). Springer Netherlands.
King, D. (2011). Developing densely: estimating the effect of subway growth on New York City land uses. Journal of Transport and Land Use, 4(2). https://doi.org/10.5198/jtlu.v4i2.185.
Laycock, G. (2001). Hypothesis-based research: the repeat victimization story. Criminology and Criminal Justice, 1, 59–82.
Lemieux, A. M., & Felson, M. (2012). Risk of violent crime victimization during major daily activities. Violence and Victims, 27(5), 635.
Levine, Ned (2015). CrimeStat: a spatial statistics program for the analysis of crime incident locations (v 4.02). Ned Levine & Associates, Houston, Texas, and the National Institute of Justice, Washington, D.C.
Loukaitou-Sideris, Anastasia (1999). Hot spots of bus stop crime: the importance of environmental attributes. American Planning Association. Journal of the American Planning Association; Autumn 1999; 65, 4.
Loukaitou-Sideris, A. (2011). Safe on the move: the importance of the built environment. In: Ceccato V. (Ed), The urban fabric of crime and fear. Dordrecht: Springer.
Madensen, T. D., & Eck, J. E. (2013). Crime places and place management. In F. T. Cullen & P. Wilcox (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of criminological theory (pp. 554–578). New York: Oxford University Press.
Madensen, T, and Eck, J. (2008). Violence in bars: exploring the impact of place manager decision-making. Crime Prevention and Community Safety: An International Journal, 2008, Vol.10(2), p.111.
Newton, Andrew D. (2018). Macro-level generators of crime, including parks, stadiums, and transit stations. In: The Oxford handbook of environmental criminology. Oxford University Press.
Newton, A. D. (2014). Crime on public transport. In Encyclopedia of criminology and criminal justice (pp. 709–720). London: Springer.
New York City Police Department. (2017). NYPD crime data warehouse, Computer file
New York City Department of City Planning (2010). City of New York Information Technology Division Geographic Systems Section. Geosupport user guide. Available at https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/planning/download/pdf/data-maps/open-data/upg.pdf?r=16b
Ratcliffe, JH. (2010). Crime mapping: spatial and temporal challenges. In Handbook of quantitative criminology edited by Alex R. Piquero and David Weisburd. Springer Science & Business Media, 2010.
Sedelmaier, C. M. (2015). “Wolves to the door” or “lambs to the slaughter?” crime opportunity searches on a new public transport system. In V. Ceccato & A. Newton (Eds.), Safety and security in transit environments: an interdisciplinary approach. London: Palgrave.
Sherman, L., & Weisburd, D. (1995). General deterrent effects of police patrol in crime ‘hot spots’: a randomized study. Justice Quarterly, 12(4).
Stults, B. J., & Hasbrouck, M. (2015). The effect of commuting on city-level crime rates. Journal of Quantitative Criminology, 31(2), 331–350.
Telep, C., Weisburd, D., Gill, C., Vitter, Z., & Teichman, D. (2014). Displacement of crime and diffusion of crime control benefits in large-scale geographic areas: a systematic review. Journal of Experimental Criminology, 10, 515–548.
Townsley, M. (2008). Visualising space time patterns in crime: the hotspot plot. Crime Patterns and Analysis., 1 https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/143865798.pdf.
Twinam, T. (2017). Danger zone: land use and the geography of neighborhood crime. Journal of Urban Economics, 2017, 100(C), 104–119.
Weisburd, D., Wyckoff, L. A., Ready, J., Eck, J. E., Hinkle, J. C., & Gajewski, F. (2006). Does crime just move around the corner? A controlled study of spatial displacement and diffusion of crime control benefits. Criminology, 44, 549–592.
Weisel, D. L., Smith, W. R., Garson, G. D., Pavlichev, A., & Wartell, J. (2006). Motor vehicle theft: crime and spatial analysis in a non-urban region. Available at http://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/215179.pdf.
Wheeler, A. P., Kim, D.-Y., & Phillips, S. W. (2018). The effect of housing demolitions on crime in Buffalo, New York. Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, 55(3), 390–424.
Yavus, N., & Welch, E. W. (2010). Addressing fear of crime in public space: gender differences in reaction to safety measures in train transit. Urban Studies Journal, 47(12), 2491–2515 November 2010.
Yu, S.-s. V. (2011). Do bus stops increase crime opportunities? LFB Scholarly Publishing LLC, El Paso, 2011.
Funding
The authors would like to acknowledge funding for this research provided by the Research Foundation of the City University of New York (PSC-Award #50).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Publisher’s Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Herrmann, C.R., Maroko, A.R. & Taniguchi, T.A. Subway Station Closures and Robbery Hot Spots in New York City—Understanding Mobility Factors and Crime Reduction. Eur J Crim Policy Res 27, 415–432 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10610-020-09476-x
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10610-020-09476-x