The geodiversity of crime: Evidence from British Columbia

Crime mapping has established central tendencies, e.g., that crime trips tend to be certain lengths. But this is only one-half of the convergence that leads to a crime. Crime mobility research, however, considers the simultaneous movements of both offenders and victims. In this paper, we consider the geodiversity of crime mobility: there are variations in the amount of area covered by various crimes depending on the variations of criminal opportunity. Extending the crime mobility research to consider co-offending, co-victimization, and area covered rather than typologies, we find strong evidence for geodiversity in crime. This geodiversity varies across crime types within a single municipality as well as across municipalities within a single crime type.

► We investigate the geodiversity of crime in three municipalities. ► We extend mobility crime research by considering co-offending and calculating area. ► There is strong evidence for the geodiversity of crime. ► Geodiversity of crime is present across crime classifications and places.