Environmental criminology and crime analysis: situating the theory, analytic approach and application

Environmental criminology is a family of theories that share a common interest in criminal events and the immediate circumstances in which they occur. According to Brantingham and Brantingham (1991a: 2), ‘environmental criminology argues that criminal events must be understood as confluences of offenders, victims or criminal targets, and laws in specific settings at particular times and places’. Environmental criminologists look for crime patterns and seek to explain them in terms of environmental influences. From these explanations they derive rules that enable predictions to be made about emerging crime problems, and that ultimately inform the development of strategies that might be employed to prevent crime.