Application of GIS models to spatial analysis of urban “crime hot spots”: The case study of Gorgan City

Document Type : scientific-research article

https://doi.org/10.22067/geography.v9i17.13482

Abstract

Spatial and crime researchers have used the term “hot spot” to explain the spatial conditions of spots with crime outbreak frequency. A “hot spot” might be located in a specific area singly or collectively. In cities, for instance, part of a certain block, a single block, two blocks or a certain intersection can be a crime hot spot. This study aims at finding crime hot spots of Gorgan city in GIS environment. First, the data were collected through a random sampling procedure. Then, a crime scatter plot was provided for each kind of crime in the city. After that, a map of crime hot spots was prepared using different methods such as description, Inverse Distance Weighting, Kernel density, and clustering through statistical analysis in GIS environment. The results of various methods for hot spot spatial analysis in Gorgan city were as follows: According to kriging method, four areas, Kernel density and Inverse Distance Weighting methods, three areas and in terms of clustering method with statistical analysis, two areas could be identified. In this study, all the above methods showed that crowded and poor inhabited areas of the city are the crime hot spots. Moreover, applying each of the methods can be helpful in better analysis of crime hot spots.

Keywords

crime hot spots, Kernel Density

Kriging

Gorgan

GIS

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