ABSTRACT
The use of hotspots to determine policing and crime prevention strategies has grown over recent years. Crime hotspots-areas of high crime intensityhave appeal to both crime prevention practitioners and police managers. The development of planning solutions such as Crime Prevention through Environmental Design (CPTED) (Jeffery and Zahm, 1993) and situational crime prevention (Brantingham and Brantingham, 1990; Clarke, 1992; Ekblom and Tilley, 2000) led to greater claims on the crime prevention budgets of local authorities and city planners. Hotspots allow local councillors to determine the areas of greatest need. Similarly, a considerable shift has occurred toward greater use of hotspots as foundations for problem-oriented policing (Goldstein, 1990) and as focal points for identifying problems that can be resolved with the SARA technique (Eck and Spelman, 1987; Greene, 2000).
