ABSTRACT
A single scenario summarises the main changes in crime experienced by most Western European countries over the last 150 or so years. The failure of fear of crime and objective risk to coincide geographically within urban areas offers a clue to the causes of crime in the Republic. Indictable crimes cover too wide a range of conduct to be particularly revealing. However, some broad patterns do emerge. First, crime in Northern Ireland is less concentrated in urban areas. Belfast's crime rate recorded its most substantial proportionate increase over 1969/70, strongly suggesting that the locus of the conflict shifted there; the 1968/69 rise in the north's crime rate is more evident in the national than in the Belfast statistics. Economic and social change indisputably alter the level and nature of crime in a society. Crime is likely to occur where ordinary activities are such as to bring together motivated offenders and opportunities for crime.
