Overview: This entry examines how crime concentrates and is potentially specialized within and around the public transport system. It begins by defining public transport for the purposes of this discussion and outlines why this is an area of importance. It also discusses some of the reasons why there is a paucity of evidence into crime on public transport and the unique challenges this system poses for identifying and analyzing concentrations of crime. It describes how public transport networks provide a number of unique settings (places and times) across which crime and disorder can occur. These include in and around stations and stops and on board moving vehicles.The public transport network brings increased accessibility to places, and this creates distinctive patterns of offending. This entry reviews the international evidence for the manifestations of crime in these situations and considers the theoretical reasons and explanations for such events and the extent to which these may be specialized. It then examines the prevention opportunities offered by the crime concentrations and specializations identified and some emerging trends and future avenues for research.

The routine activity approach and associated crime pattern theory emphasise how crime emerges from spatio-temporal routines. In order to understand this crime should be studied in both space and time. However, the bulk of research into crime patterns and related activities has investigated the spatial distributions of crime, neglecting the temporal dimension. Specifically, disaggregation of crime by place and by time, for example hour of day, day of week, month of year, season, or school day versus none school day, is extremely relevant to theory. Modern data make such spatio-temporal disaggregation increasingly feasible, as exemplified in this special issue. First, much larger data files allow disaggregation of crime data into temporal and spatial slices. Second, new forms of data are generated by modern technologies, allowing innovative and new forms of analyses. Crime pattern analyses and routine activity inquiries are now able to explore avenues not previously available. The unique collection of nine papers in this thematic issue specifically examine spatio-temporal patterns of crime to; demonstrate the value of this approach for advancing knowledge in the field; consider how this informs our theoretical understanding of the manifestations of crime in time and space; to consider the prevention implications of this; and to raise awareness of the need for further spatio-temporal research into crime events.

This paper explores crime risk within and around major transit systems, specifically by investigating theft of personal property offences on the London Underground. The majority of studies to date have examined theft above ground, predominantly at transit stations, although some studies have compared this with theft in nearby surrounding areas. This study is unique and extends this analysis to theft during transit journeys below ground. The location of such offences is often unknown, only discovered by the victim sometime after the event. A new technique termed Interstitial Crime Analysis is used to better measure the location of below ground theft offences; these are compared with above ground thefts using Spearman's Rank tests for association. Key findings are: below ground theft offences are concentrated at particular stations; risk is highest during morning and late afternoon peak travel periods; at these peak times there is an elevated risk of theft at both high risk stations and in their surrounding environs; and that this relationship is not evident during the inter-peak and late night time periods. The findings suggest offenders who operate below ground may also operate above ground on major transit systems. This has clear policy implications for policing these settings and highlights the importance of joint operations and information sharing between transit agencies and local police forces operating near major transit systems.

There is clear evidence of the link between alcohol-related violence and licensed premises, particularly with consideration to the night-time economy of urban centres.The relationship between the occurrence of violence and the trading hours of outlets that sell alcohol (alcohol supply points) is a complex phenomenon. This paper highlights, through the use of analysis techniques and findings from an evaluation of the Licensing Act 2003, the lack of consistent information available to those tasked with managing night-time economy areas. It also details the importance of place (individual high risk premises and areas with concentrations of licensed premises), of time (both time of day and day of week), and the value of local contextual knowledge (e.g. the difference between granted and actual used licensed trading hours) in measuring and interpreting change. The paper outlines a range of information sources that are presently not collated in a consistent format that are crucial to making informed decisions for management of the NTE and areas with licensed premises, and argues that a consistent reliable evidence-base on alcohol supply points is a necessity for managing and policing such areas.3

This study attempts to examine the risk of bus route crime and how it is influenced by environmental characteristics along the bus corridor. These include changing levels of crime risk, socio-economic influences, and changes to the physical infrastructure including land use. Three urban case study areas in the UK are used. The findings suggest that the risk of bus crime along a journey is influenced by overall levels of crime (for specific categories of crime only), that the level of risk increases in high crime areas, and that risk is raised further when there are more stops along that route Prevention implications of these findings are discussed, and avenues for future research are presented.

How places influence crime: The impact of surrounding areas on neighbourhood burglary rates in a British City, Urban Studies

This paper identifies factors that encourage or reduce pick-pocketing at underground rail stations through a case study analysis of the London Underground.Negative binomial Poisson regression models found possible predictor variables of pick-pocketing selected from the internal characteristics of stations, and features of their nearby surroundings. Factors that increased risk were those associated with; greater congestion inside stations including lifts, waiting rooms and fewer platforms; and, increased levels of accessibility near stations, more paths and roads. Features that reduced risk were those likely to encourage detection and guardianship; stations with more personal validators, staffing levels, and shop rentals; and, the presence of more domestic buildings nearby. Station type was also influential; those that were 'attractors' of crime and those frequently used by tourists were at greater risk. The findings suggest a transmission of theft risk between the internal settings of underground stations and their nearby surroundings.

This article draws on a recent study that examined the impact of target hardening on domestic burglary in the City of Liverpool, England, between July 2005 and December 2007. Individual property-level data, from a range of sources, were collated for each residential property in the City enabling details about burglaries (timing, location, modus operandi) to be linked to data on the nature, timing, and location of target-hardening activity. Properties were grouped according to the presence or absence of burglary and/or target hardening at each address and the sequence of events. Groups included properties burgled, target hardened, and not subsequently burgled; no prior burglary, target hardened, subsequent burglary; burgled, never target hardened, and other combinations.The results suggest that property-level data give a richer picture of the relationship between burglary and target hardening than is possible using aggregate data at an area level.