Using an Agent-Based Crime Simulation to Predict the Effects of Urban Regeneration on Individual Household Burglary Risk

Abstract

Making realistic predictions about the occurrence of crime is a challenging research area. City-wide crime patterns depend on the behaviour and interactions of a huge number of people (including victims, offenders, and passers-by) as well as a multitude of environmental factors. Modern criminology theory has highlighted the individual-level nature of crime-whereby overall crime rates emerge from individual crimes that are committed by individual people in individual places-but traditional modelling methodologies struggle to capture the complex dynamics of the system. The decision whether or not to commit a burglary, for example, is based on a person's unique behavioural circumstances and the immediate surrounding environment. To address these problems, individual-level simulation techniques such as agent-based modelling have begun to spread to the field of criminology. These models simulate the behaviour of individual people and objects directly; virtual 'agents' are placed in an environment that allows tbem to travel through space and time, behaving as they would do in the real world. We outline an advanced agent-based model that can be used to simulate occurrences of residential burglary at an individual level. The behaviour within the model closely represents criminology theory and uses real-world data from the city of Leeds, UK as an input. We demonstrate the use of the model to predict the effects of a real urban regeneration scheme on local households.

“Space, the Final Frontier”: How Good are Agent-Based Models at Simulating Individuals and Space in Cities?

“…The examples in Table 1 present a range of agent representation from households to entire cities or institutions. The choice of agents depends on the problem being investigated be it people [54], facilities (e.g., petrol stations [57]) or cities [18]). …”

Walk This Way: Improving Pedestrian Agent-Based Models through Scene Activity Analysis

“…One technique that is inherently suited to modeling individuals, or groups of individuals, is that of agent-based modeling. Agent-based models (ABMs) have been used to explore a wide range a phenomena from the individual perspective, ranging from: animal movement [4]; agricultural practices [5]; land use change [6]; residential segregation [7]; crime [8]; to daily travel patterns [9]. With respect to pedestrian movement, ABMs have been used to explore a number of problems such as navigation in confined spaces, such as art galleries (e.g., [10]); navigation through town centers (e.g., [11]) and shopping malls (e.g., [12]); public gatherings and festivals (e.g., [13]); riots (e.g., [14]) and egress from a building (e.g., [15]).…”

Predicting Dynamical Crime Distribution From Environmental and Social Influences

“…Malleson et al [31] argue that modern criminology theory has highlighted the individual-level nature of crime-whereby overall crime rates emerge from individual crimes that are committed by individual people in individual places. However, they say, "traditional modeling methodologies struggle to capture the complex dynamics of the system.…”

“…The decision whether or not to commit a burglary, for example, is based on a person's unique behavioral circumstances and the immediate surrounding environment." Malleson et al [31] add that an effective way to address these problems is through individual-level simulation techniques such as agent-based modeling have begun to spread to the field of criminology. This paper builds on this work and provides new insights into how this approach can advance crime analysis in the future.…”