Toward a Holistic Vectored Geography of Homicide

Abstract

A minority of the research conducted on the geography of crime has considered crime as a vectored event, consisting of multiple locations of interest and straight-line connections between them. Within this small literature, very little attention has been paid to relationships between the various 'journey' vectors available for consideration. Recently several studies have resurrected the notion of Mobility Triangle Analysis as a method for examining crime as a multi-vectored event. The research described here illustrates that geometric configuration of multi-vector homicide events drives prior findings related to mobility triangle analyses, and demonstrates a two-stage method for reconciling this issue. In addition to examining the geometric configuration of homicide, the research also examines issues of orientation, extent, and the impact of contextual factors in multi-vector models of homicide geography.