OBJECTIVE To examine whether business improvement districts (BID) contributed to greater than expected declines in the incidence of violent crimes in affected neighbourhoods. METHOD A Bayesian hierarchical model was used to assess the changes in the incidence of violent crimes between 1994 and 2005 and the implementation of 30 BID in Los Angeles neighbourhoods. RESULTS The implementation of...

BACKGROUND Several studies have reported criminal and violent behaviour in people with schizophrenia but few have investigated the association between affective disorders and violent behaviour. METHODS We reviewed the national crime register for records of criminal offences committed by 1561 patients with affective disorders treated between 1990 and 1995 in the Psychiatric Hospital of the Uni...

Tourists and visitors represent a valuable and appreciated element of many countries and many communities. Anecdotal evidence suggests that these tourists and visitors are at great risk of being victims of violent and property crimes in the cities they visit. This paper assesses the relationship between the number of visitors to various cities and the types and patterns of crimes, over time, in...

Drug-use and drug-related criminal offending are among the greatest concerns of policy-makers, law-enforcement officials, scientists, physicians, and citizens alike. There is a growing interest on the part of all parties to examine the causes, possible correlations, and consequences of the drug-crime relationship. This research paper examines the conceptions regarding the drug-crime relationshi...

During 1994 U.S. residents age 12 or older experienced 11.6 million violent victimizations  murders, rapes, sexual assaults, robberies, aggravated assaults, and simple assaults. Men experienced more of these crimes than women: 6.6 million versus 5 million. Strangers to the victims committed most of the violence against males (3.9 million), while persons whom the victims knew committed most of ...

The hypothesized relation between uncomfortably hot temperatures and aggressive behavior was examined in two studies of violent and nonviolent crime. Data on rates of murder, rape, assault, robbery, burglary, larceny-theft, and motor vehicle theft were gathered from archival sources. The first three crimes listed are violent; the latter four are less violent (labeled nonviolent). On the basis o...

Free testosterone was measured in the saliva of 89 male prison inmates. Inmates with higher testosterone concentrations had more often been convicted of violent crimes. The relationship was most striking at the extremes of the testosterone distribution, where 9 out of 11 inmates with the lowest testosterone concentrations had committed nonviolent crimes, and 10 out of 11 inmates with the highes...