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Distance-Decay Function

Definition

The empirical pattern that offence frequency declines with distance from the offender's anchor point, after a small zone of avoidance close to home.

Related terms

Anchor Point
The offender's spatial base of operations, most often the home, sometimes the workplace or a partner's address. The point geographical profiling is...
Buffer Zone
The area immediately around an offender's anchor point where offence probability is suppressed because the offender avoids committing crimes near recognisable locations...
Hit-Rate
Performance metric for a geoprofile: the percentage of the search area that has to be examined before the anchor is found, lower...
Jeopardy Surface
The probability map output of geographic profiling, rendered as a colour-coded topographic display where high-probability zones for the anchor point appear in...
Routine Activity Theory
A criminological framework developed by Cohen and Felson (1979) that explains property crime as the product of three converging elements: a motivated...

Explained in

  • Geographical ProfilingThe empirical pattern that offence frequency declines with distance from the offender's anchor point, after a small zone of avoidance close to home.

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