"Then they simply go somewhere else...": An Exploratory Study of Crime Displacement in a German Context

Findings from a study (Mühler et al. 2022) on a weapon prohibition zone established on November 5, 2018, in Leipzig, Germany, indicate a decrease in crime rates within the zone. This paper asks whether the reduction is partially caused by displacement into surrounding areas or an actual reduction in crime. Drawing on perspectives of rational choice and routine activity theory, we expect to see that crime should have contemporaneously increased in adjoining districts because offenders commonly search for opportunities close to their everyday life. We assume furthermore that not every type of criminal offense is equally prone to displacement since different crimes can vary in their cost and utility structure. Based on police-recorded crime data from 2016 to 2020, we put these theoretical assumptions to an empirical test using methods of spatial point-pattern analysis. Firstly, we use kernel density estimations to map spatiotemporal crime patterns and their shifts in the districts of Volkmarsdorf and Neustadt-Neuschönefeld before and after the implementation of the weapon prohibition zone. Secondly, to trace spatial crime displacement on a more fine-grained level, we calculate centrography statistics such as central tendency and dispersion for different periods between 2016 and 2020. Geospatial analyses are carried out not only for the total of police-recorded crimes but also for various offenses. The findings suggest that shortly after the weapon prohibition zone was implemented the center of criminal activity did indeed shift to areas closer to the zone boundaries, while new centers outside the zone began to emerge. This pattern is particularly pronounced for petty and grand theft. Our results yield novel insights into the unintended consequences of implementing weapon prohibition zones to reduce local crime rates and may inform future policy decisions.