Crime risk in urban neighbourhoods: the use of insurance data to analyse changing spatial forms

The recent British Crime Surveys have confirmed that there are significant spatial variations in the distribution of crime risk. However, it is notoriously difficult to represent the spatial patterns in Britain convincingly owing to the statistical inadequacy of the official crime data. This paper discusses the use of home contents insurance data as a proxy measure of crime risk, and examines the changing spatial distribution of crime risk in the two Northern conurbations of Merseyside and Greater Manchester. The analysis provides an explicit urban focus in order to establish links between the spatial distribution of crime risk and other patterns of deprivation or inequality in the urban environment. Since insurance data is used as a proxy measure of crime risk in the Department of the Environment's Index of Local Conditions, this analysis serves as an interesting basis for both academic and policy discussion.