Analyzing The Violent Crime Patterns In Peninsular Malaysia : Exploratory Spatial Data Analysis (ESDA) Approach

The objective of this study is to analyze the spatial cluster of crime cases in Peninsular Malaysia by using the exploratory spatial data analysis (ESDA). In order to identify and measure the spatial autocorrelation (cluster), Moran's I index were measured. Based on the cluster analyses, the hot spot of the violent crime occurrence was mapped. Maps were constructed by overlaying hot spot of violent crime rate for the year 2001, 2005 and 2009. As a result, the hypothesis of spatial randomness was rejected indicating cluster effect existed in the study area. The findings reveal that crime was distributed nonrandomly, suggestive of positive spatial autocorrelation. The findings of this study can be used by the goverment, policy makers or responsible agencies to take any related action in term of crime prevention, human resource allocation and law enforcemant in order to overcome this important issue in the future.