The Crime Data Handbook

With the rise of evidence-informed approaches to criminal justice, new models of data-driven decision-making, and the emergence of predictive analytics and other new tools for understanding and employing crime data, the field of crime research has grown substantially over the past decade. The fuel that drives that growth is data. In this edited collection, we present a comprehensive volume of papers from some of the leading crime scientists from around the world. Researchers, crime analysts and others working with crime data from across four continents and seven countries, provide rich discussions of some of the strengths, perils and opportunities provided by the range of data sources, tools, techniques and topics now available. Aimed at a diverse audience – including students, academic researchers, police practitioners, crime analysts and public policy-makers – our goal in this book is to make crime data and analysis accessible and interesting. This book will thus appeal to readers who are interested in learning more about the varieties of data types and sources that can and is informing contemporary criminal justice research.