APPROACHES OF CRIMINAL GEOGRAPHY IN DIFFERENT SPATIAL LEVELS FOR THE ADAPTATION OPPORTUNITIES OF MODERN

This research paper is to analyse the spatial distribution of crime in different regional scales: country, county and settlement level – it covers the analysis of the North-Hungarian Region. The overall objective is to explore the connection between crime indexes and socio-economic factors. To evaluate the criminal situation of Hungary adequately, it is necessary to analyse its statistics in international context.

Counties of Hungary are the next level of analysis. Before demonstrating county level crime maps, it is necessary to figure the long-term crime data of Hungary – this part could be interpreted as a passage from larger to lower scale. For this reason I study the progress of known offences and offenders between 1970 and 2012. Evaluating the criminal situation of Hungarian counties was necessary to introduce the most detailed research level. I study that what kind of differences could be detected between the distribution of offences and offenders and I attempt to limit crime attractive and offender exporter spatial units – emphasizing the situation of the region analyzed in detail.

This analysis focuses on exploring regional specificities and the backgrounds of regional arrangement. I examine the following issues: spatial pattern of crime, mapping crime clusters and modeling spatial relations; including the analysis of socio-economic factors and crime relation, moreover I attempt to create crime surface model. Finally I demonstrate the connection between social factors and crime in the example of four settlements of Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén County.