What is a “hot” spot in relation to criminal investigations

Hot spotspolicing strategies focus on small geographic areas or places, usually in urban settings, where crime is concentrated. Through hot spots policing strategies, law enforcement agencies can focus limited resources in areas where crime is most likely to occur. This practice is rated Effective for reducing overall crime and rated Promising for reducing violent, property, public order, and drug and alcohol offenses.

https://crimesolutions.ojp.gov/ratedpractices/8

Statistical Tests

Analysts can use statistical software to determine whether an area with a high number of crimes is a hot spot

or whether the clustering of those crimes is a random occurrence.

CrimeStat III and GeoDa are two computer software programs for hot spot analysis.

CrimeStat III. CrimeStat is a spatial statistical program used to analyze the locations of crime incidents and identify hot spots. Learn more and download CrimeStat III.

GeoDa. The GeoDa Center for Geospatial Analysis and Computation at Arizona State University develops state-of-the-art methods for geospatial analysis, geovisualization, geosimulation and spatial process modeling and implements them through software tools. Learn more about GeoDa and review a list of available software.

https://nij.ojp.gov/topics/articles/how-identify-hot-spots-and-read-crime-map