School of GeographyFACULTY OF ENVIRONMENT

Spatial Microsimulation andCrime Analysis

Mark BirkinProfessor of Spatial Analysis and Policy

University of Leeds

The Obvious Questions...

• What is Spatial Microsimulation?

• Why is it interesting to the audience at a workshop on Crime, Policing and Society?

Microsimulation

• Introduced to economics in the 1950s by Guy Orcutt– Motivated by a desire to understand the distributional

consequences of financial policies (tax, benefits etc)– Represent individual households or population

members rather than array-based aggregates– Apply rules e.g. person(s) under 18 then allocate child

benefit• Idea enthusiastically adopted by geographers –

also concerned with (spatial) distributions

Represent Individuals

HB claim no.Claimant's NI no.

Claimant DOB

Tenancy Type Postcode

Passported / Standard Indicator

no. of child dependents

no. of non-dependents

status of HB claim at extract

HB Claim Entitlement Start Date

Weekly Housing Benefit Entitlement £

Frequency of Payment of HB

Council Tax Band

Weekly Eligible Rent Amount £

100284068 JB187699D 25/01/1905 1 LS10 4HH 2 0 0 1 07/04/2003 5379 1 A 5379102577377 SJ420608A 09/04/1962 1 LS10 4LW 4 2 0 1 14/04/2008 5696 2 A 5696102535368 JS441324A 07/08/1990 3 LS16 5AF 4 1 0 1 07/05/2007 9801 3 B 11308100643900 JR946647D 07/06/1980 3 LS25 2EU 4 1 0 1 21/12/2009 11483 3 B 12692100076017 ZS062575C 30/08/1938 1 LS9 7UD 4 0 1 1 12/01/2009 3236 1 A 5250100243466 YB731969D 27/02/1944 1 WF10 2HS 4 0 0 1 07/04/2003 4467 1 A 5914102140780 NW093710C 16/06/1970 1 LS12 4RD 1 0 0 1 27/09/2004 5775 1 A 5775102447058 JN815575D 05/07/1981 1 LS16 7BD 3 0 0 1 27/07/2009 5550 3 A 5550

10011922X JC971278C 22/09/1975 1 LS7 1DP 1 0 0 1 07/04/2003 5221 1 A 522110220693X NS672732B 04/02/1970 1 LS9 0JA 3 2 0 1 13/09/2010 5801 A 5801

102731632 WE225453C 21/10/1958 1 LS7 2HH 3 2 1 1 27/10/2008 5612 1 A 5612100060213 YT659048A 24/08/1956 1 LS5 3PB 4 0 0 1 07/04/2003 4081 1 A 5716102796419 YP859509C 23/05/1951 9 LS9 6AL 4 0 0 1 15/06/2009 10356 3 A 10356100680082 NW410270C 06/11/1970 3 LS29 6AA 4 2 1 1 04/10/2004 14103 3 C 14192100100742 JC988101B 26/09/1975 1 LS7 1HL 3 0 0 1 27/07/2009 4808 1 A 4808

ZB813715C 19/07/1932 7 LS9 6ES 2 0 0 0 0 A 0102426343 JE274869B 22/07/1976 1 LS11 8LD 1 2 0 1 02/11/2009 6039 1 A 6039100143265 NE686652C 27/11/1964 4 LS17 6WB 5 0 0 1 27/07/2009 11473 3 B 11473102446188 PX782018C 04/03/1976 1 LS9 6RY 1 2 0 1 07/08/2006 5922 1 A 5922100506583 JC459247D 24/02/1917 1 LS19 6JA 2 0 0 1 07/04/2003 5723 1 B 5723100711368 JN455169B 21/02/1985 3 LS15 8BN 4 1 0 1 31/03/2009 8833 3 E 11885102832964 YB270876A 15/09/1943 3 LS11 7EN 2 0 0 1 20/04/2009 10356 3 B 10356102803592 ZP628017A 08/07/1935 1 LS19 6EB 4 0 0 1 16/02/2009 4033 1 A 5322

YT870915C 17/08/1948 7 LS22 5LP 2 0 1 0 0 F 0100286603 LT593491C 08/04/1924 1 LS26 9DA 4 0 0 1 07/04/2003 5964 1 B 6114100109750 JT573102C 24/02/1982 1 LS15 0BP 1 2 0 1 17/11/2008 5437 A 5437100721697 JR817278C 18/02/1987 4 LS8 5NR 1 1 0 1 27/10/2008 6656 3 A 6656

10296873X ES202175A 03/07/1923 4 LS25 1JB 4 0 0 1 09/11/2009 7987 3 A 10488102283904 WL028070C 17/01/1960 1 LS11 5UP 5 0 0 1 30/06/2008 5105 1 A 5105

Distributional Consequences

Policy Rules

And then the clever stuff...

The Benefits

Easy to generateEasy to aggregateEasy to linkEasy to manipulateEasy to scaleEasy to implementEasy to project

Benefits (1)

Easy to Aggregate

Kavroudakis D, Ballas D, Birkin M (2012) Using spatial microsimulation to model social and spatial inequalities in educational attainment, Applied Spatial Analysis and Policy, in press.

Benefits (2)

Easy to Link

Tomintz M., Clarke G.P., Rigby J. (2008) The geography of smoking in Leeds: estimating individual smoking rates and the implications for the location for stop smoking services, Area 40(3), 341-353

Benefits (3)

Spatial microsimulation for rural policy analysis in Ireland: The implications of CAP reforms for the national spatial strategy D. Ballas, G.P. Clarke, E. Wiemers, Journal of Rural Studies 22 (2006) 367–378

Easy to Manipulate

Benefits (4)

Survey Scenario 1 Scenario 2 Scenario 3 Scenario 4

33 wards in central ring with £5 charge

33 wards in central ring with £10 charge

69 wards in extended ring with £5 charge

69 wards in extended ring with £5 charge

Carry On 7% 9% 2% 10% 2%

Change Route 9% 6% 4% 5% 2%

Change Mode 7% 7% 12% 12% 22%

Change Destination

23% 23% 27% 24% 30%

Unaffected 54% 55% 55% 49% 44%

Birkin M, Malleson N, Hudson-Smith A, Gray S, Milton R (2011) Calibration of a Spatial Interaction Model with Volunteered Geographical Information, International Journal of Geographical Information Science, forthcoming.

Easy to Implement

Easy to Scale

Benefits (5)

population statistics 1991 2001 2011 2021

Households 41,855 47,202 51,074 54,796

Unemployed (as a % of economically active) 4.6% 2.7% 1.8% 1.5%

LLTI (%) 9.5% 8.3% 5.8% 3.9%

Elderly (over 64 years as a % of all individuals) 34.5% 41.9% 41.3% 45.9%

Economically active (%) 46.2% 49.3% 55.1% 58.4%

Health problems: Anxiety, depression (%) 5.7% 4.8% 3.7% 3.8%

“Loneliness” (% with no one to talk to in times of need) 6.6% 7.2% 8.8% 11.5%

Single person households 34.4% 42.3% 43.4% 41.8%

Cars/Households ratio 0.73 0.88 1.02 1.03

Easy to Project

Ballas, D., Clarke G.P., Dorling D. Rossiter D. (2007) Using SimBritain to model the geographical impact of national government policies, Geographical Analysis, 39(1), 44-77

Problems and Issues

X Lack of standardsX Lack of softwareX Data is messy and heterogeneous? Strong applications, weak theory? Challenging ethicsX Tend to be mechanistic

From Microsimulation to Individual Based Simulation

• Need some insights from agent-based modelling to bolster the MSM– Conceptual and behavioural detail– Evidence driven and policy rich

• Wu B, Birkin M, Rees P (2008) A spatial microsimulation model with student agents, Computers Environment and Urban Systems, 32, 440-453.

• Jordan, R., Birkin, M., Evans, A. (2011): ‘Agent-based Simulation Modelling of Housing Choice and Urban Regeneration Policy’. In: Bosse, T., Geller, A. and Jonker, C. (eds.), Multi-Agent-Based Simulation XI. Springer, Berlin, 152-166. Malleson and Birkin (2012)

• Malleson N., Birkin M. (2012) Analysis of crime patterns through the integration of an agent-based model and a population microsimulation, Computers, Environment and Urban Systems, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.compenvurbsys.2012.04.003

MSM-IBM for Crime Policy Analysis

Explore relationship between house type and residential burglary• Are certain house types more at risk?• And do community demographics have an effect?

Burglary rates by Housing Type by OAC Super Group

Lowguardianship?

Affluence withindisadvantage?

Neighbourhoodcohesion?

?

MSM-IBM and CrimeIn recent years, criminologists have become interested in understanding crime variations at progressively finer spatial scales, right down to individual streets or even houses. To model at these fine spatial scales, and to better account for the dynamics of the crime system, agent-based models of crime are emerging. Generally, these have been more successful in representing the behaviour of criminals than their victims. In this paper it is suggested that individual representations of criminal behaviour can be enhanced by combining them with models of the criminal environment which are specified at a similar scale. In the case of burglary this means the identification of individual households as targets. We will show how this can be achieved using the complementary technique of microsimulation. The work is significant because it allows agent-based models of crime to be refined geographically (to allow, for example, individual households with varying wealth or occupancy measures) and leads to the identification of the characteristics of individual victims.

MSM-IBM and Crime

MSM-IBM and Crime

Conclusions

• Microsimulation is a proven technique in applied economics and spatial analysis

• Many established applications in housing, health, education, transport...

• Extension to crime is natural and obvious• Strength of the techniques include applied scale

and policy relevance• Tendency towards rigidity – a more flexible

combination of individual based approaches may be the way forward here