Crowd Modeling and Criminality Crowding

Social aggregations occur in diverse animal populations as well as amongst people, in various contexts. The speaker will review models for social aggregation and the linkages between short scale interactions and large scale behavior of the group. Regarding crime behavior, the speaker will review some recent work on crime `hot spots' where patterns spontaneously form due to repeat victimization. We will discuss how this occurs and how it is reflected in data from law enforcement agencies such as the Los Angeles Police Department and Long Beach Police Department.