An Introduction to Point Pattern Analysis using CrimeStat

Luc Anselin
Spatial Analysis Laboratory
Department of Agricultural and Consumer Economics
University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
http://sal.agecon.uiuc.edu/
June 24, 2003
Introduction
This is a brief introduction to the analysis of patterns in points (as events) using Ned
Levines CrimeStat 2.0 software package. This package is freely available and can be
obtained on the web from http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/NACJD/crimestat.html . The data
used in this tutorial are the Pittsburgh homicide locations (various Pitt* files) and the
Cardiff juvenile offender addresses (juvenile), both obtainable as shape files from the
SAL sample data repository http://sal.agecon.uiuc.edu/stuff/data.html. Some familiarity is
assumed with either ArcView or ArcGIS, optionally with the Spatial Analyst extension,
to implement visualization of various results. CrimeStat does not have its own
visualization capability, but relies on an external GIS through the export of result files.
Getting started with CrimeStat
Start CrimeStat by double clicking its icon. Click on the welcome screen to open the
main interface, shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1. CrimeStat opening screen.

Note how in some systems (like the one used for this tutorial, running Windows Xp) the
bottom buttons are not fully legible. They stand for, left to right, Compute, Quit and
Help. Help brings up an extensive help system.
The four tabs at the top of the interface correspond to some logical steps in the way
CrimeStat implements analysis. First, one needs to set up the data and possibly set some
options, then choose the type of analysis (spatial description or spatial modeling). The
analysis is run by clicking on the Compute button in the bottom left.
Data setup in CrimeStat
CrimeStat reads data from various format files, including shape files. You will be using
the juvenile.shp data set from the Bailey-Gatrell text in this example. This is a very
simple data file with only the X, Y coordinates of the offender addresses. You can load
this into ArcView to have a quick sense of the overall pattern, as in Figure 2.1

Figure 2. Juvenile point pattern in ArcView.

In CrimeStat, click on the Data setup tab to bring up the interface, shown in Figure 1. In
this case, there is only one point pattern, so you only need to specify the Primary File
parameters. For case-control studies, you would specify the cases as the Primary File and
the controls as the Secondary File. Many routines in CrimeStat also use a Reference File,
which is essentially a rectangular grid superimposed over the data points, in order to
carry out density estimation or interpolation.
In the Primary File tab, specify the juvenile.shp file as the input file. Click on the Select
Files button and on Browse in the File Characteristics dialog. Move around in the file
system until you locate the juvenile.shp file in your working directory, as shown in
Figure 3. Select this file and confirm the selection in the File Characteristics dialog (click
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Open ArcView, and, with the Views icon active, click on New. Then add a theme by clicking on the +
(plus) icon and locate the juvenile.shp file. Make sure to click on the check mark to make the theme visible.

OK) and the file name will appear in all the input fields in the user interface, as shown in
Figure 4.

Figure 3. Select input file (Primary File)

Figure 4. Primary File available for the specification of variables.

Several options are available to specify weights, time and directional effects besides the
X, Y coordinates. You will not be using these additional items in the current exercise, but
feel free to explore their use (CrimeStat comes with an extensive manual and several
sample data sets). For now, set X to X and Y to Y. Also make sure the coordinate system
is set to Projected. You can ignore the data units and time unit since there is no time in
the Juvenile data set. Your Data setup interface should now look as in Figure 5.

Figure 5. Variables and projection selected.

Next, specify a reference grid that will be used in the kernel density estimation routines.
Click on the Reference File tab and check the Create Grid radio button. Now, specify 0, 0
as the lower left and 100, 100 as upper right as in Figure 6, and leave the default to 100
grid columns. In the Cardiff data set, the actual bounding rectangle is 2, 6 to 94, 95 (you
can find out manually using the Identify function in ArcView).

Figure 6. Specifying a Grid as a reference file.

Save the Grid specifications for later use to a file in your working directory. This is a
two-step process. First, you Save the grid specification by clicking on the Save button
in the interface (Figure 6). This brings up a dialog to name the particular grid setup, as in
Figure 7. However, this does not save it to a file. To store this (and other) named grid
specifications in a file, first Load them (Load button in Figure 6) and then Save to File in
the following dialog, as in Figure 8.
Practice
Start a second instance of CrimeStat and use the Pitthom.dbf file as the primary file. Set
up the coordinates and the reference grid (use the Identify button in ArcView to
determine the coordinates of the lower-left and upper-right corners of the bounding
rectangle).

Figure 7. Save reference grid.

Figure 8. Load and save reference coordinates from/to a file.

Centrography
Basic descriptive statistics of the overall pattern of the points are the mean and median
center and the standard deviational ellipse. These summaries are computed in CrimeStat
as part of the Spatial Description tab under the Spatial Distribution items. The output can
be saved to a shape file (as well as other formats) for overlay on the point pattern. With
the juvenile point pattern as the Primary File (and with the X and Y coordinates
specified), click on the Spatial Description tab to bring up the Spatial Distribution dialog.
Select the check boxes next to Mean center and standard distance (Mcsd), Standard
deviational ellipse (Sde) and Median Center (MdnCntr), as in Figure 9. Also specify file
names for the output to be saved to a shape file (make sure to select ArcView SHP as
the option in the Save output to list, as in Figure 9). This needs to be done for each
descriptive statistic. Click on the Compute button (lower left) to start the calculations.

The results will appear in a screen, as in Figure 10. Note the tabs on the top of the screen,
which let you select the output for each set of descriptive statistics (Mcsd, Sde, and
MdnCntr). You can now save these results to a text file, or print them out.

Figure 9. Centrography settings.

Figure 10. Mean center result screen.

A more visual representation of the centrographic characteristics of the point pattern is
obtained by overlaying the computed shape files on the original pattern. When the Save
Result to option is used, a number of shape files are created in the current working
directory. These have the same name as specified in the file dialog, with a prefix
indicating the type of results contained in them. The mean center is in the MCfile.shp
shape file, median center in MdnCntrfile.shp, standard deviational ellipse in
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2SDEfile.shp, etc. (see the CrimeStat manual for a full list of options). For example, in
Figure 11, the mean center (green cross), median center (red dot), standard deviational
rectangle (black rectangle), standard distance deviation (blue circle) and standard
deviational ellipse (green ellipse) are illustrated for the juvenile point pattern. The
matching shape file names are given in the legend panel. In this particular application, the
mean and median centers are practically the same and there is only a slight indication of a
directional effect (the circle and ellipse are very close, a strong directional effect would
be shown when the ellipse would be very elongated along one axis).
Practice
Carry out an centrographic analysis of the point pattern for the Pittsburgh homicides (use
Pitthom.shp as the Primary File). Overlay the results on the map of points in ArcView (or
ArcGIS). For a challenge, compare and visualize the summary statistics between the
homicides in 93 and 94. To accomplish this, you will need to build a query in
ArcView/ArcGIS to select those observations for which the Event_yr is 93 (or 94),
followed by a Theme > Convert to Shape file command to create a separate shape file for
the selected observations. Then specify the new shape file as the Primary File in the
CrimeStat analysis.

Figure 11. Centrography of Cardiff juvenile offender addresses.

Kernel density estimation

Kernel density estimation is implemented under the Interpolation functionality of the
Spatial modeling tab in CrimeStat. Note that, strictly speaking, kernel density estimation
is not an interpolation technique, but more precisely the estimation of a probability
surface. CrimeStat includes five kernel estimators: the normal, uniform, spherical, conical
and negative exponential (see the CrimeStat manual, pp. 301-309, for mathematical
details). The main difference between these is that the normal includes all points in the
pattern, whereas the others have a distance cut-off beyond which no points are included
in the kernel estimation. The kernel is estimated for each point on a grid that is overlaid
on the point pattern (the Reference File, Grid).
Each of the kernels allows you to specify a kernel bandwidth as a fixed interval or to
choose an adaptive interval (the default). It is important to understand that the default for
an adaptive interval is to include 100 points in the kernel estimation for each location on
the grid. For small data sets, this will tend to lead to a very smooth (and largely
uninformative) surface. You can also set the bandwidth to a fixed distance range
(interval). This requires that the point coordinates are in meaningful units to yield
distance measures in common units, such as feet, meters or miles. This is not the case in
the juvenile example. Some experimentation with the bandwidth specification is typically
necessary.
The kernel values are computed as totals, or absolute density (points per grid area,
rescaled such that the sum over all grids adds up to the observed total), as points per areal
units, or relative density (i.e., points per square mile), or as probabilities. Output can be
saved in a number of formats, such as a shape file of grid polygons.
To compute some different kernel surfaces for the Cardiff juvenile data, make sure to use
the juvenile.shp file as the Primary File and set the Grid option in the Reference file to
100 grids starting at 0, 0 (lower left) up to 100, 100 (upper right). In the Spatial Modeling
tab, select Interpolation. Keep the method as normal, but specify 25 as the minimum
sample size in the Adaptive bandwidth specification. For now, keep the calculation
option to the default of Absolute Densities. Your setup should look as in Figure 12. You
can practice later with changing these settings.
To visualize the estimated surface in ArcView, make sure to set the save results to
option to the shape file option, as in Figure 13. This will write a shape file to the working
directory that has the interpolated value as the Z variable for each square grid. In Figure
13, the file name juvgrid0 was specified. Click on Compute to start the process.
The results appear in a CrimeStat results window, as shown in Figure 14. You must click
on the Kernel Density tab to see the results (the default is to show the results for the first
analysis tab). You can scroll through the results window or save the results to a text file.
You must use the slider bar to the left of the results and the Go button to see more than
the first 45 interpolated values. In addition, a shape file Kjuvgrid0.shp has been added to
your working directory.

Figure 12. Normal kernel density estimation setup.

Figure 13. Kernel output file specification.

Figure 14. Kernel calculation results.

To visualize the estimated surface, open up ArcView and add the Kjuvgrid0 theme. You
must use the legend editor to turn this into a meaningful grid map. In ArcView (use
similar commands in other GIS software) select Graduated Color as the legend type and
use Z as the Calculation Field. For now, you can keep the default Natural Breaks
classification (you can experiment with different types of classifications later). The
resulting grid map will be as in Figure 15, with the original point pattern superimposed.
If you are familiar with ESRIs Spatial Analyst extension, you can convert the polygon
grid shape file to Spatial Analystss grid format and then use the Surface analysis
functionality to superimpose contour lines on the density surface. For example, Figure 16
is the result of such an operation, with the extent of the grid and contour themes set to the
extent of juvenile.shp, and with 0.005 as the contour step.2 Note how the normal kernel
density tends to smooth the surface and remove a lot of the underlying detail in the
original pattern. Experiment with changing some of the parameters, such as the kernel
bandwidth.

Figure 15. Normal kernel density.

The steps involved in obtaining this result are as follows, illustrated for ArcView (they are slightly
different in ArcGIS). First, make sure the Spatial Analyst extension has been activated. With the grid
polygon theme active, select Theme > Convert to Grid, set the extent to that of juvenile.shp, the number of
rows, columns to 100, and Z as the field for the grid values. Add the new grid theme to a View (make sure
to set the input file type to grid instead of Feature) and then select Surface > Create Contours. Set the
interval to 0.005 and you should see the same result as in Figure 16. Make sure to use the legend editor to
turn the contour theme into a graduated color with contour as the variable.

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Figure 16. Normal density kernel with contour lines.

Figure 17. Triangular kernel density.

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The kernel density results are very sensitive to the choice of kernel model and settings.
To illustrate this, consider a Triangular kernel with the same settings as for the Normal
(25 points cutoff for the Adaptive bandwidth). The result is as in Figure 17, which is
much spikier and focuses on several hot spots rather than the central tendency reflected
in Figures 15-16. Experiment with different settings, for example, changing the
bandwidth to 50. The kernel densities differ with respect to how steep the cutoff is and
how smooth the resulting surface will be. Some trial and error will start to show some
persistent patterns in the data, suggesting potential clusters or hot spots.
Practice
Use the Pittburgh homicide file to construct a normal and triangular (or other type) kernel
density surface. If you are comfortable with the Spatial Analyst, display the surfaces as
isoline maps (contour maps). If you have created separate shape files for 93 and 94, you
can compare the clusters and hot spots suggested by the kernel densities between the
two years. You can also create different shape files using the other variables to
distinguish between point patterns, such as gang-related vs. non gang-related, or using
guns vs. not using guns.
Nearest Neighbor distance statistic
In order to more formally assess the extent to which a point pattern shows clustering or
dispersion, two main classes of techniques can be applied. The first uses the magnitude
and/or distribution of inter-point distances, or the distances between the points and
reference locations as an indicator (distance based tests). The second set of methods uses
the number of points within a given area as the basis for test statistics (quadrat counts).
The simplest of the distance based statistics uses the distribution of the distance to the
nearest neighbor as a measure. If this distance tends to be smaller than what it would be
under complete spatial randomness, this suggests clustering. If, on the other hand, it tends
to be larger, then dispersion is the suggested alternative.
A Nearest Neighbor statistic is implemented in CrimeStat in the Distance Analysis tab of
Spatial Description. Make sure you have the juvenile.shp file as the primary file with the
proper coordinates and projection set. You do not need the Reference File for these
calculations. In the Distance Analysis dialog, check the box next to Nearest Neighbor
Analysis (Nna) and leave the defaults to their settings, as in Figure 18.

Figure 18. Nearest Neighbor analysis setup.

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Click on the Compute button to carry out the analysis. The result window will contain the
summary statistics. You can save these to a text file, the contents of which are as in
Figure 19. Note that it does not make much sense to save the results to a dbf file, since
only the summary distance statistic will be saved, not the full distribution of nearest
neighbor distances. The results yield a Nearest Neighbor Index of 0.7003, which is
obtained by taking the ratio of the observed mean nearest neighbor distance to the mean
random distance. The value less than 1 suggests clustering. A test statistic can be
constructed by taking the difference between the observed and random mean nearest
neighbor distance and standardizing by the standard error. The resulting Z-value of -7.43
is well above the usual critical values, suggesting significant clustering. However, these
tests have to be interpreted with some caution. Also, there are many nearest neighbor
based statistics, and they dont necessarily lead to the same conclusion.
You can assess the sensitivity of the results to a number of settings, such as the use of
border corrections.3
Practice
Compute the nearest neighbor index to assess the extent of clustering of the Pittsburgh
homicide point pattern. Compare the results for the two periods combined and for each
time period separately. Also compare the findings for different types of crimes (guns or
not, gangs or not). Try different border corrections to assess the sensitivity of the results.

Figure 19. Results of nearest neighbor analysis.

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Note that in order to use the Manhattan distance (linear nearest neighbor index) feature, you must specify
the total length of the street network, which is not available for the Juvenile or Pittsburgh data sets.

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Ripleys K function
The nearest neighbor distance statistics are described as first order statistics, since they
only consider the distance to the nearest point. Second order distance statistics consider
the complete distribution of all distances in the point pattern. Ripleys K function is an
example of such a second order statistic, and is essentially a test on the cumulative
distribution function of the full set of inter-point distances. This distribution can be
compared to a reference distribution under complete spatial randomness. A higher
proportion of shorter distances than random would suggest clustering, whereas a higher
proportion of longer distances suggests dispersion.
CrimeStat implements Ripleys K function under the Distance Analysis of the Spatial
Description tab. The program does not report the actual K function results, but instead the
L function, which is simply a rescaled K function such that the reference for complete
spatial randomness is linear and horizontal (at zero).
Make sure the juvenile.shp primary file is set, with the proper coordinates and projection.
Check the box next to Ripleys K statistic (and uncheck the box next to Nna), set the
number of simulation runs to 1000 and specify a dBase file for the output, as illustrated in
Figure 20. The cumulative distribution, organized in 100 distance bins will then be
written to a dBase file. Note that the program will add the prefix Ripley to whatever
filename you specify, so in the example of Figure 20, the dBase file will be called
Ripleyjuvripley.dbf (and not juvripley.dbf as you might expect).
Click on Compute to start the calculation and simulation runs. This may take a while,
depending on how many simulation runs you specified. When the program is finished,
click on the Ripley tab in the results window to see the output, as illustrated in Figure 21.

Figure 20. Ripleys K setup.

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Figure 21. Ripleys K results window.

The results window is not that easy to interpret, since it is basically a list of values of the
L function and selected quantiles under complete spatial randomness for 100 distance
bins. To better visualize this, load the output dbf file (Ripleyjuvripley.dbf) into a
spreadsheet or graphing package and turn it into a graph, as in Figure 22. This was
accomplished by using an Excel scatter graph with the bin distances as the X-axis and on
the vertical axis the L values, L(csr), a horizontal line at zero, L(t)max and L(t)min, the
max and min of the randomization envelope. Note how the dark blue line is outside the
randomization envelope for shorter distances, suggesting clustering.

Figure 22. Ripleys L function.

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Practice
As before, use the Pittsburgh homicide data and Ripleys K function to assess overall
clustering of homicides (overall, by year and/or by type). Visualize the computed
distributions in a spreadsheet or graphing package. Experiment with border adjustments
to assess the sensitivity of the results.
Hot Spot detection (STAC)
Quadrat methods assess the presence of clusters by comparing the number of events
(points) within a given region to the number expected under complete spatial
randomness. The STAC (Spatial and Temporal Analysis of Crime) method is a form of
quadrat method. More precisely, it is a combination of a scan statistic (counting the
number of events within a circle) and a hierarchical clustering technique (points that are
present in more than one identified clustered circles result in all the points in the two
circles to be combined). The results are visualized as a standard deviational ellipse
computed for the points identified to be a cluster or hot spot. The significance of the
identified cluster can be assessed by means of a Monte Carlo randomization method.
STAC is implemented in CrimeStat under the Hot Spot Analysis II tab of the Spatial
Description tab. Make sure the juvenile.shp file is set as the Primary File with the proper
coordinates and projection specified, and set the Reference File as the 100 x 100 grid
with origin at 0, 0, as before. Also set the Data Units to Kilometers. Check the box next
to STAC on the interface, and set the Output Units to Kilometers, as in Figure 23. Click
on the save ellipses to button to specify the output file for the standard deviational
ellipses as a shape file and enter the file name in the text box, as in Figure 24. Finally,
you need to set the parameters for the STAC algorithm (make sure you have specified the
Grid option in the Reference File tab or STAC wont work). As in any clustering
operation, the results of STAC are quite sensitive to these parameters. The most
important ones are the search radius (STAC uses a circle with a fixed radius in the scan
operation) and the minimum number of points to consider a cluster. Both of these are
context specific and may require some trial and error. For example, setting the search
radius too large or too small may not yield any clusters. In Figure 25, the settings are 10
for the search radius and 5 for the minimum number of points. Also specify 1000 for the
number of randomizations (this is not required for the STAC algorithm to work). Click
on Compute to start the analysis. This yields 3 clusters, as shown in the results window in
Figure 26.

Figure 23. STAC setup interface.

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Figure 24. STAC output file specification.

Figure 25. STAC parameters.

Figure 26. STAC results

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For the search radius of 10, the results are not that useful. Three clusters are identified,
and their mean center, area, number of points and density are listed in the results page
(Figure 26). When superimposing the ellipse shape file on the point pattern, it is obvious
that the first (largest) cluster is not a useful hot spot in that it contains 128 out of the
168 points in the pattern, as shown in Figure 27. Resetting the search radius to 5 yields 10
clusters, shown in Figure 28. You can further experiment with setting a different search
radius, changing the minimum number of points for a cluster, etc.
Another interesting comparison is to overlay the STAC ellipses on the kernel density
grid, to get further insight into the overall patterns in the points. As shown in Figure 29,
there is some correspondence between some of the clusters and the higher elevation
densities, but not total. In part this is due to the different densities in the clusters (not all
of them are high density since they may have resulted from collapsing several initial
clusters).
Practice
Use the Pittsburgh homicide data (pitthom.shp) to carry out a hot spot analysis using
STAC. Experiment with different search radii. Start with 500, using miles as the distance
unit and 50194,87016 110183,127712 as the bounding box. Increase the radius and
assess the effect. As before, you can also carry out analyses for the individual years
and/or crime types. Compare the STAC ellipses to one of the kernel density estimates and
assess the degree of similarity in the suggestion of clusters and hot spots.

Figure 27. STAC ellipses on point pattern.

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Figure 28. Refined STAC ellipses.

Figure 29. STAC ellipses and triangular kernel density.

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