At last a Police force has engaged professional mathematicians. The LAPD are worknig with University of California. They’ve come up with two equations that could explain crime hotspots into two types.

If I’ve understood correctly:

“supercritical” – small spikes in crime rates pass a critical threshold and create a local crime wave.

“subcritical” – when a particular factor such as a drug den causes a large spike in crime.

 They state that the equations suggest that rigorous policing could completely eliminate subcritical hotspots but simply displace supercritical crime.

So the key would be keeping below supercritical thresholds and quickly dealing with subcritical factors.

Any local mathematicians available for pro bono work?