The geography of crime risk is a major concern of the public and of policymakers, but it is notoriously difficult to ‘map’ convincingly in Britain. Along with some unresolved issues of interpretation, there is a major problem of inadequate information. The official crime statistics are shown here to be inadequate when assessed against the three key criteria which are identified as the prerequisites before any data source can provide valid comparisons of crime rates in local urban and rural areas. The authors argue that the main issue for local analysis is crime risk, and that this is also the concern of insurance companies. Consequently, insurance rates—which are based on detailed analysis of past crime incidence—provide a plausible proxy data source on crime risk. This suggestion is explored empirically, with the sample region of North West England and postcode district insurance rate values for both 1988 and 1991.
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