Abstract
Crime is inherently spatial in nature. Criminal offences and criminal offenders both exhibit a distribution in space with these two aspects traditionally forming the central concerns of environmental criminology. The theoretical underpinning of environmental criminology is that offences and offenders cluster together, and that within this context spatial randomness is the exception rather than the rule. This presentation will provide a broad overview of the use of spatial statistics to better understand crime in South Africa. A number of examples will be shown in which various spatial statistical techniques have been used, at various spatial scales, to provide insight into this scourge afflicting the country โ but there is room for growth and development. The presentation will conclude by outlining some of the challenges that spatial crime researchers face when attempting to undertake research of this nature in the
