Crime in Border Regions: The Scandinavian Case of Öresund, 1998–2001

Abstract

This article compares offense patterns at two points in time in Öresund, a Scandinavian border region that spans Sweden and Denmark. The aim of the analysis is to contribute to a better understanding of the relationships between crime and demographic, socioeconomic, and land use covariates in a border area that has been targeted with long‐term investments in transport. The changes effected by the construction of the Öresund bridge might be expected to have an impact on both the levels and the geographies of different offenses by creating new sites for offending and new, more vulnerable, transient groups. The article focuses on identifying and explaining changes in the geography of crime before and after the bridge was built. Spatial statistical techniques and GIS underpin the methodology employed. The article shows that there have been changes in the levels and the geography of some offenses. Crime in border regions is likely to be of growing interest in Europe as a result of European Union (EU) enlargement and increasing intra‐European cross‐border movement facilitated by improved communication systems.