Maltese criminological landscapes : a spatio-temporal case : where physical and social worlds meet

Abstract

Landscapes have taken many forms in the real and virtual worlds, placing more emphasis on the geographical perspective, sometimes at the risk of losing the spatio-social perspective. Studying thematic issues divorced from the locations they occur in results in a sterile outcome, since each activity has a time and space imperative attached to it. In his analysis of the morphology of landscapes, SAUER’S (1925) early assertion held true that geography without a substantive content remained an abstract relationship; with the essential content being the socio-cultural landscape (HIRSCHFIELD ET AL, 2001). This paper integrates both spatial and temporal crime, whilst linking crime statistics to such information layers as development and urban use, and zoning activities in a Maltese context.