Crime metrics in Ibiza: alternative models and the impact of the floating population

Esteban Morelle-Hungría

doi:10.30827/rec.11.33477

Authors

Esteban Morelle-Hungría Universitat Jaume I https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5149-1792

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.30827/rec.11.33477

Keywords:

Crime rates, floating population, Tourism and crimes, urban criminology, security planning

Abstract

The measurement of crime, the calculation of so-called crime rates, is necessary for an understanding of its evolution or the analysis of trends. These rates analyze the number of crimes per thousand inhabitants and the number of crimes each year is used in relation to the registered population in that municipality. This methodology has been used for some time to assess the crime rate in different municipalities and territories. However, it has been detected that in some cases this formula does not adequately reflect the characteristics of the population load in a territory, which can lead to errors in the calculation of the crime rate. This study analyses crime trends on the island of Ibiza from 2019 to 2024 and includes the incorporation of two calculation methods that incorporate mechanisms that allow for the estimation of the total population of municipalities that receive a large influx of tourists, as is the case of Ibiza, the so-called floating population. Innovative variables are incorporated such as legal and illegal tourist accommodation places or even waste production as a mechanism to estimate the real population of these areas. The results obtained reveal that the adjusted crime rates are significantly lower than the figures obtained with the original rate, especially in municipalities where there is a large accumulation of floating population, such as Ibiza city and Sant Antoni.

Author Biography

Esteban Morelle-Hungría , Universitat Jaume I

Esteban Morelle-Hungría is Professor of Criminal Law and Criminology at the Universitat Jaume I (Castellón, Spain). He is currently co-coordinator of the Centre for Research in Criminal Law, Criminology and Intelligence, director of the Legal and Criminological Clinic, director of the Aula Criminalidad Azul IbizaPreservation, and scientific coordinator of the Blue Governance Laboratory. He also represents the World Commission on Environmental Law in the Spanish Committee of the IUCN.

PhD in Law from the University of Alicante and PhD student in Marine Ecology at the University of the Balearic Islands, his career combines legal, criminological and ecological analysis of environmental damage, environmental criminal law and marine governance. He participates in national and international research projects such as Ocean Crime Narratives (ERC), CRIMICLIMA, SOFTMAR and OBSERMAR-CV.

He is the author of more than 40 scientific publications in leading journals and publishers. In 2023 he received the award for the best research article from Kriminologie - Das On-line-Journal, for his work on underwater noise pollution as an ecological crime. Her lines of research revolve around green criminology, ecocide, ecological restorative justice, the impact of marine pollution and the integration of planetary boundaries into criminal law.

Morelle-Hungary also teaches Criminal Law, Environmental Criminology and Criminal Policy, and is a lecturer in the fields of environmental criminology, environmental law and criminal policy.

Translated with DeepL.com (free version)

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Crime metrics in Ibiza: alternative models and the impact of the floating population

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Esteban Morelle-Hungría , Universitat Jaume I

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