Place Network Investigations (PNI)

Crime Sites

The specific locations where crime actually happens; offenders return to them because they offer good opportunities and have weak guardianship.

Convergent Settings

Places where offenders, victims, and facilitators come together, helping offenders find targets, gather information, or meet accomplices.

Comfort Spaces

Locations where offenders feel safe, relax, plan, or hide from detection; they support offending even if no crime occurs there.

Corrupting Spots

Places that weaken social control or allow crime to grow due to poor management, neglect, or permissive behavior, making nearby areas more vulnerable to crime.

Place Network Investigations (PNI)

A crime-reduction approach that maps and analyzes the places connected to recurring crime, focusing on how crime sites, convergent settings, comfort spaces, and corrupting spots interact so agencies can disrupt the crime-supporting environment.

How PNI disrupts hotspots

analyzes and disrupts the criminogenic networks of places, people, and routines that sustain recurring crime. Instead of focusing only on crime sites, PNI examines how multiple locations—such as convergent settings, comfort spaces, and corrupting spots—work together to create and sustain hotspots; understand and targets the entire network of places that support criminal activity