aftercrimes
n. A pattern of crimes that occurs in the wake of an initial crime.
Examples
2010
This year, the mathematician George Mohler showed that what holds for earthquakes also holds true for crime: not only does an initial crime beget future offenses, but these "aftercrimes" also tend to occur according to a predictable distribution in time and space.
—Clay Risen, “Aftercrimes,” The New York Times Magazine, December 19, 2010
2010
We have all heard of aftershocks, the tremors that follow a big earthquake, but what about aftercrimes?
—“Quakes and crime,” The Australian, October 26, 2010
2010 (earliest)
George Mohler, a mathematician at Santa Clara University, in California, thinks something similar is true of crimes. There is often a pattern of "aftercrimes" in the wake of an initial one. The similarity with earthquakes intrigued him and he wondered if the mathematical formulas that seismologists employ to predict aftershocks were applicable to aftercrimes, too.
—“The aftershocks of crime,” The Economist, October 21, 2010
Filed Under