Professor Gregory Breetzke has been a researcher at the University of Pretoria (UP) for about 15 years. He holds a BSc degree and BSocSci degree from UP, and an MSc (cum laude) in Geographical Information Science from Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam in the Netherlands. In 2003, he was awarded a bursary to study at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. He did his PhD at UP in 2008, specialising in geodemographic offender profiling.

Prof Breetzke’s primary research interests include analysing the geography of crime. He has a secondary research interest in examining the South African higher education landscape.

He is a member of the Society of South African Geographers, was a founding student member of the Geographical Information Society of South Africa and has been a member of the Environmental Criminology and Crime Analysis Symposium since 2011. The symposium is an informal association of leading international scholars who specialise in the fields of environmental criminology, crime science, situational crime prevention, intelligence-led policing and problem-oriented policing. About 100 people are involved in the group and they all inspire him, he says.

Crime is arguably the biggest challenge facing South Africa and Prof Breetzke is one of a few people who is conducting spatially based crime research in the country. He says his research aims to identify and investigate the spatial patterning of crime. He is becoming increasingly renowned in his field both locally and internationally.

“The results of my work can provide valuable insight into crime and its distribution in the country, with important implications for crime prevention and reduction,” he says.

Locally, he disseminates his research in South African ISI-rated journals such as the South African Journal of Science and the South African Geographical Journal. In developing his research profile internationally, he has published in several leading geography, criminology, psychology and health ISI-rated journals such as Science of the Total Environment, Environment and Behavior, and Criminal Justice and Behavior.

Prof Breetzke has won various awards for his research, including the Canterbury fellowship, which allowed him to visit the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand from April to June 2018.

He has been quoted frequently in magazines and newspapers, both in South Africa and New Zealand, and has given numerous radio interviews and presentations at academic conferences and symposia around the world.

Prof Breetzke is currently undertaking research with the New Zealand police to investigate the spatial determinants of gangs in the country. He is also part of an evidence-based working group that includes representatives from the South African Police Services, the Institute for Security Studies and other civil organisations. The primary aim of the group is to conduct empirical research to enable better decision-making when it comes to crime prevention and crime reduction in South Africa. Additionally, he is working on several projects that aim to better understand the factors that drive resilience to crime in impoverished communities. He is also working on projects that are focused on identifying micro-spatial patterns of crime.

In terms of cross-faculty work at UP, he collaborates with Prof Inger Fabris-Rotelli of the Department of Statistics. They have published research that has identified spatial crime generators in crime-prone neighbourhoods.

Prof Breetzke has the following message for learners and undergraduates who are interested in his field: “Be patient, read and investigate the broader field that you are interested in and ideas will generate themselves.”

In his spare time, he plays ball sports and is an avid road runner.