Abstract We study a reaction–advection–diffusion model of a target–offender–guardian system designed to capture interactions between urban crime and policing. Using Crandall–Rabinowitz bifurcation theory and spectral analysis, we establish rigorous conditions for both steady-state and Hopf bifurcations. These results identify critical thresholds of policing intensity at which spatially uniform equilibria lose stability, leading either to persistent heterogeneous hotspots or oscillatory crime–policing cycles. From a criminological perspective, such thresholds represent tipping points in guardian mobility: once crossed, they can lock neighbourhoods into stable clusters of criminal activity or trigger recurrent waves of hotspot formation. Numerical simulations complement the theory, exhibiting stationary patterns, periodic oscillations and chaotic dynamics. By explicitly incorporating law enforcement as a third interacting component, our framework extends classical two-equation models. It offers new tools for analysing non-linear interactions, bifurcations and pattern formation in multi-agent social systems.
Yerlanov et al. (Mon,) studied this question.