Search

Studies in the United States and Europe have demonstrated that burglary and vehicle crime exhibit consistent patterns, supporting the application of crime prediction techniques to proactively deploy police resources to reduce incidents of crime. Research into whether these techniques are applicable in an Australian context is currently limited. Using crime data from the Queensland Police Service, this study assessed the presence of spatio-temporal patterns in burglary, theft of motor vehicle and theft from motor vehicle offences in three distinct local government areas. After establishing the presence of spatio-temporal clustering, the forecasting performance of two predictive algorithms and a retrospective crime mapping technique was evaluated. Forecasting performance varied across study regions; however, the prediction algorithms performed as well as or better than the retrospective method, while using less data. The next step in evaluating predictive policing within Australia is to consider and design effective tactical responses to prevent crime based on the forecast locations and identified patterns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: This study explores preference variation in location choice strategies of residential burglars. Applying a model of offender target selection that is grounded in assertions of the routine activity approach, rational choice perspective, crime pattern and social disorganization theories, it seeks to address the as yet untested assumption that crime location choice preferences are the same for all offenders. Methods: Analyzing detected residential burglaries from Brisbane, Australia, we apply a random effects variant of the discrete spatial choice model to estimate preference variation between offenders across six location choice characteristics. Furthermore, in attempting to understand the causes of this variation we estimate how offenders' spatial target preferences might be affected by where they live and by their age. Results: Findings of this analysis demonstrate that while in the aggregate the characteristics of location choice are consistent with the findings from previous studies, considerable preference variation is found between offenders. Conclusions: This research highlights that current understanding of choice outcomes is relatively poor and that existing applications of the discrete spatial choice approach may underestimate preference variation between offenders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines space-time patterns of maritime piracy around the Horn of Africa. Using rational choice theory and optimal foraging theory as the theoretic frame, 6 years of recorded pirate attack data were used to test whether spatial and temporal attack patterns were independent. The results indicate evidence for a communicability of risk; that is, pirate activity clusters in space and time. Incorporating this finding means that forecasting of high-risk areas could be made more effective. The theoretical implication is that pirates' target selection appears to be consistent with other crime types, such as burglary, car crime and shootings. The results have implications for informing maritime piracy prevention and suppression efforts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study demonstrates that computational modeling and, in particular, agent-based modeling (ABM) offers a viable compatriot to traditional experimental methodologies for criminology scholars. ABM can be used as a means to operationalize and test hypothetical mechanisms that offer a potential explanation for commonly observed criminological phenomena. This study tests whether the hypothesized mechanisms of environmental criminology are sufficient to produce several commonly observed characteristics of crime. We present an ABM of residential burglary, simulating a world inhabited by potential targets and offenders who behave according to the theoretical propositions of environmental criminology. A series of simulated experiments examining the impact of these mechanisms on patterns of offending are performed. The outputs of these simulations then are compared with several well-established findings derived from empirical studies of residential burglary, including the spatial concentration of crime, repeat victimization, and the journey to crime curve. The results from this research demonstrate that the propositions of the routine activity approach, rational choice perspective, and crime pattern theory provide a viable generative explanation for several independent characteristics of crime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using epidemiological techniques for testing disease contagion, it has recently been found that in the wake of a residential burglary, the risk to nearby homes is temporarily elevated. This paper demonstrates the ubiquity of this phenomenon by analyzing space–time patterns of burglary in 10 areas, located in five different countries. While the precise patterns vary, for all areas, houses within 200 m of a burgled home were at an elevated risk of burglary for a period of at least two weeks. For three of the five countries, differences in these patterns may partly be explained by simple differences in target density. The findings inform theories of crime concentration and offender targeting strategies, and have implications for crime forecasting and crime reduction more generally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores one aspect of spatial dependence for the offence of burglary, utilising epidemiological methods for the study of infectious diseases to investigate the phenomenon of near repeat victimization. The near repeat burglary hypothesis states that proximity to a burgled dwelling increases burglary risk for those areas that have a high degree of housing homogeneity and that this risk is similar in nature to the temporarily heightened fish of becoming a repeat victim after an initial victimization. The near repeat hypothesis was tested on 34 months of police recorded burglary data across a high crime area of Brisbane, Australia. Near repeats were shown to exist in the study area, mainly in suburbs containing homogeneous housing. Little or no housing diversity, in terms of the type of physical construction and general appearance of dwellings, serves to restrict the extent of repeat victimization. Housing diversity allows offenders a choice of targets, and favoured targets will be 'revisited' by burglars. Near identical targets usually present no motive for an offender to favour one property over another. Thus in areas with low housing diversity, victim prevalence should be higher than in areas with heterogeneous housing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]