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In order to explain how crimes are carried out, and why at a particular place and time and against a specific target, crime studies increasingly harness theory from behavioural ecology, in particular Optimal Foraging Theory (OFT). However, an overview of their main findings does not exist. Given the growing focus on OFT as a behavioural framework for structuring crime research, in this article we review the extant OFT-inspired empirical crime research. Systematic search in Google Scholar and Web of Science yielded 32 crime studies, which were grouped into four categories according to their research topic. Empirical results largely support predictions made by OFT. However, there remains much potential for future OFT applications to crime research, in particular regarding the theoretical foundation of OFT in criminology, and through the application of contemporary extensions to OFT using specific tools developed for the study of animal foraging decisions.

The study of geographic mobility through geospatial analysis and journey-to-crime approaches has made progress in environmental criminology, finding most offenders commit crime close to their residence. However, extant literature on serial homicide and geographic mobility is scarce, specifically lacking a comprehensive appraisal of relative research. To gain a better understanding of the geographic mobility patterns of serial homicide offenders, we must determine the current status of literature in this area, to figure out where to go in terms of future research. Therefore, the following study is a scoping review of existing literature on geographic mobility and serial homicide and four associated typologies (Holmes & DeBurger’s Geographic typology, Hickey’s Mobility typology, Canter’s Circle typology, and Rossmo’s Hunting Style typology) to achieve the following: (1) Comprehensively evaluate literature regarding serial homicide geographic mobility and four associated typologies to establish the current status of research; (2) uncover potential literature gaps; and (3) provide future research recommendations. Literature sources ( N = 43) on serial homicide and geographic mobility (1985–2018) were examined. While findings recognize the relevance of mobility functions in serial homicide investigations, gaps in literature were evident regarding serial homicide geographic mobility and the four associated typologies. Findings also reveal that systematic research in this field is limited. Policy implications and future research recommendations are discussed.

With the birth and growth of criminology related sub discipline, ‘environmental criminology’ or in other words, crime designated ecological perspective has gained a wide acceptance among the criminology academia. As a consequent, the immediate surrounding of an individual has been identified as a criminogenic factor. Criminology has been specifically focusing on the characteristics of offenders as well as offences and has been somewhat disregarding the criminogenic spatial factors of crime. Focusing and identifying the designated burglary related ecological factors have been the prime intention of this criminological research study. Thus, a purposive sample of 57 crime scenes under burglary has been observed during a period of two years (2017-2019) within the Western Province of Sri Lanka. Data were retrieved by using qualitative methodology. The research revealed three types of environmental factors linked with the burglary crime scenes namely, natural, built, and social. The built and social eco factors have been main criminogenic features in urban and semi-urban spaces. Specifically, weather, land usage and location could be identified as burglary related environmental factors. Apart from natural environmental factors, architectural and landscape features were recognized as associated-built environmental factors with housebreak. As this is a pioneering research study connected to the environmental aspect of crimes, the study has filled the existing research gap from the Sri Lankan perspective. Measures in controlling and preventing crime can be achieved through the management of environmental elements and using environmental designing with the advanced technology.DOI: http://doi.org/10.31357/fhss/vjhss.v06i01.01

Research into the concentration of crime at places is a long-standing research area in environmental criminology. Studies demonstrate the practical potential of geo-localised data for criminological and security research. Knowledge about crime concentration at places makes it possible to focus repressive and preventive activities in localities where the most effective results can be achieved. In Czech criminology, limited use has as yet been made of geolocalised crime data or knowledge about the concentration of crime at places. Consequently, this article presents a case study of the concentration of crime at places within a Czech city. One-half of crime is concentrated at 8% of street segments in case study of Czech city. The article builds on the knowledge about the spatial stability of crime and provides a model of urban crime that is applicable to Czech cities. This model is based on data from a case study and considers crime rates and crime concentration patterns in different types of urban environment. Our findings are presented in relation to the results of international studies to propose directions for further crime research.

We draw on theoretical insights from criminology in using the Walk Score index to analyze walkability’s relationship to spatial crime patterns on Los Angeles city blocks. Results from our first set of negative binomial regression models show that walkability had an especially strong linear effect on robbery rates: a 24% increase in the robbery rate accompanied a 10-point increase in Walk Score on a block, controlling for the effects of local businesses and sociodemographic characteristics. Our second set of models reveals that walkability exerted variable nonlinear influences on spatial crime patterns. Our final set of models suggests that the walkability–crime relationship might depend on neighborhood social organization: When walkability is high, low-income blocks might experience sharp rises in rates of predatory violence as compared with more advantaged blocks. This research highlights the importance of considering the mechanisms involved in walkability’s impact on the spatial distribution of individual crime types.

The extent to which environmental context has been considered when developing crime scripts has been limited to descriptions of the locations offenders visit during the crime. This research contributes a description of the environmental characteristics of an open-air drug market and identifies environmental facilitators and inhibitors toward offender actions during a drug-selling crime script. Closed-circuit television (CCTV) camera footage is combined with Google Street View images to determine whether physical disorder, decay, and “crime generators” characterize the drug market under study. There is little evidence to suggest that the former two dimensions influence the crime sequence; however, crime generators such as retail facilities and bars and liquor stores are environmental facilitators toward a drug-selling crime script; and transit locations, corner stores, and public parks are environmental inhibitors toward the script.

Academic studies on football-related crimes have predominantly focused on violent crimes and fans engaged in these crimes. Unlike these studies which may be deemed a reflection of the traditional criminology in the football context, this paper examines the crime patterns focused on where and when theft crimes might occur on match days and why such patterns might emerge. Routine activities theory and crime pattern theory which are two related theories of environmental criminology provide a theoretical framework for the study. These two theories successfully reveal how the components of the social and physical environment provide the necessary conditions for stadium-related theft. Methodologically, for the spatial analysis of theft crimes, the methods of Kernel Density Estimation and spatial permutation test are employed; for the temporal analysis, a “match adjusted temporal analysis” is developed. Using the hotspotting technique around the Elland Road Stadium of Leeds United football team, it is suggested that theft crimes are not randomly distributed in time (match days and non-match days) and space. The risk of theft (per unit of time) is found to be particularly elevated at certain locations near to the stadium on match days, and for a window of time before, during and after matches take place. Analysing the spatial and temporal dimensions of stadium-related theft crime is likely to provide guidance about when and where to deploy officers by informing intelligence services.

Crime research has repeatedly shown that small proportions of offenders are responsible for large proportions of crimes. While there is a substantial body of evidence for this ‘offending concentration’ in connection to traditional offline crime, there is limited research assessing the concentration of offending for cybercrime. This research analyzes victim reports of Bitcoin-related cybercrimes (blackmail, ransomware, sextortion, darknet market fraud, Bitcoin tumbler fraud) to illuminate the extent of cybercrime offending concentration and to identify groups of offenders involved in online crime. Our results indicate that a large proportion of cybercrimes are associated with a small number of very active Bitcoin addresses. However, Bitcoin addresses associated to high numbers of reports are not necessarily those that generate the largest financial benefits.

Michael Quinn’s article reveals that Jeremy Bentham strongly endorsed the suggestions of Patrick Colquhoun, a London magistrate, for reducing the myriad of tempting opportunities for crime in large cities like London. However, it was Colquhoun’s other, positivist ideas about training the poor to resist these temptations that helped determine crime policy for the next 150 years. This positivist agenda has recently been criticized by environmental criminologists and crime scientists, who have revived Colquhoun’s ideas about reducing opportunities for crime and who have advanced the security hypothesis as the explanation for the international drop in crime.

The emergence of conservation criminology over the past decade provides a unique insight into patterns of wildlife crime. Wildlife crime has a dramatic impact on many vulnerable species and represents a significant challenge to the management of protected areas around the world. This paper contributes to the field of conservation criminology by examining the travel patterns of fishing poachers in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park in Australia. The results demonstrate that distance is a key feature of offender target selection, reflecting the established environmental criminology concept of distance decay. The analysis also reveals a significant relationship between individual no-take zones and regional population areas. The applicability of a nodal-oriented approach to wildlife crime prevention is discussed.

The present study uses Risk Terrain Modeling (RTM) to analyze how nine different alcohol outlet types differentially influence the likelihood of aggravated assault and street robbery at micro-level...

Environmental criminology, and spatial-temporal criminology more generally, has the potential to contribute to the understanding of victimization. After reviewing the principle theoretical components of environmental criminology, we outline how environmental criminology has contributed to the understanding of victimization, where it has failed, and future directions for research and theory. Overall, we argue that despite the potential for environmental criminology to contribute to the study of victimization, little research is done on victimization within environmental criminology. Moreover, we discuss how certain crime prevention strategies have led to unintended consequences, such as further victimization of poor and marginalized groups. We conclude with recommendations of how to move the field of environmental criminology forward by considering victims and victimology more broadly.

Historically, criminological theories have aimed to explain criminal propensity, providing explanations for why some individuals are more likely than others to commit an offense. Conversely, less attention has been paid to the other element of a crime event: opportunity. This trend was radically altered from the 1970s onward, in large part due to Lawrence Cohen and Marcus Felson’s creation of a “routine activity approach” to understanding crime trends. The scholars proposed that, beyond the necessity of a motivated offender, crimes occur when suitable targets are present and capable guardians are absent. The contribution of routine activity theory increased interest in the role of criminal opportunity substantially, with various streams of research coalescing into a school of criminological thought known as “environmental criminology,” sometimes referred to as “crime science.” Routine activity theory is central to these approaches and is focused on crime reduction through the prevention and control of chances to commit crime. Routine activity theory was initially proposed as a sociological perspective, as Cohen and Felson explored aggregate associations between social trends (such as sociodemographic changes in household activity and urbanization) and the risk of victimization. Their analyses suggested that as changes occurred in the routine activities of Americans post-World War II, crime rates increased. From this original conceptualization, routine activity theory has evolved into the “crime triangle,” which provides a way of analyzing crime problems. The triangle depicts that crime events occur when motivated offenders and attractive targets converge in space and time in the absence of guardianship. Research has further specified that three crime control actions paired with these elements—handling for offenders, guarding for targets, and managing for places—can reduce crime events. There are now hundreds of studies that examine the relationship between routine activities and crime, with many of these empirical investigations organized around the crime triangle. Theoretical advancements have outlined the role of targets and guardians, the levels of responsibility of crime controllers, the attractiveness of targets, the characteristics of (in)effective guardianship, and the social processes related to the presence or absence of handlers, guardians, and managers. Considering the combined contributions of this canon of literature, the evidence is clear in demonstrating the utility of routine activity theory for understanding and preventing crime.

Environmental criminology, as a subfield of criminology, focuses on crime patterns within specific natural and built environments and investigates the effects of these external variables on people's cognitive behaviour. The primary goal of criminology is to prevent and control crime, and when it comes to the environment, it can be divided into two broad categories: crimes against the environment and crime scenes involving environmental factors. Identifying crime scenes based on environmental factors is divided into three broad categories: natural, built, and social. Architectural and landscape factors are the two types of built factors. This research study is expected to identify how cities, neighbourhoods, public buildings, and private dwellings can control and prevent criminal incidents and the natural environment based on natural and built environmental factors. The purposive sampling method was used in the research study and the purpose of this study was to select a diverse range of reported crime cases from the Western Province of Sri Lanka for 18 months (2017-2019). Murder, rape, child sexual abuse, grave assault, theft, burglary, and robbery were chosen as grave crimes for the study, and 115 crime scenes were observed. The main objective of this criminological research study was to focus on and identify the related ecological factors. In urban and semi-urban areas, built and social eco factors have been major criminogenic factors. Natural eco-elements were a source of crime in semi-urban areas. Each type of serious crime observed had dominant built and social eco factors that varied depending on the crime's location and the offender and victimised parties' routine activities. Following more in-depth research, controlling and preventing crime can be achieved through the management of environmental elements.

Green criminology is now an established subfield of criminology. Having emerged in the 1990s, green criminology has rapidly grown, particularly in the last 10 years. Scholarship remains rooted in the critical and radical traditions that inspired its creation and challenge the orthodoxy of most criminological scholarship. This means that research in green criminology does not stick within the confines of only what is deemed criminal by the state but also uncovers harmful and injurious behaviors, particularly of the powerful, such as states and corporations. These once-hidden harms are approached from an environmental justice perspective that exposes the injury and suffering of marginalized people and also to the environment itself (ecological justice) and to nonhumans (species justice). More recent iterations of green criminology feature culture in addition to political economic explanations of crimes and harms against the environment and other species. Both theories of green crimes criticize capitalist societies and the ongoing problems of commodification and excessive consumption. In addition, new contributions, particularly from the Global South, are challenging the hegemony of Western criminological and environmental discourses, offering new (to the West) insights into relationships with nature and with other people. These studies have the potential to shape new prevention strategies and intervention mechanisms to disrupt green crimes and harms. This is urgent as the magnitude of environmental degradation is increasing—ranging from the threat of climate change, the possible extinction of a million species in the near future, and the ubiquity of plastic pollution, to name just a few forms of environmental destruction that humans have been, and are, perpetrating against the Earth.

Wildlife crime is a significant global problem that undermines efforts to protect the environment, applies immense pressure to often fragile social and cultural structures and deprives economies of wealth and the capacity of countries to achieve sustainable development goals. Wildlife poaching, referring to the illegal removal of flora or fauna, is the most common form of wildlife crime and often occurs from within the spatial boundaries of protected areas (PAs). People poach for a variety of reasons such as, traditional use, subsistence, recreational and commercial gain. The wide-ranging motivations held by individual poachers makes it a particularly complex problem for PA managers. The rise of poaching in recent times has been largely managed through traditional detect and deter strategies that place an emphasis on increasing the risk of prosecution, and sometimes death, for poaching. While enforcement remains a key component for managing poaching, applied in isolation it represents a relatively blunt instrument for eliciting compliance.The failure of current approaches to deal with the global poaching epidemic has led to a growing acknowledgement by both academics and practitioners for a need to improve our understating and management of wildlife crime problems. In pursuit of this agenda are a growing number of criminologists with an interest in wildlife crime from the field of environmental criminology. Applying traditional environmental criminological approaches to a variety of wildlife crime problems, these researchers are forging a foundation for the inclusion of social science in conservation management. Guided by this emerging field, the current research explores the utility of applying theories and methods from environmental criminology and crime analysis for understanding poaching in Australia’s Great Barrier Reef Marine Park (Great Barrier Reef Marine Park). The aim of this research project was to, a) explore the utility of applying environmental criminology and crime analysis techniques to build a better understanding of wildlife crime in general and illegal fishing in particular, and b) develop a process for designing effective compliance management strategies using the GBRMP in Australia as a case study.Using official compliance incident data provided by the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, I examine recreational poaching in no-take Marine National Parks through the theoretical lens of environmental criminology. Each of the three empirical case studies herein apply established theoretical concepts from the field of environmental criminology to advance the understanding of motivated offenders, suitable places and vulnerable targets. The final case study, applies crime script analysis to these findings to formulate prevention-based strategies through a situational crime prevention framework.Ultimately, the objective of this research project was to explore how the theories of environmental criminology could be used to improve compliance management practice in PAs. The evidence provided within this thesis suggests that poaching exhibits similar patterns to those found in traditional forms of crime. Central to the formation of these patterns are the conditions of opportunity whereby motivated offenders converge with vulnerable targets at suitable places in the absence of capable guardians. Where opportunity is the key driver for poaching, environmental criminology offers PA managers with a wide ranging collection of prevention focused compliance strategies. By providing new knowledge, this thesis advances the agenda for examining wildlife crime problems through the theoretical lens of environmental criminology.

This chapter explores the potential application of situational crime prevention (SCP) measures to avert and reduce wildlife crime. It begins with overviews of wildlife crime and SCP, before turning to a review of how SCP can help thwart wildlife crime. The authors explain that whereas traditional crime prevention measures would seek to address underlying problems, such as unemployment and disorderly communities, SCP, on the other hand, targets situational characteristics of the immediate environment in an effort to reduce the potential for criminal opportunities. The authors argue that such strategies can provide an alternative to—or, at least, can accompany—approaches that rely primarily on law enforcement. Recognising that scholars of green criminology and SCP, as well as crime science and environmental criminology, have tended to work in theoretical silos, the authors of this chapter demonstrate how green criminology and SCP can be used in tandem to develop contextually appropriate strategies.

Informed by principles of environmental criminology, this study assesses patterns of sexual victimization among young riders of rail-bound public transportation using a sample of 1,122 university students in Stockholm, Sweden. Exploratory data analysis and logistic regression models underlie the methodology of the study. Findings indicate that the physical and social characteristics of transit environments have an impact on the likelihood of sexual victimization after controlling for individual factors. The theoretical and practical implications of these results are discussed. QC 20200327 Transit safety among college students: An international study

According to current scholarship on offender decision making, choosing to rob another is based on a variety of individual and situational characteristics. Explanatory models often invoked within environmental criminology include routine activity, rational choice and crime pattern theories. Situational action theory’s suggestion that this decision depends, at least in part, on the interaction between offender criminal propensity and the setting’s moral context has yet to be examined. This investigation tests this idea by conducting structured interviews with active probationers and parolees centered on their decoding of streetscapes to clarify offenders’ perceptions of street robbery opportunities (Part I). These results inform an agent-based simulation contrasting the merits of assumptions made in the previously stated theories to learn how well each generates realistic concentrations of street robbery (Part II). Support emerges for both environmental criminology and situational action theory, but the results differed by the method employed. Implications follow for clarifying the theoretical processes driving these incidents and for promoting public safety.

Repeat victimization has been widely studied from the perspective of environmental criminology for several decades. During this period, criminologists have identified a set of repeat victimization premises that are observed for many crimes; however, it is unknown whether these premises are also valid for cybercrime. In this study we rely on more than 9 million Zone-H data records from 2010 to 2017 to test whether these premises apply for the cybercrime of website defacement. We show that the phenomenon of repeat victimization is also observed in defaced cyber places (i.e. websites). In particular, we found that repeats contributed little to crime rates, that repeats occurred even several years after the original incident, that they were committed disproportionately by prolific offenders, and that few offenders returned to victimize previous targets. The results suggest that some traditional premises of repeat victimization may also be valid for understanding cybercrime events such as website defacement, implying that environmental criminology theories also constitute a useful framework for cybercrime analysis. The implications of these results in terms of criminological theory, cybercrime prevention, and the limitations derived from the use of Zone-H data are discussed.

Purpose The current study investigates the application of risk terrain modeling (RTM) to forecast gang violence. RTM is routinely utilized to predict future criminal events in micro-units (i.e., city blocks) based upon features of the physical environment. The particular focus of the current study is RTM's ability to separately predict future gang assaults and gang homicides in the Los Angeles Police Department's (LAPD) Hollenbeck Community Policing Area. Method Guided by the existing gang literature and knowledge of the region, 22 environmental risk factors are anticipated to spatially influence gang assaults and gang homicides. An RTM is established for 2009 gang assaults and 2009–2011 gang homicides. The RTM is then used to predict 2012 gang assaults and 2012 gang homicides respectively. Results Places most at risk of experiencing a gang assault are in close proximity to where gang members are frequently observed loitering by police and Metro rail stops while also contending with residential concentrations of local gang members. Areas most at risk of experiencing a gang homicide cope with residential concentrations of local gang members and gang set space. The ability for RTM to successfully forecast future gang violence may be limited. Conclusions RTM is able to successfully identify and evaluate meaningful environment risk factors that spatially influence gang assaults and gang violence. However, the ability for RTM to successfully forecast future gang violence may be limited.

Crime prevention activities led by neighborhood associations are common throughout Japan and exemplify the idea in environmental criminology that communities can be kept safe by residents themselves. In this study, we surveyed neighborhood associations in Kyoto to test a theoretical model for social capital and community based crime prevention that we developed as part of our earlier work in Kobe. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) based on survey data and police records for street crimes and residential burglary suggest that specific efforts by community residents can enrich social capital and lead to community safety and security both subjectively and objectively. Social capital had a significant effect on the reduction of street crime, although not for burglary, and our findings suggest that social capital reduces the fear of crime and increases a sense well-being for families and seniors. Although these well-being measures are subjective, emotional change is important in a context where there is no association between actual crime rates and fear of crime. Our research may offer practical insights for the development of universal methodologies that can contribute to the prevention of crime and sense of security through community empowerment.