Five Areas of Research

1
Five Areas of Research

• The high concentration of crime at some addresses
  and the absence of crime at others
• The preventive effects of various place features
• The mobility of offenders
• Studies of how offenders select targets
• LOCATION SPECIFIC VERSUS AREA SPECIFIC

2

• Law suits in our civil courts
• Against property owners
• Should a shopping center be sued by a mugging
  victim for inadequate lighting.?
• Protests against magnets for criminals and
  crime
• Drinking establishments
• Sex shops
• 24-hour stores
• Police programs start to focus on where crimes
  happen rather than the offenders
• Studies show that crime is concentrated at
  specific places even within neighborhoods that
  have high crime rates.

3

• Chicago School of Sociology (1920s) crime and
  the environment at regional scales
• Was the scale detailed enough????
• Large scale mapping and analysis
• Parking lots, local bars, etc
• Can you give an example???
• Distinction between site and local neighborhood
• THE CRIMINOLOGY OF PLACE

4

• Chicago researchers
• Find crime to be correlated with poverty and a
  lack of social control associated with place
• Violence (e.g., homicide) to be correlated with
  their measure of social disorganization.
• Gangs .. Areas are low on a variety of measures
  of informal social control and share features
  associated with the underclass.

5

• Areas with a high incidence of prostitution were
  notable in their absence of young children and
  young women
• Also these areas have households likely to be
  made up of single adults and unrelated roommates.
• AGAIN A FOCUS ON THE ENVIRONMENT NOT THE OFFENDER
  OR PLACE

6
Crime Places Crime Theory

• Two approaches
• Criminal offenders
• Criminal events.
• Criminal Offenders
• Explaining why they are criminals
• Trying to predict their criminal behavior
• This approach leads to many explanations
• BUT???

7
Crime Places Crime Theory

• Criminal Events
• Why certain targets are selected by offenders
• Why some targets are attractive and others are
  repellent.
• Examples??
• Event prevention strategies SUCH AS???

8
Crime Places Crime Theory

• Criminal Events Three Perspectives (Theory?)
• Rational choice
• Routine activity theory
• Crime pattern theory
• Rational Choice
• Offenders will select targets and define means to
  achieve their goals in a manner that can be
  explained
• Example

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Crime Places Crime Theory

• Routine Activity
• Conditions
• Motivated Offender
• Desirable Target
• Target and offender in same place at the same
  time
• Controllers such as intimate handlers , guardians
  and place managersmust be absent or ineffective.
  FOR THE OFFENDER AND THE TARGET
• EXAMPLE?

10
Crime Places Crime Theory

• Crime Pattern Theory
• Pattern theory explores the interactions of
  offenders with their physical and social
  environments that influence offenders' choices of
  targets.
• How could a physical local influence choices?
• How could a social environment influence choices?
• How targets come to the attention of offenders
  influences the distribution of crime events over
  time, space, and among targets. ACTIVITY SPACES

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Simple Personal Geography

• Awareness space . Those areas of which one is
  aware How do we define this for ourselves?
• Activity space those areas of daily activity
• To work , to school, to recreation
• Cognitive images of place
• It is a safe target.. Will they recognize me

12
Crime Places Crime Theory

• Crime Pattern Theory
• They search in areas they know.. Day to day
  activity spaces
• How does this impact patterns?
• Characteristics of place impact the possibility
  of crime

13
Facilities and Crime

• Target facilities
• Location
• Lack of controls
• What else?
• Measures of Opportunity?
• Bar seats in a neighborhood vs of Bars
• Is it the bar or the people that go there or
  both?
• Places that attract more people have more victims

14
Clustering

• Multiple crimes at the same location
• Example?
• Opportunity and lack of controls
• HOTSPOTS
• Does the social structure of places influence
  the offender's decision to go there
• Or whether the social structure influences
  behavior once the offender is at the place.
• CHICKEN OR EGG PROBLEM

15
Site Features

• Places with high crime
• Is it because other criminals are there?
• Is it because of a lack of social control?
• Are there place features that attract criminals?
• Defensible space Newmans housing study
• The physical environment and a sense of place
• A sense of territoriality helped by the design

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Site Features

• Convenience marts???
• Research says it is an issue of physical
  features
• Unobstructed windows
• Placement of the cash register so that the
  entrance can be monitored
• Lighted parking areas fully visible from inside
  the store

17
Site Features

• The value of access control features for
  controlling crime depends on the crime.
• Cocaine dealers may prefer apartment buildings
  with physical features that control access.
• The features that may prevent burglary may
  attract drug dealing.

18
Site Features

• Making targets less accessible
• Example???
• How places are managed may impact the
  desirability of the target
• Example????
• Bars

19
Offender Mobility

• How far will an offender travel to commit a
  crime?
• DISTANCE AND DIRECTION
• Connect the crime location to the residence
• A simple distance decay function
• The greater the distance the less chance of crime
• Local areas avoided why?
• Territoriality of drug dealers???

20
Offender Mobility

• Variation by age, race, sex and crime type
• Young offenders
• travel shorter distances
• African Americans
• travel shorter distances
• Women may travel
• further than men
• Expressive crimes (rape and assault)???
• More local

21
Offender Mobility

• Variation by age, race, sex and crime type
• Commercial robbery
• Further away why?
• Burglary
• Not as far away
• Drug dealers
• Often in their home or local neighborhood

22
Targeting

• Rational and deliberative target-searching
  behavior
• Offenders seek attractive targets with low
  guardianship Example???
• Offenders chance upon opportunities while engaged
  in routine non-criminal activity .. Example?
• Cognitive maps may be incomplete.. Areas they
  pass over or by but are unfamiliar with.

23
Targeting

• Offenders appear rational
• Burglars look for low risk targets and high gain
• Planning is limited and experienced offenders
  plan even less
• Targets are often found during routine day to day
  behaviors .. Such as?

24
Displacement

• What is it???
• Spatial displacement
• Does it OR does it not happen researchers
  debate
• Crime volume may be based on
• The number of suitable targets
• The number of capable guardians
• NOT just the number of likely offenders

25
Displacement

• Some argue that displacement is minimal
• Example.. Drug sale corners describe
• Example.. Prostitution corners describe
• Example.. Muggings describe
• The degree of displacement may be highly related
  to the try of crime being analyzed