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1 – 10 of 587Spencer P. Chainey, Sophie J. Curtis-Ham, R. Mark Evans and Gordon J. Burns
The purpose of this paper is to examine the extent and variation in the estimates to which crime can be prevented using patterns of repeats and near repeats, and whether hotspot…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the extent and variation in the estimates to which crime can be prevented using patterns of repeats and near repeats, and whether hotspot analysis complements these patterns.
Design/methodology/approach
Crime data for four study areas in New Zealand are used to examine differences in the extent of burglary repeat and near repeat victimisation. Hotspots of burglary are also created to determine the extent to which burglary repeats and near repeats spatially intersect hotspots.
Findings
The extent of repeats and near repeats varies, meaning there is variation in the estimated prevention benefits that repeat and near repeat patterns offer. In addition, at least half of the burglaries repeats and near repeats were not located within hotspots.
Research limitations/implications
The use of other techniques for examining crime concentration could be used to improve the research observations.
Practical implications
By showing that levels of repeats and near repeats vary, the extent to which these observations coincide in hotspots offers practitioners a better means of determining whether repeat and near repeat patterns are reliable for informing crime prediction and crime prevention activities.
Originality/value
The paper is the first known research study that explicitly measures the variation in the extent of repeats and near repeats and the spatial intersection of these patterns within crime hotspots. The results suggest that rather than considering the use of repeat and near repeat patterns as a superior method for predicting and preventing crime, value remains in using hotspot analysis for determining where crime is likely to occur, particularly when hotspot analysis emphasises other locations for resource targeting.
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Yoonjae Hwang, Sungwon Jung and Eun Joo Park
Initiator crimes, also known as near-repeat crimes, occur in places with known risk factors and vulnerabilities based on prior crime-related experiences or information…
Abstract
Purpose
Initiator crimes, also known as near-repeat crimes, occur in places with known risk factors and vulnerabilities based on prior crime-related experiences or information. Consequently, the environment in which initiator crimes occur might be different from more general crime environments. This study aimed to analyse the differences between the environments of initiator crimes and general crimes, confirming the need for predicting initiator crimes.
Design/methodology/approach
We compared predictive models using data corresponding to initiator crimes and all residential burglaries without considering repetitive crime patterns as dependent variables. Using random forest and gradient boosting, representative ensemble models and predictive models were compared utilising various environmental factor data. Subsequently, we evaluated the performance of each predictive model to derive feature importance and partial dependence based on a highly predictive model.
Findings
By analysing environmental factors affecting overall residential burglary and initiator crimes, we observed notable differences in high-importance variables. Further analysis of the partial dependence of total residential burglary and initiator crimes based on these variables revealed distinct impacts on each crime. Moreover, initiator crimes took place in environments consistent with well-known theories in the field of environmental criminology.
Originality/value
Our findings indicate the possibility that results that do not appear through the existing theft crime prediction method will be identified in the initiator crime prediction model. Emphasising the importance of investigating the environments in which initiator crimes occur, this study underscores the potential of artificial intelligence (AI)-based approaches in creating a safe urban environment. By effectively preventing potential crimes, AI-driven prediction of initiator crimes can significantly contribute to enhancing urban safety.
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The purpose of this paper is to generate information about the contours of police responsiveness, focussing on how quickly and precisely police make firearm arrests after a…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to generate information about the contours of police responsiveness, focussing on how quickly and precisely police make firearm arrests after a shooting incident.
Design/methodology/approach
Using a modified version of the Knox close pair method, a spatio-temporal clustering technique, over 11,000 shooting incidents and firearm arrests between 2004 and 2007 in Philadelphia, PA were analyzed.
Findings
Police are responding quickly and in a geographically targeted fashion to shootings. Across Philadelphia elevated patterns of firearm arrests were approximately two and a half times greater than would be expected if shootings and firearm arrests lacked a spatio-temporal association. Greater than expected patterns of firearm arrests persisted for roughly one-fourth of a mile and for about one week from the shooting incident but the strength of these associations waned over space and time. The pattern of police response varied slightly across different police divisions.
Research limitations/implications
The current method uncovered spatio-temporal patterning and determined when these patterns were significantly different from what would be expected if the events were completely independent. Specific events and processes surrounding each event are not known.
Practical implications
Findings can help inform the knowledge about police behavior in terms of how police produce arrests.
Originality/value
The patterns observed here provide more micro-level detail than has been revealed in previous studies regarding police responsiveness to firearm violence while also introducing a more integrated spatially and temporally specific framework.
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Timothy Hart and Paul Zandbergen
The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of user-defined parameters settings (e.g. interpolation method, grid cell size, and bandwidth) on the predictive accuracy of…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of user-defined parameters settings (e.g. interpolation method, grid cell size, and bandwidth) on the predictive accuracy of crime hotspot maps produced from kernel density estimation (KDE).
Design/methodology/approach
The influence of variations in parameter settings on prospective KDE maps is examined across two types of interpersonal violence (e.g. aggravated assault and robbery) and two types of property crime (e.g. commercial burglary and motor vehicle theft).
Findings
Results show that interpolation method has a considerable effect on predictive accuracy, grid cell size has little to no effect, and bandwidth as some effect.
Originality/value
The current study advances the knowledge and understanding of prospective hotspot crime mapping as it answers the calls by Chainey et al. (2008) and others to further investigate the methods used to predict crime.
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Oliver Hutt, Kate Bowers, Shane Johnson and Toby Davies
The purpose of this paper is to use an evaluation of a micro-place-based hot-spot policing implementation to highlight the potential issues raised by data quality standards in the…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to use an evaluation of a micro-place-based hot-spot policing implementation to highlight the potential issues raised by data quality standards in the recording and measurement of crime data and police officer movements.
Design/methodology/approach
The study focusses on an area of London (UK) which used a predictive algorithm to designate micro-place patrol zones for each police shift over a two-month period. Police officer movements are measured using GPS data from officer-worn radios. Descriptive statistics regarding the crime data commonly used to evaluate this type of implementation are presented, and simple analyses are presented to examine the effects of officer patrol duration (dosage) on crime in micro-place hot-spots.
Findings
The results suggest that patrols of 10-20 minutes in a given police shift have a significant impact on reducing crime; however, patrols of less than about 10 minutes and more than about 20 minutes are ineffective at deterring crime.
Research limitations/implications
Due to the sparseness of officer GPS data, their paths have to be interpolated which could introduce error to the estimated patrol dosages. Similarly, errors and uncertainty in recorded crime data could have substantial impact on the designation of micro-place interventions and evaluations of their effectiveness.
Originality/value
This study is one of the first to use officer GPS data to estimate patrol dosage and places particular emphasis on the issue of data quality when evaluating micro-place interventions.
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Matt DeLisi, Alan Drury and Michael Elbert
Homicide is the most severe form of crime and one that imposes the greatest societal costs. The purpose of this paper is to introduce the homicide circumplex, a set of traits…
Abstract
Purpose
Homicide is the most severe form of crime and one that imposes the greatest societal costs. The purpose of this paper is to introduce the homicide circumplex, a set of traits, behaviors, psychological and psychiatric features that are associated with greater homicidal ideation, homicidal social cognitive biases, homicide offending and victimization, and psychopathology that is facilitative of homicide.
Design/methodology/approach
Using the data from a near population of federal supervised release offenders from the Midwestern USA, ANOVA, multinomial logistic, Poisson and negative binomial regression models were developed.
Findings
Greater homicidal ideation is associated with homicide offending, attempted homicide offending and attempted homicide victimization and predicted by gang activity, alias usage, antisocial personality disorder and intermittent explosive disorder. These behavioral disorders, more extensive criminal careers, African American status and gang activity also exhibited significant associations with dimensions of the homicide circumplex.
Originality/value
Developing behavioral profiles of offenders that exhibit homicidal ideation and behaviors are critical for identifying clients at greatest risk for lethal violence. The homicide circumplex is an innovation toward the goal that requires additional empirical validation.
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This paper aims to develop a theoretical framework to predict susceptibility to cyber-fraud victimhood.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to develop a theoretical framework to predict susceptibility to cyber-fraud victimhood.
Design/methodology/approach
A survey was constructed to examine whether personality, socio-demographic characteristics and online routine activities predicted one-off and repeat victimhood of cyber-fraud. Overall, 11,780 participants completed a survey (one-off victims, N = 728; repeat victims = 329).
Findings
The final saturated model revealed that psychological and socio-demographic characteristics and online routine activities should be considered when predicting victimhood. Consistent with the hypotheses, victims of cyber-frauds were more likely to be older, score high on impulsivity measures of urgency and sensation seeking, score high on addictive measures and engage in more frequent routine activities that place them at great risk of becoming scammed. There was little distinction between one-off and repeat victims of cyber-frauds.
Originality/value
This work uniquely combines psychological, socio-demographic and online behaviours to develop a comprehensive theoretical framework to predict susceptibility to cyber-frauds. Importantly, the work here challenges the current utility of government websites to protect users from becoming scammed and provides insights into methods that might be used to protect users from becoming scammed.
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The study presented is a starting point in Spain about the invisible phenomenon of female delinquency behavior and juvenile justice. Studying girls who break laws certainly…
Abstract
Purpose
The study presented is a starting point in Spain about the invisible phenomenon of female delinquency behavior and juvenile justice. Studying girls who break laws certainly provides insight into the standards, practices, and social customs affecting young women in a particular time and space, as well as providing clues about the expectations of their gender.
Methodology/approach
This research is being based on socio-biographic interviews and the analysis of individual life histories (totaling 16). However, in order to increase the validity and credibility of the information collected using this method, further complimentary methods of collecting data were also employed, leading to a triangulation of methods. This consisted of the analysis of social and judicial case files/dossiers (44) and first-hand observation undertaken during one-month stay in a female juvenile reform institution for young women convicted of committing crimes between the age of 14 and 18. The girls could, however, remain at the institution to the age of 21.
Findings
Girls are often the victims of what might be called multiple situation of marginality in that their gender race and class have placed them at the economic periphery of society. Understanding their lives and choices of girls who find themselves in the juvenile criminal justice systems also requires a broader understanding of the contexts and process within which their criminal behavior is lodged.
Originality/value
This research has looked closely at the existing theory on women and crime, as well as the forms of participation, the processes, factors and contexts of social exclusion, and the role of women offenders in the Spanish Juvenile Justice.
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To review the literature on delinquency and victimization among Caribbean youth, utilizing an ecological perspective.
Abstract
Purpose
To review the literature on delinquency and victimization among Caribbean youth, utilizing an ecological perspective.
Design/methodology/approach
The review was initiated by a search of peer-reviewed journal articles published between 1993 and 2013, which investigated any or all aspects of juvenile delinquency and/or youth victimization in the Caribbean. Studies were critically reviewed to determine whether they addressed relationships between victimization and delinquency, and the role of the social environment on youth.
Findings
The search yielded 23 relevant studies: 64 percent of the studies were conducted exclusively in Jamaica, and more than 75 percent were school based. Half of the articles addressed the links between victimization and delinquency among Caribbean youth but the majority was primarily descriptive.
Research limitations/implications
Only peer-reviewed journals were included, so unpublished country and organizational reports were not covered in the review.
Practical implications
More current and longitudinal studies are needed, which examine the connections between delinquency and victimization, and the experiences in the smaller or less developed Caribbean countries.
Social implications
The review provides directions for the enhancement of positive youth development policy and practice.
Originality/value
This paper fills the gap in the understanding of the research on delinquency and victimization among Caribbean youth. The ecological framework also adds value to the understanding of the topic by highlighting the importance of various social contexts, such as the family, school, and neighborhood, on youth development in the Caribbean.
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Kristian Moesgaard Loewenstein, Barak Ariel, Vincent Harinam and Matthew Bland
A recent body of evidence investigated repeated intimate partner violence (IPV) using crime harm indices (the severity of victimisation), instead of crime counts (the number of…
Abstract
Purpose
A recent body of evidence investigated repeated intimate partner violence (IPV) using crime harm indices (the severity of victimisation), instead of crime counts (the number of additional victimisation incidents). Yet, the predictive utility of harm scores in IPV remains unclear – except that high-harm IPV is not usually followed by any additional IPV incidents. The authors take cases of repeat IPV from North Zealand Police, Denmark, to predict subsequent IPV harm and counts based on the level of harm of the first reported IPV offence.
Design/methodology/approach
Using the Danish crime harm index (CHI) to estimate harm levels, non-linear regression models are applied (due to the non-linear nature of the data) to show that the CHI level of the index offence validly predicts gains in future CHI but does not predict IPV counts.
Findings
The findings suggest that whilst high-harm IPV is a rare event and repeat high-harm IPV even rarer, when they do occur, escalation in harm is likely to occur.
Practical implications
A simple metric of harm of the first reported IPV offence can validly predict future harm – however, scholars should apply more fitting analytical techniques than crude descriptive statistics, which fail to take into account the non-linear distribution of police records.
Originality/value
This is the first study to show the value of predicting future harm based on prior harm in IPV.
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