Understanding how criminals decide where and when to offend

The focus of this project is to build a comprehensive model of how burglars decide where and when to commit crime. The innovative methodology, discrete spatial choice approach, provides an elegant and powerful structure to test hypotheses and advance understanding of burglar spatial preferences. This project will contribute to understanding internationally by: increasing methodological/statistical rigour in a “settled” research literature; examine important but neglected research questions; allow predictions to changes in burglars' preferences if new choices are introduced. This has considerable policy implications in the areas of crime prevention, urban planning, public transport and housing.

Project Leader

Associate Professor Michael Townsley (Griffith University)

Project Team

Professor Scott Baum (Griffith University); Professor Wim Bernasco (Netherlands Institute for the Study of Crime and Law Enforcement [NSCR]); Professor Shane Johnson (University College London); Professor Stijn Ruiter (Netherlands Institute for the Study of Crime and Law Enforcement [NSCR]); Dr Gentry White (Queensland University of Technology)

Project Value

$220,000

Type of Funding

Australian Research Council (ARC) Linkage Project

Dates

2011- 2014

Theme/s

Environmental Criminology and Crime Analysis

Aims

Various theories have been proposed to explain crime patterns reflecting the many factors held to explain spatio-temporal patterns of crime. However, while the theory is rich, empirical research lags behind and the statistical models generally employed reflect a disconnect between studies concerned with when and where crime occurs and why offenders target some places at some times but avoid others.

Recently, a new model has enabled the testing of hypotheses that have, until now, not been possible to investigate.

Consequently, the aims of this project are:

  • to build a comprehensive model of offender spatial preferences
  • to determine the influence on offender preferences of theoretically important variables that have yet to be examined empirically
  • to incorporate information about known or forecast changes to neighbourhoods with a view to making predictions of offender spatial preferences