Wim Bernasco
Biographic Data
| ID | 220283 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Wim Bernasco |
| GIVEN NAMES | Wim |
| FAMILY NAME | Bernasco |
| SIGNATURE | BERNASCO W |
| AFFILIATIONS | Netherlands Institute for the Study of Crime and Law Enforcement |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-3385-0883 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 71 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 404 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 49 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 22 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1998 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 12 |
Attitudes and barriers to open science practices: A mixed-methods analysis at a criminological research institute
The open science movement strives to improve the transparency, accessibility, rigor, and reproducibility of scientific research. Arguing that open science increases the impact of research, the Dutch Research Council (NWO) has been promoting an open science program in the Netherlands since 2009, aiming to make all funded publications open access and research data open and FAIR; that is, findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable. Our resear…
Beyond the Borders of the Residential Neighborhood: Unstructured Socializing, Collective Efficacy, and Adolescent Delinquency
This study investigates whether the relationship between unstructured socializing and adolescent delinquency is moderated by collective efficacy in the areas where adolescents engage in unstructured socializing, including areas both inside and outside of their residential neighborhood. The study combines space-time budget data from 341 adolescents, self-report questionnaires on delinquency, and community surveys on collective efficacy. Findings i…
Graffiti Writers Choose Locations That Optimize Exposure
We investigate the spatial decision-making of graffiti writers when selecting target locations, examining how street segment characteristics influence exposure. Extending the rational choice perspective to expressive offending, we collected data through Systematic Social Observation in Ghent’s city center in November 2017, covering 12,655 graffiti instances across 2,233 street segments. The SSO involved counting graffiti items and public faciliti…
Making environmental criminology smarter – A framework for directly measuring routine activities using passively collected geolocation data
We propose novel methods for analysing spatio-temporal tracking data collected via smartphones with the purpose of exploring the extent to which foundational, but as yet untested, assumptions within environmental criminology are observed in real-world behaviour. We provide systematic and replicable methods for identifying and quantifying nodes, trips, visits, paths and activity spaces – key elements of human mobility which underpin the vast major…
Target Choices of Inner-City Illegal Taggers Demonstrate Consistency and Specificity
Offender populations are diverse, with individual offenders preferring specific target types. While extensive research has focused on high-impact crimes, the consistency and specificity of lower-impact offenses like tagging remain underexplored. Consistency refers to how stable an offender’s preferred target type is, and specificity addresses whether different offenders prefer different target types. We examined these patterns among taggers, a ty…
Consolation in the aftermath of violent public assaults: An interaction ethological study
Animal ethologists suggest that non-human primates console victims of aggression in a manner similar to humans. However, the empirical basis for this cross-species comparison is fragile, given that few studies have examined consolation behavior among humans. To address this gap, we revive and apply the underappreciated ethological branch of micro-sociology, which advocates the study of human interactions by applying ethological observation techni…
The foraging perspective in criminology: A review of research literature
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 res…
Residents, Employees and Visitors: Effects of Three Types of Ambient Population on Theft on Weekdays and Weekends in Beijing, China
Objectives: The residential population of an area is an incomplete measure of the number of people that are momentarily present in the area, and of limited value as an indicator of exposure to the risk of crime. By accounting for the mobility of the population, measures of ambient population better reflect the momentary presence of people. They have therefore become an alternative indicator of exposure to the risk of crime. This study considers t…
Promise Into Practice: Application of Computer Vision in Empirical Research on Social Distancing
Social scientists increasingly use video data, but large-scale analysis of its content is often constrained by scarce manual coding resources. Upscaling may be possible with the application of automated coding procedures, which are being developed in the field of computer vision. Here, we introduce computer vision to social scientists, review the state-of-the-art in relevant subfields, and provide a working example of how computer vision can be a…
Are frequent offenders more difficult to find and less willing to participate? An analysis of unit non-response in an online survey among offenders
The interpretation of research findings based on self-reported delinquency requires knowledge of how response rates depend on the attributes of potential respondents, including their prior offending. The purpose of the present study was to quantify the extent to which, in a sample of offenders, the two main determinants of non-response – non-contact and refusal – depend on prior offending frequency. We used binomial and multinomial regression mod…
A CCTV-based analysis of target selection by guardians intervening in interpersonal conflicts
Guardians are a potential resource of conflict de-escalation but we still know little about their actual behaviour. In this article we investigate whom among the antagonists a guardian selects as a target when they intervene in an interpersonal conflict. We investigate this using CCTV footage from Amsterdam (the Netherlands) of 46 interpersonal conflicts in public spaces involving 641 interventions by 176 individuals. We find that guardians are m…
Location Choice of Snatching Offenders in Chennai City
The Importance of Importance Sampling: Exploring Methods of Sampling from Alternatives in Discrete Choice Models of Crime Location Choice
Does Danger Level Affect Bystander Intervention in Real-Life Conflicts? Evidence From CCTV Footage
In real-life violence, bystanders can take an active role in de-escalating conflict and helping others. Recent meta-analytical evidence of experimental studies suggests that elevated danger levels in conflicts facilitate bystander intervention. However, this finding may lack ecological validity because ethical concerns prohibit exposing participants to potentially harmful situations. Using an ecologically valid method, based on an analysis of 80 …
A National Examination of the Spatial Extent and Similarity of Offenders’ Activity Spaces Using Police Data
It is well established that offenders’ routine activity locations (nodes) shape their crime locations, but research examining the geography of offenders’ routine activity spaces has to date largely been limited to a few core nodes such as homes and prior offense locations, and to small study areas. This paper explores the utility of police data to provide novel insights into the spatial extent of, and overlap between, individual offenders’ activi…
Forecasting Spatio-Temporal Variation in Residential Burglary with the Integrated Laplace Approximation Framework: Effects of Crime Generators, Street Networks, and Prior Crimes
Nearby Neighbourhood Influences on Adolescent Offending
This study extends recent research on the spatial dynamics of neighbourhood disadvantage and youth offending. Data include self-reported offences from 794 Dutch adolescents and the socio-economic status in their residential neighbourhood and the surrounding community. The findings reveal that youth engage in the highest levels of offending when they reside in disadvantaged neighbourhoods surrounded by neighbourhoods characterized by relative affl…
How to stop a fight—A qualitative video analysis of how third-parties de-escalate real-life interpersonal conflicts in public
Objective: While previous research agrees that third-parties often manage to de-escalate interpersonal conflicts when they intervene, we still know little about how they achieve this influence. The aim of the present study is to address this gap in the literature by investigating how third-parties de-escalate conflicts. Method: We conduct a two-part qualitative analysis of closed-circuit television (CCTV) footage of 48 real-life conflicts from th…
Would I be Helped? Cross-National CCTV Footage Shows That Intervention Is the Norm in Public Conflicts
Half a century of research on bystander behavior concludes that individuals are less likely to intervene during an emergency when in the presence of others than when alone.By contrast, little is known regarding the aggregated likelihood that at least someone present at an emergency will do something to help.The importance of establishing this aggregated intervention baseline is not only of scholarly interest, but is also the most pressing questio…
Crime Feeds on Legal Activities: Daily Mobility Flows Help to Explain Thieves’ Target Location Choices
According to routine activity theory and crime pattern theory, crime feeds on the legal routine activities of offenders and unguarded victims. Based on this assumption, the present study investigates whether daily mobility flows of the urban population help predict where individual thieves commit crimes. Geocoded tracks of mobile phones are used to estimate the intensity of population mobility between pairs of 1616 communities in a large city in …
Where You at? Using GPS Locations in an Electronic Time Use Diary Study to Derive Functional Locations
Smartphones enable passive collection of sensor data alongside survey participation. Location data add context to people’s reports about their time use. In addition, linking global positioning system data to self-reported time use surveys (TUSs) can be valuable for understanding how people spend their time. This article investigates whether and how passive collection of geographical locations (coordinates) proves useful for deriving respondents’ …
Social relations and presence of others predict bystander intervention: Evidence from violent incidents captured on CCTV
Are individuals willing to intervene in public violence? Half a century of research on the “bystander effect” suggests that the more bystanders present at an emergency, the less likely each of them is to provide help. However, recent meta‐analytical evidence questions whether this effect generalizes to violent emergencies. Besides the number of bystanders present, an alternative line of research suggests that pre‐existing social relations between…
Would I be helped? Cross-national CCTV footage shows that intervention is the norm in public conflicts
Half a century of research on bystander behavior concludes that individuals are less likely to intervene during an emergency when in the presence of others than when alone. By contrast, little is known regarding the aggregated likelihood that at least someone present at an emergency will do something to help. The importance of establishing this aggregated intervention baseline is not only of scholarly interest but is also the most pressing questi…
The Influence of Activity Space and Visiting Frequency on Crime Location Choice: Findings from an Online Self-Report Survey
Crime pattern theory predicts that offenders commit offences in their activity spaces. We also propose that they most likely offend in the more frequently visited parts. Previous studies used offenders’ residential areas or other activity space proxy measures but lacked data on other routinely visited places (e.g., work, school, and leisure activities). A major contribution of this study is the use of an online survey in which 78 offenders report…
Mobility and Location Choice of Offenders
This chapter analyzes the main topics and questions about offender mobility and crime location choice in terms of individual motivations, resources, constraints, and decisions. It begins with a brief overview of the four main frameworks that have been used to theorize offender mobility and crime location choice. This is followed by a characterization of general human mobility as a series of cyclical movements between a limited set of anchor point…
Where Offenders Choose to Attack: A Discrete Choice Model of Robberies in Chicago
Why do robbers choose a particular area to commit an offense? Do they rob close to home? Do they search for areas with suitable and attractive targets? What keeps them away from certain areas? To answer these questions, a model is developed of how robbers choose target areas. The model draws on various theoretical and empirical traditions, which include environmental criminology, journey to crime research, gang research, and social disorganizatio…
Joint and Separated Lifestyles in Couple Relationships
A survey among 1,523 married and cohabiting couples in the Netherlands is used to describe the extent to which couples have lifestyles characterized by separate leisure pursuits. Four types of leisure are examined: visiting friends and family, entertainment, outdoor recreation, and indoor leisure. For these activities, we find that contemporary couples cannot be characterized as highly individualized. Next, we analyze why some couples have a more…
A Sentimental Journey to Crime: Effects of Residential History on Crime Location Choice
Many offenses take place close to where the offender lives. Anecdotal evidence suggests that offenders also might commit crimes near their former homes. Building on crime pattern theory and combining information from police records and other sources, this study confirms that offenders who commit robberies, residential burglaries, thefts from vehicles, and assaults are more likely to target their current and former residential areas than similar a…
Effects of Spouse's Resources on Occupational Attainment in the Netherlands
Economic theory predicts a negative association between spouses' levels of occupational attainment due to gains from specialization between housework and paid work. Sociology typically stresses facilitating effects of network resources on occupational attainment. Spouses are network members who may be able and willing to provide such resources. According to this argument, a positive association between spouses' levels of attainment is expected. C…
How Do Residential Burglars Select Target Areas
This paper introduces the discrete spatial choice approach to the study of criminal target choice. The approach is used to assess whether residential burglars are attracted to target areas that are affluent, accessible, and poorly guarded. In addition, the importance of these criteria is postulated to vary across burglars. The theory is tested using data on 548 residential burglaries, committed by 290 burglars from the city of The Hague, the Neth…
Effects of Attractiveness, Opportunity and Accessibility to Burglars on Residential Burglary Rates of Urban Neighborhoods
This study assesses the effects of attractiveness, opportunity and accessibility to burglars on the residential burglary rates of urban neighborhoods, combining two complementary lines of investigation that have been following separate tracks in the literature. As a complement to standard measures of attractiveness and opportunity, we introduce and specify a spatial measure of the accessibility of neighborhoods to burglars. Using data on about 25…
Situational Causes of Offending: A Fixed‐effects Analysis of Space–time Budget Data
Situational theories of crime assert that the situations that people participate in contain the proximal causes of crime. Prior research has not tested situational hypotheses rigorously, either for lack of detailed situational data or for lack of analytical rigor. The present research combines detailed situational data with analytical methods that eliminate all stable between‐individual factors as potential confounds. We test seven potential situ…
Would I be helped? Cross-national CCTV footage shows that intervention is the norm in public conflicts
Half a century of research on bystander behavior concludes that individuals are less likely to intervene during an emergency when in the presence of others than when alone. By contrast, little is known regarding the aggregated likelihood that at least someone present at an emergency will do something to help. The importance of establishing this aggregated intervention baseline is not only of scholarly interest but is also the most pressing questi…
Social Disorganization, Social Capital, Collective Efficacy and the Spatial Distribution of Crime and Offenders: An Empirical Test of Six Neighbourhood Models for a Dutch City
Six different social disorganization models of neighbourhood crime and offender rates were tested using data from multiple sources in the city of The Hague, in the Netherlands. The sources included a community survey among 3,575 residents in 86 neighbourhoods measuring the central concepts of the six models. The data were aggregated to ecologically reliable neighbourhood measures and combined with census data. Crime rates and offender rates were …
Go where the money is: Modeling street robbers' location choices
This article analyzes how street robbers decide on where to attack their victims. Using data on nearly 13,000 robberies, on the approximately 18,000 offenders involved in these robberies, and on the nearly 25,000 census blocks in the city of Chicago, we utilize the discrete choice framework to assess which criteria motivate the location decisions of street robbers. We demonstrate that they attack near their own homes, on easily accessible blocks,…
Testing Indicators of Risk Populations for Theft from the Person across Space and Time: The Significance of Mobility and Outdoor Activity
In recent years, it has increasingly been recognized that due to the uncertain geographic context problem caused by daily human mobility, the residential population is too static to serve as a valid measure of the population at risk for criminal victimization. Various alternative measures have been suggested instead. Guided by the routine activity approach, this study furthers the concept of crime risk population and its measurement across space …
Biting Once, Twice: The Influence of Prior on Subsequent Crime Location Choice
Properties, victims, and locations previously targeted by offenders have an increased risk of being targeted again within a short time period. It has been suggested that often the same offenders are involved in these repeated events and, thus, that offenders’ prior crime location choices influence their subsequent crime location choices. This article examines repeated crime location choices, testing the hypothesis that offenders are more likely t…
Social relations and presence of others predict bystander intervention: Evidence from violent incidents captured on CCTV
Are individuals willing to intervene in public violence? Half a century of research on the “bystander effect” suggests that the more bystanders present at an emergency, the less likely each of them is to provide help. However, recent meta‐analytical evidence questions whether this effect generalizes to violent emergencies. Besides the number of bystanders present, an alternative line of research suggests that pre‐existing social relations between…
Family Matters: Effects of Family Members’ Residential Areas on Crime Location Choice
According to crime pattern theory, offenders are likely to select crime locations within their awareness space. Previous studies have shown that offenders often commit crimes within their current and former residential areas and in areas they previously targeted. However, offenders’ awareness spaces obviously consist of more locations that potentially influence their crime location choices. This study examines the importance of the residential ar…
Theft from the person in urban China: Assessing the diurnal effects of opportunity and social ecology
How to stop a fight—A qualitative video analysis of how third-parties de-escalate real-life interpersonal conflicts in public
Objective: While previous research agrees that third-parties often manage to de-escalate interpersonal conflicts when they intervene, we still know little about how they achieve this influence. The aim of the present study is to address this gap in the literature by investigating how third-parties de-escalate conflicts. Method: We conduct a two-part qualitative analysis of closed-circuit television (CCTV) footage of 48 real-life conflicts from th…
Where You at? Using GPS Locations in an Electronic Time Use Diary Study to Derive Functional Locations
Smartphones enable passive collection of sensor data alongside survey participation. Location data add context to people’s reports about their time use. In addition, linking global positioning system data to self-reported time use surveys (TUSs) can be valuable for understanding how people spend their time. This article investigates whether and how passive collection of geographical locations (coordinates) proves useful for deriving respondents’ …
Promise Into Practice: Application of Computer Vision in Empirical Research on Social Distancing
Social scientists increasingly use video data, but large-scale analysis of its content is often constrained by scarce manual coding resources. Upscaling may be possible with the application of automated coding procedures, which are being developed in the field of computer vision. Here, we introduce computer vision to social scientists, review the state-of-the-art in relevant subfields, and provide a working example of how computer vision can be a…
Patterns of Force, Sequences of Resistance: Revisiting Luckenbill with Robberies Caught on Camera
Robberies are improvised encounters involving offender threat, sometimes force, and often victim resistance. While the association between threat, force, and resistance in robberies is well-established, sequential patterns are disputed due to biases of retrospective studies. To overcome these biases, we draw on CCTV camera recordings of 49 store robberies. Tentative findings suggest that lethal threat reduces victim resistance and thereby offende…
Consolation in the aftermath of violent public assaults: An interaction ethological study
Animal ethologists suggest that non-human primates console victims of aggression in a manner similar to humans. However, the empirical basis for this cross-species comparison is fragile, given that few studies have examined consolation behavior among humans. To address this gap, we revive and apply the underappreciated ethological branch of micro-sociology, which advocates the study of human interactions by applying ethological observation techni…
Nearby Neighbourhood Influences on Adolescent Offending
This study extends recent research on the spatial dynamics of neighbourhood disadvantage and youth offending. Data include self-reported offences from 794 Dutch adolescents and the socio-economic status in their residential neighbourhood and the surrounding community. The findings reveal that youth engage in the highest levels of offending when they reside in disadvantaged neighbourhoods surrounded by neighbourhoods characterized by relative affl…
The Influence of Activity Space and Visiting Frequency on Crime Location Choice: Findings from an Online Self-Report Survey
Crime pattern theory predicts that offenders commit offences in their activity spaces. We also propose that they most likely offend in the more frequently visited parts. Previous studies used offenders’ residential areas or other activity space proxy measures but lacked data on other routinely visited places (e.g., work, school, and leisure activities). A major contribution of this study is the use of an online survey in which 78 offenders report…
The Spatial Concentration of Illegal Residence and Neighborhood Safety
Has the spatial concentration of illegal residence in urban environments become a relevant determinant of objective and subjective neighborhood safety? Using quantitative data from various sources on four large metropolitan areas in The Netherlands, this explorative study shows that the elevated levels of fear of crime and violence reported by residents in neighborhoods where illegal residence is spatially concentrated cannot be attributed to the…
Modelling Crime Flow between Neighbourhoods in Terms of Distance and of Intervening Opportunities
Effects of Spouse's Resources on Occupational Attainment in the Netherlands
Economic theory predicts a negative association between spouses' levels of occupational attainment due to gains from specialization between housework and paid work. Sociology typically stresses facilitating effects of network resources on occupational attainment. Spouses are network members who may be able and willing to provide such resources. According to this argument, a positive association between spouses' levels of attainment is expected. C…
Couples’ Labour-Market Participation in the Netherlands
The Netherlands, a progressive country in many respects, has a surprisingly traditional division of labour between spouses. The husband’s traditional role of breadwinner is still largely unchallenged and until recently women’s participation in the labour market lagged behind neighbouring countries. In this chapter, we examine how couples organize the division of paid labour in the Netherlands and attempt to explain the variation between couples. …
Joint and Separated Lifestyles in Couple Relationships
A survey among 1,523 married and cohabiting couples in the Netherlands is used to describe the extent to which couples have lifestyles characterized by separate leisure pursuits. Four types of leisure are examined: visiting friends and family, entertainment, outdoor recreation, and indoor leisure. For these activities, we find that contemporary couples cannot be characterized as highly individualized. Next, we analyze why some couples have a more…
Effects of Attractiveness, Opportunity and Accessibility to Burglars on Residential Burglary Rates of Urban Neighborhoods
This study assesses the effects of attractiveness, opportunity and accessibility to burglars on the residential burglary rates of urban neighborhoods, combining two complementary lines of investigation that have been following separate tracks in the literature. As a complement to standard measures of attractiveness and opportunity, we introduce and specify a spatial measure of the accessibility of neighborhoods to burglars. Using data on about 25…
How Do Residential Burglars Select Target Areas
This paper introduces the discrete spatial choice approach to the study of criminal target choice. The approach is used to assess whether residential burglars are attracted to target areas that are affluent, accessible, and poorly guarded. In addition, the importance of these criteria is postulated to vary across burglars. The theory is tested using data on 548 residential burglaries, committed by 290 burglars from the city of The Hague, the Neth…
Space–Time Patterns of Risk: A Cross National Assessment of Residential Burglary Victimization
Modelling Crime Flow between Neighbourhoods in Terms of Distance and of Intervening Opportunities
Where Offenders Choose to Attack: A Discrete Choice Model of Robberies in Chicago
Why do robbers choose a particular area to commit an offense? Do they rob close to home? Do they search for areas with suitable and attractive targets? What keeps them away from certain areas? To answer these questions, a model is developed of how robbers choose target areas. The model draws on various theoretical and empirical traditions, which include environmental criminology, journey to crime research, gang research, and social disorganizatio…
Robberies in Chicago: A Block-Level Analysis of the Influence of Crime Generators, Crime Attractors, and Offender Anchor Points
The effects of crime generators, crime attractors, and offender anchor points on the distribution of street robberies across the nearly 25,000 census blocks of Chicago are examined. The analysis includes a wide array of activities and facilities that are expected to attract criminals and generate crime. These include a variety of legal and illegal businesses and infrastructural accessibility facilitators. In addition to these crime attractors and…
The Spatial Concentration of Illegal Residence and Neighborhood Safety
Has the spatial concentration of illegal residence in urban environments become a relevant determinant of objective and subjective neighborhood safety? Using quantitative data from various sources on four large metropolitan areas in The Netherlands, this explorative study shows that the elevated levels of fear of crime and violence reported by residents in neighborhoods where illegal residence is spatially concentrated cannot be attributed to the…
A Sentimental Journey to Crime: Effects of Residential History on Crime Location Choice
Many offenses take place close to where the offender lives. Anecdotal evidence suggests that offenders also might commit crimes near their former homes. Building on crime pattern theory and combining information from police records and other sources, this study confirms that offenders who commit robberies, residential burglaries, thefts from vehicles, and assaults are more likely to target their current and former residential areas than similar a…
Go where the money is: Modeling street robbers' location choices
This article analyzes how street robbers decide on where to attack their victims. Using data on nearly 13,000 robberies, on the approximately 18,000 offenders involved in these robberies, and on the nearly 25,000 census blocks in the city of Chicago, we utilize the discrete choice framework to assess which criteria motivate the location decisions of street robbers. We demonstrate that they attack near their own homes, on easily accessible blocks,…
Situational Causes of Offending: A Fixed‐effects Analysis of Space–time Budget Data
Situational theories of crime assert that the situations that people participate in contain the proximal causes of crime. Prior research has not tested situational hypotheses rigorously, either for lack of detailed situational data or for lack of analytical rigor. The present research combines detailed situational data with analytical methods that eliminate all stable between‐individual factors as potential confounds. We test seven potential situ…
Social Disorganization, Social Capital, Collective Efficacy and the Spatial Distribution of Crime and Offenders: An Empirical Test of Six Neighbourhood Models for a Dutch City
Six different social disorganization models of neighbourhood crime and offender rates were tested using data from multiple sources in the city of The Hague, in the Netherlands. The sources included a community survey among 3,575 residents in 86 neighbourhoods measuring the central concepts of the six models. The data were aggregated to ecologically reliable neighbourhood measures and combined with census data. Crime rates and offender rates were …
Biting Once, Twice: The Influence of Prior on Subsequent Crime Location Choice
Properties, victims, and locations previously targeted by offenders have an increased risk of being targeted again within a short time period. It has been suggested that often the same offenders are involved in these repeated events and, thus, that offenders’ prior crime location choices influence their subsequent crime location choices. This article examines repeated crime location choices, testing the hypothesis that offenders are more likely t…
Family Matters: Effects of Family Members’ Residential Areas on Crime Location Choice
According to crime pattern theory, offenders are likely to select crime locations within their awareness space. Previous studies have shown that offenders often commit crimes within their current and former residential areas and in areas they previously targeted. However, offenders’ awareness spaces obviously consist of more locations that potentially influence their crime location choices. This study examines the importance of the residential ar…
Situational Crime Prevention and Offender Decision Making
This chapter focuses on situational crime prevention, a method for reducing opportunities for crime by manipulating the immediate environment. It begins by charting the origins and development of situational crime prevention. It then describes how rational choice was later added as the model of offender decision making to underpin situational crime prevention. Three questions are then considered: Is rational choice the only possible theoretical u…
Co-offending and Co-offender Selection
A notable proportion of crime is committed in company, particularly during youth, but relatively little attention has been paid to the influence of co-offenders on criminal decision making. This chapter reviews current theory and research on co-offending as it relates to three aspects of offender decision making: the decision to (co)-offend, the selection of accomplices, and choices shaping the characteristics of the criminal event (planning, tar…
Observational Methods of Offender Decision Making
The strength of ethnography is that it combines the insights of what people say about crime with what they do when they make the decision to commit crime. Participant observation has played a key role in ethnographic research on crime, but it has become rare in criminology. This chapter argues that despite this development, new types of camera-based observations are emerging that can potentially bring new life into ethnographic research on crime.…
Victim Selection
This chapter reviews what is known about victim selection—that is, the question of why offenders select some people, but not others, to be victims of crime. It first addresses theoretical perspectives on victim selection, namely the structural–choice model of victim selection, social interactionism, and target congruence. It then describes three data sources that have been used in prior research to study victim selection: police reports, victimiz…
Burglary Decisions
This chapter examines burglary event decisions, decisions leading up to the burglary, and the burglary characteristics that provide insights into them. It critically reviews the evidence on burglary decisions; highlights gaps in knowledge, methodologies, and aspects of theory; and discusses the potential for additional research. It draws on studies based on interviews and experimental research with imprisoned offenders and, less commonly, active …
Organized Crime and Protection Rackets
By relying on a broad rational choice perspective, this chapter explores the key mechanisms underpinning the workings of organized crime and specifically protection rackets. It first defines organized crime in terms of its attempt to monopolize markets, and then the chapter explores the factors that may lead to the emergence of criminal monopolies. Next, it discusses some distinctive features associated with protection rackets, with a focus on th…
Police and Offender Choices
Police influence on offender choices has largely been described in terms of general and specific deterrence. This chapter expands this description by examining the quantity and quality of police influences. With regard to quantity, theory and research from environmental criminology have described a rich set of influences that have direct and indirect effects on offenders. Indirect influences operate through various third parties and by manipulati…
Modeling Offender Decision Making with Secondary Data
Many questions about offender decision making are answered by analyzing data from secondary sources, which include police records and other law enforcement sources, but also full population registries containing data on birth, death, family composition, schooling, employment, and social and health service usage. Although secondary data are not collected for research purposes, they have a number of advantages over regular survey data. This chapter…
Emotions in Offender Decision Making
This chapter examines the influence of emotions on offender decision making. It reviews the empirical and theoretical criminological literature on the role of emotions in crime causation but also draws from other disciplines in the behavioral and cognitive sciences that have examined the influence of emotions on human decision making. Specific attention is devoted to appraisal theories of emotion, which, it is argued, provide a useful theoretical…
Crime Patterns and Interventions (54 works) · Psychology (54 works) · Criminology (40 works) · Computer Science (39 works) · Sociology (34 works) · Political science (24 works) · Social Psychology (24 works) · Geography (22 works) · Crime, Illicit Activities, and Governance (20 works) · Law (14 works)