Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency 51(2)

Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, March 2014: Volume 51, Issue 2

Are Arrested and Non-Arrested Serial Offenders Different? A Test of Spatial Offending Patterns Using DNA Found at Crime Scenes
Marre Lammers

Objectives: Compare the spatial offending patterns of arrested offenders to that of non-arrested offenders, in order to assess selection bias in arrest data. Method: Data used for this study are from the Dutch DNA database for criminal cases. DNA allows reliable linkage of serial crimes committed by the same offender, whether or not the offender has ever been arrested. Spatial offending patterns of arrested and non-arrested offenders are measured by calculating the mean intercrime distance (MICD) of the offense locations. Survival analysis is performed to study whether the MICD has an influence on the duration until arrest. Results: No large differences are found between the MICD of arrested offenders and the MICD of non-arrested offenders. The MICD does not affect the duration until arrest. Conclusions: Because no differences in the MICDs are found between the arrested and non-arrested offenders, arrest data are probably less selective than has been suspected in the past, and results based on these data are unlikely to be strongly biased.

Proximal Adolescent Outcomes of Gang Membership in England and Wales
Juan José Medina Ariza, Andreas Cebulla, Judith Aldridge, Jon Shute, and Andy Ross

Objectives: This article aims to apply a “turning points” framework for understanding the developmental impacts of gang membership in a British sample of young people. The study explores the proximal impact of gang membership on offending, victimization, and a number of attitudinal and experiential outcomes that have been theorized to mediate the relationship between gang membership and offending. Method: The authors used data from the Offending Crime and Justice Survey, a rotating panel representative of young people in England and Wales that measured gang membership using the Eurogang definition. The effects of gang membership onset were tested using a propensity score analysis approach. Results: As previously reported with American data, gang onset has an impact on offending, antisocial behavior, drug use, commitment to deviant peers, and neutralization techniques. In addition, gang membership increases the probability of unwanted police contact, even adjusting for offending through a “double robust” procedure. Conclusion: Despite differences in social context, history of gangs and level of violence, we encounter more similarities than differences regarding consequences of gang membership. The impact on unwanted police contact deserves further research and policy attention.

Breaches in the Wall: Imprisonment, Social Support, and Recidivism
Joshua C. Cochran

Objectives: Drawing on theories that emphasize the salience of social ties, this study examines the different kinds of experiences prisoners have with visitation and the implications of those experiences for behavior after release. Method: This study uses data from a release cohort of prisoners to (1) explore how visitation experiences unfold for different cohorts of individuals serving different amounts of time in prison and to (2) test the effects of longitudinal visitation patterns on recidivism. Results: Findings suggest that individuals who maintain connections with their social networks outside of prison have lower rates of reoffending and that the timing and consistency with which visitation occurs also affect criminal behavior. Specifically, prisoners who are visited early and who experience a sustained pattern of visitation are less likely to recidivate. Conclusion: These findings underscore the importance of social ties for understanding the prisoner experience and its implications for offending. More research is needed that seeks to explain the effects identified here and that explores, using nuanced approaches, other prison experiences, and the implications of those experiences.

Uncovering the Spatial Patterning of Crimes: A Criminal Movement Model (CriMM)
Andrew A. Reid, Richard Frank, Natalia Iwanski, Vahid Dabbaghian, and Patricia Brantingham

Objectives: The main objective of this study was to see if the characteristics of offenders’ crimes exhibit spatial patterning in crime neutral areas by examining the relationship between simulated travel routes of offenders along the physical road network and the actual locations of their crimes in the same geographic space. Method: This study introduced a Criminal Movement model (CriMM) that simulates travel patterns of known offenders. Using offenders’ home locations, locations of major attractors (e.g., shopping centers), and variations of Dijkstra’s shortest path algorithm we modeled the routes that offenders are likely to take when traveling from their home to an attractor. We then compare the locations of offenders’ crimes to these paths and analyze their proximity characteristics. This process was carried out using data on 7,807 property offenders from five municipalities in the Greater Vancouver Regional District (GVRD) in British Columbia, Canada. Results: The results show that a great proportion of crimes tend to be located geographically proximal to the simulated travel paths with a distance decay pattern characterizing the distribution of distance measures. Conclusion: These results lend support to Crime Pattern Theory and the idea that there is an underlying pattern to crimes in crime neutral areas.