The Effect of COVID-19 Restrictions on Routine Activities and Online Crime
Routine activity theory suggests that levels of crime are affected by peoples' activity patterns. Here, we examine if, through their impact on people's on- and off-line activities, COVID-19 restriction affected fraud committed on- and off-line during the pandemic. Our expectation was that levels of online offending would closely follow changes to mobility and online activity-with crime increasing as restrictions were imposed (and online activity increased) and declining as they were relaxed. For doorstep fraud, which has a different opportunity structure, our expectation was that the reverse would be true.
Assessing Data Completeness, Quality, and Representativeness of in the FBI's Supplementary Homicide Reports: A Research Note
The most widely used data set for studying police homicides-the Supplementary Homicide Reports (SHR) kept by the Federal Bureau of Investigation-is collected from a voluntary sample.
Cohort Variation in U.S. Violent Crime Patterns from 1960 to 2014: An Age-Period-Cohort-Interaction Approach
Previous research in criminology has overlooked that cohort effects on crime should be -- (Ryder in Am Sociol Rev 30(6):843-861, 1965) and consequently assumed cohort effects to be the same across the life course. The current study addresses these limitations by modeling cohort effects as the differential impacts of social change depending on age groups. With this new operationalization that is closely tied to Ryder's conceptualization, we examine both inter-cohort differences and intra-cohort dynamics in violent crime.
A Natural Experiment to Test the Effect of Sanction Certainty and Celerity on Substance-Impaired Driving: North Dakota's 24/7 Sobriety Program
Evaluate the deterrent effect of a program that increases the certainty and celerity of sanction for arrestees ordered to abstain from alcohol and other drugs on substance-impaired driving arrests.
Modeling the Social and Spatial Proximity of Crime: Domestic and Sexual Violence Across Neighborhoods
Our goal is to understand the social dynamics affecting domestic and sexual violence in urban areas by investigating the role of connections between area nodes, or communities. We use innovative methods adapted from spatial statistics to investigate the importance of social proximity measured based on connectedness pathways between area nodes. In doing so, we seek to extend the standard treatment in the neighborhoods and crime literature of areas like census blocks as independent analytical units or as interdependent primarily due to geographic proximity.
Drug Dealing and Gun Carrying go Hand in Hand: Examining How Juvenile Offenders' Gun Carrying Changes Before and After Drug Dealing Spells across 84 Months
This study aims to examine whether periods of marijuana and other illicit drug dealing ("spells" of dealing) are associated with changes in young male offenders' gun carrying behavior.
Socially Demoralizing Environments and the Development of the Street Code from Childhood to Emerging Adulthood
This study examines hypotheses regarding patterns of developmental change in street code commitment from childhood through emerging adulthood. It tests whether street code commitment demonstrates developmental stability or if it fluctuates in response to evolving socially demoralizing conditions.
Religious Involvement, Moral Community and Social Ecology: New Considerations in the Study of Religion and Reentry
To examine the link between an individual's religious involvement in prison and recidivism and assess how macro-level conditions in the counties to which individuals return shape this relationship.
During, After, or Both? Isolating the Effect of Religious Support on Recidivism During Reentry
To examine the independent and interdependent roles of baseline religious support during incarceration and within-individual changes in religious support on recidivism during the prisoner reentry process.
Recidivism in a Sample of Serious Adolescent Offenders
A broad research literature in criminology documents key aspects of how criminal offending develops and changes over the life span. We contribute to this literature by showcasing methods that are useful for studying medium-term patterns of subsequent criminal justice system involvement among a sample of serious adolescent offenders making the transition to early adulthood.
Does Mandatory Diversion to Drug Treatment Eliminate Racial Disparities in the Incarceration of Drug Offenders? An Examination of California's Proposition 36
This paper addresses previous shortcomings in the literature on racial disparities in incarceration for drug offenders by taking advantage of a change in sentencing policy in California and a rich administrative dataset that is able to create a sample of comparable White and Black offenders.
A Factor Analytic Model of Drug-Related Behavior in Adolescence and Its Impact on Arrests at Multiple Stages of the Life Course
Recognizing the inherent variability of drug-related behaviors, this study develops an empirically-driven and holistic model of drug-related behavior during adolescence using factor analysis to simultaneously model multiple drug behaviors.
The Short-Term Dynamics of Peers and Delinquent Behavior: An Analysis of Bi-weekly Changes Within a High School Student Network
To analyze short-term changes in peer affiliations, offending behavior and routine activities in order to evaluate three different processes: peer selection, peer socialization and situational peer influences.
As Violence Unfolds: A Space-Time Study of Situational Triggers of Violent Victimization among Urban Youth
This study clarifies three important issues regarding situational or opportunity theories of victimization: 1) whether engaging in risk activities triggers violent assault during specific, often fleeting moments, 2) how environmental settings along individuals' daily paths affect their risk of violent assault, and 3) whether situational triggers have differential effects on violent assault during the day versus night.
Understanding Changes in Violent Extremist Attitudes During the Transition to Early Adulthood
The current study seeks to explain changes in support for violent extremism during the transition to early adulthood. This period during the life course could increase uncertainty and vulnerability to radicalization, or alternatively lead to maturation, prosocial bonds, and consequently less support for violent extremism. In the absence of population-based longitudinal data on violent extremist attitudes, we know very little about how and why attitudes change during this period.
Predictive Crime Mapping: Arbitrary Grids or Street Networks?
Decades of empirical research demonstrate that crime is concentrated at a range of spatial scales, including street segments. Further, the degree of clustering at particular geographic units remains noticeably stable and consistent; a finding that Weisburd (Criminology 53:133-157, 2015) has recently termed the 'law of crime concentration at places'. Such findings suggest that the future locations of crime should-to some extent at least-be predictable. To date, methods of forecasting where crime is most likely to next occur have focused either on area-level or grid-based predictions. No studies of which we are aware have developed and tested the accuracy of methods for predicting the future risk of crime at the street segment level. This is surprising given that it is at this level of place that many crimes are committed and policing resources are deployed.
Weekly Crime Concentration
Examine and visualise the temporal concentration of different crime types and detect if their intensity varies through distinct moments of the week.
Is Police Misconduct Contagious? Non-trivial Null Findings from Dallas, Texas
Understanding if police malfeasance might be "contagious" is vital to identifying efficacious paths to police reform. Accordingly, we investigate whether an officer's propensity to engage in misconduct is associated with her direct, routine interaction with colleagues who have themselves engaged in misbehavior in the past.
Residents, Employees and Visitors: Effects of Three Types of Ambient Population on Theft on Weekdays and Weekends in Beijing, China
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 the heterogeneity of the ambient population by distinguishing residents, employees and visitors as different categories, and explores their differential impact on thefts, both on weekdays and weekends.
Toward a Demographic Understanding of Incarceration Disparities: Race, Ethnicity, and Age Structure
Non-Hispanic blacks and Hispanics in the United States are more likely to be incarcerated than non-Hispanic whites. The risk of incarceration also varies with age, and there are striking differences in age distributions across racial/ethnic groups. Guided by these trends, the present study examines the extent to which differences in age structure account for incarceration disparities across racial and ethnic groups.
An Offenders-Offenses Shared Component Spatial Model for Identifying Shared and Specific Hotspots of Offenders and Offenses: A Case Study of Juvenile Delinquents and Violent Crimes in the Greater Toronto Area
We attempted to apply the Bayesian shared component spatial modeling (SCSM) for the identification of hotspots from two (offenders and offenses) instead of one (offenders or offenses) variables and developed three risk surfaces for (1) common or shared by both offenders and offenses; (2) specific to offenders, and (3) specific to offenses.