Bethel University New Technologies in Monitoring Repeat Offenders Paper For this unit’s Complete assignment, write a comprehensive scholarly essay (minimum

Bethel University New Technologies in Monitoring Repeat Offenders Paper For this unit’s Complete assignment, write a comprehensive scholarly essay (minimum 1500 words) in which you analyze, explain, and apply these concepts in the context of this week’s content. You must incorporate and cite, using correct (7th edition required) APA citation format, at least 4 different scholarly research sources. Be sure your essay demonstrates a comprehensive understanding of the READ and ATTEND sections from this unit. In-line citations must be used in the body of your essay, and all research sources must be fully cited at the conclusion of your essay. Correct APA citation formats must be used.Using new technologies to monitor and locate post-conviction offenders and completing the Read section write a comprehensive essay which includes the following elements:Identify and discuss three of the initially proposed queries in this week’s lecture. Are they of value for the technological advancements in terms of the monitoring of offenders, and the reduction of recidivism? Why or why not?Define the term Activity Space. Describe your activity space as an example. How might this concept inform monitoring and locating post-conviction offenders?Define the term Awareness Space. Describe your local town, or city neighborhood, as you see it, in terms of the awareness space construct. How might this concept inform monitoring and locating post-conviction offenders?Discuss why those engaged in higher education in criminal justice should be aware of, and well-versed in, the apparent “blind spots” in past and present research and policy initiatives? © Jones & Bartlett Learning, LLC. NOT FOR RESALE OR DISTRIBUTION
Geography and
Individual Decision
Making: Victims
and Offenders
CHAPTER
4
By Lorie Velarde
C
H
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
A
Chapter 4 continues the discussion about how offenders
P interact with
the environment to make decisions. Crime patterns are influenced by both the
M
offender’s knowledge of the environment as well as the spatial and temporal
A the boundaries of their
availability of targets. Essentially, offenders operate within
awareness space and are influenced by target availability,
N among other factors,
when selecting locations to commit crimes. This chapter also reviews findings
, travel when commitfrom studies about journey to crime, the distances offenders
ting crimes. Journey-to-crime research has identified patterns in the distances
offenders travel. Just as offenders use clues about the environment to select
K hunting process to
targets, law enforcement uses knowledge about the criminal
find them. This chapter introduces the concept of geographic
A profiling, a police
investigative methodology that uses the locations in a connected crime series to
locate the responsible offender. This chapter concludes R
with a geographic profiling
case example. After studying this chapter, you should beI able to:
KEY TERMS
Buffer Zone
Crime Series
Distance Decay
Expected Crime Pattern
Geographic Profiling
Hunting Methods
Investigative Strategies
Journey to Crime
Mental Maps
Search Base
Target Backcloth
Define and explain awareness space.
S
Define and explain target backcloth.
S
Understand the findings of several journey-to-crime studies.
A
Define and explain geographic profiling and how it is used in a police
investigation.
• List and describe the types of hunting methods used1
by offenders.
• Describe several different investigative strategies used with geographic
8
profiling.
•
•
•
•
3
4
Introduction
T
Chapter 3 discussed the theoretical frameworks for crime site
S
selection based in environmental criminology, including Rational
Choice Theory, Routine Activities Theory, and Crime Pattern Theory.
Recall that Crime Pattern Theory, as discussed in the previous chapter, explains how offender interaction with the environment produces
149
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CHAPTER 4
Geography and Individual Decision Making: Victims and Offenders
patterns of criminal activity. This chapter builds on this discussion of
theory by discussing other concepts related to crime site selection, such
as activity and awareness space, mental maps, and target backcloth.
Studies examining the distance an offender travels from his home to a
crime location are also discussed in the journey-to-crime section.
Researchers and law enforcement practitioners alike have been
interested in the influence of the environment on where, when, and
how crimes occur. By reviewing research conducted in the area of
C the police have been able to use research
environmental criminology,
empirical findings about
H offenders’ interaction with their environment to help apprehend criminals. One promising methodology in
A
this area is geographic profiling. The principles of this technique and
P example are discussed later in this chapter.
a geographic profiling case
But before we can discuss
Mgeographic profiling, we must discuss a little
more theory.
A
Mental Maps andNAwareness Space
,
Everyone has daily activities
that they participate in. Such activities
include going to and from work, school, shopping, or recreation areas.
Over time, making repetitive
K journeys to various locations gives us
knowledge of the routes and characteristics of these places. We form
cognitive images of the A
places we frequent, the routes to these places,
and the areas we pass through.
These cognitive images are known as
R
mental maps (Brantingham & Brantingham, 1984).
I
Mental maps are the interpretation of the environment by the
individual and are the S
result of perception, coding, and interpretation of information. Mental
S maps not only reflect the spatial features
of the environment but also the attitudes, experiences, and feelings
A
of the individual about his or her environment. While mental maps
vary from person to person because they are influenced by individual experiences, they also
1 have much in common (Brantingham &
Brantingham, 1984).
8
As people pass through a city, they begin to become familiar with
areas. However, people 3
do not know the entire city, either physically
or temporally. There are
4 areas that individuals know well and areas
they have little or no knowledge of. The well-known areas, those places
T
visited frequently, and the routes that connect these areas comprise
S
our activity space (as discussed
in Chapter 3) (Jakle, Brunn, & Roseman, 1976). If you wish to test this, sit down and draw a map of your
world as you see it. Draw the major arterials and streets you travel
on frequently. Also draw the places you go to shop, eat, work, attend
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Mental Maps and Awareness Space
151
C
H
A
P
M
A
N
,
Figure 4–1 Sample Activity Space Map
K
A
R
I
S
S
A
school, meet friends, run errands, and other locations you may visit
during a 2-week time period. When you are done
1 creating your map,
show it to someone who doesn’t know where you live. It is likely that
8
he or she will be able to roughly determine where you live based on
where you spend most of your time (see Figure34–1).
Criminals, just like noncriminals, have locations
they visit fre4
quently. An offender’s activity space is comprised of his or her habitual
geography, which includes locations he or sheT
visits for both criminal
S
and noncriminal reasons (Brantingham & Brantingham,
1981).
There are also locations that, while we do not regularly frequent
them, we still know about them. Along with those places we visit as part
of our day-to-day activities, these locations form our awareness space.
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CHAPTER 4
Geography and Individual Decision Making: Victims and Offenders
Awareness space is comprised of those locations for which we have
some minimum level of knowledge. It is even possible to have awareness of places we have never visited (Clark, 1990). For example, an
offender who regularly steals scrap metal may learn of a new target-rich
location for this type of crime from a fellow thief. While the offender
has not been to the new location, he is now aware that it exists and may
eventually visit it to examine its potential crime opportunities.
When an offender decides to commit a crime, he searches through
his awareness space forC
a location that provides an opportunity for
crime. For some offenders,
H the search will be minimal, perhaps even
opportunistic. For others, the search will be extensive before a suitable
A
target is encountered (Brantingham & Brantingham, 1981).
P
An example of an opportunistic
offense might be a juvenile who
burglarizes an unlockedMhome while he was on his way home from
school. On the other hand, an example of offenders who show more
A
planning might be a group of adults who commit robberies of banks,
N Fargo banks that have limited security.
or specifically, only of Wells
Presumably, the robbers, would spend more time searching and planning before committing their crime than an opportunistic offender.
Both types of searches at the aggregate level produce an expected
K city where crime is likely to occur. Some of
crime pattern, areas in the
these locations, throughA
the overlap of multiple offenders, become hot
spots of criminal activity. Target availability also affects the expected
R
crime pattern (Brantingham & Brantingham, 1993). In the previous robI banks in the city were few and far between,
bery example, if Wells Fargo
the target availability would
S affect the pattern of crimes in a series of
these events.
S
Target Backcloth A
The daily activities of an offender define the location and time that
he is likely to commit a crime. The routine activities of potential vic1
tims also shape crime patterns.
For example, it is from this distribution
8 offenders must choose. The distribution of
of victims or targets that
targets in the environment
3 is called target backcloth (Brantingham &
Brantingham, 1993).
4 target availability is important to the underThe understanding of
standing of crime site selection
T because it is from this availability that the
offender must make his criminal
choices. Targets are typically assessed by
S
criminals on the basis of suitability and risk. Suitability refers to the gain
or profit of the target as seen by the offender. Risk refers to the probability
of apprehension of the offender. Both criteria can differ significantly
depending on the target selected (Felson & Clarke, 1998).
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Journey to Crime
153
Target availability is comprised of both temporal and spatial
opportunity structures. Because opportunity is different at different
times of the day, criminal targets must be examined both geographically and temporally. Depending on the criminal offender’s target
preference, the availability of that target may vary significantly from
neighborhood to neighborhood. Targets may also vary by time of day,
day of week, and season of year (Rossmo, 2004).
Because the location of potential victims plays a key role in the
determination of where a criminal event willCoccur, nonuniform or
rare target opportunities can distort the spatialHpattern of crimes. For
example, some target opportunities require more searching by the
A
offender to find them or may result in crime sites determined strictly
P target. The locations
based on the limited availability of that specific
of crimes against street prostitutes, for example,
Mare mainly a function
of the locations of red-light districts (Rossmo, 2000).
A
A uniform target backcloth provides the offender with many
Nare mainly a function
opportunities; the locations of his or her crimes
of what he or she knows. A nonuniform target backcloth
provides fewer
,
opportunities; offenders are forced to the locations of the opportunities
because their choices are limited and less can be determined about the
spatial choices the offender has made becauseK
his choices have been a
function of target availability (Rossmo, 2000).A
Activity space, awareness space, and target backcloth all influence
R
crime patterns. Law enforcement can use knowledge about how offendI to search for them.
ers interact with the environment to prioritize areas
This is discussed later in the chapter under geographic
profiling.
S
Journey to Crime
S
A
Empirical research has examined the distances that offenders travel
when committing crimes. The distances differ based on a variety of
1 area is urban or rural,
factors, including the type of crime, whether an
and whether or not an area has a well-developed
8 public transportation
system. A journey-to-crime trip is the journey an
3 offender travels when
he commits a crime. While an offender may begin his actual journey
4 measure journey to
to a crime from anywhere, researchers generally
crime as the distance between the offender’s home
T and the location of
his crime, regardless of the distance actually traveled on the day of the
S
criminal event. Some crimes, such as domestic homicide, have a journeyto-crime distance of zero.
There have been many studies conducted on journey to crime.
Some studies have analyzed crime trips based on the offense committed,
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CHAPTER 4
Geography and Individual Decision Making: Victims and Offenders
while other studies have analyzed trips by factors such as demographics of the offender or day of week of the offense (Canter and
Gregory, 1994).
Oftentimes, a journey-to-crime study will report its findings using
measures such as the mean, median, or mode for the group studied
(these commonly used measures of central tendency will be discussed
in Chapter 8). While these describe the studied group in general, they
may not apply to any one individual within the group. It is important
Ctrips will always vary by individual; some
to remember that crime
offenders make short journeys,
while others make longer ones.
H
An example of a typical journey-to-crime study is found in
A
TABLE 4–1 from the City of Glendale, Arizona. Note that for the crime
P an average of 2.34 miles from home to
of burglary, offenders travel
commit a crime. Based M
on the table, it is apparent that the mean distances traveled by offenders vary somewhat by crime type, and the
A
mean trips for auto theft, theft, and robbery are longer than trips for
other crimes in the city.N
By studying many journeys,
researchers have found that the major,
ity of crimes occur close to home. What “close” means is somewhat
K
A
R
I
S
S
A
TABLE 4-1 Average Distance to Crime in Glendale, Arizona
Crime Type
Aggravated assault
Number of
Crimes
Mean Crime
Trip (Miles)
8,526
1.18
62
1.32
Auto theft
1,058
2.88
Burglary
1,356
2.34
164
1.59
3,970
2.27
Arson
Curfew/loitering
Drug offenses
Murder
Other miscellaneous
Other sex offenses
Rape
Robbery
70
2.38
18,237
2.42
404
1.61
85
1.35
567
3.23
Runaway
5,958
0.19
Theft
5,139
3.18
1
8
3
4
T
S
Standard
Deviation
(Miles)
68% of Crime
Trips Within
(Miles)
Furthest
Distance
2.86
4.04
6.91
2.68
4
6.67
3.55
6.43
9.97
3.73
6.07
9.79
1.85
3.44
5.28
3.39
5.66
9.06
4.42
6.8
11.23
3.9
6.32
10.22
2.66
4.27
6.92
2.79
4.14
6.94
4.21
7.44
11.65
1.29
1.48
2.77
4.28
7.46
11.75
Note: The date range was January 1, 2004 through July 24, 2004.
Source: Bryan Hill, Glendale, Arizona Police Department.
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Geographic Profiling
155
subjective, but the studies reviewed by Brantingham and Brantingham
(1981) found that the majority of crimes occurred within 2 miles of
the offender’s residence. Research has also found that crimes against
persons, such as homicide, assault, and rape, occur closer to home
than property crimes, such as larceny and burglary (Brantingham &
Brantingham, 1981).
Research has also found that crime trips show distance decay
from the offender’s residence. Distance decay refers to the decreasC home to commit
ing probability of an offender traveling far from
a crime. Generally speaking, the probability H
decays or drops off as
distance from the offender’s residence increases (Brantingham &
A
Brantingham, 1984).
Most criminals, however, have a buffer P
zone. The buffer zone
is an area around the offender’s residence within
M which he commits
fewer crimes. The buffer zone often exists for two main reasons: a
A
perceived lack of anonymity and reduced number of targets. That is,
Nareas they are familiar
while offenders often prefer to commit crimes in
with, they do not want to be in areas where they
, would be recognized
(Rossmo, 2000). A burglar, for example, would prefer to steal from a
stranger’s home a few blocks away than risk being recognized while
K if he is more familstealing from his next-door neighbor’s home—even
iar with how to gain access into his neighbor’s
Ahouse. The stranger’s
house a few blocks away is still in an area familiar to the burglar, but
R
the distance from his own home increases his anonymity and therefore
I
lowers his risk of apprehension.
The number of potential targets increases
Swith distance from a
fixed point, such as the offender’s residence. For example, if targets
S
were randomly distributed throughout the environment,
there would
A from the offender’s
be twice as many targets available 1 mile away
residence than there would be one-half mile away. For this reason,
offenders may not commit as many crimes close to home as they do
1
a short distance away (Rossmo, 2000).
It is important to note that offenders do8commit crimes within
their buffer zone; however, there may be areas outside
their buffer zone
3
where they commit more crimes. The buffer zone represents an area of
4 (Rossmo, 2000).
reduced activity, not an area of no criminal activity
Geographic Profiling
T
S
Geographic profiling is a police investigation strategy that uses
the locations in a connected crime series to narrow the search for likely
suspects. A smaller search area can result in the apprehension of an
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CHAPTER 4
Geography and Individual Decision Making: Victims and Offenders
offender faster and more efficiently, resulting in both fewer victims and
a savings in expended resources. In larger investigations, this cost savings
can be quite large. Geographic profiling has now been used with success
in many different types of criminal investigation (Rossmo, 1995).
Geographic profiling is based on three theories that were discussed
previously in Chapter 3: Rational Choice Theory, Routine Activities
Theory, and Crime Pattern Theory. These theoretical approaches, while
examining crime differently, share the perspective that crime setting and
C
opportunity are very important
determinants as to why crime occurs
at one particular location
and
not
at another (Rossmo, 2000).
H
Geographic profiling is a decision-making tool that can help law
A
enforcement solve cases of serial crime, but it does not solve crimes by
itself. It is only through a P
confession, eye witness testimony, and/or physical evidence that a crimeM
can be solved and successfully prosecuted. The
purpose of geographic profiling is to manage large amounts (sometime
A
overwhelming amounts) of information and help focus limited resources
Noffender residence (Rossmo, 2000).
on the most likely area of
Geographic profiling
, is essentially a method that allows us to
infer spatial characteristics of an offender from his crime patterns.
For example, the offender’s activity space is determined from the locaK
tions of the crime sites. Investigators,
using this information, determine
the target backcloth forAthe crimes, paths the offender is likely to be
using, and other factors that may influence the crime pattern, such as
R
offender hunting method (discussed later in this chapter), offender
I area. From this information, sense can be
type, and land use in the
made of the pattern from
S both subjective and objective perspectives
(Rossmo, 1995).
Sis typically applied to a crime series, a set of
Geographic profiling
crimes believed to haveA
been committed by the same offender. These
crimes can be linked by physical evidence, offender description, or
modus operandi. Essentially, characteristics about crimes in a series
1thus an inference can be made that they were
are similar in many ways,
8
committed by the same person(s).
Identifying a crime series allows the
crimes to be analyzed as 3
a pattern rather than as isolated events. As each
crime location gives an indicator of the offender’s awareness space,
4
more crime locations provide
more information about the offender
(Rossmo, 2006).
T
Hunting Methods
S
Criminals, especially predatory criminals, employ various hunting
methods when selecting their victims. An offender’s hunting method
affects the spatial distribution of his crime sites, and any effort to
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Geographic Profiling
157
predict the offender’s residence must consider hunting style. There
are criminals who set out speci…
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