Citation

Guerette RT, Zgoba KM, Comerford C, Salerno LM. Vict. Offender 2020; 15(1): 119-139.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2020, Informa - Taylor and Francis Group)

DOI

10.1080/15564886.2019.1661318

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

The finding that offenders tend to commit crime within relative proximity to their own residence has been well established in nearly 80 years of research. The usefulness of this area of research extends not only to the validation of environmental crime theories, but also offers to improve crime analysis capabilities, police investigative practice, and ultimately crime case clearances. Despite the considerable attention this area of study has received, much remains to be known about the factors which might influence variation in residence-to-crime (RTC) distances. One somewhat recently formalized idea is that offenders might be limited by the time that they have in which to commit crimes (such as by employment or family demands) and that this will constrict the geographic mobility of offenders as they operate within those time constraints. This study tested this time-constraint hypothesis on a sample of sex offense incidents (N = 157) from the state of New Jersey.

FINDINGS revealed limited support for the time-constraint thesis, before and after controlling for offender, situational and geographic characteristics. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.

Language: en

Keywords

geographic profiling; geography of offending; Journey to crime; offender mobility; offender profiling; residence to crime; sex offending; time constraint theory