NCJ Number
204624
Journal
Criminology Volume: 41 Issue: 3 Dated: August 2003 Pages: 981-1002
Editor(s)
Robert J. Bursik Jr.
Date Published
August 2003
Length
21 pages
Annotation
This study assessed the relative effects of attractiveness, opportunity, and accessibility to burglars on the residential burglary rates of urban neighborhoods.
Abstract
How residential burglars weight the criteria of attractiveness, opportunity, and accessibility and how they choose among the alternatives has been the subject of much literature on residential burglary in general and on target selection in particular. This study provides an assessment of the relative impact of attractiveness and opportunity on the one hand and accessibility to motivated burglars on the other hand. Using data on about 25,000 attempted and completed residential burglaries committed in the time period 1996-2001 in the city of The Hague, the Netherlands, this study examined the variation in burglary rates across its 89 residential neighborhoods. The goal was to come up with a qualified measure that reflects the accessibility of neighborhoods to burglars and estimate whether it had explanatory value that complemented the explanatory value of standard measures of attractiveness and opportunity. The measures utilized in this study included: ethnic heterogeneity, residential mobility, real estate value of residential units, and percentage of owner-occupied residential units. The results emphasize that the spatial distribution of burglary is to a considerable extent spatially conditioned by two measures of accessibility: proximity to the homes of burglars and proximity to the central business district (CBD). Spatially weighted measures of accessibility to offenders offer a new and promising approach to research on intra-urban spatial dynamics of crime. The results suggest that all three factors, attractiveness, opportunity, and accessibility to burglars, pull burglars to their target neighborhoods. References