NCJ Number
79590
Date Published
1980
Length
21 pages
Annotation
This review assesses Thomas Repetto's study of the rates and patterns of residential burglary and robbery, with a view toward establishing more effective strategies for crime control.
Abstract
The research consisted of three components: (1) an offender behavior study, which was designed to obtain detailed information on how and why particular burglars attack specific dwellings; (2) an environmental factors study, which attempted to relate the environmental characteristics of various reporting areas to their crime experience; and (3) a victimized persons and dwelling study, which explored the differences between the people and structures which were and were not victimized in selected Boston metropolitan areas. Data for the offender behavior study were obtained from police reports of 1,988 residential robberies and burglaries from 39 reporting areas in metropolitan Boston over 3 years and from personal interviews with 97 adjudicated burglars. In the environmental factors study, the 39 reporting areas were classified by various social and physical variables, and the average annual burglary rate associated with each classification was tabulated. The victimized persons and dwelling study used a random survey sample of recently burglarized residences in 18 reporting areas and a random sample of units not burglarized. Victims were compared by socioeconomic characteristics and race, and structures were compared in terms of accessibility features and detection factors. Study conclusions are provided for each research component. Overall, the conclusions are based on measures of association and should not be interpreted as allowing causal inferences between and among variables. This is an effective exploratory study which does not aim at providing vast amounts of new knowledge on the relationship between environmental factors relevant to crime and crime prevention behavior. No tabular data are provided.