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Exploring Directional Consistency in Offending: The Case of Residential Burglary in The Hague
Author(s) -
Daele Stijn Van,
Bernasco Wim
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
journal of investigative psychology and offender profiling
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.479
H-Index - 22
eISSN - 1544-4767
pISSN - 1544-4759
DOI - 10.1002/jip.1358
Subject(s) - consistency (knowledge bases) , predictability , psychology , set (abstract data type) , measure (data warehouse) , repetition (rhetorical device) , criminal behaviour , social psychology , criminology , computer science , statistics , data mining , artificial intelligence , mathematics , linguistics , philosophy , programming language
Many aspects of human behaviour are remarkably stable across times, places and situations. Repetition and predictability also characterises our geographical behaviour. Prior research has confirmed that criminal behaviour is no exception. Offenders tend to recidivate, and recidivists tend to be behaviourally consistent in many aspects, including geographical ones. The present study assesses directional consistency in offending. It reviews the literature on directional consistency. It proposes an improved measure of directional consistency, and empirically uses this measure to explore directional consistency amongst a set of 268 burglars in The Hague. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.