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Crime behaviours and distance travelled in homicides and rapes
Author(s) -
Santtila Pekka,
Laukkanen Manne,
Zappalà Angelo
Publication year - 2007
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.56
Subject(s) - homicide , psychology , poison control , sample (material) , human factors and ergonomics , geographical distance , criminology , geography , demography , social psychology , medical emergency , sociology , medicine , physics , thermodynamics , population
We explored (1) distances between home and offence in homicides and rapes; (2) whether these distances differed from each other; and (3) whether offence features were associated with distances. The sample consisted of solved homicides ( N = 40) and rapes ( N = 37) from Finland with co‐ordinates for offence and offender home locations and information on crime features. Empirical models of incident density as a function of distance were estimated using CrimeStat III (Levine, 2004). Most of the distances were short displaying distance decay. Homicide median distance was 0.85km ( Inter Quartile Range (IQR ) = 0.13–7.69km) and rape median distance 2.44km ( IQR = 0.83–6.96km) from perpetrators' home location. These distances differed significantly (Mann‐Whitney U = 543.0, p < 0.045). It was possible to identify crime features that were correlated with distances in both offence types. Spatial Behaviour Indices combining crime feature information correlated r s = 0.77 with distance in homicides and r s = 0.72 in rapes. Identifying theoretical constructs for understanding links between different crime features instead of looking at them in isolation is important. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.