Serial Stranger Sex Offenders’ Mobility Patterns and Consistency Across Series

• In Event: Poster Session

Abstract

Much research has focused on the spatial mobility of serial offenders, and it has generally been found that offenders make calculated decisions about the ways in which they come into contact with suitable victims. Within the geographic profiling literature, it has been theorized that four hunting styles exist that describe how serial predatory offenders search for their victims: hunter, troller, trapper, and poacher. Furthermore, it has been hypothesized that these hunting styles remain consistent over time. To our knowledge, this theoretical framework has not been empirically tested, and thus the current study has two objectives. First, latent class analysis is used to determine whether empirically derived mobility patterns exist among a sample of 72 serial sex offenders who committed 361 stranger assaults. Second, whether or not these mobility patterns remain stable across offenders’ series is investigated. Implications for geographic profiling research and investigations are discussed.

Authors

• Ashley Hewitt, Simon Fraser University

• Eric Beauregard, Simon Fraser University

• Garth Davies, Simon Fraser University