Predictive Validity of Activity Space for Crime Location Choice

• In Event: Crime and Place: Activity Spaces and Crime

Abstract

Explanations of where individuals commit crime have strongly relied on opportunity structures: what makes locations attractive to criminals? Less attention has been devoted to activity spaces: which locations are offenders familiar with? In the empirical research that addresses the role of activity space, it has not been measured directly but only by proxy. The present study uses direct measures of activity space to predict the locations of subsequent crimes. Using space-time budget interviews with juveniles in and around The Hague , activity spaces of the same persons were recorded in two periods in 2008 and in 2010. Objective and independent measures of their involvement in crime during the years 2008-2013 were subsequently taken from police records, and were analyzed to predict whether prior activity space could predict current offending.

Authors

• Wim Bernasco, NSCR

• Marre Lammers, Netherlands Institute for the Study of Crime and Law Enforcement

• Barbara Menting, Netherlands Institute for the Study of Crime and Law Enforcement

• Stijn Ruiter, Netherlands Institute for the Study of Crime and Law Enforcement