Those who Discourage Crime? Two Experiments on the Influence of Guardians

• In Event: Crime and Place: Crime Controllers and Crime Prevention

Abstract

Do motivated offenders that have identified a suitable target actually take heed of the presence of potential guardians? Empirical evidence on the subject still appears to be lacking. The current study investigated this question experimentally, by sending motivated offenders after suitable targets, while manipulating the presence of potential guardians. In this study, our “offenders” are students who were motivated to emulate the mindset of a true offender. Experimental subjects were given the assignment to steal a specified item within a certain time frame under the following reward structure: //PP//* if they succeed in procuring the designated item without having been addressed (verbally or physically) by a passer-by, they receive a monetary reward ** if they decide that it is too risky to steal the item without being addressed, and subsequently abort their attempt, they receive half the pay *** if they are addressed by a passer-by, they do not receive a reward //PP// We claim that, due to this reward structure, the subjects are likely to behave as ‘real’ offenders: they have something to gain by offending and, conversely, to lose by being seen during an offence. Subjects were observed during their attempts and also filled in a post-experiment questionnaire afterwards. With this framework in mind, we report on two guardianship experiments, the ‘bike crate experiment’ and the ‘office experiment’. In the bike crate experiment the level of available guardianship was manipulated (within subjects) by sending in subjects to the potential crime scene while, unbeknownst to the offenders, experimentally increasing or decreasing the level of passing strangers. The office experiment is a between subjects experiment in which a potential guardian was either absent or clearly positioned near the crime scene and in the latter condition, appeared oblivious to the theft or was actively monitoring the scene. We present and analyse the difference between offenders’ behaviour in the high/low guardianship conditions in both experiments, and discuss the implications for guardianship theory.

Authors

• Maud van Bavel, NSCR / VU University

• Henk Elffers, NSCR

• Danielle Reynald, Griffith University

• Jan-Willem van Pooijen, NSCR