Abstract
The Journey to Crime: On the Mobility of Residential Burglars. This article describes the Danish journey to residential burglary, i.e., the distance that burglars travel between their homes and their burglary targets. It is based on an analysis of 3,238 crime trips made by offenders throughout Denmark during the 20-month period 1 January 2002 to 31 August 2003. The Danish data support all of the primary findings of previous international research, specifically: (1) that the majority of crime trips are short; (2) that the number of crimes committed decreases with distance from offenders' residences ("distance decay"); and (3) that there is a "buffer zone" immediately surrounding offenders' homes within which they avoid committing crime - presumably out of concern for being recognized. The current study is unique in terms of the size and quality of the crime trip data available for analysis. Furthermore, it advances prior research by distinguishing trips to different types of residential targets (e.g., stand-alone houses; apartments; farm houses; etc.). The article concludes with an analysis of the popular assumption that burglars favor affluent areas when seeking crime targets - an assumption that is not supported by the data.
| Original language | Danish |
|---|---|
| Journal | Nordisk Tidsskrift for Kriminalvidenskab |
| Volume | 94 |
| Issue number | 2 |
| Pages (from-to) | 143-159 |
| Number of pages | 17 |
| ISSN | 0029-1528 |
| Publication status | Published - 2007 |
