Measuring the Built Environment with Google Street View and Machine Learning: Consequences for Crime on Street Segments

Journal of Quantitative Criminology - Despite theoretical interest in how dimensions of the built environment can help explain the location of crime in micro?geographic units, measuring this...     

论街面犯罪的特点及侦查对策

当前,我国社会型态逐渐由静态社会向动态社会转变。街头犯罪这一新的犯罪形态也呈现上升势头。街头犯罪的特点是:发案高、报案少、犯罪黑数高,作案人员以流动人口为主,作案过程短、逃离现场快、跨区域作案,人员流动性大、调查取证相对困难。安机关需要探索建立以街面犯罪情报信息为基础,由情报信息主导侦查,综合运用巡逻堵截、视频图像监控、便衣侦查、专案侦查、专项斗争、公开悬赏等侦查措施相互协调而形成的侦查对策体系。     

Explaining the Effectiveness of Heroin-assisted Treatment on Crime Reductions

This study examines the relationship between heroin-assisted treatment versus methadone maintenance and the criminal activity of 1,015 individuals participating in a German model project. The main objective is to investigate how these treatments contribute to a decline of criminal behavior. The analyses are based upon self-reported criminal offence and police data on alleged criminals. Logistic regression is employed to explain the variance in the 12-month prevalence 1 year after program admission. The results clearly show a decline of criminal offences among participants receiving maintenance treatment; this decline was significantly greater in the heroin group with respect to property crimes and drug offences. The multivariate analysis reveals that the effects are due to a decrease of illegal drug use and absence from the drug scene.     

罪数判断新论

罪数形态问题是刑法理论上最复杂的问题之一 ,理论对其关注常局限于罪数判断标准 ,而忽略了对其判断要素的探讨。实际上 ,罪数判断的标准与要素两者是位于不同的逻辑层次。罪数判断的标准是罪数判断的基础 ,对罪数判定提供总的规格与准则 ,犯罪构成标准说作为罪数判断标准更为科学。罪数判断要素是以罪数判断标准为指导 ,对罪数单复进行正确具体地推断所必不可少的主客观要素 ,如构成要件要素、罪名等一些法律规定的要素。对行为、结果和罪名均应正确地判定其内涵     

Violent Street Crime Versus Harmful White-Collar Crime: A Comparison of Perceived Seriousness and Punitiveness

Recent studies have challenged traditional wisdom regarding public apathy about white-collar crime by revealing equal or greater perceived seriousness of these offenses among respondents relative to traditional crime. Nevertheless, subjects in those studies were generally asked to contrast white-collar crime scenarios with a non-violent street crime baseline vignette. Perhaps a violent street crime would have invited lower perceived seriousness for the white-collar offenses. Participants in the present study were asked to (1) read vignettes describing violent street crimes and physically harmful white-collar crimes, (2) compare their seriousness, and (3) determine appropriate sanctions. Subjects perceived the violent crime scenarios presented to them to be more serious than the harmful white-collar crime vignettes. Further, they were less punitive toward white-collar offenders compared with street criminals. Implications of these findings are discussed.     

系统论视野中的有组织犯罪

本文认为,基于有组织犯罪的“组织性”特质,在有组织犯罪的理论研究中注入系统论的研究方法显得异常迫切和必要。文章从系统本体论的角度出发,对有组织罪系统的要素、结构和功能作了详尽的分析,并在此基础上,从系统认识论的角度提出了破除有组织犯罪系统的基本策略。     

Street Youth Crime: A Test of Control Balance Theory

Utilizing a sample of 400 homeless street youths, the paper explores the role control balance plays in the generation of crime. Using vignettes designed to represent violent crime, serious property crime, and minor property crime, the paper tests whether these youths sense of control over their poverty, shelter, hunger and other living conditions influences their participation in crime. Further, it examines how perceptions of risk and thrill, as well as deviant values, self‐control, deviant histories, and peer support impact on crime. Results indicate that both control deficits and control surpluses were related to assault and serious theft but not minor theft. Perceptions of thrill, deviant peers, deviant histories, and deviant values predicted violent and property crime, and perceptions of risk were related to the property offenses. Criminal peers also conditioned the impact of control surpluses and deficits on property offenses. Results are discussed in terms of future research and policy.     

Explaining San Diego’s Decline in Illegal Street‐Racing Casualties

Illegal street racing has become a pressing problem for cities and counties throughout the United States. In response to the problem, San Diego was the first city to pass a spectator ordinance, making attendance at an illegal street race an arrestable offense. Shortly after the spectator ordinance went into effect, a forfeiture ordinance was passed. This provides for forfeiture of vehicles used in illegal speed contests. A recent drop in illegal street‐racing casualties has been attributed to both ordinances, but other explanations are plausible, including an increase in media attention to the problem, a highly publicized prosecution for murder stemming from two illegal street racing fatalities, an increase in the number of sanctioned racing events, and enforcement of certain provisions in California’s Vehicle Code. Even in the face of these possible alternative explanations, several regression analyses revealed that the forfeiture ordinance had the most pronounced effect on street‐racing casualties.     

Crime and Security in Asia: Diversity and Development

The Asian Journal of Criminology aims to advance the study of criminology and criminal justice in Asia, to promote evidence-based public policy in crime prevention and to promote comparative studies about crime and criminal justice. Asia’s cultural and legal diversity are discussed in the light of the variations in rates of crime, imprisonment and victimisation. Fostering a criminological community in Asia will contribute to improvements in the provision of mutual legal assistance that is now required to combat trans-national crime.     

Crime,cash, and limited options: Explaining the prison boom*

Research Summary An analysis of a state panel of prison populations from 1977 to 2005 shows that the best predictors of prison populations are crime, sentencing policy, prison crowding, and state spending. Prison populations grew at roughly the same rate and during the same periods as spending on education, welfare, health and hospitals, highways, parks, and natural resources. Current and lagged values of state spending on prison construction also accounted for a substantial amount of variation in subsequent prison populations. Public opinion, partisan politics, the electoral cycle, and social threats seem to have had little effect on the number of prisoners. Policy Implications The availability of publicly acceptable alternatives to incarceration may not be sufficient to reverse course. Federal funding of alternatives—but not prisons—would provide states with the financial incentive to reduce prison populations.     

Street Egohood: An Alternative Perspective of Measuring Neighborhood and Spatial Patterns of Crime

Objectives

The current study proposes an approach that accounts for the importance of streets while at the same time accounting for the overlapping spatial nature of social and physical environments captured by the egohood approach. Our approach utilizes overlapping clusters of streets based on the street network distance, which we term street egohoods.

Methods

We used the street segment as a base unit and employed two strategies in clustering the street segments: (1) based on the First Order Queen Contiguity; and (2) based on the street network distance considering physical barriers. We utilized our approaches for measuring ecological factors and estimated crime rates in the Los Angeles metropolitan area.

Results

We found that whereas certain socio-demographics, land use, and business employee measures show stronger relationships with crime when measured at the smaller street based unit, a number of them actually exhibited stronger relationships when measured using our larger street egohoods. We compared the results for our three-sized street egohoods to street segments and two sizes of block egohoods proposed by Hipp and Boessen (Criminology 51(2):287–327, 2013) and found that two egohood strategies essentially are not different at the quarter mile egohood level but this similarity appears lower when looking at the half mile egohood level. Also, the street egohood models are a better fit for predicting violent and property crime compared to the block egohood models.

Conclusions

A primary contribution of the current study is to develop and propose a new perspective of measuring neighborhood based on urban streets. We empirically demonstrated that whereas certain socio-demographic measures show the strongest relationship with crime when measured at the micro geographic unit of street segments, a number of them actually exhibited the strongest relationship when measured using our larger street egohoods. We hope future research can use egohoods to expand understanding of neighborhoods and crime.

     

犯罪认知体系视野下之犯罪构成

我国刑法学界正在进行“犯罪构成体系完善抑或重构”的讨论,通过分析古今中外成文法体系下司法者将刑法规范与生活事案相对接的操作方式,可以发现,“犯罪认知体系”这一概念可用以统摄不同历史时期刑法之基本运作模式。对犯罪认知体系之思想史的梳理表明,“犯罪构成”概念乃系近代民主法治背景下理论介入司法之产物,由此可厘清当代中国之犯罪构成体系的来龙去脉及现实状况,并为进一步“完善抑或重构犯罪构成体系”的讨论搭建基础性平台。     

Examining the Effects of Health in Explaining Fear of Crime: A Multi-Dimensional and Multi-Level Analysis

We examine the understudied link between mental/physical health problems and their relationship with perceived unsafety via higher levels of vulnerability. We examine this relationship by linking data at the individual-level, the neighborhood-level, and the county-level using the Portraits of American Life Survey (PALS). Using this data we examine the effect of individual and neighborhood conditions on perceived safety while controlling for county-level crime rates. Findings indicate that higher numbers of physical impairment and mental health issues are independently related to higher levels of perceived unsafety. Both mental and physical health problems are associated with higher levels of fear. These higher levels of vulnerability then directly contribute to higher levels of feeling of unsafety. Unlike past research, we find a mental health link to fear of crime that cannot be explained by physical impairments.     

Street Youths and the Proximate and Contingent Causes of Instrumental Crime: Untangling Anomie Theory

Utilizing a sample of 300 homeless street youths, the research examines the individual‐level sub‐model of Baumer’s interpretation of Merton’s anomie theory. The paper explores the role the interaction between monetary goals and weak commitment to legitimate means plays in the generation of instrumental crime and the manner in which this interaction is itself moderated by blocked opportunities, monetary dissatisfaction, social modeling, cultural support, and the perceived risk of punishment. The findings reveal that a weak commitment to legitimate means, but not monetary goals, has a lower order impact on the willingness to commit instrumental crime. These two variables, however, do not interact to predict intentions to offend. Instead the findings reveal that blocked opportunities and higher levels of monetary dissatisfaction moderate the relationship between the monetary goals and weak commitment to legitimate means interaction and the willingness to offend. Findings are discussed and suggestions for further research are offered.     

Cashlessness and Street Crime: A Cross-national Study of Direct Deposit Payment and Robbery Rates

Substantial variation in national crime rates suggests social structure and cultural context influence offending and victimization. Several prominent criminological theories anticipate a positive association between the prevalence of cash in a society and its rates of pecuniary crime. We examined the association between one form of “cashlessness” and national robbery rates across nations (n = 67), controlling for several structural covariates of national crime rates. We obtained data on robbery from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, and data on government-based cashlessness from the Global Financial Inclusion Database. We found nations with higher levels of government-based cashlessness had lower robbery rates (β = ?.41, p = .02). We also undertook several sensitivity analyses, including tests for a relationship with commercial cashlessness and for crimes like homicide and burglary. Our results suggest technological advancements that reduce cash in a society may have implications for a nation’s robbery rates.     

网络犯罪分析:用户及系统的多视图分析方法

近年来网络犯罪数量呈快速上升的势头,但是却缺乏一种有效的取证方法来处理这些案件.调查人员通常依靠调查大量繁琐的源代码来了解犯罪模型及提取证据,但这种方式需要很多的人力与时间,并可能导致人为错误.为了克服调查人员可能出现的这些潜在错误,我们在本文中提出了一种半自动的方法来解决这些问题.该方法集成了用户视图(基于取证调查人员的高级别研究)和系统视图(基于对源代码的自动分析),来帮助调查人员精确调查的范围.本文应用此方法分析了一个真实案件,证明了方法的可行性,同时帮助调查人员高效地确定了调查范围和犯罪模型.可见这种半自动方法可以对大量有多个来源的电子证据进行有效分析,提高了网络犯罪案件取证的效率和可靠性.