The journey to crime and victimization
| Published date | 01 September 2021 |
| Author | Larry T. Hoover,Yan Zhang,Fei Luo |
| DOI | 10.1177/14613557211008477 |
| Date | 01 September 2021 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Article
The journey to crime and victimization
Fei Luo
Department of Social Sciences, Texas A&M International University, USA
Yan Zhang
Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology, Sam Houston State University, USA
Larry T. Hoover
Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology, Sam Houston State University, USA
Abstract
The offender’s journey to crime has attracted much attention in mobility triangle research, whereas the journey to
victimization and the spatial distance between the offender’s and the victim’s residences have been relatively less
examined. This research fills thi s gap in the literature by examining sp atial comparisons of variations in journey to
crime, journey to victimization, and the distance between victim’s and suspect’s residences for five types of offenses.
Crime data from the Houston Police Department from 2010 to 2013 were used to analyze the mobility triangle in five
types of crime. The results show that the dynamics of travel pattern vary by demographic characteristics of the suspects
and victims. It is also contingent on the types of crime. The proximity of offender’s and victim’s residences is closely
related to the chance of crimes. The findings provide important implications for theory, policy and policing practice.
Keywords
Journey to crime, journey to victimization, mobility triangle, distance decay, crime prevention
Submitted 06 Jul 2020, Revise received 06 Jul 2020, accepted 29 Oct 2020
Introduction
The mobility triangle literature examines the spatial dis-
tance between the offender’s residence, the victim’s resi-
dence, and the offense location (Andresen et al., 2012;
Burgess, 1925; Rossmo, 2000). The core of spatial analysis
involves three distances: from the offender’s and victim’s
residences to offense location and from the offender’s resi-
dence to victim’s residence. Residence is an essential start-
ing point of the offender’s journey to crime and the victim’s
ill-fated journey to victimization. Researchers have argued
that offenders tend to commit crime near their residences
(Wiles and Costello, 2000). PL Brantingham and Branting-
ham (1981) proposed distance decay, suggesting the rate of
criminal activities reduces as distance from the offender’s
home increases. The primary explanations are: (a) that the
cost of time, money, and effort increases as distance
increases; and (b) it is easier for offenders to locate ideal
targets in their knowledge space. The distance decay model
predicts an inverse relationship between offense and dis-
tance from the offender’s home, but not within the imme-
diate area of the home because of the high possibility of
being recognized and apprehended (PL Brantingham and
Brantingham, 1981; Rossmo, 2000).
Among the three routes in the mobility triangle, journey
to crime has attracted the most attention in academic
research (Block et al., 2007; Pizarro et al., 2007). Studies
have concluded that the typical travel distance to crime
locations is relatively short, usually within 3 miles (Sarangi
and Youngs, 2006; Snook, 2004; Wiles and Costello, 2000)
and the distance is even shorter for sexual offenses (Chopin
and Caneppele, 2019). However, there are variations in
Corresponding author:
Fei Luo, Department of Social Sciences, Texas A&M International Univer-
sity, 5201 University Blvd, Laredo, TX 78041, USA.
Email: fei.luo@tamiu.edu
International Journalof
Police Science & Management
ªThe Author(s) 2021
Article reuse guidelines:
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DOI: 10.1177/14613557211008477
journals.sagepub.com/home/psm
2021, Vol. 23(3) 211–221
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