A STATISTICAL MODEL OF CRIMINAL BEHAVIOR

2008 ◽  
Vol 18 (supp01) ◽  
pp. 1249-1267 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. B. SHORT ◽  
M. R. D'ORSOGNA ◽  
V. B. PASOUR ◽  
G. E. TITA ◽  
P. J. BRANTINGHAM ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Behavior ◽  
Discrete System ◽  
Continuum Model ◽  
Criminal Activity ◽  
Quantitative Agreement ◽  
Residential Burglary ◽  
Feedback Mechanisms ◽  
Random Walker ◽  
Spatio Temporal ◽  
Parameter Values

Motivated by empirical observations of spatio-temporal clusters of crime across a wide variety of urban settings, we present a model to study the emergence, dynamics, and steady-state properties of crime hotspots. We focus on a two-dimensional lattice model for residential burglary, where each site is characterized by a dynamic attractiveness variable, and where each criminal is represented as a random walker. The dynamics of criminals and of the attractiveness field are coupled to each other via specific biasing and feedback mechanisms. Depending on parameter choices, we observe and describe several regimes of aggregation, including hotspots of high criminal activity. On the basis of the discrete system, we also derive a continuum model; the two are in good quantitative agreement for large system sizes. By means of a linear stability analysis we are able to determine the parameter values that will lead to the creation of stable hotspots. We discuss our model and results in the context of established criminological and sociological findings of criminal behavior.

scholarly journals A Fast Estimator for Binary Choice Models with Spatial, Temporal, and Spatio-Temporal Interdependence

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-7
Author(s):  
Julian Wucherpfennig ◽  
Aya Kachi ◽  
Nils-Christian Bormann ◽  
Philipp Hunziker
Keyword(s):  
Computational Cost ◽  
Choice Models ◽  
Reduced Form ◽  
Binary Choice ◽  
Monte Carlo Experiments ◽  
Binary Choice Models ◽  
Spatio Temporal ◽  
Computationally Intensive ◽  
Pseudo Maximum Likelihood ◽  
Parameter Values

Abstract Binary outcome models are frequently used in the social sciences and economics. However, such models are difficult to estimate with interdependent data structures, including spatial, temporal, and spatio-temporal autocorrelation because jointly determined error terms in the reduced-form specification are generally analytically intractable. To deal with this problem, simulation-based approaches have been proposed. However, these approaches (i) are computationally intensive and impractical for sizable datasets commonly used in contemporary research, and (ii) rarely address temporal interdependence. As a way forward, we demonstrate how to reduce the computational burden significantly by (i) introducing analytically-tractable pseudo maximum likelihood estimators for latent binary choice models that exhibit interdependence across space and time and by (ii) proposing an implementation strategy that increases computational efficiency considerably. Monte Carlo experiments show that our estimators recover the parameter values as good as commonly used estimation alternatives and require only a fraction of the computational cost.

scholarly journals THE CAUSES AND CONDITIONS OF CRIME IN THE FIELD OF ECONOMY

2021 ◽  
pp. 348-363
Author(s):  
S. Denysov ◽  
Yu. Filei
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Behavior ◽  
Criminal Activity ◽  
Economic Crime ◽  
Social Characteristics ◽  
Economic Relations ◽  
The People ◽  
Criminal Offenses ◽  
Leading Position ◽  
The Media ◽  
Almost All

The article examines the issue of combating criminal offenses in the field of economics. It is emphasized that economic crime is caused by destructive tendencies in the development of market relations in the economy and social sphere. Lack of real protection of legitimate economic relations, lag of law-making activity from the needs of economic practice, unsystematic adoption of legal acts concerning certain elements of the economic system. Recently, there has been a process of merging economic and criminal offenses, as well as merging with organized crime. Penetrating into various spheres of the economy, criminal associations seek not only to establish control over the activities of specific enterprises but also to create their own structures capable of occupying a leading position in the infrastructure of individual industries. The intellectual level of criminal activity increases, the scope, and methods of encroachment expand. The reasons for committing mercenary crimes in the economic sphere are both objective and subjective. Thus, in the determination of crime involved both biological and social characteristics of man. An economic criminal does not perceive himself as a criminal, although he admits that he is breaking the law. The problem here is that the media is very one-sided coverage of the image of the traditional criminal, as well as the fact that economically criminal behavior is difficult at first glance to distinguish from socially obedient. Economic criminals justify their crimes by committing them with the tacit consent or approval of public opinion. They deny causing harm to citizens, and also claim that almost all businessmen do the same. If the profit significantly exceeds the possible punishment, then such a crime becomes profitable. Criminal behavior should not be economically or socially profitable. At the same time, it is important to improve the economic and social living conditions of the people.

The effects of absent fathers on adolescent criminal activity: an economic approach

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-19
Author(s):  
David M. Zimmer
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Behavior ◽  
Fixed Effects ◽  
Unobserved Heterogeneity ◽  
Criminal Activity ◽  
Ordinary Least Squares ◽  
Model Parameters ◽  
Absent Fathers ◽  
Lagged Dependent Variable ◽  
Criminal Behaviors ◽  
Least Squares Estimates

Abstract Simple ordinary least squares estimates indicate that absent fathers boost probabilities of adolescent criminal behavior by 16–38%, but those numbers likely are biased by unobserved heterogeneity. This paper first presents an economic model explaining that unobserved heterogeneity. Then turning to empirics, fixed effects, which attempt to address that bias, suggest that absent fathers reduce certain types of adolescent crime, while lagged-dependent variable models suggest the opposite. Those conflicting conclusions are resolved by an approach that combines those two estimators using an orthogonal reparameterization approach, with model parameters calculated using a Bayesian algorithm. The main finding is that absent fathers do not appear to directly affect adolescent criminal activity. Rather, families with absent fathers possess traits that appear to correlate with increased adolescent criminal behaviors.

scholarly journals A continuum model of ice mélange and its role during retreat of the Antarctic Ice Sheet

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Pollard ◽  
Robert M. DeConto ◽  
Richard B. Alley
Keyword(s):  
Negative Feedback ◽  
Continuum Model ◽  
Rectangular Channel ◽  
Back Pressure ◽  
West Antarctica ◽  
Mechanical Formulation ◽  
Antarctic Marine ◽  
Parameter Values ◽  
The Antarctic

Abstract. Rapidly retreating thick ice fronts can generate large amounts of mélange (floating ice debris), which may affect episodes of rapid retreat of Antarctic marine ice. In modern Greenland fjords, mélange provides substantial back pressure on calving ice faces, which slows ice-front velocities and calving rates. On the much larger scales of West Antarctica, it is unknown if mélange could clog seaways and provide enough back pressure to act as a negative feedback slowing retreat. Here we describe a new mélange model, using a continuum mechanical formulation that is computationally feasible for long-term continental Antarctic applications. It is tested in an idealized rectangular channel, and calibrated very basically using observed modern conditions in Jakobshavn fjord, West Greenland. The model is then applied to drastic retreat of Antarctic ice in response to warm mid-Pliocene climate. With mélange parameter values that yield reasonable modern Jakobshavn results, Antarctic marine ice still retreats drastically in the Pliocene simulations, with little slowdown despite the huge amounts of mélange generated. This holds both for the rapid early collapse of West Antarctica, and later retreat into major East Antarctic basins. If parameter values are changed to make the mélange much more resistive to flow, far outside the range for reasonable Jakobshavn results, West Antarctica still collapses and retreat is slowed or prevented only in a few East Antarctic basins.

scholarly journals Self-Evaluation Dimensions of Criminal Activity and Prospects Simulation of Persons Serving Custodial Sentence

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (7) ◽  
pp. 75
Author(s):  
Adolfas Juodraitis ◽  
Remigijus Bubnys ◽  
Odeta Šapelytė
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Research ◽  
Criminal Behavior ◽  
Main Idea ◽  
Criminal Activity ◽  
The Self ◽  
Future Prospects ◽  
Motivation To Change ◽  
Simulation Data ◽  
Self Evaluation ◽  
Scientific Discussion

The article presents the self-evaluation indicators of the causes of criminal behavior committed by persons serving a custodial sentence at X institution, focusing on imprisonment and modeling of life prospects after release from prison. The main idea of the study is to reveal the subjective self-evaluation experience of persons serving custodial sentence with regard to criminal activity and simulation of future prospects. The scientific discussion of the article presents incarcerated persons’ (N = 58) subjective self-evaluation data collected during the qualitative research and their theoretical-practical interpretation. Convicted persons’ subjective self-evaluation and prospects simulation data enable stating certain features showing the discrepancy between their disposition and achievement of resocialization goals. This confirms the insufficiently interiorized reasonableness of punishment, personal perception, and realized motivation to change.

Addiction and Criminal Behavior: A Continuing Examination of Criminal Addicts

1976 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 153-165 ◽  
Author(s):  
James C. Weissman ◽  
Samuel W. Marr ◽  
Paul L. Katsampes
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Behavior ◽  
Age Of Onset ◽  
Criminal Activity ◽  
Criminal History ◽  
Self Report ◽  
General Effect ◽  
Activity Increase ◽  
Race And Gender ◽  
Study Results ◽  
And Gender

The study proposed to examine the relationship between opiate addiction and criminal behavior. The study group was composed of general arrestee population subjects who were identified as regular opiate users. The subjects were interviewed to determine demographic, drug use, and self-report criminal history data; arrest data were collected from official records. The study addressed three research questions: (1) the general effect of addiction upon criminal activity; (2) the effect of addiction upon specific offense categories; and (3) the variations of the effects of addiction upon criminal activity relative to the age of onset of addiction, race, and gender. Study results showed dramatic increases in criminal activity associated with the onset of addiction. The criminal activity increase was displayed in violent crime categories, as well as property acquisitive and drug offense categories. Some differences were apparent according to age of onset of addiction, race, and gender, but the study design did not warrant the drawing of definitive conclusions regarding the differences.

scholarly journals Crime modeling with truncated Lévy flights for residential burglary models

2018 ◽  
Vol 28 (09) ◽  
pp. 1857-1880 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chaohao Pan ◽  
Bo Li ◽  
Chuntian Wang ◽  
Yuqi Zhang ◽  
Nathan Geldner ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Continuum Model ◽  
Space Dimension ◽  
Residential Burglary ◽  
Lévy Flights ◽  
Agent Based ◽  
Jump Length ◽  
Levy Flights ◽  
Crime Modeling ◽  
The Continuum ◽  
One Space Dimension

Statistical agent-based models for crime have shown that repeat victimization can lead to predictable crime hotspots (see e.g. M. B. Short, M. R. D’Orsogna, V. B. Pasour, G. E. Tita, P. J. Brantingham, A. L. Bertozzi and L. B. Chayes, A statistical model of criminal behavior, Math. Models Methods Appl. Sci. 18 (2008) 1249–1267.), then a recent study in one-space dimension (S. Chaturapruek, J. Breslau, D. Yazdi, T. Kolokolnikov and S. G. McCalla, Crime modeling with Lévy flights, SIAM J. Appl. Math. 73 (2013) 1703–1720.) shows that the hotspot dynamics changes when movement patterns of the criminals involve long-tailed Lévy distributions for the jump length as opposed to classical random walks. In reality, criminals move in confined areas with a maximum jump length. In this paper, we develop a mean-field continuum model with truncated Lévy flights (TLFs) for residential burglary in one-space dimension. The continuum model yields local Laplace diffusion, rather than fractional diffusion. We present an asymptotic theory to derive the continuum equations and show excellent agreement between the continuum model and the agent-based simulations. This suggests that local diffusion models are universal for continuum limits of this problem, the important quantity being the diffusion coefficient. Law enforcement agents are also incorporated into the model, and the relative effectiveness of their deployment strategies are compared quantitatively.

scholarly journals The role of social capital in the victimization risk against property: evidence from Brazil*

2019 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 563-585
Author(s):  
Gustavo Carvalho Moreira ◽  
Ana Lucia Kassouf ◽  
Marcelo Justus
Keyword(s):  
Social Capital ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Economic Model ◽  
Criminal Behavior ◽  
Criminal Activity ◽  
Probit Model ◽  
Mutual Benefit ◽  
Victimization Risk

Abstract The economic model of crime presupposes that individuals evaluate the decision to commit a crime rationally. A more inclusive version of this model would include social capital as a factor influencing criminal activity. The amount of social capital that exists within a group can be used to explain criminal behavior, and an increase in the level of social capital can be a factor capable of preventing crime. This study tests the hypothesis that increasing the level of social capital reduces the risk of victimization against property. Results from variations of an IV-Probit model were used to evaluate data from Latin American Public Opinion Project surveys conducted in Brazil. These results suggest that a higher level of social capital among individuals increases the likelihood that they will cooperate for mutual benefit, such as combating crime.

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