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Crime Theory Evaluation Using Simulation Models of Residential Burglary

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Abstract

This paper provides new insights on the study of crime modeling through the development of a hybrid cellular automaton (CA) and Multi-agent System (MAS) simulation model that is able to combine components of multiple criminological theories to forecast the locations of residential burglary targets: journey to crime (JTC), social disorganization (SD) theory, and routine activity (RA) theory. In order to combine individual factors from each theory into a unified model, Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) was employed for hierarchical parameter selection. The model is then evaluated using data on offenders obtained from the Dallas Police Department to examine how different crime theories perform in the prediction of residential burglary. Compared to the SD- and RA-weighted models, the JTC-weighted model performed the best when comparisons were made to actual burglary locations. The findings demonstrate that the simulation models of crime provide test beds for research into the explanatory power of various crime theories.

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Notes

  1. Increasingly, the use of simulations and agent-based modeling has been of interest to criminologists, as shown for example in a special issue of the Journal of Experimental Criminology (Groff and Mazerolle 2008). As well, computer simulation modeling has been considered in theoretical testing and explanatory development in criminology (Sullivan 2013).

  2. Of course, recent variants of SD, in particular collective efficacy with its focus on social cohesion and willingness to intervene, also focus on informal control structures (see Sampson et al. 1997).

  3. Additional details may be found in Chastain (2011).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Program in Geospatial Information Sciences, EPPS, University of Texas at Dallas, 800 W. Campbell Road, GR31, Richardson, TX, 75080, USA

    Bryan Chastain & Fang Qiu

  2. Program in Criminology, EPPS, University of Texas at Dallas, 800 W. Campbell Road, GR31, Richardson, TX, 75080, USA

    Alex R. Piquero

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  1. Bryan Chastain
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  2. Fang Qiu
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Correspondence to Fang Qiu.

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Chastain, B., Qiu, F. & Piquero, A.R. Crime Theory Evaluation Using Simulation Models of Residential Burglary. Am J Crim Just 41, 814–833 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12103-016-9336-8

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