Burglars’ Specialisation: Development of a Thematic Approach in Investigative Psychology

Abstract

In this study, the process of burglars' specialisation was examined. 15 sub-categories of burglaries committed by 3,066 burglars were analysed, using a thematic approach. The result of an SSA-I showed that four themes existed in the structure of burglary: 'residential', 'commercial', 'public', and 'industrial/storage'. Also it was found that 'residential' and 'commercial' burglaries were the most distinct from each other, providing for two dominant foci for burglaries. The results of POSA also confirmed that most burglars specialised in either 'residential' or 'commercial' burglaries. Few were specialised in 'public' or 'industrial/storage' burglaries. In addition, the number of people who specialised in commercial burglaries decreased with the increase of burgling experiences. The psychological processes underlying burglars' specialisation in one theme, or shift from one to another, are discussed. This study shows that the thematic approach offers a method of studying the multidimensional nature of burglars' psychological processes of specialisation.

To link or not to link: a test of the case linkage principles using serial car theft data

“…An abundance of research evidence from the personality arena, therefore, addresses the existence of behavioural consistency. Indeed, much research now exists showing cross-situational consistency in both non-criminal (Funder & Colvin, 1991;Furr & Funder, 2004;Shoda, Mischel, & Wright, 1993, 1994Wright & Mischel, 1987) and criminal behaviour, including stranger sexual crimes against both adults and children (Beutler, Hinton, Crago, & Collier, 1995;Canter et al, 1991, cited in Woodhams & Toye, 2007Grubin, Kelly, & Ayis, 1997;Grubin, Kelly, & Brunsdon, 2001;Knight, Warren, Reboussin, & Soley, 1998;Santtila, Junkkila, & Sandnabba, 2005), homicide (Salfati & Bateman, 2005), arson (Santtila, Fritzon, & Tamelander, 2005), residential and commercial burglary (Bennell & Canter, 2002;Bennell & Jones, 2005;Green, Booth, & Biderman, 1976;Yokota & Canter, 2004), and commercial robbery (Woodhams & Toye, 2007).…”

Expressive and Instrumental Offending

“…This will depend upon a combination of the number of variables, the amount of error in the data and the logical strength of the interpretation framework (Salfati & Haratsis, 2001;Canter & Ioannou, 2004a). Indeed, as the current study utilises data from police criminal records, which are not created for research purposes a relatively high coefficient of alienation would be acceptable as in many previous crime and other studies (for example Canter, Alison, Alison & Wentink, 2004;Canter & Heritage, 1990;Doran, 2009;Doring, 2005;Yokota & Canter, 2004).…”

“…While Rojeck and Erickson (1982) found evidence of specialisation for property offences and status offences, there was little indication of any specialisation within the other offence types in their sample. Repeated involvement has also been found in robbery and burglary (Farrington, Snyder & Finnegan, 1988;Smith and Smith, 1984;Bursik, 1980;Petersilia, 1980;Yokota & Canter, 2004). …”

“…In addition to offence information, criminal records include court appearances and sentencing for each offence allowing any gaps due to incarceration to be evident (Blumstein & Cohen, 1987). As police information is not collected for the purpose of scientific research it can be used as a valuable resource for research as it is an 'unobtrusive or non-reactive measurement' (see Canter & Alison for a review, 2003) and therefore non subjective to any researcher bias (Yokota & Canter, 2004). Additionally, most of the offenders in the current sample had offending careers that included hundreds of arrests, convictions and various punishments.…”

Measuring the likelihood property of scoring functions in general retrieval models

“…It is well established that when offenders commit the same type of offence, they are likely to do so in a similar manner (Bennell & Canter, 2002;Canter and Fritzon, 1998;Yokota and Canter, 2004). Police can use this fact to prioritise suspects for an unsolved crime by comparing the way the crime was committed, known as Modus Operandi (MO) with previously solved crimes.…”