Copper Cable Theft

Sidebottom, Aiden; Ashby, Matthew P J; Johnson, Shane D.

doi:10.1177/0022427814521216

Cited by 38 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 26 publications

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“…2 Likewise in England, Draca et al ( 2019 ) found a statistically significant fuel price-theft relationship. Several studies report similar findings for other commodities and consumer goods, particularly metals (Brabenec & Montag, 2018 ; Kirchmaier et al, 2020 ; Mares & Blackburn, 2017 ; Posick et al, 2012 ; Quinn et al, 2022 ; Sidebottom et al, 2011 , 2014 ). These findings are typically interpreted using an economic (Becker, 1968 ) or rational choice framework (Cornish & Clarke, 1987 , 2017 ) as evidence that offenders are responsive to changes in market prices, and that all things being equal, more financially rewarding theft targets are more attractive theft targets.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 70%

Do increases in the price of fuel increase levels of fuel theft? Evidence from England and Wales

2023

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Fuel prices have increased sharply over the past year. In this study we test the hypothesis that increases in the price of fuel are associated with increases in motorists filling their fuel tank and driving off without paying. We use weekly crime data from six police forces in England and Wales for the period January 2018 to July 2022, combined with regional data on the number of fuel sales and average fuel prices. Our results demonstrate an overall weak price-theft relationship for the 238 week study period, less so than in previous studies. However, we find strong evidence that the recent spike in fuel prices was associated with elevated levels of fuel theft. The implications of our findings for future research and crime prevention are discussed.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 70%

Do increases in the price of fuel increase levels of fuel theft? Evidence from England and Wales

2023

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“…There are certainly other motives at play, but empirical evidence suggests that incentives do matter (Loughran et al 2016). It for instance has been shown that copper theft increases if copper prices go up (Brabenec and Montag 2018; Sidebottom, Ashby, and Johnson 2014; Sidebottom et al 2011). In this example, the potential gain from crime increases.…”

Section: Extensionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

How Little Does It Take to Trigger a Peer Effect? An Experiment on Crime as Conditional Rule Violation

Engel

2023

Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency

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Objectives Peer effects on the decision to commit a crime have often been documented. But how little does it take to trigger the effect? Method A fully incentivized, anonymous experiment in the tradition of experimental law and economics provides fully internally valid causal evidence. A companion vignette study with members of the general public extends external validity. Results (a) the more of their peers violate an arbitrary rule, the more participants do; (b) a minority has a threshold and switches from rule-abiding to violation once a sufficient number of their peers violate the rule; (c) the more the rule is constraining, the more participants are sensitive to the number of others who violate the rule; (d) if participants do not have explicit information about the incidence of rule violations in their community, they rely on their beliefs. Conclusion In terms of substance, the paper shows that mere social information is the core of peer effects. In terms of methodology, the paper demonstrates the power of incentivized, decontextualized lab experiments for isolating mental building blocks of the decision to commit a crime.

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“…A widely practiced method of dealing with nonstationary data is to transform the data using first differencing. First differencing was applied to all variables included in the models, consistent with procedures used in other work (Greenberg, 2001;Sidebottom et al, 2014).…”

Section: Multivariate Autoregressive Time Series Models Of the Relati...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Although there is clear evidence to demonstrate the relationship between some commodity goods (e.g., copper) and acquisitive crime rates (Brabenec & Montag, 2018;Draca et al, 2019;Kirchmaier et al, 2020;Mares & Blackburn, 2017;Sidebottom et al, 2014), research into the impact of factors inherent in consumer good product life cycles on aggregate crime rates is very limited. A recent systematic review identified only four studies to have investigated the relationship between changing prices and stealing counts of specific consumer goods over time (Quinn et al, 2022).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Explaining offenders’ longitudinal product-specific target selection through changes in disposability, availability, and value: an open-source intelligence web-scraping approach

et al. 2022

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Objective To address the gap in the literature and using a novel open-source intelligence web-scraping approach, this paper investigates the longitudinal relationships between availability, value, and disposability, and stealing counts of specific makes and models of gaming consoles. Methods Using data from Western Australia (2012–2019) and focusing on specific makes/models of gaming consoles, the relationships between product-specific stealing counts, availability, value, and disposability were examined using time series and cross-sectional analyses. Results Support was found for a positive relationship between the changing disposability of specific makes/models of gaming consoles over their lifecycle with corresponding stealing counts, above and beyond changes in availability and value. However, when these attributes were analysed statically, both disposability and value were important. Conclusions The results highlight the importance of measuring correlates of ‘hot products’ longitudinally to better understand offenders’ target selection preferences over time—with important implications for theft risk assessment and crime prevention policy and practice. These findings also provide support for the use of similar open-source intelligence web-scraping strategies as a suitable technique for capturing time-specific proxies for product-specific value and disposability.

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Copper Cable Theft

Abstract: Objectives: To test the commonly espoused but little examined hypothesis that fluctuations in the price of metal are associated with changes in the volume of metal theft.

Cited by 38 publications

References 26 publications

Do increases in the price of fuel increase levels of fuel theft? Evidence from England and Wales

Do increases in the price of fuel increase levels of fuel theft? Evidence from England and Wales

How Little Does It Take to Trigger a Peer Effect? An Experiment on Crime as Conditional Rule Violation

Explaining offenders’ longitudinal product-specific target selection through changes in disposability, availability, and value: an open-source intelligence web-scraping approach

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