Multidimensional Latent Classification of ‘Street Robbery’ Offences

Abstract

In a recent study of personal robbery, commissioned by the Home Office in the UK, a qualitative typology of robbery offences was proposed based on the approach used by the offender to commit the crime, consisting of four approach types: Blitz, Confrontation, Con, and Snatch. Conceptual inspection of the typology reveals that these proposed types may be hypothetically demarcated as the product of two latent dimensions: interaction (between the offender and the victim) and violence (used to threaten/harm the victim). The current paper utilises crime scene information from 72 incarcerated male offenders convicted of 'street' robbery to test this hypothesis. Convergent statistical analysis was utilised to test the structure of Smith's typology first using multidimensional scaling (MDS) and then principal component analysis (PCA). MDS and PCA analyses provided convergent support for the existence of the four robbery styles and the latent dimensions of interaction and violence. Implications of Smith's typological structure and latent behavioural dimensions on the conceptualisation and classification of robbery offences are discussed within the existing literature on 'street' robbery.

Weapon Use in Korean Homicide: Differences Between Homicides Involving Sharp and Blunt Instruments

“…In blitz attacks, offenders approach and overcome victims immediately using unexpected, overwhelming force . Relative to those involving sharp instruments, homicides involving blunt instruments were significantly more likely to involve a blitz attack.…”

Establishing a Typology of Social Media Uses in the Sport Industry

“…According to Croft and Poole (2008), number of dimensions employed captures all the data. Further, MDS explains the relationship or association between variables through distances between them (Goodwill, Stephens, Oziel, Yapp, & Bowes, 2012). For example, shorter distances means that two examined variables have a stronger relationship (Borg & Shye, 1995).…”

Advancement of Criminal Profiling Methods in Faceted Multidimensional Analysis

“…For further details of the sample, criteria for selection and crime scene variables see Goodwill et al . ().…”

“…Although the removal of a mixed group is an obvious strength of this approach, researchers have not utilised this procedure to classify offenders apart from a recent study by Goodwill et al . ().…”

“…offences could be qualitatively separated by a circular pattern) within the FMDS but also that each of Smith's types could be linearly ordered along axial facets as more or less interactive and more or less violent. In their study, Goodwill and colleagues () used the centroid method—the cumulative average of all offence behaviours in each offender's offence—to determine an ( x , y ) coordinate for that offence, allowing each offence to be reduced to a continuous score of level of violence ( x ‐axis score) and level of interaction ( y ‐axis score). Although using the centroid in this way could potentially indicate the type (or theme) of offence, Goodwill and colleagues suggested that this is not a particularly sophisticated approach for predicting offender characteristics, particularly because of the arbitrary reduction of the quantitative data into qualitative data.…”