Sex Offender Mobility: An Application of Crime Pattern Theory Among Child Sex Offenders

Abstract

Sex offenders are a heterogeneous group and exhibit various offense patterns. Often the location where the offender committed the offense is different from where the offender encountered their victim. Applying crime pattern theory, this study sought to understand if the type of location, victim, and situational characteristics could predict whether an offender would commit the sexual offense in a different and more secluded location than where he first encountered the victim. Among a sample of 114 incarcerated sex offenders, the results showed that offenders who contacted their victims in locations where children are known to congregate were more than 4 times more likely to travel to a more secluded location to complete the sexual offense. Those who used noncoercive strategies (e.g., bribes, seduction) during the offense process were approximately 7 times more likely to travel to a more secluded location that those who did not. Policy implications of the findings are discussed.

A National Examination of the Spatial Extent and Similarity of Offenders’ Activity Spaces Using Police Data

“…They could have occurred at the offender's home, the victim's home, or elsewhere [93][94][95][96][97]. Sex offenders' strategies for identifying, approaching, and attacking victims vary widely from extended grooming to opportunistic "blitz" attacks [98][99][100][101][102]. Offenders might identify their victims through social networks (online or offline) or search for victims in target rich environments such as near schools or night-time economy districts [94,96,97,[102][103][104].…”

“…Sex offenders' strategies for identifying, approaching, and attacking victims vary widely from extended grooming to opportunistic "blitz" attacks [98][99][100][101][102]. Offenders might identify their victims through social networks (online or offline) or search for victims in target rich environments such as near schools or night-time economy districts [94,96,97,[102][103][104]. All these factors would lead to variation in the relationship between offenders' activity spaces and their crime locations.…”

Crime Prediction with Historical Crime and Movement Data of Potential Offenders Using a Spatio-Temporal Cokriging Method

“…Most offenders' data are criminal records from the police/court or correctional population records from the jail/prison with little spatio-temporal information. These data can be used to analyze the behavioral characteristics of offenders, such as psychological attributes [44][45][46], motivation [47], previous criminal experiences [45,46], and the temporal and spatial characteristics of criminal activities [45,46,48]. Some studies tried to use the limited spatio-temporal information of offenders provided by the police or cellular companies to identify why certain places experience more crimes [21][22][23][24].…”

Biopsychosocial characteristics of sex offenders: An analysis of legal proceedings

“…Although studies have suggested a heterogeneity of the so-called sex offenders against children/adolescents, recent studies (Miller, 2013;Mogavero & Hsu, 2017) have indicated there are similar characteristics, seeking to identify the existence of a set of attributes capable of distinguishing them from other groups of criminals (sexual offenders against adults, for example). This has inspired further research on patterns and has opened new lines of research in this field.…”

“…The characterization of sex offenders against children/adolescents is not always a simple task, since these individuals are part of a group that have distinct trait characteristics (Costa et al, 2018;Lasher & McGrath, 2017;Mogavero & Hsu, 2017;Rodrigues, 2017;Schaaf, Jeglic, Calkins, Raymaekers, & Leguizamo, 2016). Thus, there is a relative consensus among the researchers investigating the characteristics of sex offenders against children/adolescents that these attributes are heterogeneous and further research is required to investigate the characteristics of this population (Michaud & Proulx, 2009;Schaaf et al, 2016), to plan public policies focused on developing methods for coping with sexual aggression to help child/adolescent victims.…”