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1 Crime Sci. 1 (2012)

handle is hein.journals/crimsci1 and id is 1 raw text is: Junger et al. Crime Science 2012, 1:1 http-//www.crimesciencejournal.com/content/1/1/1 Crime Science teA LA a rs- Crime science: editorial statement Marianne Jungers*, Gloria Laycock4, Pieter Hartel2 and Jerry Ratcliffe3 Imagine criminally active drug addicts or repeat offenders stealing from cars or houses. Do you think these criminals check the stock market before committing an offence? The vast majority of active offenders do not own shares and therefore do not need to keep up to date with the Dow Jones index. However, Sidebottom et al (2011) demonstrate a very close relationship between monthly ups and downs of the copper price as traded on the London Metal Exchange with the extent of theft of copper from the UK railway system. Apparently, although copper thieves may not have been aware of the metal exchange dealings, their behavior reflected the price of the copper on the official market to a remarkable extent. Researchers in Australia found similar results with respect to petrol (Moffatt & Fitzgerald, 2006) but in this case the petrol theft tracks the price of petrol at the pumps. At a time when the life sciences discover more and more about the genetic foundation of antisocial behavior (Moffitt, 2005; Rhee & Waldman, 2002) it is also import- ant to remember that simple but powerful economic incentives such as the market price of specific goods drive theft up and down. These market prices are one aspect of the environment in which we all live and work. Price is an element of the macro-economic environment that, as shown, has a strong impact on crime. In addition to this, many other types of situational factors can play an important role. The design of physical space is one such factor. For example, Breetzke (2012) found that suburbs at greater altitudes in Tshwane (South Africa) were consistently found to have lower burg- lary rates. What could be the potential mechanisms explain- ing this relationship? A possible explanation is that altitude is linked to road structure, and that places at higher altitude are less easily accessible and are therefore less familiar to offenders. Consequently they are less likely to be the focus of burglary. Australian research has identified the management and layout of pubs and bars can predict alcohol-fuelled violence (Graham & Homer, 2008). * Correspondence: mjunger@utwente.nl 'Department of Public Administration, Institute of Governance Studies (IGS), University of Twente, Drenerlolaan 57522 NB, Enschede, The Netherlands Full list of author information is available at the end of the article The aim of crime science is to study how the environment - in this broad sense - affects crime, aggression and disorder. Subtle psychological aspects also play a role in crime. A study by Wortley and McFarlane (2011) investigated whether an object placed close to other objects was better protected than a similar object on its own. This question was studied in a university library, where cards are neces- sary to make photocopies. They can easily be stolen when clerks are not paying attention. The research question was: Is a photocopy card that is 'forgotten' next to a pile of books stolen as often as a photocopy card that is lying alone? Wortley (2011) showed that a card next to a pile of books is 'protected' and stolen less often than a card lying alone. The researchers argue that the concept of guardian- ship explains their findings: the combination of the card next to pile of books send 'guardianship cues' that the card and the pile belong to a specific owner who may come back to get his belongings. These studies challenge the traditional assumption that society is divided into good guys and bad guys, and that bad guys are the cause of crime. As Cook and Ludwig put it: The simplistic notion that crime is proportional to the number of criminals provides no more illumination than asserting that farm output is proportional to the number of farmers. (Cook and Ludwig 1996). In farming, produc- tion depends on the weather, the means of production, market prices and a host of other factors. Similarly, crime depends on a lot of factors independent of the number of good and bad guys (Wortley & Mazerolle, 2008). These findings are fascinating in themselves. But the interesting point is that this sort of information helps us to design crime prevention into our social structure. Chan- ging the environment can improve behavior without chan- ging the person. Crime science is about how to prevent these behaviors in the smartest and most discrete way pos- sible such that the undesirable behavior becomes less likely. These environmental changes can be performed at many levels, and in many ways. For example, most prisoners, when released, go back to their criminogenic environment and to some extent this accounts for the high reconviction rates that we see. Kirk (2009) investigated what happened with prisoners who could not go home after Hurricane Katrina © 2012 Junger et al.; licensee Springer. This is an Open Acce Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ medium, provided the original work is properly cited. article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons I, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any IE1 Springer

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