Travel-to-Crime: Homing in on the Victim

Abstract

Environmental criminology focuses on the intersection in time and place of the offender and victim. Patterns of crime are generally explained in terms of the routine activities of the offender. His or her travel to crime distances are short and crimes are committed within the offender's ‘awareness space’. It has generally been theorised that victims also have short journeys to crime, associated with their routine behaviour. This review, however, suggests that occupancy of ‘unawareness space’, where people are away from familiar surroundings, may confer heightened risk. This is supported in research in the special case of crime and tourism, though other travelling victim patterns have been largely ignored. This paper postulates that crime risk increases at the intersection of offender awareness and victim unawareness spaces. The 2002–3 British Crime Survey provides some suggestive evidence on this. Its analysis reveals that 26.9% of self-reported victimisation occurs more than 15 minutes away from the victim's home. For personal theft crimes over 70% of the victims were outside their immediate locality, suggesting a stronger link between victim mobility and certain types of offence. This finding is discussed in light of the literature reviewed and some implications for crime prevention are considered.