Do physical barriers affect urban crime trips? The effect of a highway, a railroad, a park or a canal on the flow of crime in The Hague

FdR – Publicaties zonder aanstelling Universiteit Leide

VAT compliance in the United Kingdom

This study aimed to uncover the factors that influence Value Added Tax (VAT) compliance. Small businesses from the catering and flooring/furnishing trades in the United Kingdom were sent a questionnaire designed to elicit their views on VAT and related issues. Responses were obtained from 359 businesses. Results showed that VAT compliance in small businesses shares a number of similarities with private income tax compliance: Social norms, equity, economic factors and personality are all important in predicting compliance

Het effect van intensief surveilleren vlak bij en vlak na een eerdere inbraak

Can a fruitful police surveillance scheme be based on supposedly increased risk immediately after and around a previous burglary (‘near repeat phenomenon’)? An experiment in Amstelveen has been set up and analysed for this purpose. Some neighbourhoods got a ‘near repeat surveillance’ scheme, and the occurrence of burglary in those areas has been compared with control neighbourhoods elsewhere in town. We observed a change in the near repeat pattern in the experimental area, but no net effect on burglary rates, presumably because of large between-neighbourhood variance in incidence. Dit artikel beschrijft een experimenteel onderzoek in Amstelveen, waarbij in verschillende buurten de politie extra surveilleert in de buurt van en kort na een eerdere inbraak, dit vanwege een mogelijk verhoogd risico dan en daar (‘besmettelijkheid’). Het vóórkomen van inbraken wordt vergeleken met wat er in controlebuurten gebeurt. Ofschoon het besmettelijkheidspatroon in de experimentele buurten wel verandert door de extra surveillance, konden we geen netto positief effect van de surveillance aantonen, wellicht vooral omdat de tussen-buurtvariatie erg groot is, gegeven de betrekkelijk kleine aantallen inbraken in de diverse buurten

An ABM using awareness space to study possible police effects on distance decay

Research in the area of geographic criminology repeatedly found that most offenders commit their crimes near home and that crime wanes with distance. This has been called the distance decay pattern and counts as one of criminology’s stylized facts. However, such conclusions are mostly drawn from official crime data, which do not constitute a random sample of crime in general. If police have difficulties catching more mobile offenders, we may in fact be measuring the distance decay pattern of police operations instead of offending behaviour. In this paper, we use agent-based modelling (ABM) to study under what conditions distance decay is generated or strengthened. Using awareness space as the basic assumption of our model, we study: 1) its relation to distance decay; 2) the influence of different forms of police communication on the same distance decay pattern; and 3) whether aggregate distance decay has to correspond with intra-individual patterns of distance decay

Overestimation of Skills Affects Drivers’ Adaptation to Task Demands

Inadequate self-assessment, and specifically, overestimation of skill, results in insufficient adaptation to task demands, which can manifest itself on different levels of the driving task. A total of 130 drivers (83 novice and 47 experienced drivers) participated in an on-road driving assessment. Their performance in this assessment (i.e., fail or pass) was compared to the participants’ reported confidence in their driving skills (i.e., high or low confidence), resulting in three calibration groups: a) well-calibrated drivers (reported confidence matched performance on assessment), b) overconfident drivers (high confidence but failed assessment) and c) insecure drivers (low confidence but passed assessment). Furthermore, participants completed a questionnaire which focused on choices made on the strategic and manoeuvring level of the driving task. No significant difference was found between the calibration groups for the strategic level. Overconfident drivers reported significantly more violating behaviour than the well-calibrated and the insecure drivers. At the manoeuvring level, overconfident drivers showed significantly less instances of adaptation to traffic complexity. In conclusion, the current study suggests that overconfidence is related to inadequate adaptation to task demands

The Adaption Test: The Development of a Method to Measure Speed Adaption to Traffic Complexity

To monitor novice driver performance in the first years of solo driving, a test aimed at assessing speed adaptation to the traffic situation was developed and evaluated. The Adaptation Test consisted of 18 traffic scenes presented in two (almost) identical photographs, which differed in one single detail, increasing the situation’s complexity. The difference in reported speed between the two pictures was used as an indication of drivers’ adaptation of speed to the complexity of the traffic situation. A previous study showed that novice, unsafe and overconfident drivers, as identified in an on-road driving assessment, performed worse on the Adaptation Test (i.e. less often reported a lower speed in the more complex situation). The analysis of new data in this paper shows no correlation between performance on the Adaptation Test and self-reported crashes, and that after two years, experienced drivers had improved their performance on the Adaptation Test just as much as novice drivers

Neighborhood crime reduction interventions and perceived livability: A virtual reality study on fear of crime

High levels of Fear of Crime (FOC) are associated with people engaging with their community less, lower use of public spaces, and a general sense of overall anxiety. In short, such fear may reduce the livability of an area. The primary goal of this research was to examine the potential consequences of environmental interventions intended to reduce crime on FOC and perceived livability of the area. Using immersive Virtual Reality (VR) technology, in two studies we examined how environmental interventions in residential neighborhoods influence FOC. In Study 1, we examined how motion-activated, dynamic street lighting and sound may decrease FOC. In Study 2, we applied an adapted ‘watching eyes’ intervention and examined how it may inadvertently increase FOC in a neighborhood. In Study 1 the intervention did not affect feelings of safety. In Study 2, the ‘watching eyes’ intervention indirectly increased FOC via feelings of being watched. In the Discussion, we highlight the importance of better understanding the boundary conditions of such environmental interventions