Journey to crime of 'itinerant crime groups'

Purpose - Most researchers have found that property crimes have a local focus: offenders tend to operate in the vicinity of their residence. This has led the police to organise themselves to concentrate their resources in highly populated, urban areas, Over the last decade mobile property offenders have been found in various Western European countries that differ from this norm. These groups of mainly Eastern European multiple offenders engaging in property crime tend to travel further than other offenders. As such, their operations differ from most criminals, challenging the way the police are organised and undermining criminological theories on journey to crime. The aim of this paper is to look at the specificity of mobility patterns of these groups, to examine the precise interpretation of their mobility and to consider the implications. Design/methodology/approach - The paper uses the Belgian police database containing all serious property crimes in Belgium for the period 2002-2006. Some basic offender characteristics have been identified and for these offenders journey-to-crime patterns have been established. Findings - Eastern European multiple offending groups tend to commit their crimes in rural areas. Although they start their journey in regions considered "crime importing", they carry out their crimes in "crime exporting" areas. As such, they are atypical, challenging traditional theories on journey-to-crime and the way in which police forces are organised. Research limitations/implications - Observing a special group is one thing, but explaining these differences is another. Further research is needed, in particular with regard to the motivational aspects for these offenders. Originality/value - Whereas most researchers have found crime (including property crime) to be mainly local, the present research focuses on more mobile offenders. The challenges that these groups create for law enforcement authorities make it important for them and their patterns of activity to be understood

Does the mobility of foreign offenders fit the general pattern of mobility?

Research on offender mobility is directed to three main elements: distance, anchor points, and direction. Previous research in geographical criminology has revealed that: (1) the journey to crime is limited in distance and follows a distance decay pattern; (2) the home of the offender plays a central role as the starting point of crime trips; and (3) the direction of the trip is influenced by the opportunities to commit crimes. The findings are more or less accepted as 'laws' in the field. However, research on offender mobility is often limited by its method, data and sample of arrested offenders. This study, in contrast, investigated a sample of arrested foreign offenders (East Europeans) who were staying temporarily in Belgium. They lack the space awareness and routine activities of residential offenders. Using multiple methods and data, including police statistics, case file analysis and offender interviews, we investigated the travelling patterns of these offenders both quantitatively and qualitatively. The findings demonstrate that: (1) the degree of distance decay is much more moderate than generally found in the literature; (2) the official living address plays hardly any role at all as an anchor point; and (3) these offenders travel away from opportunity structures, which is different from the routine activity patterns of Belgian offenders. Overall, our findings indicate that offender mobility does not fit the accepted general pattern or 'laws' as assumed in previous research

Migratie en mobiele daders: heling bij rondtrekkende dadergroepen

Sinds ongeveer een decennium krijgen politie-instanties in West-Europa af te rekenen met (Zuid)Oost-Europese daderbendes die al dan niet tijdelijk in West-Europa verblijven, vele eigendomsdelicten plegen en zeer mobiel zijn. Vraag is echter hoe men deze mobiliteit moet beschouwen. Gaat het om een tijdelijke verplaatsing, een vorm van crimineel toerisme, of is er sprake van migratie? Dit artikel rapporteert over een onderzoek onder rondtrekkende daders veroordeeld voor heling. Uit deze bevraging bleek dat deze heling zowel in West-Europa als in het thuisland kan plaatsvinden. Samen met heling lijkt ook het zwaartepunt van de sociale contacten van deze daders op een van beide plaatsen gelegen. Deze heterogeniteit geeft aan dat het weinig zin heeft om te proberen dé Oost-Europese bendes bestrijden, omdat deze simpelweg niet bestaan en omdat het om verschillende dadertypes met een verschillende achtergrond gaat

Out of sight, out of mind? Awareness space and mobile offenders

Most offenders operate in the vicinity of their homes. The offender’s awareness space plays herein a crucial role. This refers to all spaces of which an offender has knowledge and develops through daily routines. The role of the awareness space has been confirmed in various empirical researches. However, one may wonder whether the importance of awareness space exists only in the most common offending patterns i.e. local offending and what the role of awareness space is for mobile offenders. We have interviewed mobile offenders and our findings suggest that the understanding of the role of awareness space should be differentiated. Spatial awareness does not only provide opportunities for crime, but can actually limit it at times

What/where about itinerant crime groups?

Belgian crime fighters pay a lot of attention to what is called “itinerant crime groups”: criminal gangs, mainly from Eastern European origin, who are specialized in systematically committing all sorts of property crimes, ranging from burglaries and robberies to ram raids and metal thefts. Criminal statistics indicate that Eastern European property offenders in Belgium do indeed seem to commit more offences on average and tend to travel further in their criminal activity. Yet, this does not answer many questions. On the contrary, it only indicates that these groups are worth studying. A qualitative study of 27 case files reveals information on various features of these crime groups. Two characteristics are discussed, being those two that make up the name used to capture this phenomenon. The use of terms mentions ‘crime groups’ reflecting at least some sort of basic organization. A first question dealt with is how these groups are structured. Are these groups indeed organized and is there a reason for not considering them criminal organizations? Alongside the degrees of organization, we wonder whether organizational levels do lead to the involvement in more, less or different forms of criminal behavior. A second, perhaps even more important question, is how these groups’ mobility should be perceived. This questions deserves particular attention because it is this feature which makes these groups special in the first place: their criminal operations cover large areas and one hypothesis is that this is related to their lack of fixed residence in our region. The focus lies therefore on the starting point of the crime trips in order to find out whether higher mobility is actually part of their criminal operations or an artifact in crime statistics, due to higher mobility outside criminality. Additionally, the local and transnational connections are addressed, particularly by looking at the location of the criminal fence. The results indicate two main points. First, itinerant crime groups can show various degrees of organizations, ranging from short-term operations between limited numbers of offenders to long-term, well-structured and hierarchical groups, their involvement in crimes evolving accordingly. Second, their itinerancy is not as straightforward as often assumed. Although there are certain degrees of mobility – within and outside the criminal operations – this least of all means that these groups have no local anchor points or connections at all