Andromachi Tseloni

Nottingham Trent University | NTU · Division of Sociology

Previous research consistently demonstrates that problem-oriented policing (POP) can address a range of policing issues; hence its continued appeal and relevance to current practice. However, there are well-documented challenges in terms of its implementation and sustenance within police forces. Studies of policing styles have yet to thoroughly ass...

Expected crime rates that enable police forces to contrast recorded and anticipated spatial patterns of crime victimisation offer a valuable tool in evaluating the under-reporting of crime and inform/guide crime reduction initiatives. Prior to this study, police forces had no access to expected burglary maps at the neighbourhood level covering all...

According to the Crime Survey for England and Wales, violence fell dramatically between 1995 and 2013/14. To improve understanding of the fall in violent crime, this study examines long-term crime trends in England and Wales over the past two decades, by scrutinizing the trends in (a) stranger and acquaintance violence, (b) severity of violence, (c...

This chapter is based upon findings from a project which sought to establish which burglary security devices work for whom and in what context. A large body of previous research suggests that crime risk and vulnerability vary across individuals, households and areas. From this, we can assume that anti-burglary security devices may not exert the sam...

This book presented original and innovative research which has direct practical and policy implications for burglary security. The concluding chapter provides a synthesis of the research evidence discussed in the previous chapters addressing three broad themes: burglary trends and patterns, which security devices work and how and burglary preventio...

This chapter examines the role of security in generating falls in domestic burglary. It begins by briefly outlining some general theories that have been advanced to explain the international crime drop, the basic requirements that must be met by any satisfactory theory and the reason why security improvements comprise the most plausible explanation...

This chapter examines how protection is conferred by different security device combinations. Window and door locks, in combination with security lighting, are shown to be particularly effective, demonstrating the importance of restricting access (by locking windows and doors), simulating occupancy and increasing surveillance potential (using securi...

Aims: Results from the first evaluation of the UK Drug Abuse Resistance Education (D.A.R.E.) Primary programme, designed and undertaken by the (independent academic) authors on data collected in late 2015/early 2016 by the UK providers of the programme are presented. The evaluation assessed the programme against its learning outcomes (covering topi...

Domestic burglary has fallen significantly over the past 20 years in many countries, but still remains a high volume crime. On top of substantial financial loss and property damage, burglary also leads to high levels of anxiety and fear of crime. The research presented in this book represents the first systematic study of what actually works in sec...

This chapter describes a target hardening demonstration project implemented in an English city, which drew on the research findings relating to burglary and the most effective combination ‘on a budget’ nationally – window locks, internal lights on a timer, double door locks or deadlocks and external lights on a sensor (WIDE) – of security devices p...

This study measures the effectiveness of anti-burglary security devices, both individually and in combination. Data for 2008-2012 from the Crime Survey of England and Wales are analysed via the Security Impact Assessment Tool to estimate Security Protection Factors (SPFs). SPFs indicate the level of security conferred relative to the absence of sec...

This study examines the role of household security devices in producing the domestic burglary falls in England and Wales. It extends the study of the security hypothesis as an explanation for the ‘crime drop’. Crime Survey for England and Wales data are analysed from 1992 to 2011/12 via a series of data signatures indicating the nature of, and chan...

There is a wide range of sources that might fruitfully be used in criminological research. This article, by Andromachi Tseloni* and Nick Tilley**, overviews the type of evidence used in research that has recently appeared in the British Journal of Criminology, gives examples of unobtrusive administrative data that have been used in recent projects,...

Burglary in England and Wales fell by 67 % between 1993 and 2008/09. This study examines whether this fall was equitable across different population segments (with respect to their socio-economic characteristics) and area types. In particular, it estimates the extent of burglary falls and any changes in the victimisation divide across socio-economi...

This article describes realist evaluation research combining data signatures and theories of causal mechanism as a means of shedding light on why crime has declined in recent years. A data signature is an empirical indicator of how or why something has occurred. The use of multiple signatures – a ‘dish’ – from different angles and contexts can, if...

Burglar alarms are widely used as a means to try to reduce the risk of domestic burglary. Previous research has suggested that some burglars are deterred by alarms and that they are therefore effective. Using multiple sweeps of the Crime Survey for England and Wales, the research reported here sought to corroborate these findings. It finds that ala...

How effective are different home security devices, on their own and in combination with others? Andromachi Tseloni and Rebecca Thompson analyse crime survey data in search of answers

This article examines how personal crime differences between areas and between individuals are predicted by area and population heterogeneity and their synergies. It draws on lifestyle/routine activities and social disorganization theories to model the number of personal victimization incidents over individuals including routine activities and area...

The last section reprises the main points of the work and proposes a programme of research to improve the precision of population-subgroup vulnerability prediction, alongside recommendations for immediate action.

The Introduction provides an overview of the history of and various approaches to crime definition, measurement and prevention from offender-based to environment/situational and victim-based.

This chapter focusses on the issue of crime concentration across individuals, households, and areas. It presents and discusses the empirical evidence of crime concentration based on crime survey and police recorded crime data, alongside the main theories proposed to account for it. It also overviews the history and results of various preventive eff...

Alongside prevention policies of crime repetition a body of research has identified population sub-groups that are highly vulnerable to criminal victimisation due to individual- and environmental/context-specific vulnerability. This chapter overviews the empirical research and identifies the individual and area characteristics that have consistentl...

The present chapter demonstrates how to construct victimisation predictions from empirical statistical models of crime counts and discusses their practical implications for crime reduction.

The “crime drop” is the most important criminological phenomenon of modern times. In North America, Europe, and Australasia, many common crimes have fallen by half or more since the early 1990s, albeit with variation in the specifics. Seventeen explanations are examined here including demographics, policing, imprisonment, drug markets, and lead poi...

The " crime drop " is the most important criminological phenomenon of modern times. In North America, Europe, and Australasia, many common crimes have fallen by half or more since the early 1990s, albeit with variation in the specifics. Seventeen explanations are examined here including demographics, policing, imprisonment, drug markets, and lead p...

Guest Editor’s IntroductionThe idea for a special issue of the European Journal on Criminal Policy and Research on 'Crime, Ethnic Minorities and Procedural Justice in the Balkans’ emerged at the journal’s Editorial Board annual meeting during the 12th European Society of Criminology Conference in Bilbao (at a restaurant with delicious traditional B...

Drawing on studies from major European countries and Australia, this exciting new collection from a group of internationally-renowned scholars extends the ongoing debate on falling crime rates from the perspective of criminal opportunity or routine activity theory. Considering the trends and discourse of the international crime fall, this book anal...

Over the past 20 years, dramatic, unexpected and unprecedented falls in crime occurred in many countries. In the UK, for instance, crimes measured by the British Crime Survey fell 50 percent between 1995 and 2010 (Flatley et al., 2010). Yet, as mentioned in earlier chapters and discussed in the next and final chapter to this book, there is little a...

Since the 1970s, criminological research has turned its attention increasingly to the plight of victims, to victim typologies and to patterns of victimization. This is in contrast to offender typologies and explanations of crime patterns by reference to criminal propensities, which previously comprised criminology’s almost exclusive focus (see, for...

In the first part of this book, crime trends between 1990 and 2010 in several countries of Europe, including Britain and France, and Australia were examined. For this exercise two independent measures of crime were harnessed: police-recorded crimes per 100,000 inhabitants and victimization prevalence rates based on survey research among the public....

In this opening chapter, the focus is on a descriptive analysis of trends in victimization rates of a selection of mainly Western countries with a special focus on Europe. Our main sources of data are the six rounds of the International Crime Victims Survey carried out between 1989 and 2010. For some countries, the ICVS data have been checked again...

Do people comply with the law because they fear the consequences? Guided by the theoretical framework of Situational Action Theory we argue that most people abide by the law not because they fear the consequences but because they do not perceive crime as an ‘action alternative’. We propose that the potential influence of threats of punishment on pe...

Major crime drops were experienced in the United States and most other industrialized countries for a decade from the early to mid-1990s. Yet there is little agreement over explanation or lessons for policy. Here it is proposed that change in the quantity and quality of security was a key driver of the crime drop. From evidence relating to vehicle...

In the past 15 years, volume crimes dropped substantially in most countries with reliable crime-trend estimates. In England and Wales, domestic burglary fell by 58 per cent between 1995 and 2008/09, the trend levelling off after 2005/06. Wider use of more and better security arguably contributed to these drops. The availability of enhanced and espe...

Major crime drops were experienced in the United States and most other industrialized countries for a decade from the early to mid-1990s. Yet there is little agreement over explanation or lessons for policy. Here it is proposed that change in the quantity and quality of security was a key driver of the crime drop. From evidence relating to vehicle...

Car theft in the UK fell two-thirds from the mid-1990s as part of more widespread crime drops, and has been attributed to improved vehicle security. This study develops a Security Impact Assessment Tool (SIAT) to gauge the contribution of individual security devices and their combination. The metric of impact derived is termed the Security Protecti...

The S & Marper judgment of the European Court of Human Rights addresses the question of DNA profile retention in the absence of conviction or admission of guilt. It casts the problem as a question of balancing the principles of individual privacy and public protection. In the Court’s view there is a level of public protection conferred by retention...

Which facets of social capital affect mental health in rural settings? This study explores the association between different aspects of social capital and psychiatric morbidity in rural communities of the Greek North Aegean islands. A large number of individual and community characteristics that may influence psychiatric morbidity are concurrently...

Crime is disproportionally concentrated in few areas. Though long established, there remains uncertainty about the reasons for variation in the concentration of similar crime (repeats) or different crime (multiples). Wholly neglected have been composite crimes when more than one crime types coincide as parts of a single event. The research reported...

This paper examines aggregate crime trends and variation around them from 1988 to 2004 for 26 countries and five main crime types using data from the International Crime Victims Survey. Multilevel statistical analysis is used to identify the main trends. Major drops in crime were experienced in many countries from the early to mid-1990s onwards. Th...

Western industrialised countries experienced major reductions in crime for a decade from the early to mid-1990s. The absence of adequate explanation identifi es a failing of criminological theory and empirical study. More importantly, it means that none of the forces that reduced crime can confi dently be harnessed for policy purposes. Existing hyp...

This paper reports on a large scale cross-sectional study examining subjective perceptions of community social life held by a randomly selected sample of residents (n = 428) in all small rural settings (n = 89) of the region of North Aegean Sea. The notion of social capital was used as a conceptual tool in order to explore different aspects of the...

This study models simultaneously three commonly used indicators of fear of crime — feeling unsafe alone at home after dark, feeling unsafe walking alone after dark and worry about becoming a victim of crime — against direct (being a victim) and indirect (knowing a victim) victimization, controlling for demographic and socioeconomic characteristics...

Major crime drops were experienced in the United States and most other industrialized countries for a decade from the early to mid-1990s. Yet there is little agreement over explanation or lessons for policy. Here it is proposed that change in the quantity and quality of security was a key driver of the crime drop. From evidence relating to vehicle...

Despite simultaneous increases in democratization and violent crime rates in many countries during the second half of the twentieth century, the authors could find no prior studies that have directly examined possible connections between these two processes. The civilization perspective predicts that violent crime rates will decline along with the...

This study examines household and area effects on the incidence of total property crimes and burglaries and thefts. It uses data from the 2000 British Crime Survey and the 1991 UK census small area statistics. Results are obtained from estimated random-effects multilevel models, with an assumed negative binomial distribution of the dependent variab...

This study discusses methods for predicting local crime rates, measures of fear of crime and measures of disorder that are based on regression models which make use of local census variables and regional dummies. The crime types for which predictions are made are personal crime, total household crime, burglary and vehicle crime. The information on...

This article was published in the journal, Crime Prevention and Community Safety: An International Journal [© Perpetutity Press]. Overall, 40 per cent of crimes reported to the International Crime Victims Survey (ICVS) in 2000 were repeats against the same target within a year, with variation by crime type and country. However, policy makers have y...

This paper employs data from the 2000 British Crime Survey for England and Wales to discuss ways of illustrating the degree of inequality in the distribution of crime victimization. In particular, Lorenz curves are presented for major crime categories, i.e. property, personal and vehicle crime, and their components are presented. They are fitted bo...

The paper seeks to clarify the risks of repeat personal victimization, acknowledging that much prior research is limited in enabling efficient applicability to crime-prevention purposes by its failure to address the interplay between personal and household factors conferring risk alongside the effects of prior victimization. The study reported here...

This study examines factors relating to burglary incidence in England and Wales, the United States, and the Netherlands. Negative binomial regression models are developed based on routine activities theory. Data are drawn from national victimization surveys of about the same time: the 1994 British Crime Survey, the 1994 National Crime Victimisation...

Repeat victimization has recently featured prominently in crime reduction research, especially in the UK. Crime prevention efforts which focus on repeats have enjoyed some success. Yet little is known about what generates repeat victimization. While this remains the case, the scope for crime reduction through the prevention of repeated events again...

The British Crime Survey (BCS) has been used to develop a number of statistical models that describe property crime victimization at the level of the individual household. This paper gives an overview of what has been learnt from these studies. In terms of the predictors of crime, it is now well established that both household and area characterist...

Social indicators vary in their breadth and coverage. One popular indicator of the priority that society gives to specific areas of life is a measure of monetary expenditure. Do we spend more or less on X or on Y? Is the balance correct? A necessary precursor to such comparisons is measurement. This paper presents a method for estimating annual glo...

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The present research is concerned with multilevel modeling of personalvictimization rates. Data from the 1994 National Crime Victimization Surveyare employed. Following the routine activities and lifestyle victimizationtheory, individuals' profile and lifestyle as well as characteristics oftheir household comprise the set of explanatory variables....

Previous studies have established that repeat victimizations occur more frequently than would be expected if households within a particular area were victimized randomly. This implies that characteristics of the household affect the victimization rate. Even controlling for these characteristics, we find that a Poisson model does not capture the dis...

Obscene or nuisance phone calls are particularly targeted towards women. Employing data from two sweeps of the British Crime Survey a decade apart (BCS 1982 and BCS 1992), this work attempts to measure the effects of individual socio-economic characteristics and victimization history of women in England and Wales on their likelihood of receiving at...

This analysis is concerned with juvenile/adult ratios of males and females at different stages of the criminal justice system, that is, apprehension, prosecution, conviction and imprisonment for the year 1975 and suspicion, prosecution, conviction, admission to prison and prison population in 1980 and 1986. Data from the Second and Third United Nat...

Threats to kill, to injure, or to damage property stimulate fear and anxiety in the victim and his/her immediate human environment. Previous research has used sociodemographic attributes and lifestyle or routine activities measurements to predict crime victimisation rates. The purpose of this study is to examine how personal characteristics are ass...

Research exploring the emotional responses to crime experienced by the citizens of several major European and North American countries, including the UK, has suggested that a significant proportion of the residents of these countries 'fear' crime. However, few researchers have explored the frequency with which citizens feel fearful. This brief rese...

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This article has been published in the journal, British Journal of Criminology [© Oxford University Press]. The British Crime Survey (BCS) has been used to develop a number of statistical models that describe property crime victimization at the level of the individual household. This paper gives an overview of what has been learnt from these studie...