Thom Snaphaan

Ghent University | UGhent · Department of Criminology, Criminal Law and Social Law

The aim of this methodological contribution is to provide insight into the added value of crime script analysis in the context of intelligence-led crime control and crime prevention. Crime script analysis allows criminologists to generate, organize and systematize knowledge and information about the procedural aspects and procedural requirements of...

Research methods in social science take advantage from broader trends such as digitalization and increasing computational power, however, this is an evolving explorative search. The main purpose of this article is to describe the methodological innovations in the collection and processing of geo-referenced imagery for the observation of neighborhoo...

This article assesses whether ambient population is a more suitable population-at-risk measure for crime types with mobile targets than residential population for the purpose of intelligence-led policing applications. Specifically, the potential use of ambient population as a crime rate denominator and predictor for predictive policing models is ev...

This study examines to what extent new and emerging data sources or big data have been empirically used to measure key theoretical concepts within environmental criminology. By means of a scoping review, aimed at studies published between 2005 and 2018, insight is provided into the characteristics of studies that used big data sources within enviro...

Big data en innovatieve methoden winnen aan belang in wetenschappelijk onderzoek. Dit komt onder meer door de digitalisering van onze dagelijkse activiteiten en ontwikkelingen in het domein van artificiële intelligentie. Hoewel andere disciplines hiervan volop de vruchten plukken, blijven de criminologische en veiligheidswetenschappen, zowel onderz...

This study tests the law of crime concentration at place in Brussels Capital Region (approx. 1.2 million inhabitants) and examines the spatial stability of crime concentrations by applying Andresen’s Spatial Point Pattern Test. Besides testing the law of crime concentration city-wide, this study also tests the law of crime concentration in the cont...

De financiële aanpak van georganiseerde criminaliteit kan tot op heden hoofdzakelijk gekenschetst worden als buitgericht. Het toegenomen aantal strafrechtelijke witwaszaken en de aandacht voor het afpakken van crimineel vermogen zijn tekenend voor deze tendens. Deze aanpak heeft een belangrijk nadeel: het situeert zich namelijk per definitie aan de...

Dutch: Financial crime scripting is een nieuwe methode waarmee inzicht wordt verschaft in criminele geldstromen gerelateerd aan winstgedreven vormen van criminaliteit. Voortbouwend op de bestaande methode van crime scripting, die al in de jaren negentig van de vorige eeuw werd geïntroduceerd in de criminologie, is het met deze nieuwe methode mogeli...

The availability and use of new and emerging data sources has increased exponentially. The variety of these data sources offers opportunities to complement, replace, improve or add to conventional data sources. Survey data is one kind of these conventional data sources. In survey research, a framework to assess the accuracy of survey data already h...

Dutch: De komst en razendsnelle evolutie van het internet en sociale media hebben belangrijke gevolgen voor de manier waarop we met elkaar omgaan, communiceren en informatie tot ons nemen. Deze evoluties hebben repercussies voor het politiewerk en ook voor de samenwerking tussen politie en burger. Een van die samenwerkingsvormen tussen politie en b...

Dutch: In dit themanummer wordt gereflecteerd over big-datatoepassingen bij de politie. Terpstra en Salet (2020) noemen dit ‘een van de grootste veranderingen binnen de politie over het afgelopen decennium’ (p. 25). Naast de aandacht voor dit onderwerp in het Nederlands taalgebied (bijv. Janssen et al., 2020; Spithoven & Beerends, 2019), wordt de r...

Dutch: De beschikbaarheid en het gebruik van big-databronnen neemt exponentieel toe. De grote variëteit aan nieuwe en opkomende databronnen biedt opportuniteiten om ze aan te wenden naast of ter vervanging van conventionele databronnen. Een van die conventionele databronnen is surveydata. Binnen surveyonderzoek bestaat al langere tijd een raamwerk...

Special issue on big data policing

This study focuses on the use of systematic social observations (SSO) to measure crime prevention through environmental design (CPTED) and disorder. To improve knowledge about measurement issues in small area research, SSO is conducted by means of three different methods: in-situ, photographs, and Google Street View (GSV) imagery. By evaluating the...

Buurtinformatienetwerken (BIN’s) zijn partnerschappen waarin de politie, buurtbewoners en gemeenten hun krachten bundelen in de strijd tegen criminaliteit. Deze worden vaak opgericht in een buurt vanwege een bezorgdheid over de veiligheid, zoals bij hogere politiecijfers voor diefstallen uit voertuigen, woninginbraak en/of vandalisme. Met deze stu...

Building on the existing analytical framework of crime scripting, we propose financial crime scripting as an intelligence-led approach to gain insights in criminal money flows, criminal business processes and their revenue models. These insights inform (decisions on) interventions, which increases their impact and effect.

The aim of this study is to gain insight into the prevalence of intoxicated cycling at night, why young people choose a bicycle as transport modus when intoxicated and what they know about the penalization of intoxicated cycling. Two methods of data collection were used: a survey and breathalyzer in the field (n=68) and an online survey (n=2709). R...

This study examines the ecological reliability, convergent validity and ecological stability of neighbourhood (dis)organizational processes measured by means of two methods: inhabitant surveys and the so-called key informant analysis technique. Considering that ecological processes play a major role in many contemporary criminological theories and...

Even though the dark number is especially high for cybercrimes, it is unclear by whom and to whom cybercrime is reported. Therefore, this study will answer the following questions: (1) who reports cybercrime incidents, and (2) to whom do victims report cybercrime? Analyses based on survey data including 334 recent cybercrime victims, indicate that...

Employing a multilevel perspective on the health effects of social capital, this study analyzes how individual and neighborhood differences in self-rated health in Ghent (Belgium), relate to individual and collective social mechanisms, when taking demographic and socioeconomic characteristics of individuals into account. This study estimates the he...

An important portion of internet users have faced cybercrime in recent years. One successful strategy for dealing with cybercrime victimization is to seek social support. However, previous studies showed that only a limited number of victims reaches out to family or friends to ask for help after a cybercrime incident. The current study sought to ga...

The purpose of this study is to identify the added value of new and emerging data sources in environmental criminology, in comparison to traditional research methodologies and data sources. In this contribution, the state of the art based on recent endeavors regarding conventional research methodologies and data sources is compared to the extent in...

This study examines the extent to which crime concentrations occur at micro places, in order to test Weisburd’s law of crime concentration at places, in two large Belgian cities. Police-registered crime data for the period 2004–2012 were used. Analyses were conducted at the grid level (using 200 meters by 200 meters grid cells), as a proxy for beha...

The principal aim of this multilevel study was to assess the impact of collective efficacy and disorder, as neighborhood characteristics, and individual social capital on an individual’s avoidance behavior, independent of the neighborhood composition. The theoretical backdrop to the present study integrates insights from social capital theory, coll...