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“It Takes Skills to Take a Car”: Perceptual and Procedural Expertise in Carjacking
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Ethnomethodologists in the field of offender-based research have
recently criticised the earlier use of prison-based samples in research
on residential burglary. They claim that interviewing burglars in
their natural environment has produced findings of greater validity
and reliability. By describing further analysis of data from earlier
experimental research on burglars in prison, and drawing on
findings from other work on residential burglary, this article sets out
to highlight the striking similarity between findings from interview,
experimental and ethnographic studies in this area. Far from
discounting earlier experimental and interview studies, the recent
ethnographic works have served to build on and complement earlier
work. The value of using a variety of methods in offender-based
research is then discussed.
Active offender research contributes to criminology, but a major concern for active offender researchers is that they will be victimized in the course of their work. With that concern in mind, experienced criminologists have recommended strategies for minimizing danger during research, but they have done so in a largely atheoretical manner. This paper calls for the development of a theory of violent victimization in active offender research, and poses the question: What determines the amount of violent victimization in such research? Answering this question is important because it has the potential to provide practical strategies for reducing victimization and, in turn, increasing the amount of research conducted and the number of insights that flow from it. This paper theorizes that active offender researchers are less likely to be threatened or physically harmed as they become more familiar with recruiters, criminals, and their relational ties. The paper concludes with a set of theoretically situated, practical tips for how criminologists might reduce the amount of violent victimization in active offender research.
Increasing theoretical and empirical interest has turned to the process and dynamics of offender decision making and to how offenders commit discrete acts of crime. One outcome is attention to how offenders manage risks they view as significant. Here, the authors examine how carjackers script and manage victim resistance—the foremost obstacle in the accomplishment of robbery. Using semi-structured interviews with 30 carjackers, the authors explore their perspectives on the ramifications of victim resistance and their strategies to forestall and control it. The authors find that offenders are cognizant that resistance interferes with their goals and that mistakes in managing their victims not only lead to unsuccessful carjackings but also threaten their safety. Much of the scripting of criminal opportunity and the enactment of carjacking are explained, therefore, by strategies offenders use to minimize the chances that victims can resist. Discussion focuses on the implications of findings for theories of offender decision making.
Recently, Stafford and Warr identified four categories of experiences hypothesized to underlie judgments about the risk of legal sanctions: personal punishment experience, personal punishment avoidance, vicarious punishment experience, and vicarious punishment avoidance. Using original data to test the Stafford and Warr model, five key findings emerge. First, both personal and vicarious avoidance experiences relate positively to offending. Second, punishment and avoidance experiences affect behavior by influencing sanction risk perceptions. Third, the combination of low personal and vicarious punishment avoidance strongly dissuades offending. Fourth, prior offending conditions the influence of punishment and avoidance experiences in a manner consistent with Stafford and Warr. Fifth, while impulsive individuals are influenced primarily by their own experiences, individuals who are not as impulsive tend to attend more to the experiences of others. Finally, punishment experiences appear to encourage rather than discourage future offending. We discuss how the self-serving bias and the gambler's fallacy help explain this latter, anomalous result.
This article outlines a theoretical framework that distinguishes three forms of responsiveness to legal sanction threats: acute conformist, deterrable, and incorrigible. It then investigates the implications of the framework with data from a perceptual deterrence survey administered to 412 university students. The findings suggest the preeminent empirical regularity in deterrence research—that the deterrent effect of the certainty of punishment far exceeds that of the severity of punishment—may be overstated. An analysis confined to deterrable offenders suggests that the severity effect (relative to the certainty effect) may exceed that reported in extant research.
In this paper we present a "routine activity approach" for analyzing crime rate trends and cycles. Rather than emphasizing the characteristics of offenders, with this approach we concentrate upon the circumstances in which they carry out predatory criminal acts. Most criminal acts require convergence in space and time of likely offenders, suitable targets and the absence of capable guardians against crime. Human ecological theory facilitates an investigation into the way in which social structure produces this convergence, hence allowing illegal activities to feed upon the legal activities of everyday life. In particular, we hypothesize that the dispersion of activities away from households and families increases the opportunity for crime and thus generates higher crime rates. A variety of data is presented in support of the hypothesis, which helps explain crime rate trends in the United States 1947-1974 as a byproduct of changes in such variables as labor force participation and single-adult households.
We propose a model that integrates the extralegal consequences from conviction and impulsivity into the traditional deterrence framework. The model was tested with 252 college students, who completed a survey concerning drinking and driving. Key findings include the following: (1) Although variation in sanction certainty and severity predicted offending, variation in celerity did not; (2) the extralegal consequences from conviction appear to be at least as great a deterrent as the legal consequences; (3) the influence of sanction severity diminished with an individual's “present-orientation”; and (4) the certainty of punishment was far more robust a deterrent to offending than was the severity of punishment.
For all of the media attention it has received in the United States, Europe and elsewhere, carjacking remains an under-researched and poorly understood crime. In this article, we explore the decision-making processes of active carjackers in real-life settings and circumstances, focusing on the subjective foreground conditions that move such offenders from an unmotivated state to one in which they are determined to act. Drawing from semi-structured ethnographic interviews with 28 active carjackers in St Louis, Missouri, we argue that while the decision to commit a carjacking stems most directly from a situated interaction between particular sorts of perceived opportunities and particular sorts of perceived needs and desires, this decision is activated, mediated, and shaped by participation in urban street culture.
This paper begins by reviewing research on the cognitive processing used by residential burglars when choosing targets. We then attempt to make links between this processing and the notion of expertise in the broader cognitive literature, to the extent that, in comparison with novices, processing appears removed from explicit deliberation, tasks are carried out speedily and methodically, and recognition of relevant stimuli or cues is extremely fast, if not instantaneous. We then present new data from interviews with 50 experienced burglars. We cover the initial decision to burgle and selection of the target followed by, for the first time in the UK, a detailed discussion of search strategies within the property. Forty-five out of 50 burglars had a predictable search pattern and 37 spontaneously described their searches using terms signifying automaticity-an underlying feature of expertise. We discuss the implications of these findings in terms of primary and secondary crime prevention.
We examined the decision strategies and cue use of experts and novices in a consequential domain: crime. Three participant groups decided which of two residential properties was more likely to be burgled, on the basis of eight cues such as location of the property. The two expert groups were experienced burglars and police officers, and the novice group was composed of graduate students. We found that experts' choices were best predicted by a lexicographic heuristic strategy called take-the-best that implies noncompensatory information processing, whereas novices' choices were best predicted by a weighted additive linear strategy that implies compensatory processing. The two expert groups, however, differed in the cues they considered important in making their choices, and the police officers were actually more similar to novices in this regard. These findings extend the literature on judgment, decision making, and expertise, and have implications for criminal justice policy.
Drawing from in-depth qualitative interviews, this research note explores how carjacking offenders establish copresence with victims. Two tactics are explored: normalcy illusions and blitzes. The paper links these tactics conceptually to the delivery of coercive actions. Discussion focuses on the offenders' manipulation of celerity and publicity in the approach process and its implications for compliance generation in an alternative coercive climate.
Although prior studies on robbery decision making have explored how offenders manipulate fear in the coercive process, research has paid little attention to the issue as it relates to carjacking. The gap is significant given that carjacking requires offenders to neutralize victims who are inherently mobile and who can use their vehicles as both weapons and shields. Based on qualitative interviews with 24 active carjackers, the present paper explores this issue and the data’s grounded-theoretic significance for coercive decision making in predatory social exchange. In particular, the article examines fear as an essential intervening variable that links threat to compliance. It also explores how offenders manipulate the “severity” dimension of threat to influence the certainty and celerity of compliance. The approach taken here offers an advancement in the study of coercion and a refinement of the compliance generation process itself.
This article reports the results of an experiment designed to explore (a) the environmental cues used by active residential burglars in choosing targets, and (b) the extent to which such offenders possess specialized cognitive abilities (commonly referred to as expertise) that might facilitate this decision-making process. Forty-seven active residential burglars and a matched group of 34 nonoffenders were shown photographs of houses and asked whether the dwellings would be attractive or otherwise to burglars. Subsequently, subjects were given a surprise recognition test where, in some photographs, physical features of the setting had been changed. Results revealed that active residential burglars were significantly better than nonoffenders at recognizing certain “burglary relevant” environmental changes. Moreover, offenders differed from controls in the mix of environmental cues they employed when selecting targets. These results argue for the importance of acquired expertise in explanations of offender decision making.
This article investigates home attributes that attract residential burglars in choosing a target. These attributes are the location of the home, its physical appearance, demographic characteristics of the residents, and the security precautions present. The theoretical foundation of the empirical model is the criminal utility maximization behavior that considers costs and benefits as formulated by Becker. However, this article introduces to the model the spatial dimension of the burglar's search for a target. The incidence of burglary is the dependent variable and is measured in a dichotomy scale. The empirical analysis utilizes a survey database of burgled and non-burgled homes that was conducted by the researchers. A logit model is used for the investigation, and the effects of the explanatory variables are calculated as probabilities. The database is unique in the wealth of attributes of individual homes that are relevant to burglars' decision process.
A direct perception analysis of dispositional knozwng, based on an ecological approach that is grounded in the use of activity to get mind into the world, is presented. It is proposed that social dispositions such as dominance or cooperativeness can be directly perceived, as opposed to inferred, if they are embodied in relational activities that activate the disposition. The choice of the particular activity as a way of turning dispositions into perceivable social affordances is related to an evolutionarily oriented analysis of dispositions as evolved adaptive solutions for solving basic social problems such as mate selection and group formation. Objections to the possibility of direct perception that are based on claims of insufficient or deceptive information are countered by the introduction of event-activity tests, modeled after perturbation and bifurcation processes in dynamic systems formulations. Comparisons are then made between the ecological claims of realism, mutualism, and activity and aspects of current constructive models of dispositional knowing, such as Wright and Mischel's conditional hedge model and Trope's Bayesian inference approach.
Noting the occasional inconsistency in the results of studies of the effects of negative affect on thoughts and actions in social situations, it is suggested that: (1) self-regulatory mechanisms sometimes intervene to determine what people experiencing unpleasant feeling will say (and maybe think) about others around them; and (2) at least some of these mechanisms may have to be activated by relatively high-level cognitive processing and are not always operative. More specifically. the theoretical analysis presented here holds that many different kinds of negative affect will prime thoughts having a negative meaning, including unfavourable judgements of others. However, negative affect does not always lead to openly expressed negative opinions and actions. It is proposed that attention to one's moderately unpleasant feelings tends to moderate the effect of negative affect on subsequent negative thoughts and actions by activating “higher-level” cognitive processing so that consideration is given to different kinds of knowledge pertinent to the given situation, including the social rules defining what is desirable and whatever relevant information is provided in the situation. Two experiments are reported, employing greatly different procedures and subjects of both sexes. in support of this analysis. The seeming disparity between the present conception and self-awareness theory is also discussed. and it is noted that these formulations are actually not at odds. Suggestions are made for further research.
Drawing from interviews with female crack dealers, this paper explores the techniques they use to avoid arrest. We present these techniques through a four-part typology of contextual assimilation consisting of projected self-image, stashing, selling hours, and routine activities/staged performances. In addition to confronting many of the same risks and challenges as their male counterparts, women dealers face unique circumstances that are indisputably gendered. Our goal is to explore how gender shapes and mediates their dealing experience, paying specific attention to arrest-risk management. The data's larger conceptual implications are addressed, particularly as they relate to dynamic interchanges between gender and emergent street crack market conditions.
The frustration-aggression hypothesis advanced by Dollard, Doob, Miller, Mowrer, and Sears is briefly summarized and it is noted that 1) a frustration can be defined as the nonfulfillment of an expected gratification, and 2) the instigation to aggression produced by a frustration is an inclination to hostile (or angry) and not instrumental aggression. The objections to this thesis holding that only arbitrary (or illegitimate) frustrations produce aggressive reactions and/or that only controllable and intentional misdeeds give rise to anger are then examined. Evidence is reported showing that frustrations can create an instigation to aggression even when they are not arbitrary or intentionally directed at the person. However, it is argued that the frustration-aggression hypothesis should be revised: Frustrations produce aggressive inclinations only to the extent that they are aversive and give rise to negative affect. Berkowitz's model of aversively stimulated aggression is summarized, and supporting evidence is cited.
salient categories of person perception / specific qualities perceived in people / origins of person perception categories and qualities
stimulus information for person perception / physical attractiveness / trait perception (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
We use the Gibsonian ecological construct of affordance to integrate personality and social psychology. Illustrative applications include the interpersonal implications of depression, the nature of social competence, the meaning of traits, and various aspects of the structure and function of attitudes. We also use the affordance concept to derive a lock-and-key metaphor for integrating personality and social psychology. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
This article reports the results of an empirical study designed to determine what features of the immediate environment are important to juvenile house burglars in their selection of targets. The study involved two main subject groups: (i) convicted juvenile burglars; and (ii) adult householders. Subjects were presented with photographs of houses and asked whether or not they would choose them as a burglary target on the basis of the information available. These photographs were identical for each subject apart from a controlled factor. Data also were gathered from participants via a checklist procedure, a short interview and a surprise recognition test. The findings indicated that young burglars largely concurred as to the factors which influenced their decision when choosing a target. However, their choice of factors differed in several important respects from those which householders believed to be important to such offenders. The implications of this work for environmental crime prevention strategies are discussed.
Male and female subjects performed several tasks either in the presence or absence of an environmental source of positive affect (pleasant artificial scents produced by two commercially manufactured air-fresheners). Consistent with the findings of previous research on the impact of positive affect, results indicated that several aspects of subjects' behavior were influenced by this variable. Participants exposed to pleasant scents set higher goals on a clerical coding task and were more likely to adopt an efficient strategy for performing this task than subjects not exposed to such conditions. In addition, males (but not females) reported higher self-efficacy in the presence of pleasant artificial scents than in their absence. Participants exposed to pleasant scents also set higher monetary goals and made more concessions during face-to-face negotiations with an accomplice. Finally, subjects exposed to pleasant scents reported weaker preferences for handling future conflicts with the accomplice through avoidance and competition. Analyses of covariance suggested that these differences stemmed largely from contrasting levels of positive affect among subjects in the neutral and pleasant scent conditions. Together, these results suggest that pleasant artificial scents may provide a potentially useful means for enhancing the environmental quality of work settings, and hence the performance and attitudes of persons in them.
The rapid ascendance of deterrence theory and other rational-choice interpretations of criminal behaviour in the 1970s was matched until recently by a failure to examine empirically the criminal decision making of serious offenders. This paper reports the results of an ethnographic investigation of criminal decision making by a sample of persistent property offenders. Following brief introductory comments, we describe our research objectives and methodology. Then we describe salient features of the decision-making processes employed by members of the sample. We argue that improved understanding of criminal decision making by persistent property offenders is gained by exploring how their utilities are shaped and sustained by the lifestyle characteristic of many of them. We suggest that offenders' efforts to acquire the financial and social capital needed to enhance, sustain, or restore enjoyment of this lifestyle may generate a bounded rationality in which they discount or ignore the formal risks of crime.
This study assesses the effects of attractiveness, opportunity and accessibility to burglars on the residential burglary rates of urban neighborhoods, combining two complementary lines of investigation that have been following separate tracks in the literature. As a complement to standard measures of attractiveness and opportunity, we introduce and specify a spatial measure of the accessibility of neighborhoods to burglars. Using data on about 25, 000 attempted and completed residential burglaries committed in the period 1996–2001 in the city of The Hague, the Netherlands, we study the variation in burglary rates across its 89 residential neighborhoods. Our results suggest that all three factors, attractiveness, opportunity and accessibility to burglars, pull burglars to their target neighborhoods.
The research reported here is based on a comparison of active residential burglars and a matched control group regarding their willingness to commit a burglary at varying levels of certainty of arrest, severity of penalty, and anticipated reward. Initial analyses revealed that few controls were willing to offend regardless of risk, penalty, or reward and that offenders were not influenced by penalty on its own. Consequently, responses of the offenders only were further analyzed in relation to the impact of risk, penalty, and reward. The results of a logit analysis indicated that both risk of being caught and prospect of increased gain had a significant influence on the offenders' decision making.
Data drawn from semistructured interviews with 40 active street-level crack dealers are used to illustrate, apply, and expand the concept of restrictive deterrence. The article focuses on the perceptual shorthand dealers use to determine whether buyers in question are “narcs.” In presenting this shorthand, the article seeks to demonstrate how interactions among marketplace democratization (i.e., the idea of selling to as many different customers as possible to maximize profits), marketplace volatility, transactional brevity, and threats from law enforcement affect its complexity and refinement. Respondents operated out of a medium-sized, midwestern metropolitan area (population: 2.2 million) within a central city of 390,000.
Research on cognitive processes in decision making has identified heuristics that often work well but sometimes lead to serious errors. This paper presents an investigation of the performance of heuristics in a complex dynamic setting, characterized by repeated decisions with feedback. There are three components: (1) A simulated task resembling medical decision problems (diagnosis and treatment) is described. (2) Computer models of decision strategies are developed. These include models based on cognitive heuristics as well as benchmark strategies that indicate the limit of the heuristic strategies' performance. The upper benchmark is based on statistical decision theory, the lower one on random trial and error. (3) Selected task characteristics are systematically varied and their influence on performance evaluated in simulation experiments. Results indicate that task characteristics often studied in past research (e.g., symptom diagonosticity, disease base-rates) have less influence on performance relative to feedback-related aspects of the task. These dynamic characteristics are a major determinant of when heuristics perform well or badly. The results also provide insights about the costs and benefits of various cognitive heuristics. In addition, the possible contribution of this research to the design and evaluation of decision aids is considered.
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