Criminal Spatial Behavior - Assignment Example

Criminal Spatial Behavior The different ways that criminals view themselves influence both their criminal behavior andthe environment where such behavior occurs. Criminals utilize this environment for their movement and daily activities. In most respects, criminals are just similar to other ordinary people, but only with one extraordinary exception. This paper seeks to examine how criminals use their surrounding environment both near and far from where they live to conduct their criminal activities.

Research indicates that the locations at which criminals commit crimes are not arbitrary, but is related to specific experiences of the criminals themselves and suggest some logical form of selection on the criminal’s side even when the basis of selection is not explicit to the criminals themselves (Canter & Youngs 2009). For crimes involving direct economic gain such as burglary or robbery, criminals base on weighting of the perceived benefits and costs to commit them. Nonetheless, for emotional and violent crimes such as; rape, sexual assault, and murder, a rational choice that is considered by the criminals is usually one that does not lead to apprehension and detention, despite that the criminal activity and its motivation may be irrational as perceived by the criminal (Brantingham 1981).

Criminals envision a strategic link in the environmental image; a more general mental picture of the external physical world that benefits from architectural legibility as experienced by the person, more emphasizing affective qualities of the spatial form that is essential both to the physical and emotional well-being of the inhabitant population, socially and personally. Barker (2000) demonstrated that in their interview sample, most robberies and burglaries are committed from approximately 1.

5 to 3 miles from the home of the perpetrator. References:Barker M. (2000). The criminal range of small-town burglars, in: D. Canter en L. Alison, profiling property crimes. Liverpool: Ashgate Dartmouth, p. 57-73.Brantingham, P. (1981). Environmental Criminology. Bevery Hills: Sage Publications.Canter, D. & Youngs, D. (2009). Investigative psychology: Offender profiling and the analysis of criminal action. New York: John Wiley & Sons.