Crime Patterns and Reflection
A.
I see crime patterns as a way of gaining more insight into the nature of a crime and helping the police and other agencies in the criminal justice system to predict and deter crime. Crime patterns, in my opinion, looks at a group of several cries discovered or reported by enforcement agencies such as the police that are unique in terms of satisfying the characteristics of a common factor, known relationship between offender and victim, distinctiveness form other forms of crime, limited duration, and may involve a set of related crimes.
B.
When I think of crime patterns, what comes to mind is a series of similar criminal incidents, such as a series of bank robberies along a predictable pattern. For example, I think of major hits in small banks or courier trucks using similar tactics and within a given period of time. I think of crime patterns in terms of crime sprees, hot prey, hot products, hot spots, hot places, and hot settings. In each of these terms, the common theme is that there is a victim and offender that can be characterized by frequency, similar characteristics on either offender or criminal, unique targeting of either victim or product, target locations, and setting. I understand that crime patterns do not mean crime trends, but a reflection of the basis of crime analysis that are not defined by statistics only. Crime patterns must be reported to authority bodies or discovered by the same and must be unique with regard to the issues aforementioned relating to frequency, similar characteristics on either offender or criminal, unique targeting of either victim or product, target locations, and setting.
C.
Crime Patterns take different forms including factors and characteristics of: place, time, season, climate; gender & crime; race & crime; unemployment & crime; and age & crime. For example, crime patterns may focus on place where crime consistently occurs in rich or poor neighborhoods. It could also mean that crime is high at a given period of the year, for example during summer when people travel abroad, in a given season such as the Christmas period, and other characteristics that may help to define crime such as age, gender, race, and employment status (Siegel 48). In terms of place, metropolitan areas are more prone to crime compared to rural areas. Time shows that crime rates may be higher at night or during the first days of the month compared to any other times (Siegel 49). The climate also plays a huge role as people spend more time outdoors during the warmer days making themselves easier targets.
In terms of gender and crime, male crime rates are higher compared to those of females (Siegel 50). However, even with the reduced rates for women, the gap is closing. In race and crime, the controversial issues of ethnicity and crime makes it harder to issue crime patterns. Arrest data shows that minority groups are more likely to commit crime (Siegel 51). In terms of unemployment and crime, there is a positive relationship between tough economic times when work is rare and high crime rates (Siegel 53). Unemployment is linked to high crime rates (Siegel 54). For age and crime, younger people commit more crime than older people (Siegel 55).
Crime patterns become such as patterns emerge. This is to mean that where certain characteristics are established, then crime patterns can be seen. Time, place, season, gender, age, race, employment status, or climate can be used to interpret these crime patterns. The patterns that surprise me the most is that gender and crime patterns are slowly converging between males and women. As this gap closes in, it is likely that crimes committed by women will be more in the future compared to the males.
Works CitedSiegel, L. “Criminology: The core.” Cengage learning. (2019).
