When to Refrain from Using Likelihood Surface Methods for Geographic Offender Profiling: An Ex Ante Test of Assumptions (pages 242–256)

摘要

Likelihood surface methods for geographic offender profiling rely on several assumptionsnregarding the underlying location choice mechanism of an offender. We propose an ex ante testnfor checking whether a given set of crime locations is compatible with two necessarynassumptions: circular symmetry and distance decay. The proposed (SDD) test compares thenobserved inter point distances of a given series of crimes with a theoretical distribution functionngoverned by these assumptions, using a Monte Carlo simulation procedure for approximatingnthat distribution function. We apply the SDD test to data on serial burglary fromboth theUKandnthe Netherlands. In most cases, the assumption of an underlying symmetric distance decaynfunction has to be rejected. Copyright #2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.