Motor Vehicle Theft: Crime and Spatial Analysis in a Non-Urban Region. Executive Summary

摘要

Motor vehicle theft in non-urban areas does not reveal the well-recognized hot spots often associated with crime in urban areas. These findings resulted from a study of 2003 vehicle thefts in a four-county region of western North Carolina comprised primarily of small towns and unincorporated areas. While the study suggested that point maps have limited value for areas with low volume and geographically-dispersed crime, the steps necessary to create regional maps including collecting and validating crime locations with Global Positioning System (GPS) coordinates created a reliable dataset that permitted more in-depth analysis. This in-depth analysis was inherently more valuable and identified distinctive crime patterns in the region. These patterns included: Vehicle thefts were widely dispersed 95% of census block groups (235 of 248) in the region had at least one of 633 thefts during the year. The risk of vehicle theft was significantly higher in areas with higher concentrations of rental housing and in areas with manufacturing or industrial land use. In contrast to vehicle theft in urban areas, business premises were common theft locations in the region; risky facilities such as car dealerships and repair shops were prominent among these theft locations. An unusually high number of vehicles other than cars and trucks were stolen. These hot products included ATVs and mopeds. In contrast to point maps, these findings about the nature of stolen vehicles pointed law enforcement towards highly specific crime prevention strategies.