Objectives

Building on Hägerstrand’s time geography, we expect temporal consistency in individual offending behavior. We hypothesize that repeat offenders commit offenses at similar times of day and week. In addition, we expect stronger temporal consistency for crimes of the same type and for crimes committed within a shorter time span.

Method

We use police-recorded crime data on 28,274 repeat offenders who committed 152,180 offenses between 1996 and 2009 in the greater The Hague area in the Netherlands. We use a Monte Carlo permutation procedure to compare the overall level of temporal consistency observed in the data to the temporal consistency that is to be expected given the overall temporal distribution of crime.

Results

Repeat offenders show strong temporal consistency: they commit their crimes at more similar hours of day and week than expected. Moreover, the observed temporal consistency patterns are indeed stronger for offenses of the same type of crime and when less time has elapsed between the offenses, especially for offenses committed within a month after the prior offense.

Discussion

The results are consistent with offenders having recurring rhythms that shape their temporal crime pattern. These findings might prove valuable for improving predictive policing methods and crime linkage analysis as well as interventions to reduce recidivism.

中文翻译：

---

罪犯何时犯罪？个人犯罪模式的时间一致性分析

目标

在 Hägerstrand 的时间地理基础上，我们期望个人犯罪行为的时间一致性。我们假设屡犯者在一天和一周的相似时间犯罪。此外，我们预计同类犯罪和在更短时间跨度内实施的犯罪具有更强的时间一致性。

方法

我们使用警方记录的犯罪数据，涉及 1996 年至 2009 年在荷兰大海牙地区犯下 152,180 起罪行的 28,274 名惯犯。我们使用蒙特卡洛置换程序来比较数据中观察到的总体时间一致性水平与考虑到犯罪的总体时间分布而预期的时间一致性。

结果

屡犯者表现出很强的时间一致性：他们在比预期更相似的一天和一周的时间犯罪。此外，观察到的时间一致性模式对于相同类型的犯罪和犯罪之间经过的时间较短时确实更强，特别是对于上次犯罪后一个月内实施的犯罪。

讨论

结果与犯罪者具有反复出现的节奏来塑造他们的时间犯罪模式一致。这些发现可能对改进预测性警务方法和犯罪联系分析以及减少累犯的干预措施很有价值。