Objectives

Research consistently shows that crime concentrates on a few repeatedly victimized places and targets. In this paper we examine whether the same is true for extortion against businesses. We then test whether the factors that explain the likelihood of becoming a victim of extortion also explain the number of incidents suffered by victimized businesses. The alternative is that extortion concentration is a function of event dependence.

Methods

Drawing on Mexico’s commercial victimization survey, we determine whether repeat victimization occurs by chance by comparing the observed distribution to that expected under a Poisson process. Next, we utilize a multilevel negative binomial-logit hurdle model to examine whether area- and business-level predictors of victimization are also associated with the number of repeat extortions suffered by businesses.

Results

Findings suggest that extortion is highly concentrated, and that the predictors of repeated extortion differ from those that predict the likelihood of becoming a victim of extortion. While area-level variables showed a modest association with the likelihood of extortion victimization, they were not significant predictors of repeat incidents. Similarly, most business-level variables significantly associated with victimization risk showed insignificant (and sometimes contrary) associations with victimization concentration. Overall, unexplained differences in extortion concentration at the business-level were unaffected by predictors of extortion prevalence.

Conclusions

The inconsistent associations of predictors across the hurdle components suggest that extortion prevalence and concentration are fueled by two distinct processes, an interpretation congruent with theoretical expectations regarding extortion that considers that repeats are likely fueled by a process of event dependence.

中文翻译：

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反复敲诈的企业不同吗？勒索受害的多级障碍模型

目标

研究始终表明，犯罪集中在几个反复受害的地点和目标上。在本文中，我们研究了敲诈勒索是否对企业同样适用。然后，我们测试解释成为勒索受害者的可能性的因素是否也解释了受害企业遭受的事件数量。另一种选择是勒索集中度是事件依赖性的函数。

方法

利用墨西哥的商业受害情况调查，我们通过将观察到的分布与Poisson过程中预期的分布进行比较，确定是否重复发生了受害情况。接下来，我们使用多级负二项式-logit障碍模型来检查受害地区和企业级别的受害预测者是否也与企业遭受重复勒索的次数相关。

结果

研究结果表明，勒索行为高度集中，重复勒索行为的预测因子与预测成为勒索行为受害者的可能性的预测因子不同。尽管地区变量显示出与勒索受害可能性之间的适度关联，但它们并不是重复事件的重要预测因子。同样，大多数与受害风险显着相关的业务级别变量显示出与受害集中度无关紧要（有时相反）。总体而言，企业层面勒索集中度的无法解释的差异不受勒索患病率预测因素的影响。

结论

跨栏预测因子的不一致关联表明，敲诈的普遍性和集中度是由两个不同的过程推动的，这一解释与关于敲诈的理论预期相一致，认为重复可能是由事件依赖过程推动的。