Journey-to-crime by gender and age group in Manchester, England

Abstract

This study examines journey-to-crime trips by gender and by age group for offenders who committed crimes in Manchester, England. The data are 97,429 crimes committed in 2006 by 56,368 offenders in which both the residence location of the offender and the crime location were known. Approximately one in six crimes was committed by women and by juveniles. The analysis showed gender differences in crime travel with interactions by age group, location of the crime, the presence of co-offenders, and ethnicity. Juvenile males had the shortest average trip lengths while adult males had the longest. Female offenders, both juveniles and adults, had crime trips of intermediate length but with a higher percentage being committed in major commercial centres. Around one-quarter of the trips were committed in conjunction with co-offenders, who generally lived quite close to the offender. A negative binomial regression model showed that multiple factors contribute to the journey-to-crime distance traveled including type of crime, age and ethnicity of the offender, crime prolificacy of the offender, presence of co-offenders, and location and land use where crimes occurred. Controlling for these factors, with the exception of shoplifting, female offenders traveled shorter distances in committing their crimes, on average, than male offenders. For shoplifting, female offenders traveled longer distances because a higher proportion of those crimes were committed in the central retail core or in town centres. The results indicate that simple generalisations about criminal travel are suspect. Instead, crime travel must be understood as reflecting the interaction of the type of crime, the characteristics of the metropolitan structure, the presence of accomplices, and offender characteristics, particularly gender and age.