NCJ Number
79589
Date Published
1980
Length
7 pages
Annotation
This review assesses Carl Pope's study that examined whether certain kinds of burglaries are committed by certain types of burglars.
Abstract
Data were derived from all burglaries cleared by arrest in 1 year in six California jurisdictions. Variable analysis (v-analysis) of burglary characteristics produced three clusters: (1) use and amount of force to enter a premise, (2) characteristics of the target area census tract, and (3) the type of structure burglarized. The incidents were then clustered through object analysis (o-analysis) based on the composite scores of the v-analysis clusters. Seven types of incidents were identified. Similar steps were used with the offender data, resulting in the identification of eight types of offenders. Two-way cross-tabulation analyses were then performed between the types of incidents and the types of offenders. Further, an analysis of demographic characteristics examined the relationship between the sex, race, and age of apprehended burglary offenders and various incident characteristics. The study found that aside from some minor relationships, certain types of burglars did not tend to commit certain types of burglaries. Burglars 18 years old and older were found to be more likely than those younger to commit burglaries at night and during the winter. The review of the methodology indicates that the operational definitions of variables are generally weak, while there appears to be no theoretical basis to guide the cluster analysis. Since there were duplicated data, the correlations used in the v-analysis of incidents and offenders were higher than normal, and since the number of instances of duplication were not presented, the reviewer cannot assess the magnitude of the bias. No tabular data are provided.