NCJ Number
193487
Date Published
2000
Length
6 pages
Annotation
This chapter examines personal mental representation as the basis for the selection of the location for offense activities.
Abstract
Criminals tend to offend in a limited area and that area tends to be close to where they live. Studies have shown that people make sense of and relate to their surroundings leading to the development of a “mental map.” A mental map is an internal representation of the world that one uses to find one’s way around and make decisions. This could be one form of explanation for the limitations on the geographical mobility of criminals. Because the mental representations criminals have of the locations in which they commit their crimes are rarely examined, the suppositions that form the basis of many debates in environmental criminology have yet to be tested. This exploration is notoriously difficult but has not stopped social and behavioral scientists from making approximations. Considerable potential for understanding criminals’ ways of thinking about their crimes and the locations in which they commit them lies in asking them to draw a map that indicates where they have committed crimes. When crime is an integral part of the offender’s day-to-day activities, the sketch maps that are drawn can be taken as indicators of how they see the structure of their local world. When the crimes become an all-embracing drive that takes over the offenders’ life, then the sketch maps the offenders draw can be chilling in the sense they give of dominating the offender’s life. Four examples are presented to illustrate the ways in which criminal activity can be more fully understood if the mental representations that criminals have of where they commit their crimes are explored. Asking offenders to draw maps of where they commit their crimes does reveal some interesting insight but the sketch maps on their own without any background information can be misleading. 4 figures, 11 references