NCJ Number
218003
Journal
Crime Prevention and Community Safety Volume: 9 Issue: 1 Dated: February 2007 Pages: 1-20
Date Published
February 2007
Length
20 pages
Annotation
In the field of business crime, a theoretical model is developed with a focus on the incivilities thesis, and is examined with data from a survey featuring over 400 female entrepreneurs as respondents.
Abstract
Finding highlights supporting several elements of the theory include: (1) the incidence of disorderly conduct proved to be a robust predictor of violent victimization and burglary; (2) business-level differences in the utilization of crime prevention technologies suppressed the bivariate association between environmental disorder and victimization, suggesting that entrepreneurs adapted to environmental cues independently of actual victimization; and (3) findings were less impressive in models featuring theft as the outcome variable. Findings from this research support the assumption that public disorder is an important environmental precursor of business victimization. Despite a recent surge in research on crimes against the business sector in Finland, the literature has generally failed to contribute to the theoretical core of criminology. The intent of this article is to advance criminological knowledge about environmental antecedents of business victimization. A causal model is developed in an effort to identify salient predictors of business crime. The proposed link between public disorder and crime constitutes the theoretical focus of this research. The theory is evaluated with data generated by a survey of female business owners. Figures, tables, and references