Criminal Hunting Patterns: An Analysis of the Spatial Behavior of Recidivists

The Edward Byrne Memorial Discretionary Grants Program, administered by the Office of Justice Programs' (OJP's) Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA), furthers the Department's mission by assisting state and local jurisdictions in improving the criminal justice system and assisting communities in preventing drug abuse and crime. In fiscal year 2007, the Edward Byrne Memorial Discretionary Grants Program will focus on funding local, regional, and national efforts within six major categories: 1) targeting violent crime; 2) preventing crime and drug abuse; 3) enhancing local law enforcement; 4) enhancing local courts; 5) enhancing local corrections and offender reentry; and 6) facilitating justice information sharing.
The Texas State University at San Marcos will address precipitous increases in violent crime by researching the criminal "hunting" patterns of repeat offenders who are responsible for this increase. Data gathered from the Florida EMPACT (Electronic Monitoring Protection and Crime Tracking) program will be used to map movements of paroled offenders to examine differences in spatial activity patterns between individuals who re-offended and those who did not. It will allow corrections officials to review data about the movements of their supervisees to see if they have violated their conditions of parole, and will allow police officers to link parolees to locations where crime has occurred. The data generated by the GPS tracking system could also be used to provide early warning signs of possible recidivist behavior to law enforcement officials. A report and products will be produced with the gathered project data that will provide project findings, a Crime Analysis and Mapping Template and Law Enforcement Guide that will describe offender crime "hunting" and escape patterns for police and corrections officials, and other useful tools to develop knowledge and expertise in the released offenders' patterns.

CA/NCF