The relationship between victimization of residential burglary and characteristics of neighborhoods

Analysis focusing on the physical environments and way of break-in

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to clarify the relationship between residential burglary and district characteristics. For this purpose, Moran's spatial autocorrelation statistics and the negative binomial regression analysis were conducted based on the crime statistics data of five cities in Ibaraki. Moran's spatial autocorrelation statistics showed that residential burglary in target cities showed decentralized distribution compared to metropolitan cites. Results of analysis on relationship between residential burglary and district characteristics showed similarities and differences with metropolitan area. For example, opposite trends with metropolitan area was that the areas with high family number and low proportion of residents with period of stay less than 5 years showed the high number of burglary. Furthermore, the number of burglary in non-locked houses showed high value in areas with rural characteristics.