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N(ltional Criminal Justice Reference Service

This microfiche was produced from documents received for inclusion in the NCJRS data base, Since NCJRS cannot exercise control over the physical condition of the documents submitted, the individual frame quality will vary, The resolution chart on this frame may be used to evaluate the document quality.

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MICROCOPY RESOLUTION TEST CHART NATIONAL BUREAU OF STANDARDS·1963·A

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Points of view or opinions stated in this document are those of the author(s) and do not represent the official position or policies of the U. S. Department of Justice.

National Institute of Justice United States D,epartment ofJusticte Washington, D~ C. 20531

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This project wa~ sUpported by Grant Number N

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Iorcement Assistance Adm' ~ t- . D J.n .... s ratJ.on U. S.

epartment of' Justice • d . , , . ,un e~ the Omnibus Crime C~ntro1 and

Streets Act of' 1968 ~ 'I' f. • Saf'e , ., a.S amended. Points

~', ~ of' view or opinions

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stated in this dQ(;L:ment are those ., i'

" .' - ... _ . _ ,of the author~'.~~q., do not necessarJ.1y represent th " • ,.. .- . -.. - - .

e offJ.cJ.a1 position , or policies of' ~he U.S. Department of' Justice.

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The Prevention and Control of Robbery Volume Three

THE GEOGRAPHY OF ROBBERY

By

Susan wilcox

U.S. Department of Justice National Institute of Justice

This document has been reproduced exactly as received from the person or organization originating it. Points of view or opinions stated in this document are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official position or policies of the National Institute of Justice.

Permission to reproduce this 4I9p1'J;iQhleQ material has been granted by

Public Domain / LEAA

to the National Criminal Justice Reference Service (NCJRS),

Further reproduction outside of the NCJRS system requires permis­si!)n of the~t owner.

April 1973,

The Center on Administration of Criminal Justice

Un,iversity of California, Davis

Co-Directors

Edward L. Barrett, Jr. ueD School of Law

Lloyd D. Musolf Institute of Governmental Affai·rs

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THE GEOGRAPHY OF ROBBERY

Table of Contents

Chapter

One: The Study .••••••••••••..••••••••••••••••••.•••••.•.. 5 Two: Robbery In The City ..•••••••••••••••••.••••••••••..• 10 Three: Commercial RObbery.................................. 27 Four: Individual RObbery ••.••.•••••••••••••.•••.•.••••••.•• 40 Five: A Comparison With Some Earlier Research ••• : •.••••... 72 Six: Some Problems of Spatial Analysis ••••••••••.•.••.••. 95

Footnote s •••.••••••• • •••••••••••••.••••.•.•••••••.•.• 107

The Prevention and Control of Robbery

.t Volume One: The Robbery Setting, The Actors and Some Issues

Volume Two:

Volume Three:

Volume Four:

Volume Five:

The Handling of Robbery Arrestees: of Fact and Policy

The Geography of Robbe~y

Some Issues

The Response of the Police and Other Agencies to Robbery

The History and Goncept of Robbery

This study was made possible by grants from the National Institute

of Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice (NI-70-02,9) and from the

Ford Foundation. The findings and conclusions are, however, solely

those of the authors and not necessarily those Q,f the Department of

Justice or the Foundation.

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Study Directors:

Geography Study:

History and Co?cept Study:

Police Response Study:

Field Superv'isors:

Research Assistants:

Marie Aindrus Steve Baker Lee Bardellini Susan Bardellini Roosevelt Baines Bill Bisset Mary Boehm Larry Bolton Phil Bourdette Ann Buchbinder Elizabeth Cabrall Alan Carlson Shirley cartwright Jan Charlup

. Lynn Cooper Richard coughlin Bruce Degraaf

. Bill Dubois

Consultants:

James Cherry Michael Matchett

Support Staff:

Lainda" Boosembark Carol Crayne

, General Consultants:

Ronald Beattie

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PROJECT STAFF

Floyd Feeney, Adrianne Weir

Sus,:!U Wilcox Special Consultant: Paul Marr

Charles Van Court

Jarl:1.\'3s Smith, William Smith

Thomas Acei tuno, Michael Spedick, Selene Wolf

Janet E'ichtel Joe Fracchia James Freeman Molly Freeman. David Garthe Karen Gleitsman Michael Gottfredson M,aureen Grattan Russ Grinq.le Doug Hitchcock Christine Ingraham Peter Janiak Ronald Johnston Philip Karlton Jessica Kuzmanich Cassandra Lloyd· Rhodney Lloyd

Robert Millar Abraham Miller Ike Sofaer

Dollye Evans Virginia Grose Darleen McNamer

Donald Cre.Esey

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Robert Malmquis t Ted McEwen Michael Moser Mike Nakagawa Gary Nishikawa Bruce Nixon Ed Ratcliffe Peter Rueckert Tom Schuttish Tony Shih Daniel simmons Bradford Smith Donna Sofaer Tom Specht Phyllis Turner Ray Ward Ruth White Judi Zukerman

Virginia Vanich Max Wendel

Suesan Wagnon Jo White

Willard HutchihS

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Ackno\<,rledgrnen ts

, This study was made possible by the generous support and as~~stance of many people and agencies. Particularly generous in th~s respect was the Oakland Police Department and its chief Charles R. Gain, whose encouragement and advice were invaluable. Th~nks are also ~xpr:ssed tO,Deputy Chiefs George Hart and Odell Sylvester, Captal.ns doward D~lsaver and Palmer Stinson, Lts. James Bratton Dominick DiFraia, Ellis Goode, Wilford Fugler, Francis Morris ' Waller Prentic.e, Elwood S tre 10 , Sgts. John Kearns, Charles 'Nelson Stanley White, Robert Wagenhoffer, Officers John Chargin, Harry , strel~, and Ed Hunter, and to Fred Fong, Linda Moody, and retired Capta~ns Edward Connolly and John Guidici, and many others. .

Special appreciation is also due to Lowell Jensen, Alameda Count~ District Attorney and his staff, particularly Albert Hederman and R~chard Haugner who helped at many points. James Callahan Chief Prob~tion Officer, ~lam~da County, and his department al~o made many 7mportant contr7but~ons, especially Robin Burge, Douglas Byrne, Mar~anne Cabral, M~chael Catrina, Russell Dunn Grace Elmore Dante Massoni, Margaret Paras, Ray Raineri, James Rau;ust, Karen ' Souza, Lawrence Townsend, T. E. Winkleman, Bob Woo, Larry Woods, and Robert Yee. Judge Jacqueline Taber, of the Alameda County Municipal Court assisted in arranging data collection as did the County Clerk's Office, particularly Leroy Anton, Edna'Busby, J. E. Jones'.,Al Ler0t;e, and C. J. Moret. Ger~ld Daunt, Uniform Crime Report~ng Sect~on, FBI, and Marcus Neithercutt, NCCD also made importan t contributions. I

Special appreciation for help with the geography study is expr7ss~d to Pau~ Marr, the staff of the Oakland City Planning comm~ss~on,.par~~cularly Alex Zuckermann, and the staff of the Social Science Data Service and the Computer Center, University of California Davis. '

,John C~nrad and H~nry Ruth of the National Institute were help­~ul 7n ge~t~ng the proJect underway, as was Fred Heinzelmann in keep­~ng,~t go~ng., Lou Mayo,made many valuable suggestions as project' mon~tor, part~cularly w~th the study of detective organization. Don~ld cres~ey's thoughtful assistance helped develop the overall p:oJect des~gn, and Ronald Beattie and Bill Hutchins helped greatly w~th the many problems of collecting and using data. Edward Barrett's advice and assistance were valuable throughout.

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c Chapter One

THE STUDY

I

Where crime occurs is important. Important to citizens

trying to avoid the impact of crime on their lives, important

to the police in their efforts to preve~11t and deter crimes, and

important to planners and other officials who have responsibilities

for generating and implementing physical and environmental changes

that may affect crime.

Despite this importance there has been relatively little study

of the spatial patterns of crime within the city, particularly in

recent years and particularly of specific crimes. This study is

an attempt to determine the patterns of robbery in a medium-sized

An'lerican ci ty--Oakland, California.

The crime of robbery involves the taking of property from

another by means of force or fear. It encompasses mUggings, yokings

and holdups, and makes up a high percentage of all violent street

crime. Concern about Ii safety in the streets II is in large part con-

A. The Data

Oakland was chosen for this study because the city has <,all the

. problems of' a typical core city and. because the Oakland Police De-

t h ' h oV'er the years has developed an excellent record partmen I W 1C t,~<',':-

keeping system, was willing to cooperate with the study. The Oakland

Police Department made available its records for robbery for the

years 1966, 1967j and 1968.

Records for pursesnatching, a crime very similar to robbery

in that it involves a sudden taking of property from an.other but,'

which does not involve the use of force, were also ,made,available,

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A total of 6,580 records were made available as shown in Table 1.

[Insert Table 1]

in Both crimes were increasing during this period as indicated

the table, and particularly during 1968, which was by far the

highest year for robbery-type crimes to that date.

The information available included the date and time of the

robbery; age, sex, and race of the vict1'm,. house number and street

code, premi se type, census tract, and po11' .ce beat of the robbery

.site; and the value and object of the robbery.

Addi tional information wc:~s added to the Oak' land Police Depart-

ment'.s data from the police reports in order to more accurately pin-

point the location of the offense. The address of the robbery site

was located upon a map of the city which conta1'ned

rletwork. an X-Y coordinate

This coordinate system was then recorded along with the crime report information for use '

1n computerized mapping of the rObberies. The g 'd ' th'

r1 s 1n 1S network were located 400 feet apart,

making each grid square 160,000 square feet, or approximately a

half bl' ock. W'th' th' 1 1S network for locating the f o fenses computer ;;

printer plot maps were developed using the Symap program. Each

point of these computer produced maps represents the tally of

robbery and pursesnatch occurrences 1'n th 'd ' e gr1 squarE~ ~ In addi-

tion to the coordinate information the street making the nearest

intersection with the street on which the robbery occurred was coded.

The robbery data was then locationaj.ly accessible by:

i'_ ; ,

X-y grid coordinate 10cation 1

Cen~us tract,in which the offense occurred Poll.ce,beat 1n which the offense occurred

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.. .,... ..... ' .... ~--... --':"""'--::"":"""-:--~---------~--~-----

Robberies

1966

1967

1968

Total

...

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T~b1e 1 .. ' , .

and Purse snatches - 1966-68

Robbery Pursesnatch

1052 268

1404 420

2733 703

5189 1391

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Total

1320

1824

3436

6580

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Street on which the offense occurred street intersection nearest the offense

B. The City

Oakland is a city of 360,000 located on the mainland side of

the San Francisco Bay. It has all the characteri~tics of the core

of a much larger urban area. Encompassing about 54 square miles,

it is the second largest city of a metropolitan area of three million

people arid is situated in the middle part of a string of urban cities

along the eastern side of the Bay. Flanked by Berkeley on the north

and San Leandro on the south, Oakland, as shown in Map 1, is physi-

cally composed of two areas, a "flatland." area next to the Bay and

a "hill" area further inland. The waterfront is largely industrial;

further inland is a section of older houses, and beyond that there

is a rather undefined downtown, commercial core. Radiating out,

<=> from this downtown core area are a number of major arteries along

which there are long, thin commercial strips. Beyond these, the

hill area, largely residential, rises into the coast range which goes

up to nearly 2,000 feet. Oakland completely surrounds the small 1

city of Piedmont.

[Insert Map 1]

Using the point mapping method, there are approximately 9,200

grid squares o~'approximately a half block area each in the city of

Oakland. Approximately 3,000 of these areas are either water-covered

or are areas such as tide flats or high hills that are essentially

not in'the inhab.i'ted part of the city.

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Map 1

San Francisco Bay Region

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Chapter Irwo

ROBBERY IN THE CITY

The most significant spatial fact about robbery in Oakland

is that for most parts of the city robbery is a relatively rare event.

During the three-year study period, 1966-68, Oakland had one

of the highest robbery rates in the country and the number of rob­

beries in the city had climbed to his'corical1y high levels. Despite

these high rates, however, Over 4,000 or more than two thirds, of

the approxima~ely 6,200 half block-sized areas of the city that

are neither watercovered, vacant or too hilly for occupation, had

no rObberies or purse snatches during the entire ·three-year period.

Only 2,059 of the areas had a robbery or pursesnatch during this

period, as shown in Table 2. And of this number 864 had only one

such event. Thus only 19 iC'ercent of the approximately 6,200 possible

grid squares contained more than one robbery or pursesnatch offense.

Overall more than 25 percent of the robberies and prusesnatches

occurred within less than four percent of the inhabited grid squares.

Even in these grid squares, however, robbery was not a daily or a

weekly event. Only one grid .square averaged as many as one offense

per month and few were even close.

[Insert Table 2 J

Nor were the areas which did have robberies during the study

period evenly distributed throughout the city.

--First, robbery is heavily concentrated in the flatlands,

and particularly near the Bay.

--SeCOhd,this concentration diminishes with increaSing dis-

tance from the Bay.

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Table 2

Number of Grid Squares With Robberies and Pursesnatches 1966-1968

Number of Robberies and Pursesnatches Number of in Grid sguare Grid Squares

0 4141

1 864

2 427

3 234

4 135

5 91

6 66

7-8 94

9-10 50

11-20 78

21-50 19

Above 50 1 : \

Total 6200

*Less than .02 p.ercent.

Percent of All Occupied Grid Squares in the City

66.8

13.9

6.9

3.8

2.2

1.5

1.0

1.5

0.8

1.3

0.3

-*

100.0

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Cumulative Percent All Grid Squares Excluding Those Wit;hout, a Robbery

13.9

20.8

'24.6

26.8

28.3

29.3

30.8

31.6

32.9

33.2

33.2

33.2

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--Third, even wi thin the general areas of concentrati~~rt in

the flatlands, there are large areas of little or no

robbery.

--Fourth, there is a heavy concentration along certain major

streets.

The robbery dist~ibution shown on Map 2 is the pattern for

the total sample of all robbery and pursesnatch offenses during

'the three-year period. Separate distributions for armed, and

strongarm robberies are shown on Maps 3 and 4. These distributions

are essentially the same as that for all robberies as a group: a

concentration in the flatlands with the concentration decreasing as

the distance from the Bay increases.

The distribution for pursesnatches, shown on Map 5, however,

differs from the total rQbbery distribution and differs strongly

from the armed and strongarm distributions.

[Insert Maps 2, 3, 4 & 5]

If all rObberies are broken down by sex of the victim and the

pursesnatches grouped together with the female armed and female

strongarm robberies, the reE?ulting distribution is similar to that

for the purse snatches alone and quite different from the distri­

bution formed by gJ:;'ouping the male armed and male strongarm robber-

ies. The major, overriding difference between the two patterns is

the absence of female robbery victimization in two areas of high

robbery concentration in the northwestern portion of the city and

to the west of tl1e heart of 'the downtown. Both of these areas of

robber~' focus are a resul t of male victimization only. Female r'\ . .'

robberies are much 'more concentrated in the areas to the east of

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Total Robbery - 1966-1968

r·;:·-.... lu ...... ::::: ....... J-. ••• _ ... _ ..... - ....................... r ........... -....... --... _.,_ ..... ,_.-.... _ ... , .......... ,_ ........ ).:::::-.... n .. _~ ............ __ ... _'._ .. _ .• ___ .....-_'_ .. _1_._'_._I·_·._··'_.·n.J __ I_~._._ ... _ .. .....- ,ro, -~-_-'-S~,....J~ I ,,::::::i ,... ..... "" .... __ .. "."" ...... " ..... -."._._"." .. " ... "." " .. "., ........ ".

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., ..... -- ......................... .

Ii ........ /., •. -1,1 ....... " .. " .. _ .. 1/ .....•........ ,,_...... . ... , ......... : ........ .

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I .. ,/ Supply _. 0"1"111"'& -~- "'''~. Grid Square . ". Cen te r -_....... . ...... , ........ _ .. _ ........ _.--..... _ . ...::::.., L .... ,_ .... _._.l~: .... _._ .. _.~r.:~:_ .. _.L._ ........... J,_ ..... ,~_._'_, ................ J., .. __ ...... _.l._._ .. _.,_~_ .. __ !_._, __ ... ~,._ ............ J ......... ~_ ..... l.. ___ ._._I_~ ___ .... ,

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Armed Robbery 1966-1968

I-'-~:~~;o'-.-·-~·--T::~=~~:=::;~:::.~:~~-:~,..·:~~~-·------·--~::-~~·-~ .. ~~-·· .. ---~'I I .,~ "'«"'" ..................................... ...... ................................................. I I ........... Oakland Hills 'j:. ... Oakland Hills ......................................... .\

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{. ./ ,/:Army' I .. :.: .............. San Francisco Bay ..................... I

.. I" J .. ' :: l /i.Base I .' :: .......... :: j J rescott .... / 'I

.. 1avr~-~--/~ .......... / '"""", Scale Number of Robber j ....... Supply _.:::...... :li=-'~:::. o£i£i£i£i£iaiblliib~;;;;;;; S Grid Square ...... I "·\ .. cen te:..f~:~::"·" I I ~ I ! 8 I B I I I ,I ·r .......... · .. · ...... ·j ........ · .... · .... · .. "j" .... :::·.. I .

.a __ ....... _. __ -.;...::, .......... _'_'_"-"_"'_" __ I_'_I __ '-"._t---o,_~, ___ ",_,_"""_,._,,._,._._ ••••••••••••• _, •• _ ••• __ •• _ •• t._ .. _~_._·. ___ I __ ._I·_ ..... t--•• _I .. _. __ .~_._.)_.····,_ ..... _t-. ____ t--I I

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Strongarm Robbery - 1966-1968

~----~'------"------~ r .. ''':''---(:::r--·-'--"-T=~~~~:::::~-·-·::::::-::~:::::=::'~::::::::::::::::----,-----------,--,---~-I "=::::::..... Oakland Hills .-...... ,.. \,.-C\._ ............ ,-. . ... r.{' ............ ~~~::~;-.~~.~ .. ~:-.. - .. -.-...... ..

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I ~"""'.9-,,'to ... :::-' .. :: .... :.>.' .............................. i.. 'Y' -·-· .. ··1 : I' ~ • • "'y), 1 ' ! Berkeley ./ . .... ../·Pit:dmont .: ........ : - .," ~aC?~.... :': : I : .... . ;s. " '" . . I

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l . ~ ~_ •• _ ... ___ ~ __ -..~ ____ ~."...._ ....... _4,'""'! .. ____ _ U'

---~~--------.-~------~--- -----~--------~--------------------~----~~------------------~-------~. .' f\=~~

.'

~-. . , /-I _"

.~ I

,

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. , - ~;"

./::.' ;,~- ",'

-

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if'"

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-"

-----~--

~---- ----------

-- '"

q ~_~ _____________________ =__ __________ , . __ T~_~·~_. _____________ ~M_ .... _(ll~~=====-='_== .. =:::I....~""'_-_-__ "'" , o o () .

Map 5

Pursesnatches - 1966-1968

I :: ......... .l ;: ............................... : ............................................ : ...... \ .,

,. ...................... .:.......... ..... . I' ............. . ............ . • 1'. :. ........................... . ....... .... • •••.• , .•••••••••

Oakland Hills .... ... f·" Oakland Hills ............................ .

'.1 ...................... •• : ......... I'. r : ....... :........... . ....................... ..

I ...... .. .. ...1 I ~ 'j

! ~ ::.... ........................... . I ~J./. '::,' .. ' :. I

i .. , :: . 'I. 'I. I

i .,/~~ :::' .. /piedmont ........... : IV~">->'>' r j Berkel.e,.Y ......... :. .: ..... .' 0·,·. '. '. . I : ...... .··I~o .... '.' :. . . : •••• . .• ~ • : ":.'. oj i : ...... : j

I 1 S"h. ':' ". ...... ..:' :. I-' i ~ -..,;~ .......... . ............... . .... : I 0\ i r:tb .1. .... : .... :" .. . ....... i I . 0.:. . . .. ......... I i '. . ., .' . . '. . . ...... I

.~ IEmerYVi~~~······-·.: .. ) :. . :: ........ : .... : .. • .•• , .(_ie~~4th .,1

Ii l .,. .: . ; .. ;. ~ rt::;i ;;; ;:::: .:; :':': ::; :~; ::." .l .. ,.

'

Ii I :::~':': . ': ..... ,' '. . ..::: .. / San I' l . .. '. .. I I : ..... ........... ...... . Leandro I'

1

1-1 /<::.:~:J ........ __ .... _.. . ........ _ .. - \ ........ , ,:~~~: ... :, ,I

. _ I :: ,:' ':1Base! .. San Francisco Bay : ........ /

, if·': (1 I . I' I : ........... : 1 ...... .: '1 '1 t,............................... :=' I

: ,. .. 11 .. /·"Naval .... ::....... ~li~:·· =:.. rf:= .. ~·~·~·b~Ili"mm;mli;;~; Number o~ Robberi .. in .:........... I i <·i .. ~:~i~~~::~:::< .. ·; I' ' ... :-"l', I ~ I ~!. I Grl~. squa~e .... "j' ...................... j ..................... :j:::::::::... I I a..._._.!4~ ....•..•. _ ......... ln .............. _ .. , .. _ .............. _ .. , .......... , .................. _., ........... 1 .......... , ... _ .... · ... ·· .... •·· .• · ... ·•· ... ·,··.· .... ·, ....... _r .......... '.n ....... , ...•...•.• - •.. _.-•.......•.••.••.• - .•.. -.-.,.-............ ·· ... ····.····1···.'··.·1 ... ··.····,_·.····,. .. · ... · .•. _ ... -_-.-... -.-.. ,.-.-•.• - .. -.,_ ..... -.,.-... -.-.-._ •

.- 1 ~~'_~~ ______ ~ __ -. ________ , .. -.-' ___ ~~_=~_._H=-__ a~~_: __ -._~-__ ~~.~. __ --__ -_----_-._~-___ ~ ____ --__ . __ __

..... --"" .. -. --------_ .. _._-_._----------_.'"

r:

-. I .

!

l

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,

\

"

- 0

,- ,

-

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- ---- - --~-~

,the high male victimization., If there is a focus at all, it is

about, a few maj,or streets of the city.

A. Robbery on Majo,r Traffic Arteries

Robbery in Oakland is heavily concentrated on a few major

streets. Thirty-six major traffic and business arteries, 25 of which

are shown in Table 3, contain about 50 percent of the robberies--even

though these streets cover a distance of only 76 ,miles, less than one-2

fifteenth of the total street distance in the city.

[Insert Table 3]

The concentration on the major streets is greater for armed

robbery (59 percent) than for strongarm (43 percent) or purse­

snatch (37 percent), as shown in Table 4.

[Insert Table 4]

If the neighboring areas of these few streets are considered

and robberies within a half block on either side of these streets

included, the amount of robbery accounted for increases to 67 per-

cent of the total, as shown in Table 5.

[Insert Table 5]

The table showing tobbe~y frequencies on each of th~major

streets does not take into account the varying lengths of ,the ci ty

streets. In order to. make the street figures comparable between

-17-

, . , ,

~'

i

o

\

o

o

,-

; I:

Street

East 14th Street

MacArthur

Foothill

San Pablo

Telegraph

Broadway

Grove

7th Street

12th Street

Bancroft

Fruitvale

14th Street

East 12th Street

Market

16th Street

Jefferson

Willow

23rd Avenue

Park Avenu~

Washington

Shattuck

8th 'Street

East 18th Street

15th Street

San Leandro

Total

Table 3'

l-lajor Robbery Streets

Number Percent

508 7.7

276 4.2

257 3.9

235 3.6

235 3.6

179 2.7

139 2.1

123 1.9

98 1.5

91 1.4

85 1.3

76 1.2

65 1.0

65 1.0

64 1.0 "

58 -0.9

60 0.9

59 0.9

47 0.7

55 0.8

49 0_.7

45 0.7

46 0.7

47 0.7

47 0.7

3009 45.8

} . \ > ", Ii ,1 J, Ij

n

~ I I !

I J

Table 4

Robberies and Pursesnatches on Major streets

Percent

Armed 59 Male 57 Female 66

Strongarm 43 Male 52 Female 37

Purse snatch 37

Female strongarm and purse snatch

Total

combined 37

50

o

-19-

"",""","_ .. " -"".--~~-~---=-""'-==-----~-~--::';-""'"'::--­. \"

,-

0

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-----==~I~-=--------

Table 5

Proximity of 'Robberies and Pursesnatches (In Percent)

to Major Stree"ks

Major within a Further 'I'han street Half' Block Half Block

~

Armed 59.0 13.6 27.5 Male 57.1 14.9 28.0 Female 66.0 8.8 25.2

Strongarm 42.9 19.6 37.5 Male 51. 9 20.0 28.1 Female 37.3 19.4 43.3

Pursesnatch 37.0 19.3 43.7

Female strongarm and pursesnatch 37. 0 19.3 43.6

Total 50.2 16.8 33.0

, -20-,

i'""--~--~""

------.

streets of differing lengths, the number of robberies per thousand

feet of street were calculated and listed in Table 6.

[Insert Table 6]

B. Site Characteristics

Thirty-one percent of all robberies occurred in areas of the 3

ci ty classified as commercial landuse, as shown in T,able 7. other

landuse classifications including industrial, park, vacant, freeway,

and low density residential landuse are all very low in rchbery

occurrence, as may be seen by comparing Map 2 (total robbery) with

Map 6 (generalized landuse).

[Insert Table 7 & Map 6]

While commercial landuse contains the largest percentage of

each robbery subtype, the second ranking 'landuse type varies by type

of robbery. Hi~h density residential landuse is the second most

important landuse for male nonarmed robbery" low medium density

residential is second in female nonarmed, and medium'den'sity is

second for armed robbery.

While the major type of landuse in which ropberies occurred

is commercial and the majority of robberies occurred upon the major

streets, the most important kinds of premise--the specific setting

for the offense independent of the landuse--for robbery are street

and sidewalk, liquor store, small grocery store, and gas station.

The most important premise type for robbery as a whole is the street

and sidewalk. This type accounts for 71 percent of the male and 83

-21-

-~~-,......--- ~---

,

. ' _ -'-~-"""""""'-"""_:>!"--~~---. ",'-""-:-J·7-n-'~,·: '-~-".~~~ .... '">bc.*

I I .~

Table 6

Major Streets - Robberies per 1000 Feet of Length

(1\, 1'rJ Length Street in Miles

East 14th Street

Mj;lcArthur

Foothill

San Pablo

Telegraph

Broadway

Grove

7th Street

12th Street

Bancroft

Fruitvale

o 14th Street

East 12th Street

Market

16th Street

Jefferson

Willow

23rd Avenue

Washington

Park

Shattuck

8th Street

East Bth Street

15th Street

~ San Leandro

,Average

7.0

9.1

5.5

3.7

3.4

4.3

3.9

2.9

2.6

5.2

2.8

2.2

3.4

3.7

1.6

0.9

1.2

2.0

0.8

2.0

1.3

2.8

0.8

0.8

3.7

3.1

-22-

Robberies per 1000 Feet

13.8

5.8

8.9

17.3

1~.2

7.9

6.8

8.7

7.2

3.3

5.9

6.9

3.6

3.4

7.5

11.1

9.1

5.5

1.1

5.1

7.1

3.0

11. 2

10.9

2.4

7.5

" !

,

.. '

, '

:

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. '

,-"

. '

.. _l I ..

..... , .... . • V

f / , .

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, .

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I

I

Commercial

Low medium density residential'

Medium density residential

High density residential

Industrial

Freeway

Government or institution

Low density residential

Park

Vacant

No information

Total

,~,

r

Table 7

Landuse of RObbe~ Sites (In Percent

Female Nonarmed

Male ( Including Total Armed Nonarmed Pursesnatch)

(N=65l0) (N=1758) (N=726) (N=B12 )

31. 2 32.0 36.9 26.4

l4.B 13.6 11.2 1B.6

14.6 15.2 11. 7 15.6

12.5 9.2 14.7 15.7

4.3 6.1 5.4 1.0

3.1 3.6 3.2 2.3

1.7 1.1 1.3 2.9

1.6 1.6 1.1 1.8

0.9 0.7 O.B 1.3

0.3 0.5 0.4 0.1

15.0 16.2 13.2 14.4

100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0

,

-23-

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Map 6

Commercial

i h-Density H g'dential Resl

di m-Density . hMe u Rig. den tial Resl "ty

d ' m-Densl Low Me ,IU ResidentIal

, I Utility, IndustrIa, t tion or Transpor a

Low-De~sity Residential

·'~-'~i·:·: nmen Institutionatla1r ~'!.~-:':-:':" Gover

t · nal Recrea 10 Park or

o Vacant

LAND USE

OAKLAND CITY PLANNING

DEPARTMENT 701 DIVISION

,

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percent of the female nonarmed robbery. There is however" a great

deal of difference in the premise of occurrence between armed and

nonarmed robberies. Only 24 percent of the armed robberies occurred

in the street and sidewalk premise type. Armed robbery is, however,

much higher in the business type of premise codes due to the fact

that many robberies of commercial establishments are armed. When

premise codes are tallied by their code groupings, as may be seen

in Table 8, armed robbery is higher in the business premises group

while nonarrned robbery is higher in the open space group.

[Insert Table 8]

-25-

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~i -------~~=-><--~"""""'---------------------"-'""~-.'-' .. -"."-' , A

f1 \1

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1

1

I IV

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Group'ed Premise T~

Ope'n space

Dwellings

Finance

Public places

Business, commercial

Transpo;rtation

Schools

No information

Total

Total (N=6580)

61.0

5.2

1.6

1.8

26.3

2.8

0.6

0.8

100.0

Armed

o Ti'lhle 8

Premise Type of Robbery Sites (In Percent)

Male Female Male Armed Armed Strongarm

(N=2994) (N-234l) (N=638) (N=1348)

29.3 32.2 19.4 80.5

6.4 5.9 8.5 5.3.

3.3 2.0 8.2 0.3

1.3 1.5 1.7 -3.7

53.1 50.8 61.6 6.2

5.2 6.6 0.2 1.3

0.1 0.2 0.0 2.0

1.0 0.9 0.5 0.7

100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0

Female Strong:arrn

(N=797)

88.6

5.4

0.0

1.1

3.8

0.4

0.4

0.4

100.0

"j .' ..... ~. -.- '~,.-

'" ·" __ -..... __ ~_""'=_=""""'=""""""'"",........r....,_=~"..~'-~ --..,.......-------,-~---.--~-'" / 'ft •

, ,

,

\

Purse- ,Female Snatch Nonarrned (N=139l) (N=2l88)

94.0 92.0

,2.2 3.4

0.0 0.0

0.9 1.0

1.7 2.4

0.3 0.3

0.3 0.3

0.6 0.5

100.0 100.0

" '

. , . ,

.( 'C '';:7

'), f, \,

\}

Chapter Three

COMMERCIAL ROBBERY

Commercial robbery is even more concentrated than robbery

as a whole. All of the city's 1989 commercial robberies for the

three-year period occurred in only 12 percent of the grid squares 4

for the city.

Commercial robbery is also highly concentrated along the major

thoroughfare streets. Over 65 percent of the commercial robberies

occurred on one of the major robbery streets. An additional nine

percent of the commercial robberies occurred within a half block

of these major streets, making a total of over 75 percent occurring

on or within a half block of a major robbery street, as shown

in Table 9. (See also Map 7.)

[Insert Table 9 and Map 7]

i( \, Interestin'gly the center of the city does not appear to ac-

count for a particularly high proportion of the commercial robberies.

Most of the central business district of Oakland is contained in

census tracts 19 and 29. These census tracts together contain only

3.8 percent of the commercial robbery, as shown in Table 10, while

the two census tracts adjacent to them, census tracts 13 and 18, to-

gether contain 4.2 percent of the commercial robbery. However, the

central area averages two robberies per grid square while the adjacent

areas average only one. As may be seen in Map 7, when the central

area is compared to the area above West Grand Avenue, especiallY,be-

tween Telegraph Avenue and Market Street (census tract 13), it becomes

-27-

f I - . , " . .-

------~--~------

.,

o

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I:

Table 9

Proximity of Commercial Robbery to Major Streets

On major streets

Within half block

Further than half block

-28-

Percent

68.5

9.0

22.5

--

, ! ,

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t

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/

l' I

," '0 . "

.... ,..,.

J i I • 1

• ,

I

---------------

-------~~~~~==~=--=~------=------------------------------------------

Commercial Robbery - J.966-1968

" ............ j .......... , ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• , .......... _ ........ , ••••• _ ...................... 1 .......... , .................... _, ................ --.--•• _ •• _.-,.-............. -...-...... ,.. ....... _., ....... _.......-. __ ,....-. ...... _._.,_._ .. _._, __ ._ ........... ____ - ....... - • • -.~...-' I .................... '. -

I ."........................ ··1............ .... .............. ... ..... .. .o' .............. ~ •••

I ...... l . ....................... '. . .. ........... .

....... .. .... ::::........ ....... .. I ::;.... . ..... " ........ " ..... , " ........... '\." ." .................. -.................. .. i .......... Oakland ~illS \ .. " .. ! ......... :.:'.. loaklan1d Hillf ................................ !........ I 1 .... • ........ :\

\

. ~ ......... :

~ I I ~ I I ~., : ................................. i i berkeley ~ /' - , ..... , Broadway ./: .. ) .j \.11 f-' ...= Piedmon t .:::." 1- l: •• • ........ ::... j '1 ! -,. : .:' i' ! I s. :: ........... :...... ..:.: .. :" i

I 1 .P",,:~ :.:..... . ....... :..... i N'\ "<J,J./. :.:.:..... ': . .'.... I w q:.... :. :.... i I ...... .: i

j ..................... : ~' ". :' ." (.:e"'J. 4 t11 I \Eme-:~ville ~.::' : .. L .. y I I : ,<;.,.: ........... ....... rJ ~:~ndro I

:....... . ......

l

I II'" ................... :... . ... : ... . : ......... ;

\

. :,1 'i .' I .••.•

/::Army I. San Francisco Bay ...... :::::::::::;::.

II .. "··~~:/rs: ... ~ .. __ .,.. "" 11- 21- .:::.:.,.·.l·

I I I

.~ t-· .... · .... ·.:1 ., .. u .... I I : ...... Naval ./.::.... If:l!:l~' !::!!!~~~;;;;;i:;;;"""_ ............. . I '\~.~.;.~;~!:~:~~7-'" .." I 0 I .~ I ~ I .... " ......... " ....... " ......... __ .::,,". . I l __ ,_ ... _r--_ ....... _, __ ... _,_ ............... __ ... _.n ...................... , ......... , .......... , ......... , ......... , .......... , ............... 'H •• ' .••.• ···.,··.· .. ••· •. ·• •• ····,······ ••• t.·· .. ····,····.·· .... ,··-·····f····.····~····.···· .. ·· ...... to ........... • •• •• •• ,····.· .. ·I·········l····.·~··t ......... , ..... ~ ........... --.. ----.... -. 'N~

o

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evident that the outlying commercial and thoroughfare streets

of the city appear to attact much greater amounts of commercial

robbery than does the central business district.

[Insert Table 10]

This can also be seen by comparing the downtown stre~ts (14th8

16th, Grove, and Broadway) with the major arterial streets (San

Pablo and East 14th), as shown in Table 11.

[Insert Table 11]

The robbery, of a commercial enterprise includes both the rob­

bery of the inside of a store and the delivery boy on the street.

This latter group is, however, so small that only 5 percent of the

commercial robberies occurred on the' city street or sidewalk. Only

about 35 percent o~ those commercial robberie~ for which there was

information occurred within a commercial landuse area. This is far

less than the 37 percent which occurred in residential landuse

areas, as shown in Tabl(? 12.

[Insert Table 12]

. /1

This high percentage of commercial robb~ries in residential

areas may be due in part to robbery in the fringes about the com­

mercial areas. It is undoubtedly primarily due, however, to vic­

timization" of stand-alone establishments which are the only com­

mercial establis"hment on a block or one of a sma!l 'cluster of

-30-

;5 'F--">-;'F;;}~~~~-' c'

. #

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o

, --,--,~-.-.

Table 10

Commercial Robbery by Census Tract

Number of Percent of Commercial

Number of Commercial Robberies Commercial Robberies Size of Per Grid

Census Tract Robberies 2:E City Grid Squares ~uare

Central District 20 1.9 19 38 1.9

29 37 1.9 16 2.3

Adjacent Areas 28 1.4' 13 39 2.0

18 43 2.2 42 1.0 20 19 1.0 19 1.0 23 14 0.7 17 .8 28 10 0.5 41 .2 30 13 0.7 '51 .2

-31-

/

C'" , , ,

"..

Table 11

Commercial Robbery on Major Thoroughfare/Streets By Length of the Street

Street

East 14th Street

Foothill

San Pablo

Telegraph

Broadway

Grove

7th Street

12th Street

14th Street

16th Street

23rd Avenue

Commercial Robberies

259

113

117

135

74

55

24

21

28

14

25

-32-

Length of street in 1000 feet

36.8

28.9

13.6

17.8

22.6

20.4

14.2

13.6

11.9

8 .• 5

10.8

Commercial, Robberies

Per 1000 feet

7.0

3.9

8.2

5.5

4.6

3.9

6.4

4.9

3.7

5.4

2.3

.. ~'- 't;';~l:t . ....,r<\,g:~;:;.r}"'~"","'·\"_, _'''I'', -----,-,'-.......,--!.', 1/ I ;.' .\~- '" ~ '" ~, • ~<',~

--~-~-~--

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Table 12

Landuse of Site of Corom, ercial

Landuse

Commercial

Low medium density residential

Medium density residential

High density residential

Low density residential

Industrial

Freeway

Government or institution

Park

Vacant

No information

Total

-33-

Robbery

~umber

698

292

296

112

32

111

76

19

9

7

337

1989

"

Percent

35.1

14.7

14.9

5.6

1.6

5.6

3.8

1.0

0.5

0.4

16.9

100.0

-• --~--.,-~---,..!:...'~

,

I'

i' \

commercial establishments. The establishments which have the highest

C, commercial robbery rates are those which tend to locate independently

of. other businesses. This is especially true for the three major

victimization premise types of gas station, liquor store, and small

grocery store. Together these three types of establishments account

for 50 percent of the commercial robberies, as shown in Table 13.

[Insert Table 13]

The 1anduses in which a major portion of the liquor and small

grocery store commercial robberies occur are medi.um and low-medium

density residential. However, these 1anduses do not contribute

equally to gas station robberies which tend to occur more frequently

in commercial 1anduse areas, as shown in Table 14.

[Insert Table 14]

The iow percentage of commercial robberies within commercial

landuse and the correspondingly higher proportion within the resi­

dential 1anduse areas is due partly to the fact that over half of

the city of Oakland is ~esidentia1 1anduse. Table 15 shows both

the number of commercia.1 robberies within each 1anduse and the num-

ber for each grid square of that kind of 1anduse.Viewed this

way, commercial robberies are nearly six times as dense in com-

mercia1 1anduse as wi thin residerltia1 1anduse,. Also of note is the

relatively high density of commercial robbery within industrial

1anduseareas. Tl)is ~s not demons.trated in the previous tables

due to the small iamount of this type of'landuse throughout the

city. -34-

r ~,_

, , 0

.,

0

Table 13

Most Frequent Premise Types of 9ommerc~al Robbery

Premise Number Percent

Gas station 447 22.5 Liquor store 288 14.5 Small grocery 253 12.7 Street and side walk 103 5.2 Bar - saloon 81 4.1 Supermarket

66 3.3 Lunch counter - cafe 112 5.6 Mot'el

57 2.9 Cleaners

57 2.9 Drug store 45 i 2.3 Bank

41 2.1

, -35-

r h ,

i

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11 if \ I 1 r{ j j

I

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3

fl l.j

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I .. 'I, , H . "H

~' H "

' , Ii :" .' 1 .r ,I .. '-0-

tl "

(~)

;..,

..

II ,<

. ,-___ -""~.'.f='-'''''''''~...:t.~'''''''''''''''''''''''''''-=~ M-rt»t"'Z"........"7k'd::$C

(1 0 ' !) .... , .

Table 14

Commercial Robberx Sites - Landuse and Premise (In Number of Robberies 1966-68)

Low High Medium Medium

Commercial Density Density Density Total Premise Landuse Residential Residential Residential Resiqential

Gas station 176 16 79 37 i36

Liquor store 91 27 58 38 125

Small grocery 52 24 42 74 149

Bar-saloon 33 2 10 15 27

Supermarket 19 3 14 5 22

Lunch counter 26 0 7 9 16

Street and sidewalk 17 14 20 21 60

*Low density residential, park and vacant landuse types not shown due to They are included in total column.

-------"';'-~, -."'----,--

4/ ::.-;;: ....

" , .

~.......,

'[) 'j \ '

Industrial Freewal Total*

49 27 447

7 20 288

9 9 253

7 1 81

3 0 66

1 0 54

5' 2 103

low occurrences.

\

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r;\ '\..,..l/

[Insert Table 15]

When the same ca1cuiations are pe~formed for the three highest

't stat1' ons, 1:i.quor stores and small groceries---prem1se ypes--gas

the density of gas station robberies, as shown in Table 16, in

industrial ianduse is also shown to be much greater than that in-

dicated in Table 14.

[Insert Table 16]

Overall the two strongest features of the commercial robbery

distribution are the concentration of robberies upon the major

streets of the city and the concentration of robberies within com-

mercia1 1anduse.

-37-

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Table 15

Landuse of Commercial Robbery Sites

Number of Robberies

NUmber of Number of Per Grid Robberies Grid Sguares Sguare

Commercial 698 606 1.15 High density residential 112 653 0.17 Medium denisty residential 296 1263 0.23 Low medium density residential 292 1578 0.18 Low density residential 32 108.6 0.03 All residential (combined) 732 4580 0.16 Industrial H.1 339 0.33 Freeway 76 381 0.20 Government or institution 19 261 0.07 Park 9 648 0.01 Vacant 7 600 0.01

No information 337

"

-38-

n.

'I "

, , '

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.1 :

. Table 16

Commercial Robbery - Landuse (In Number of Robberies per Grid Square)

Number of Gas Liquor Landuse Grid Squares Station Store

Commercial 606 ., 0.29 0.15

Industrial 339 0.14 0.02

Total residential 4580 0.2 0.03

Freeway 381 0.7 0.05

Vacant, park, institution and no information 1509 0.006 0.004

-----~'--

Small Grocery

0.09

0.03

0.03

0.02

0.004

"

-",",,,,,.,

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, -"-~"""-,,,""'j==----------

0:''','' .'

Chapter Four

INDIVIDUAL ROBBERY

While individual robberies are more frequent, than commercial

robberies (they make up over 64 percent of the robberies and purse-

snatches during the three-year study), they are far less concentrated

than commercial robberies. As compared with only 12 percent for

commercial robbery, individual robberies occur in over 27 percent of

the city's occupied grid squares, as shown in Table 17.

[Insert Table 17]

with the exception of two particular areas of high concentration,

the distribution of individual robbery in the city closely follows

<=> the pattern for commercial robbery:

--along the major thoroughfare streets.

--decreasing in frequency with distance from the Bay.

I. MAJOR INDIVIDUAL MALE ROBBERY AREAS .

Ninety percent of the individual robberies in the two areas of

high concentration were against male victims. There are no similar

concentrations of female individual robberies. The only area of

individual robbery involving a concentration of female victims is

a small area in the downtown business district just north and east

of the downtown skid row area. However, even in this area, only 45

percent of the victims were female.

The two areas, the Prescott area located in the far northwestern

o portion of the city and a downtown area just west of the central

-40-

,

I:

0

\

I

.

Table 17

Number of Grid Squares with Robberies

Number of Robberies in Grid Square Total Commercial

o 4141 5427

1 864 365

2 427 163

3 234 77

4 1.35 60

5 91 28

6 66 29

7-8 94 25

9-10 50 15

11-20 78 9

21-50 19 2

Over 50 1 0

Total 6200 6200

.-

Individual Individual Male

4508 5263

855 590

374 164

148 77

99 34'

62 22

40 15

59 15

23 4

22 9

10 7

0 0

6200 620,0

-41-

Individual Female

4962

757

253

90

65

28

19

17

4

5

0

0

6200

"

I . I Y,.:!"

o

business district, are similar in some respects. Both .contain a

number of bars and taverns, both have some skid row aspects, and

both serve as a meeting place for prostitutes and their customers.

Together these two areas account for approximately te:n percent of

the total individual robberies, but only 1.3 percent of the city's

population, and less than one percent of the 6,200 inhabited grid

squares, as shown in Table 18.

[Insert Table 18]

The greatest concentration of individual male robberies is in

the Prescott area. Encompassed by census tract 15, this area

accounts for 9.8 percent of the individual male strongarms and 13.5

percent of the individual male armed robberies, for a total of 11.2

percent of all individual male robberies. Located near the Bay,

the Oakland Army Base and the u.S. Naval Supply Center, this area

is the oldest area of the city and is the heart of one of the Bay 15

Area's oldest black residence areas.

The center of the robbery concentration in this area is Seventh

and Willow Streets, the core of a neighborhood shopping area dotted

with eating establishments, and bars. There were 58 individual male

robberies about the. intersection of these two streets during the , ,

three-year period and over ten in every grid square touching on 16

Seventh Street for a four-block area. (See Map 8.) This inter-

section has the highest concentration of robbery in the entire city.

[Insert Map 8]

-42-

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Prescott

Downtown

Both Areas

o

,,, . . '

. ... I:

Table 18

Areas of Individual Robbery Concentration (In Percent)

Citywide Citywide Citywide Robbery Population Grid Squares

5.5 0.9 0.28

4.5 .4 0.37

10.0 1.3 0.65

-43- ,

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Map 8 ·-i~-·'--,-·-·~--:::::::~::!~:::7-·::-'---... ··-·-· ... -··-'-... ··-'-··-.. r---.·---,--t-----.-_____ ·._ .. -.-.-_I ___ I_..---t_l __ ..--_...-__, • _r-_..-t-_I--S .... :.... . ... .. ~. ~ ..... :

: :...................... . ........ .. .:::::::::::: ............... .

Individual Male Robbery . '" ............. .

.................. .... . .. .. , .. .:. ....... '. I

" n. .. ........... I . .... ............ .'~.

................. Of ............................. .

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In contrast to the more or less residential character of the

broader Prescott neighborhood, the downtown area of robbery concentra­

tion is one which was once the commercial heart of the city, but

which has now become a somewhat seedy fringe of the city's economic

life. This six-block area can be divided into two sections. Farthest

from the Bay is a mixed residential and commercial area whose resi-

dents are largely elderly persons living in the many small boarding

houses. Closer to the Bay is a much more blighted section, with

large numbers of hotels and bars catering to single'men. Together

these two sections account for ten percent of the individual male

strongarm robberies, six percent of the individual male armed rob-

beries, and a total of nine percent of all individual male robberies.

Over 43 percent'of the individual male robberies in the Prescott

area were armed, in contrast to a city-wide average of 36 percent,

and only 27 percent in the downtown skid row area. The Prescott

total was the highest of any census tract in the city.

In both areas the victims are often persons other than the resi-

dents. The Prescott neighborhood has a predominantly young, black

population, as shown in Table 19, while the'victims are largely young

wh~tes ... Many o.f them a~e llI'l9..Ollptedlyservic;:emen £~om the nearby

army base seeking to take advantage of the night life in the area.

The downtown area, on the other hand, has an older white population

but a very };lalanced victim breakdown. Black victims in the downtown !

area are much younger than the white victims and correspond in age

to the citywide average for robbery victims. Victims in both areas

are in the below 50'age group more often than the average for the

[Insert Table 19]

-45-

... 'f.;

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o

,0 , \

Prescott

Central District

Table 19

Characteristics ,of Residents

Total Population

3,293

3,947

Percent, White

3.5

85.9

Median Age , Male'

19.7

52.6

Source: U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, U.S. Censuses of Population ~nd Housing 1960, Final Report PHC(1)-137, Census Tract, San Franc1sco-Oakland, California, Standard Metro­politan Statistical Area, Table P-l.

-46-

(, The fact that older males do not show up as victims in the

downtown skid row area as frequently as their proportion of the

population does not mean that these me~ are not the targets of

robberies in these areas. Rather this is a reflection of the pre­

ponderance of victimization of nonresidents, and possibly of some

lack of reporting of crimes by derelicts and inhabitants.

other than these two major a~eas, only a few' areas 'contain

clusters of individual male robberies. One such cluster of in-

dividual male robberies is an area of small concentration about

the intersection of San Pablo Boulevard and MacArthur Freeway.

This area may be a reflection of the individual male robbery in

the nearby city of Emeryville where the conditions are similar to

those in the Prescott area (a rundown commercial strip development

containing many bars and saloons surrounded by old, dilapidated

houses). A second area of high individual male robbery is in the

Fruitvale district about the local commercial center of the neigh-

borhood, while a third area is located about an East Oakland com-

mercial district (at Ninety-eighth Avenue and East Fourteenth Street) .

II'. INDIVIDUAL MALE ROBBERY

The great majority, almost 75 percent, of the individual male

robberies occur in the open on a city street or sidewalk, as shown

in Table 20. Less than nine percent occurred indoors.

[Insert Table 20).

This high proportion of individual male robberies occurring on

city streets and sidewalks holds for each landuse type, as shown in

~~p........,.,.., ""', -4~F"""" 7~-~,·,~.~ ...... :w:;:: .. ·m:;:::·,;;;;;;;;;::; '!;':p' ~ ; I 1' ... 4 '-"~--~.'-'--':4..:-,

.';:" ;./~,-~t '.', ~:~

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Table 20

Individual Male Robbery: Premise Type - __ of the Offense Site (In Percent)

Sidewalk

Street

,Parking lot

City park

Private yard

Apartment

Hotel

Bar - saloon

Gas station

Other (premises with less than 1% of Individual Male Robbery each)

Total (N=1960)

47.0

26.9

5.0

3.2

2.2

1.6

1.2

1.2

1.0

10.7

Armed (N-7l0)

48.9

21.7

6.9

3.3

1.3

2.3

, 1.1

1.7

1.4

11.4

Strongarm (N=1250)

45.8

29.6

4.0

3.2

2.6

1.3

1.1

1.0

0.7

10.:4

Not7:. Only p,remise types which accounted Ind1v1dual Male Robbery were included. fOL one percent or more of

-48-

" ,

,

/

Table 21.

[Insert Table 21]

Over 35 percent of the individual male robberies occur in

commercial landuse areas. This is far more than that for any

other landuse type, as shown in Tables 22 and 23. Both strongarm

and armed robbery are highest in commercial landuse areas, while

both occur in moderate levels in industrial and high density

residential landuse areas.

[Insert Tables 2.2 and 23]

While there thus appears to be some correspondenc:e between

commercial areas and the incidence of individual male robberies,

this focus appears to be more dependent upon the nature of the

commercial area tlj;\n its mere existence. Fringe-type night life

and skid row type activities appear to some extent to be spread in

little pockets, with each poverty area of the city containing its

own such ~rea. The relative frequency of individual male robberies

in the commercial areas of the poverty neighborhoods suggests a

relationship between individual male robbery and such areas.

This relationship between fringe-type night life and individual

male robbery is visible to a substantial extent in the times that

individual male robberies occur. Sixty-eight percent of these

offenses occur in the evening hours between six p.m. and two a.m.,

as shown in 'Figure 1. While the peak periods for the two types of

individual male robbery differ, both increase greatly at eight

p.m. and continue to increase until one a.m., The increase in armed

.. ",

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. Wi!: . en

I • I,

Landuse

Table 21

Individual Male Robbery: Street Premise Compared with Landuse of Occurrence

(In Percent)

All Street Premise P remise Types

Commercial

Low medium density residential

Medium density residential

High density residential

Industrial

Freeway

Government or institution

Low density residential

Park

Vacant

No information

P1

-50-

35.5

10.4

13.3

15.8

6.0

3.5

1.2

1.1

0.8

0.4

12.0

35.4

10.2

12.8

15.4

5.7

3.3

1.4

0.9

0.2

0.4

13.2 ;. ,

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Table 22

1 Robbery : Landuseof O'ccurrence ' Individual Ma' e _ (In percent)

Total Armed Strongarm (N=699) (N=1250) (N=1968)

Commercial 35.5 31.1 37.9

Low medium density residential 10.1 9.4 10.4

Medi um densi ty residential 12.7 14.9 11. 3

High density residential 15.5 18.9 15.3

Low density residential 1.0 1.0 1.0

Industrial 5.7 6~3 5.4

Freeway 3.4 3.7 . 3.2

Government or institution 1.4 1.3 1.4

Park 1.2 1.7 0.9

Vacant 0.5 0.8 0.4

No information 13.2 13.8 12.8

100.0 100.0 100.0

-51-

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o Table 23

Indi vidu;a'l' Male Robbery Sites

Number of Robberies per Grid Square of Landuse

Total Armed Strong arm Commercial

1.18 0.36 0.79 High density residential 0.47 0.17 0.30 Medium density 'residential

0.20 0.08 0.11 Low medium density residential 0~13 0.04 0.08 All residential (combined) 0.17 0.06 0.10 Industrial

0.34 0.13 0.20 Government or ins·titution . 0.11 0.03 0.07 Freeway

0.17 0.07 0.10 Park

0.04 0.02 0.02 () Vacant 0.02 0.01 0.01

o

-52-

--------_.- - -

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individual male robberies during the evening hours is much more

~ constant than that of strongarm robberies. In addition, the per­

centage of strongarm robberies drops sharply at'~idnight and does

not surpass'armed robbery until two a.m •

()

o

[Insert Figure 1]

These times of peak concentration vary to some extent by season,

as shown in Figure 2. Individual male robbery is the only type of

robbery with a relatively high percent of 'robbery during the summer,

as shown in Figures 2 and 3. Commercial and indiyidual female rob­

beries are high in both the fall-winter and summer periods.

[Insert Figures 2 and 31

The influence of darkness can be seen in both the summer and

the winter months, as shown in Figure 4. In August dusk comes

around nine p.m.; in December around six p.m. In both months there

is a sharp increase in robbery between the hour before sunset and

the hour of sunset. The change between AU9ust and December in the

hour in which this evening increase takes place strongly suggests

a connection between dusk and individual male robbe.ry rather than a

connection with the end of the working day.

[Insert Figure 4]

The duration of the period of high robbery, however, seems to

be connected more to an evening recreation cycle, as the period ends

-53-

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Armed . Robbery c - - --- Strongarm Robbery

I -8 -"- Average 01 ~

e I

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o Figure 1

Individual Male Robbery By

Time of Day of Offense

.- ... - . --I

I

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~~--<,--,a---~--__ +----4~---r--~+---~I----~----+---~----~----+----4~--~----+----4~--~----~----r----+----+-----~--~~ .s (. ! e f/ 10 /I II- 1.3 I ~ 1..5 / ~ / 7 /8 I 9 1 3 5

Time of Day

~~

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C) Figure 2

Individual Male Robbery By

Month of Offense I

-!- - - ------ - - - - -- - ; " - r-- - . .r - - - -r

r - - - -, I

I I I

I I I I I I r- - -

~

Apr. May June July Aug. Sept.

-- ,Armed Robbery

- - - 'Strongarm Robbery

-, ,- Average

'/

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r - - - - r-- - -I

II

I I 10 I

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act. N(')v. Dec.

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---------------------------~----~----------------------------------=-=~~ ~--~~--~.. r

J 0 Fi~re 3 0 ,h II I

1

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10

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7

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\ ... ... ' . ..... . t,6 •

Month of Robbery

Individual Male Robbery Individual Female Robbery Commercial Robbery

I

I --- .../

, I

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I

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Jan. Feb.Mar.Apr.May Jun.J'ul.Aug.Sep.Oct.Nov.Dec .

. j-"' .. -,,---,.......-----=-=.,.=.~.,------..---"T"""=-<-~ .. ---~,.=---:-----~---.-----~------:'--o' ' e'

'.. (I

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--------------------_~4~

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Total Individual Male

Robbery

Dec. (224)

Aug. (201)

-~~--,-,,- -----~--- ------------~ -------------

4

Individual Male Robbery by Time of Day For August and December 1966-68

~ --I

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p

e

August

Armed (82)

Strongarm (119) r l-i

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n 11. , December

-_ .. Armed (83)

Strongarm (14l) t , --, __ ..! I

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7 i q /(1 II IZ. l.f 1"/ IS 16 1118 1'I.tI.2I.a..v ~"f I

Time of Day 7 6 9 1(1 " ":1. IS N 1'5 I" 17 IS 19.:1.'" .c.I A[1:l.!1 Ali 1 :t.

Armed

-,

Dec.

Aug.

# 7 •

( 83)

(8~)

Time of Day

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p

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7

Time of Day

Strongarm Robbery

Dec.

Aug.

( 141)

( 119) r-i ; .

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9 9 It> /1 /.:1. " N IS /6 n 19 (9 ~ pJ -z..Z.. :z.J:z.~ /

Time of Day

:2.. 3

~q ~~. ~------------------------------~~~~.'~-------~~~----------~=-~--~------~~--~----------~--~------~~ ~::.~e.."'~~"''''''''=-'''''''''_''''''_''', "'1~"""""~~",,e'''A~+'':\~'''''- A

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about the same hour of the day for both months. The August high

robbery time period is thus shorter, starting at nine p.m. and

ending at two a.m., while the December period starts at six p.m.

and ends at the same time. Because the August period is shorter,

it might be supposed that this would mean fewer overall robberies.

This is not true, however. Both months are about the same. The

August evening peaks, however are higher than those for December.

In both months the early darkness periods have a much higher

rate of armed than strongarm robbery, while the period after midnight

has a higher rate for strongarm than for armed. The trend toward

armed robberies in the early evening hours is much stronger in

August than in December.

There does not appear to be very much variation in age between

armed and strongarm individual male robbery victims. Twenty-one

to 30 year olds are somewhat more frequently encountered in armed

robberies, while victims between 51 and 60 years of age make up a

higher proportion 'of strongarm robberies, as shown in Figure 5~

[Insert Figure 5]

White victims are involved in over 75 percent of the individual

male robberies, as shown in Figure 6. Over half of these white vic-

tims are over 40 years of age. For this over 40 age group the per-

cent age involved in armed and strongarm offenses is nearly equal for

each age grouping. The 11 to 20 age group (mostly late teens),

however, includes a much larger percentage of strongarm robbery

victims while the 21 to 30 age group has a much larger percentage

of armed robberies.

-58-

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, ,.

o

p

e II f.

r Ib

c pi

e

n /()

t

8

.r

-~,-------.-

-----....:.----------------------------------.-----------=---..

Armed and Strongarm

~::.

.. . .

Age

o Figure 5

Individual Male Robbery By

Age of Victim

p ~o

e If

r ... r-1

c 1'1

e 11

n to

t

I

,

A 1/

I .~: • ~ . D

,t

Total

l I

Age

___ ~~~-__ "'7'!"-----'r~~~7'--""'"'"'=""'--~-'-'-p ... -------~----. ~.-.---'-... -~ • I, -,"'~ •

i ,

.. I ,r"

('. r\..j

_~ ___ --n

,

\ /

, I I

-

[Insert Figure 6]

The pattern for black victims is considerably different, as

shown in Figures 7 and 8. The black victims are slightly younger,

and there are differences in the percentage involved in armed and

strongarm robberies. The very young males, 11 to 20 years, and the

middle aged males, 41 to 50 years, are high in strongar~ victimiza-

tion while the 21 to 40 age groupings show a high proportion of

armed robbery victims.

[Insert 'Figures 7 and 8]

III. INDIVIDUAL FEMALE ROBBERY

While individual male robberies occur in only 15 percent of

the city grid squares, individual female robberies spread over 20

percent. The two types are nearly equal, however, in the proportion ,.

of robberies occurring in grid squares with only one offense--63

percent for individual male and 61 percent for individual female.

Roughly two percent (2.1) of the grid squares with at least one

individual male offense contain nine or more robberies. In con-

trast, only a small proportion ,(0.7 percent) of the grid squares

with individual female robberies havE:! more than nine.offenses and

none hav,e more than 20, as shown in Table 17.

Not only are' the individual male robberies clu,stered about the

major \hOroughfare streets more than are the individual female rob­

beries but they are also much more heavily concentrated in the

northern" third of the city; 56 percent of the :tndividual male

-60 ...

c _. _.. ..~,-.,-~--.. -..

-_ .. _----......,.".= :,

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0 0 ..c:: ..jJ

n n

-61 ...

"

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e :lo

:c

c I"

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n 8

t 1/

P ;lA

e ;to

r ,I.

c

e 12

n 8

t ~

Figure 7

Individual Male Robbery

White

'~/D I/~ ;ID

, 47-_ ,

Armed Victims Strongarm Victims

"--¥" ';/~S7J II-~ ,,-'1r,> Age

Negro

1-/0

~ I , , \ , , , , ,

I , , ,

\ '

\

., , '" ...

, r ,

\

\

\ \

- Armed Victims Strongarm Victims

Age

-62-

o

I; ._-o-_____ ~-':---~~.'<r'. -~ __ ._

'" ~~~!~';: ~' * "6 '

'. fl\)~'.'C .. _ .. C<""

GI

71+

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,+

u

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o

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p

e

r

c

e

n

t

p

e

r

c

e

Figure 8

Individual Male Robbery

Armed ;/f

:II}

" I~

\ \ \

, .. -.... , \ g

-White V;i.ctims (~=57l) '\ ·if --Negro Victims (N=153) \

" /-/0 II-Ji) .t/~$O .tl· "10 J{/-;;O .n.,-" ~-70 7/T

Age

Strongarm

.1.4{

.10

If"

12.

" , , . , , , \

I , I , ~

" ,

, , \ ,

'\ , \

--Whi te Victims (N=105 3)\ --Negro Victims (N=200) '.

• I If,

//-20 21·~O JI-VO ~ • .ro oS"l-w, iJ,1-7o 7~i

Age

. !

c robberies being in this area as compared with only 41 percent of

7 the individual female robberies.

Moreover, the areas of concentration for male robberies are

all but void of female robberies. This is especially true of the

Prescott neighborhood where there are only 15 individual female

robberies in contrast to 220 individual male robberies. In the

downtown skid row area there were 28 inCli~idual female robberies

as compared with 159 individual mai~robberies.

Somewhat surprisingly the major downtown shopping districts

are also not areas of fi.·equent i.ndividual female robbery. Rates'

are quite low for the prime commercial centers of the Kaiser Center

area--Broadway to Lake Merritt, Twentieth to West Grand Avenue-­

and the older shopping corridor of Broadway-":"Twelfth to Seventeenth

Streets.

On the northeast side of the core shopping strip, however,

there is something of a concentration of individual female rob,..

beries. (See Map 9.) This is an area of mixed landuse and has a

large number of commercial and service establishments, government

office buildings and some hotels and large, older homes which cater

to elderly persons. There are also a number of open parking lotis

which attract shoppers and employees of the cor7 ar~a buildings.

Census tract 19 approximatJs this area of intense indivldual female

robberies. As may be seen in Table 24, this census t~act, which

contains only 20 grid squares, accounts for 4.5 percent of the in-

dividual female offense§. '"

[Insert Table 24 and J-1ap 9]

, -64-

p;~ 1;,1r~~~: ~; ~~,~~<~~~'7l~' \! ... -, /::.' '.;,.

) ".

DO

,-,'

\' '1.

, ... '" o ..

------~?==---------------------

\ ,"

Table 24

Individual Female Robberies and Pursesnatches Percent of Offenses Per Grid Square in

High Census Tracts

-65-

, ,

I

'1',/

( \ .1

'. _D

,- . \"" ...... I"

., ,

"

/'

"

~-~- '----~--~~--~=--------------------------~-.,--~-------------~==>======'==---~ 'j

J n I' I , J I

11

1

QJ to Individual Female Robbery - 1966-1968

j ... : ...... , ................... , ........ :::::::.::::::::::::: ...... :: .. , ............................. , ......... , ......... , ........ , ......... , ......... , ................... , ................... , ............................. , ......... , .................... ' ............................. , ............... - ........... ,-.. ~---,--,-,;--r--l

I .. ::~r····-······· ···1.- ... _ ........... _........ . ....... _ ............. _.................... /1

I ..... ...: ............................... .. . , ................ Oakland H;lls ... .................. .. ........ ''''j'

.... ~~kland Hills ............................. .. I ! ........ . =: ..... .1 ........... :- I I I ,I · .. ·· .. · .............. 1 I I ........ , .... 1

I ~ '.. ....... . .. /. ,., ...... . I ~ I ;p.,,~ ,... .. ..... __ ... _ ... _ , , i Q ... /·.:;·.B =-= \. ~'y",,>-"">- .•. " I. .'.: 0'0(;. I Berkeley:::: .... : :.:::.,/ Pi .. e .... d ... m ... ~~.~ .......... ·•. . .1~: I ~cY'" .•. l .' . . ......... "', . ~ 'l~ :'" •• '.: ." • .. ........ II jCi.6.<o : ................... : ":.:, ............. . . '. :. '.. . . . . "II

Q) '. .' '.. ..

'I' ,., .......... ,.::> \ . ...... . . . .. '~4t1J I 'Em:.ry ville ...... /' ,

, .,;.. ,

, ::.::>--11 .. :.: .............................. _._ ......... ,/ ... _. . .... -.. , ........ -................. - \.. I I .' .... 1. 1 ./ ... :.~~.::.Leandro I I . . San Francisco ~a.y ............ .. ......... : I' ). .l/1 Army , . " : .. ' :Base I ........ :.;r " :: ........... : : j

I l /. i I i L r·l· .. ·· .. ··· .. · .... · .. ··· ....... :, ~.:: ,. I :.L~ava .......... . . ·· .. ··S·UPPly .. ' ...... ii-:ilfJll:.. ~l~...................... .:: ... . I '.' .. ' '::-":=::. .. ..................... _"'_........... ..... I

/! j .•. cen~~:"~~~~:·"·I~· 0 ~ ~ ...... --.. --.. _ .... __ ....... __ ._ ..... ~.. I,' I

..........................

L ... _, ......................................................................................... , ......... , ......... , .................. , ........................................................................ : ..................................... , ......... , ......... , .............................................. _ .................... , ......... , ..... _.-._.1 ......• ) ~JJ -=-""""' ___ "" ...... =-_''''''~~ ... , """""""'"'!" ___ ... .., _____ .... _. ___ ...... __ • _______________ ~_---.,-_-_."., ," ,"""""",. '-~",'- " / • .~:. ' .""-""!' ~ijW , '0 (]

~ • /' u-

" 11 ,~

• • y

" .,

\

"

, .

,

,) ..

, ,

While this is the most intense area of individual female rob-

r C' , "'! bery, there are several additional areas of moderate concentration

focused about neighborhood shopping districtsQ (See Map 9.) Just

as the downtown concentration of individual female robberies was

on the fringe of the major shopping areas, these additional areas , .

of concentration are clustered about the neighborhood shopping dis-

tricts rather than directly within them. These clusters about the

neighborhood shopping districts account for over 20 percent of the

grid squares with three or more robberies and 42 percent of the grid

squares with six or more offenses.

The general lack of concentration in female robberies can also

be seen in the relatively low percentages of individual female rob-

beries on major streets--on1y 36 percent as compared to 51 percent

of the individual male robberies and 68 percent of the commercial

robberies. Only 56 percent of the individual female robberies oc-,. curred within a half block of the major streets, while over 70 per-

cent of the individual 'male robberies were this close to the major

streets.

This spread of individual female rc;>bberies away from the major

streets and over more territory is also reflected in the 1anduse of

the robbery sites. Individual female robberies occur in residential "' II

landuse areas (total and low medium density) more often than either

commercial or individual male robberies.

The i~djlvidua1 fe Il1a1e robbery occurs in the open in 93. per-"

cent of the offenses, as shown in Table 25, primarily in the streets.

Only 6.3 percent of, the individual female robberies occurred indoors.

[In~ert Table 25]

-67-

- ____ '_-;:;I:'=~. . . ~ _~""""'''''? .. :-''!'~-' -----;::-ro, ;;"'_'~" -,-.---_._. ____ ,.-.~..,.., Z'"."..,:-.....,..,~ ... ";'lof,".... . J,

.' .", .

[,1

o

o

o

/~'

Table 25

Individual Female Robberies and Pursesnatches

Open space

Indoors

Dwellings

Public and government institutions

Commercial enterprises

Transportation

Schools

Finance

No information

-68-

Premise of Occurrence (In Percent)

93.0

6.3

2.8

1.1

1.8

0.3

0,.3

0.0

0.8

.' .. '

i..

• "I

/ . ,

. . . /

'.

/ o

, .,~~; ':,

, .

o !)'

. . . . ":" . .-

- . I :; ....

".

i' ;1

The most vulnerable hpurs for individual female victims are

o from one p.m. to ten p.m., as shown in Figure 9. This includes

the prime shopping hours for both the daytime and the evening.

C)

o

[Insert Figure 9]

These offenses' are concentrated in the winter and fall months,

as shown in Figure 3 above. The decrease in robberies during the

summer and spring may be due in part to increased daylight but is

probably related to the decline in shopping activity aft.er the

Christmas season as well.

The concentration of individual female robberies about the

shopping distripts along with the occurrence ot individual female

robberies during the shopping hours and in the open, on the street

suggests a strong connection be~ween journey from wor~ or shop­

ping in core areas to parking on or exiting from the fringes of

these areas as a situation of vulnerability. The increased number

of individual female robberies during the months of November and

December may well result from the combination of the increase in

evening shopping due to the Christmas season and the cover of

darkness for the robbery offender due to the early nightfall

during ,this period. Elderly white women appear to be particularly

vulnerable to this kind of victimization .

Of special note is a small concentration of individual female

robberies in an area of low density in the Elmhurst section along

East Fourteenth street in the southern portion of the city. The

robberies in this area cluster in two distinct groups, one centering

upon the location'of several public housing projects and the other

-69-

.;;:.::

,

,;.

"

..

. Q

Q

I " I

Y: ,fl o

J ij II '~

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'/ , :j

\ 11 fl Ii

Ii

"q.

,0

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IZ,

p 10

e 8

r ..

c

'i e

n ~

t 5

I -..J 0 I

11 p

e 10

r 8

C ~

e J/

n ~

t

f,\

o o Figure 9

Individual Female Robbery

Total

,r-J

I , 7 q '" II 12. 13 ,.,

Strongarm

tf la /I lot I~ If IS" I" 11 IP Itt :<0 ~I ~1. .u :Z:,/ I

Time of Day

.@ ,

, . .~

I

IS

By Time of Day

I

I J

I I

l I" 17 18 Ilf

Time of Day

p f~ Purse snatch

e

r

c

t

I' "

10

8

" 1/

I I I I I I I I I I I I , I

g 'f 10 (I I;L 15' N IS- I~ 17 /..P I? ::l.O ;2/ .u. ~~ 2'1

Time of Day

\

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J i

H

II ~ 1\ ;/

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j \)

l

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.'

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(\

'0 ~-c

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o

8 .. ',.,;\

" IJ n' Q

1/

/

a minor commercial area serving the surrounding neighborhood. Rob­

beries from these two areas spread into the residential neighbor­

hoods toward the Bay but not into the neighborhoods going away

from the Bay. The area going toward the Bay combines a high con~

centration of young black families and a much lower concentration

of older whites, and is the only area of high individual female 8·

robbery and high black residential population in the city. other

areas of the city with high black populations have only a moderate

amount of individual female robbery. In addition, nowhere else in

the city is .. there .any sizeable number of individual. female robberies

in an area of low density residential landuse.

-71-

___ .....-.-_. it" ~->-;-·-'1t .. -0 -, ......;......-'~~-:.~'""'~,,-. --::it:--~:----""' .. ,-, ,-.-,:,-, .. ~:,,~. .., " /~ ,.. ":'"

)./.'"

"

f)

"

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~I '

/ ' I, ,

o

--------~ - -- --~-

-------.~---- -----

Chapter Five

A CQMPARISON WITH SOME EARLIER RESEARCH

A. The Ring Theory

Perhaps the most important single work in the field of crime

area studies is that of Clifford R. Shaw and. Henry D. McKay on 9

Chicago in the 1920's and 30's. The general purpose of their

work was to describe the ecological relationships between the re­

sidence of an offender and the physical form of the urban area. In

their very ambitious Chicago study, Shaw and McKay collected data

on eight groups of individuals including 51,859 male school truants,

43,298 juvenile del:inquents, and 7,541 adult offenders and studied

their activities dUl':ing the period from 1900 to 1927. For each

individual offender the home address, offense, age, sex, and other

<=) items were collected. Each offender's residence was plotted on a

map. Then ratios of offenders to total population of similar age

and sex were calculated and mapped for specific areas of the city,

census tracts, and Dquare mile areas. The distributions were fit

to E.W. Burgess' theory of radial expansion, which suggests that a

city expands radially from its center, forming a series of concen­

tric zones. This theory was based upon studies of urban growth in

the Chicago area and describes five basic zones for this city. They

are in order from the center outwards:

"ea) an inner central business district; (b) a trans-i tion zone surrounding t:he central business district: with residential areas being 'invaded' by business and industry from the inner core; (c) a working-class resi­dential di$tricti (d) a zone of better residences with single-family dwellings; and ee) an outer zone of com­muting with ,suburban areas and satellite'cities. n 10

o This theory as applied to delinquency was accepted as being .. in the

-72~

'.' "I.I

· -~- -~ ---~----~--- --- --~~

main correct as far as the city of Chicago is concei'ned." The

data was analyzed by square .mile areas, concentric zones, and radial

lines of gradient, all centering on the Chicago' Loop. Map lO.is an

example of the type of maps used in their analysis.

[Insert Map 10]

The Shaw and McKay study concluded that:

1. "There are marked variations in the rate of school truants, juvenile delinquents, and adult criminals between different areas in Chicago."

2. IIRates of truancy, delinquency, and adult crime tend to vary inversely in proportion to the distance from the center of the city."

3. There is a "marked similarity in the distribution of truants, juvenile delinquents, and adult criminals in the city."

4. "The difference in rates of truancy, delinquency, and crime reflect differences in qommunity backgrounds."

5. ' "The main high rate areas of the city ••• have been characterized by high rates over a long period."

CI

6. "The rate of recidivism varies directly with the rate of .. indi vidual delinquents atld inversely with the distance from the center of the city.n ll

These' conclusions were interpreted into gene:r:al theories. Shaw

and McKay theorized that dl3linquency was related to the si tuati'ons

resulting from city growth, since (a) the highest rat~s of delinquency iJ;~~...:

-"

were found in areas adjacent to the central business district and

large industrial-centers; (b) these areas were found to be in a pro­

cess of transi tionfrom residential areas to ,areas of business and

industry; and (c) -these areas were characterized by physical deterio­

ration, decreasing population, and disintegration of conventional ,~'

culture. They also~'theorized that with the disinte9ration of the

-73-

o

\ w

()

IJ

.'

1-

Source:

o

-------------,----

Map 10

Ring Pattern of Delinquency Rates

Zone Map III

MAP OF CHICAGO

- - -...:;::;::,,~ .. ,. C.R. Shaw and H 7D. I:'1cKa:(, Delinquency Areas: A Study of th7 Geogr~ph~c D~str~bution of School Truants Juv7n~1e De1u:quen~s ,,~nd Adu1 t Offenders in Chi~a 0

~~h~cago: Un~ve:r;:s~ty of Chicago Press', 1929). 9

-74-

E

D

"

C~j '-

/

~--------.-.-,....,...,..----~----------------------------.~--

community as a unit of social control in such areas, the resistance

to delinquent and criminal patterns continually weakens until the , 12

attitudes and behavior of delinquency become accepted.

The studies of Shaw and McKay did not distinguiSh crime patterns

by type of crime. Their analysis of patterns ","as based upon the resi-

dences of all juveniles and adults coming before the courts i,n the

study period. The analysis consequently says little about either

the distribution of special kinds of offenses or offenders such as

truants, felons, pickpockets or burglars. The specific distribution

of robbery was not discussed.

A more recent study by Calvin Schmid of seattle dealt with both 13

the location of offenses and the residence of the offender. The

distance from the center of the city for many of the individual

crime types were calculated, as shown in Figure, 10. While Schmid's

classifications of robbery are somewhat different from,those used in

the pres,ent study, there are many sirnilari ties between his results

and'the general pattern of robbery in ?akland.

[Insert Figure 10]

The city of Oakland has, like the' cities studied by Shaw and

l-1cKay and Schmid, had a growth pattern that has generally moved out-

ward in a series of expanding circles--starting with the Bay but with , .

a severe distortion due to the older, denser, more urban city ,in the

northern area in contrast to the lower density, suburban nature of

the southern area.

-75-: c/'

" ... ------.-'~-ii'..,..---c........,.----, ......... -.... ~..".-,--""',.'--,..--

\' ... :,~ //, II.

\

'.

[, I,

o

o

Source:

Figure 10

ir=~~~=~~~=====:!'·!!!1C~'!i?S_-~·~"~·=!!"!i::!'!~!!:'~~.!!1!-~,~~_~. __ ~ __ ~_~

CRIME GR'ADIE'NTS~ OFFENSES'· SEATTLE: 1949 -1951

z 0

~ oJ

~ (J Q,

0 0 0 ci 2 u: ... .. '" ~ '"

z a

OJ

.~ 1,0.0.0.0.

5 .. a .. o

" o ci 2

~ w

~

e-",,-:--r:.=.r~-r-....-,= 1,0.00.0

\{T~V

\:"1-]~1 z a S oJ

~ a Q,

a o o <S 2

IS ... ~ 0..1 E=--r--+--+-f-li-

· . .t,~~~ '... '\

I , R~SIt>s:NCt

10.0,0 I II 1lI & ll: Jl:t ZONE

1.:00;;======.=_-;.-..-=--;_.... . ~_ ... .;.;;.-

1.0. I n

0.1 I It

Calvin Schmid, Urban Crime Areas, Part II, American Sociological Review, XXV, 10 (1960), p. 664.

)

-76-

;.l /

""~~-="'~""-;"."'" .-~-----, ~,~. ' .. ~~(

I

. "

If allowance is made for this distortion, however, the re-

suIting gradients for robbery for Oakland are very similar to Schmid's

for Seattle--with commercial and male individual robbery decreasing

sharply from the commercial heart of the city to the suburban fringe,

while individual female robbery occurs in both the commercial center

of the city and the midland area of the city with very lit,tle oc­

curring in the low density residential areas.

B. Central District

The Schmid study of Seattle also included a more detailed

analysis of crime in the core area of the city. This area was found

to contain 15.5 percent of the population, 47 percent of the offenses

known to the police, and 60 percent of the arrestees for the study 14

periods of 1949-l9~1 for the offenses and 1950-1951 for arrestees.

The proportion of robbery in this area, however, was only 16 per­

cent for highway robbery, 8 percent for nonresidential robbery, 20

percent for residential and 26 percent for other kinds.

The percentage .of the city IS total robbery .offenses was almost

the same in the skid row area as in the central business district, as

shown in Table 26. The skid row area, however, had only two-thirds

of the population of the central business district and only one

third of the area. Pursesnatch was the only robbery-type crime. ;that

was markedly less in the skid row area.

[Insert Table 26]

While the skid row-area contained fewer total offenses than the

central. business district, it accounted for the highest number of

-77-

o . " .... , ..

..

o

o , ,

/-I"."",

------==-~~-----------. -· _____ ~_·_~~w~ ___ ......... _w, ______ ... ~

Table 26

Offenses for the Central Business District and Skid Row Areas Seattle, 1949-~gl

(In Percent of Citywide Offenses for Each Crime)

Population

Area, square miles

Assault

Felonious homicide

Miscellaneous larceny

Shctplifting

Theft from persch

Check fraud

False impersonation

Bunco

Other fraud

Embezzlement

Burglar,t

Robbery, highway

Robbery, nonresidential

Pursesnatching

Robbery, residential

Other forms of robbery

Central Business District

5,189

.3

11

22

16

55

31

31

19

20

27

21

7

16

8

13

20

26

Skid Row

3,551

.1

15

15

5

3

20

3

18

8

25

2

5

16

5

5

19

22

Source: Calvin Schmid, Urban crime Areas, Part II, American Sociological Review, XXV, No·. 10 (1960), p. 658.

-78-

...

arrestees per 100,000 population for 24 of the 33 crime categories

'I) studied. In contrast with the pattern for offenses, however, rob­\.~

o

bery was not one of the 24 categories for whioh arrests were con­

centrated in the skid row area. Surprisingly, the arrest rate for

robbery in the central business district was more than twice that

of the skid row area, as shown in Table 27.

[Insert Table 27]

Distributional data for arrests is not included in this study.

The pattern of robbery offenses in the central district of Oakland

is, how~ver, similar to that found by Schmid. Because of the high

number of robberies in the Prescott area,' the density of robbery in

the central district is not the highest in the city. The dispersion

,pattern in the central district, however, is similar. Thus, the

grid squares of the central district with ten or more robberies

during thesttldy period are all considerably distant from the major

shopping areas, with the highest concentrations occurring in the

-,7 downtown skid row area, and in an area north of San Pablo Avenue and

east of Fourteenth Street.

The central business district-of Oakland is longitudinal in

shape, with a length of about 15 blocks. Havin,C') migrated from the

waterfront, its prosperity and condition var:y do great deal, partly

by age. Like the areas of concentration in seattle the areas of

concentration in Oakland are on the fringes., There is virtually no

robbery about the high class shopping and office area of the Kaiser

Center,. and .very little in the area south I.)f Broadway. Overall th~

robbery concentrations in the Oakland cenf.:.ral district, as may be .

JI ,\ i\ \\ -79-

".-~... . ~ t·.,. • ~ ..... ' ~.".

.. -.,' :::':~:( -

. '-

" Q

.- ;. +~ ••

.' .~

, I:

Or' :1 l

Table 27

Arrests for the Cent . Skid Row Areasr~!a~~~~ness District and

(In Percent of City Wid A e, 1950-1951 e rrests for Each Crime)

Assaul.t

Central Business District Skid Row

()

Felonious homicide

Petty larceny

. Automobile theft

Shoplifting

Ot~er forms of larceny

Bunco, confidence, swindling

Other forms of fraud

Burglary

Prostitution

Robbery

Sou~ce: C~lvin Schmid

8

10

11

4

9

13

7

19

4

14

16

16

16

18

1

20

29

31

4

7

9

7

SOc~ological R' I Urban Crime Areas Part II ev~ew, XXV, No. 10 (1960), p. 659. ' American

.... ao-

.'-. ...J.--:-_~~_"""""'_~_~~_. \":1' ~ ,. :q -~-':""""----.-- --'-

(1 .

,.

Map 11

Total Robbery - Downtown Oakland

o seen in Map 11, are very low when the three-year span of the data

is considert::d.

[Insert Map 11]

Nhen the distribution of the subtypes of robbery is considered,

there is a considexoable difference between the commercial and in-

dividual robbery patterns. The commercial robbery pattern, which is

sparser than the individual robbery pattern, concentrates in the

area between the "downtown" shopping districts, an and

area of many small shops and a lOWE~r level of activity than the , \

major downtown areas, as shown in Map 12. The shops in this area

appe.ar to be more vulnerable than those in the denSer shopping dis-

tricts. Individual robberies in this however, are quite low area,

as compared with other areas of the central district. The denser

areas comm~rcial activity, with large department stores and finer

shops, have a much lower commercial robbery rate.

[Insert Map 121

Individual robbery in the central business district parallels

the distribution of total robbery. Individual female robberies are

highest, however, in the more blighted areas below Thirteenth street

and in the commercial and office areas away from both the busy shop-

ping areas, shown in Map 13. Individual male robbery is highest as

in areas that have been left behind by progress, such as those with

old hotels, apartments and rooming houses, shg\m in Map 14. as

,

. I

o

o ·f····.····I~.-.• ~.&.2.' ••• + ••• -3.~ •• + ••• w4 •••. + •••• ~ •••• ~ •••• 6 •••• +. , . . .. ····.····H·~··.····9·····-···1··-··-·-·1···· I ~ . I i ~ · I, ••••• ' , t •• t,., • f , , • I ••••• t"., "" :::: I .......... .... :::: ! ~ I ! L """ mGIWTT" I l~ • 1 ."Xi I ! 1 ! "" .. t ••••••• ooooo I L "" ••• , •••••• 00000 I "" ......... "oooou L + • • ,. 00000 f •• i • II

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.. . A.. ~ . ·6 .7-8 9-10 1.1-20 21-5'0

[Insert ?~aps 13 & 14] NUmber of ~obberies in Grid Square

-82J..

-81-.' .. ~-'~--"r, --, .. , ... ,-------.-, .. ",.,----

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iYiap

Commercial Robbery Downtown

II • ••••• r)n···.·-··l··~·.·wM·l_·_. _ .•.. G·~····.····6····+····,····.···· • •. • , ··········1·········2····.····3········· .. . t I I I • I 1 • I

} \ I I I t I

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6I1 ..... ...H..... ::::: ~ 4f~ I,

:::::::::: .,.,' ~. I I I ... +. ~o 1 !!!! I • •••• II II •••• ::::: , ..... I :::: I ( . I I

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•••• I I ...•• I ," • t ,

911

::::: " ...... "'" f I,' •• I I

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·1 .•• I 1 ... 'd S f Number of ~er:i.es l.n. Grl. 0 qu, are ...... o •••••••••

Y •••••••••••••••••••

1 •••• 1 '. -~3.-•••• -.4~ •••••••• ~ •••••••• ~6 ••••••••• _... '. *···-.····1-·-w+~··-2··-·+ . + , •• c~ ••••••••• a ••••• &s ••••

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1 02 3 ~. " -83-

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Hap 13

Individual Female Robbery Downtown

·····.·~··I····.· .. ·2····.····l····.·.··4··~·.···~5 •.. ·.····6····.····r··.·.···.II .•••••.•. 9 •••.• ~ ... I ...••.... 1 .... I ~ 1 I ! ~ ~ ! } ~p :f.,. 1

I I 1 I f xtXXl: .......... . I f

XXX xx 1 • XX)(Xl •

'I"""t , , , , • t , , , I )CltXXXI I

I .... ,"'" I 2 .......... 2 } +...... } '+++.+ M

I ..... E:RRtTT I 1 ++++. I • + I I I 1

1 p::5' -9 "!./ • .. .. .. • .. ....... I I Jj1, .................. " I I ~<.... .. ............. c .. ". 1 I <J I 1 •••• XXXXX I • ",. XXX;:X • I "" XXXXX 1 I "" XXXX)( I I •••• •••••• I 1 .......... 1 4 _ ••• ~..... •••• •••••• •

f -.......... ..... ..... III :::::::::: :::: :::: :::::~~~~~::.z.

I '''''..... ·····xxx _...... ."". I i '''''::::: l1lil1li OOUU ••••• XX .... u ... n i I ..... 11111111 OOUU 1 I ..... BHIIN OOUO 1 I ........ 11 IJOUU ............... I 5 .. t. ~ I .. ".... OOUU .. .. .. ... .. .. I I &::. •• UOUO "~"~ '" •••• f ... c. OOUU t •• , : • ,. : ••••

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f "'" • J -::::: ." 1 . . ... , . . I ..... I l • I ,ro

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,Number of Robberies ip. Grid Square • ••••••• " ................. & •••• " •• "'''=::: ... " ...................... \;: ...... "'" .. " ..................... " ............. . •••••••••••••• , •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• XXXXxx~)Cx u~oouuooo eD8~abebe UH~N.N •• Y .111.1.11 • •••••••••• ,""" ................... + •• + ••••• xxxxxxxxx uooouuuuu ~~~~ebeb~ ~ •• N.iMI~ •• 11 •• ," • ••• 1 •••• ""2"" •••• J •••• • .. ··4& ...... +.5 •••• XXXX6XXXX U0007UU~U ~e~ed~bbe ~~~NY~WM~ dl ••••••• ::::::::: i::: :,:::: :::::::::::::::::: !::!!!!!! ~~~gg~~ HgggSSfl~H ~g:gggg~g =:::===~= :::::::U ·························~······.· •••••• g ••••••• a •••••••••••••••••••• v ....... ".c •••••••••••••••••••••• 1 2 3

o

4 5 6 -84-

7-8 9-10 11-20 21-50

_.'"ri._ ........ __ ~ _.---..<_ .. 0'

, ,

I -

L t

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--------------------------~----~------------------~ ------------------------------

Map 14

Individual Male Robbery Downtown

b··l·········t···· •••• ~.e •••• ···~······ S .A._o.+ .... 5 ....•. ··o6····.····t···~. 1 -3········ • 1 +···_l·_··~··-·~-H-..... . • -... ~ > ..

\ I ! \' II :::: . \

e.&:I» 1 •• "a 1 I + \ I I I i 2

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\

..... "~ • ,I • , • • • , , , I . __ .1 ....... '"., 1 1 ..... :-.,~ •• '.-.. 1 Q .,t' •• aa:, •••• • •• I •••••• ,;.::1& ::!: aa::: 0""" .- ·l 1 •.•••••. ::.:. ..,t :: ••• :": .• -." ••.. t' •• ,0 ••••• II ........... :. •• • • • 1 + ••• -.~~~~~ ",. ::::: :::: ::::: 1 I ••••• ".,' •••• ••••• .;II I ••••• ,', •• :::: ••••• f'" I

...... ,.,' .... , l ••••• •••• xxxxx ••••• !::: .... , 1 5 ••••• ~";HH~ :::: - •• - ~~~~~ :;: :: ,... ••• •• + I •••• f~K;t;P;N ••••• I

i"."",,;.,\ :::::~~~:~ :::::::::~ :::: ::::: 1 .. ""._._._ •••••••••• 1 t ,.", •••• - ••••• ~

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UUUOUHIIMNII.· .. ·" .,- l ++++ OUUOOlllllliill"·"'''· I ++++ UUUougHIIN~.···· + +.++ _.a.' ,t t' ,t J:2=.'~XXXX~ 7

I .... :::: ~~!!~:::::~~~~~ ""', :::: I

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1 ....... •••• J'--..... -~,_·,2-· i l. 3 4 ••••• c"D.a=s.;a •• = •• aa1l ... ·:a:· ... ···=~······:;~:t:I~H., 1I1Iu.wan"t,IUI, " ••• ·_·::1 , lU ........ ~ •• ~·~~~~~.·:::::::::·:::::: .... +++!::::: gg~~~~r Hgggt.HSHB get!l!~gggg :::~e::~: :~:~~: .. .

:::: i:::: :::: ~::: ::::::;:::: ::::::::: tH!~!::! g~~~~x~~x~ ~gn~~8tl~ nUggg~g' =:::!;;;;';;;;;;i!!. •••••• I~ "t,,~t·t' .~-•• --•.. ~_ =.~ •. ++~.++.++ xxxxx ~ ~ ' .. = •• =a •••• = •• ~a ••••• • I ••••• •• " t. t ,',', , ........... :.;: ••••••• :l.: ... :.:Ia .•• a, .• .1I ••••••• a;)1 "

•••• ',1 I.' ~ ••• s.tJ •• e •••.• :lc ••••• ~.- - .·..;n r<rl.'.:1- Square ......... " NIimber of Robberl.es... Ul l.4. "0

\ '0

"

"

"

'& .

The only port.ion of the central business district in which

both individual male and female robberies are high is an area of

mixed office and re~idential buildings east of Fourteenth Street

and north of Broadway • The major daytime employment sites in this

area are a group of government and private office buildings.

The individual female robbery concentration decreases slowly

on the north and east while the male robbery pattern remains rela-

tively uniform over the area north of San Pablo Avenue. While there

are few individual female offenses west of Fourteenth Street, the

individual male robbery occurrence becomes denser toward the skid

row area. This area contains the major portion of the individual

male robberies concentrated in the central area.

c. A Theory of Intensity

A recent study of crime distribution, and the only such study

focusing wholly on the crime of robbery, was a study by Schlomo Angel.

Beginning with t'he assumption that crimes ·on the street are influenced

both by the presence of witnesses, which deter crimes, and the pre-

sence of victims which make them possible, this study postulated

that different types of landuse would affect lithe probability that a

witness would show up in effective range during the time it takes to 15

perpetrate the offense." This theory is illustrated in Figure 11

which maps the levei of Ii robbery as the intensity of landuse and street

use increase. If the. intensity of landuse is very low, this theory

su~gests that the level of crime will be low. The scarcity of po-

tential vi'ctims reduces the availability of opportunity. This is

Zone 1 in Figure 11.

[Insert Figure 11]

-86-

. '

(. fl /"J , , .

~

'"

1 "i

~.------ --~~~~----------~----

Figure 11

~n Relat~on to the Intensity of Use Robbery Occurrence • •

Number of

Crimes

Source:

Z Z Z

n n ,e e

Intensity of Use

schlomo Angel, Discouragi~g Crime Through city Planning, working paper NQ. 75 (Berkeley:. center for :Planning and Development Research, Un~v. o.f california), February 1968, p. 16.

(I

~,

-87-

-,'of<

, . 0 ... ·

o

-i',

o

As the intensity' of use increases, the, number of potential vic­

tims ~vailable increases sufficiently to. attract the attention of

potential offenders, but people are not sufficiently numerous to

provide witnesses. This situation is called the "critical intensity

zone", Zone 2, and is the situation in which most street crimes are

theorized to take place. When the intensity of use is very high,

Zone 3, the level of activity is high enough to create a number of 16

witnesses adequate to deter the potential offender.

Using data from Oakland this study found most robberies to

occur within a block of a commercial artery. (See Map 15.) Very few

robberies were found to occur in low density, middle income resi-

dentialareas or the higher priced shopping and restaurant areas.

The lack of available victims in the middle and upper income resi-

dential areas and the presence of good witnesses, and "conscious"

ci tizens of the higher income levels were held accoul'ltablc for the

lack of robbery in these areas. The occurrence of robbery wi thin a.

block of the commercial arteries was considered to be generated by

the movement of persons f~om reasonably crowded commercial areas

into less populous side streets on their way to cars or nearby resi-17

dences. These [findings were considered to be supportive of the

idea that street crimes are highest in a zone o~ critical intensity.

Using this as a basis, ~gel developed several theoretical models

for street and commercial area design which he felt might help in :;';'

;'reducing the nuntl]er of critical intensity zones and ultimately the \\

number of street 6rimes.

[Insert Map 15]

-88-

I ' ; ,

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,:.,,~- ~ ~"'"

"? '"

)'~'-"''''''''

. "

I,: .

~!,';:. '.' -.'~ ....

\:,.0" ~. '.,

.. :;... ... :~.: ', ..

l , .'

" :'O ... e4tIM .... ".1MI1 ~ C.IIC""". I

. ' ,-

~/ I.\~II/ JJ::lf.lJm

Ii./I'

E ... CH SYMIOL IlEPRESENTS ONE OFFENSE:

• UMED ROIIERY

,.STRONG .... M

COMMERCI ... L ZONES

", -.., '

Map 15

SPATIAL DISTRIBUTION

OF ROBBERIES IN

OAKLAND, CALIFORN IA

November 8, 1966 -December 20, 1966

." .... 1'10· .. . • "~ ... 1' ... .

0.1

\ •

.,. .. II

l'

'10

a.,

Source: ~chlomo Angel, Discouraging crime Through city Plann~ng, Work­~ngPaper No. 75 (Berkeley: center for Planning and Development Research, Univ. of California) , February 1968, p. 15. t.

-89-

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~-- -- -~---

The Angel theory of critical intensity seems clearer in the

case of the individual female robbery pattern than in the male.

In the central district the level of individual female robbery was

greatest for the fringe areas away from ~he very active shopping

districts. Here large numbers of the shoppers are drawn for park­

ing. Similarly in the major neighborhood shopping districts indi­

vidual female robbery is higher in the area around the shopping

centers than in the centers themselves. The majority of the major

shopping districts are surrounded by high dens~ty. and medium high

density residential landuse. However, these higher density areas

do not appear to provide a, sufficient level of activity to perform

the surveillance that is said to be necessary to prevent criminal

activity. The individual male pattern, while concentrated to a

SUbstantial extent on the streets, is less clearly influe~ced by

the level of street activity as opposed to such other factors as

certain neighborhoods.

Angel also suggested that on the major streets themselves there

existed levels of traffic congestion--very low and high congestion--

which provided optimum cover for the offender to conunit his offense.

(See Figure 11.) He reasoned that at a high level of congestion

the necessity for automobile drivers to keep watch on the traffic

prevents them from observing crime on 'the sidewalks or in ~tores

while at a low level of congestion there is so little street traffic

that the motorist ·goes faster and thus there is a lower probability

of a passing motorist seeing an offense or getaway taking place. At " an intermediate level drivers were seen as providing some protection

to the streets and stores nearby.

-90-

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11

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=,;

If true, this theo,ry sho\lld have a particular effect on commer-

cial robbery which is heavily concentrated on the stre,ets. A street

'by street comparison was therefore made of the number of robberies

relative to the' amount of traffic. This ratio (called the congestion

'ratio) was then compared in Figure 12 with the number of robberies

per 1,000 feet of street. The results of this comparison indicate

two clusters of streets, each representing a distinct area of the

ci~y. Thus the streets of the downtown area are grouped as low in

both number of robberies per 1,000 feet of street and in robberies

per traffic volume., The southern streets, on the other hand, have

higher levels of commercial robbery both per traffic volume and per

1,000 feet of length, spreading in a horizontal band about the mid

.30's level of congestion-robbery ratios. Of ~ote is the clustering

of the two major northern area streets. of San Pablo and Telegraph

which carry much of the traffic between central Oakland and the cities

north. Broadway, a street which carries a great deal of commuter

traffic has the lowest rate of commerical robbery per street traffic

of any street in the city with a ratio of only .10 •

{Insert Figure 12]

It is not clear what levels of street traffic would be high, low

and intermediate in terms of the Angel suggestions concerning the im-

pact of traffic upon robbery. The fact that relationship between

commercial robbery and both street traffic and length of street is

similar for the streets which are similar in location and function

s:uggests, however, that at least at their level of street traffic,

the differences in traffic volume make no substantial difference in

the number of robberies. 19

-91-

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o

Streets

1 East 14th Street

2 Foothill

3 San Pablo

4 Telegraph

5 Broadway

6 Grove I ~ 77th Street I

8 12th Street

9 14th Street

10 16th Street

11 23rd Avenue

(J , ..

o Figure 12

Commercial Robberies By Traffic Volume And Length Of Street

R o b .j,

b e r y .S'

b y

T r a f f i c

,4-

,3

v o 1 .1. u m e

./

/

1 1 ..

5

5

10· f'

3 •

6

4 .. 2 •

/0 1/

Robbery per 1000 Feet of Street Length

j' -:;

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1 •

, I~ /5

i, i , j

I

,

,

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: .....

In another recent study of crime patterns and urban design,

the' landuse of major urban arterial streets was said to influence

the ~xtent to which the criminal activity penetrated into the

residential areas·through which the streets pa$sed. Specifically,

the lack of sufficient on-site parking for commercial and entertain­

ment areas was found to be a factor in bringing victims into the

poorly lit residential sectors in search of parking. The attraction

for offenders was. such that high mugging and theft from automobile

rates resulted in the side street areas. A second finding of this

study of the City of Detroit by Gerald Leudtke was a relationship

between the frequency of pedestrian traffic in commercial areas and

the commercia-l robberies. In general, as Table 28 demonstrates, the

heavier the pedestrian 'traffic the less the likelihood that stores in 20

the area would be robbed.

[Insert Table 28]

The studies of Leudtke and Angel suggest that tp~ nature of the I

robbery site rather than its location within the city' is more im­

portant to understanding its occurrence.

-93-

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Amount of

erc1a Robbery Sltes (In Per?ent of Sites)

Detro1t 1969-70

Very busy, Da~

crowding 0.0

Busy, no crOWding 6.4

Moderate pedestrian traffic 25.4

Light pedestrian traffic 30.9

Sporadic pedestrian traffic 36.4

No pedestrian traffic 0.9

Area of '

Night

0.0

0.0

1.8

2.7

77.3

18.2

Source: G. Luedtke D and the PhYSical Ci' .' Ly~tad, J. Kozlowsky and ' .Reduction, A Pilot ~r'd Ne1ghborhood Design Techn?· Hamer1nk, Crime Enforcement and C' ,u y Prep~red for the Natio ~ques ~or Crime and Associates nr~m1)na1 JUst1ce (Detroit Mich~a Inst1tute of Law

, '" p. 27A. ' gan: Gerald Luedtke

-94-

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~"'.. ", .. : ,..;" .;:~:,;'. "

Chapter Six

SOME PROBLEMS OF SPATIAL A~ALYSIS

Any analysis of the spatial characteristics of a phenomenon

such as crime will inevitably encounter problems of scale and of

I 't Is the .subJ'ect the forest or the trees? If the particu arJ. y.

area to be discussed i.s to be broken up into parts for tpe purpose

h t h ld be the size of the various of comparison and analysis, was ou

parts? Does their shape matter or is it irrelevant? Should the

data be standardized in some way--in terms of area, population

or some other cha.racteristic especially related to the phenomenon?

By far the largest amount of crime area analysis that takes

place is that performed by police departments. At one level this

may be through the use of pinmaps which record each indi "ddual

crime, usually for a short period of time, and for the purpose

h t term problems or trends that should be o~ picking up any s or

dealt with more or less immediately. At anoth$r level this will

, f statistics for an area such be through the regular maJ.ntenance 0

as a beat or a census trac • " t These m.ay be used to some extent for

, b t are also lJ.'kely to be used over longer short term analysJ.s u

a month Or year for general comparative purposes and periods such as

for such things as manpower allocation.

A. Analysis In Terms of Standard Areas

The use of standard areas such as be~t o;r census tracts in

, 't' h the'r data that is this kind of way facilitates comparJ.son w~ 0

also maintained with reference to the samf~ kind of area unit,

, cr'J.'mes, population data, socia'l and economic data, including other .

and a myriad of other possible things ranging from firealarms to

-95-

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peanut consumption. Census tracts in particular are useful in

<:) this kind of way.

o

o

The extent to which area units of this type only approximate

the equality necessary for meaningful comparisons is often over­

looked, however. If beat 19 is the largest in the city in terms of

area and at the'same time has the greatest number of robberies in

the city, it is not at all unusual to hear that beat 19 is "high in

robbery", even if it has a relatively low density of robbery per

unit of area. For some purposes, of course, the density may be

irrelevant. But the distinction may be missed, even when it is

the central issue.

This problem can be illustrated in terms of the'Oakland data.

The city, which covers about 54 square miles, has 29 police beats

and 72 census tracts. The police beats average over 1.8 square

miles each. The census tracts average three fourths of a square

mile in area, but range in size from census tract 72 with over 619

grid squares to tract 23, with only 17 grid squares.

The census tract which contains the highest number of robber-

~es, census tract 15, has a very low number of robberies per grid

s~~are area, 1.5, while another cen(&us tract which has fewer rob­

beries, census tract 19, has over 16 robberies per grid square. The

rank:lngs of the high census tracts by number of robberies per,

grid square and number per unit of population are shown in Table 29.

The variation is enormous.

[Insert Table 29J

This same change of the rank of the highest robbery area occurs

-96-

/

' ... -"' ....

Census Tract Number

15

18

19

68

20

70

53

69

52

63

57

33

'~, 26

2.7

29

23

Numbe'r of Robberies

283

23.7

237

224

217

211

197

191

184

158

145

14'5

138

132.

92

85

., .. -~~-.... ---.. ,.-

Table 29

Robbery b1 Census Tr~cts 966-68

Size in Grid Squares

183

42

20

160

19

101

50

88

\ .

54

83

48.

50

34

25

16

17

population (1960)

7261

6775

2359.

7831

1588

5213

5419

7591

5547

4105

5575

6340

5408

3840

1128

1292

-97-

Rank by Number of Robberies

1

2

3

4

5

6

.7

8

9

11

12

13

14

15

16

Rank by Number of RobberiE?s

. G'V' ,,~~lt'r'~' ~ Per )h:t:,·,:-

Squa:J;:~~ __

15

4

1

6

2

13

8

12

9

~4

10

11

7

5

3

6

,Rank by Number

Per Person

.5

9

2

12

1

6

8

15

11

7

13

16

14

10

3

4

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wi th bea't: areas. Oakland police beat 17, for example, contains

·the highest number of robberies while the density of robbery

in this beat is one eighth that of the density of police beat

five and equal to the density in a beat with almost half the num­

ber of robberies, beat 22.

Standardization of the data into numbers per square mile or

per 100,000 persons is often made to eliminate these differences

between areas. Display of the data in map form can alsO be helpful

in making the reader aware of the variations.

A second problem with. respect to the use of standard areas

relates to the homogeneity of the phenomenon within th.e area. The .~

recording of the data by beat or census tract implie~1 to some ex-

tent that the crime occurs uniformly over the area. This assump­

tion of homogeneous distribution within a census tract or police

beat can be very misleading for robbery.

An analysis of the robbery distribution in the area of census

tract 15 illustrates this problem. Census tract 15 is the highest

robbery census tract in the city. However, there is an intense

concentration of robbery in this census tract upon the street

which makes

FigUre

is the most

up the boundary;with census tract 21, as shown in

The robbery concentration in this four block section

intense in the entire city. However, when this robbery

concentration is di,splayed by census tract it is spread out over

the,. entire area of census tracts 15 and 21. When this same area

is considered by the police beat area, the area of concentration

is within one beat area. However, this area also includes large

areas with no robbery at all, as may be seen by comparing the dis-

tributions in Figure 13.

-98-

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[Insert Figure 13]

This problem of homogeneity within the area o'f analysis is

multiplied many times over when the distribution of the phenomenon

has linear tendencies, and is made even worse if the line of the

linear pattern also happens to be the boundary of the various areas.

Both these problems occur with respect to robbery in Oakland.

The pattern of robbery when plotted by the" actual location

of the offense is linear with concentrations focused upon the

major streets of the city. This pattern of concentration is

not evident when viewing the maps of robbery plotted by census

tract and police beat areas. The major street in Figure 14,

East 14th Street, is also a boundary for several of the census

tracts. (See Figure 14.) In each of the census tracts that use

this thoroughfare as a boundary there is very little robbery

away from this street. The census tract map of the area, ,however,

necessarily generalizes the occurrence of robbery over the entire

area of the census tracts involved. Thus, a census tract map,

such as Figure 14, shows large areas bounded by t?e major streets

as having a relatively high robbery frequency, when over 70 per-

cent of each tract shown has relatively little robbery.

The same problem exists when robbery is; plotted by police

bea'~ areas. Police beat areas are larger in size than census

tracts~ When police beats are used for mapping, the robberies

which occur about the major streets are even further generalized

into larger areas, as shown in Figure 14.

[Insert Figure 14]

-99-

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o () Figure 13

Robbery in the Prescott Neighborhood - 1966-1968

Census Tract

15

.. -./ \.

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21 \. /

! I

. Beat 1 /

I , / .....

_ .. - ., _ .. -'. Beat Boundary ...... .' ... Census Tract Boundary .' ....

I

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-----------------------------------------~------------------------------------------------------------------------------~~--==~~~~"~~----~ '- r.

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Each dot equals one robbery.

P~lice Be~t Areas

\.

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Robbe.ry

Legend:

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Census Trac-t Areas

Fi,;,ure 14

on East 14th Street and Adjoining Areas

Darker areas indicate a greater number of robberies

!

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.,

and police beats distort the actual Clearly census tracts

pattern of robbery so that' some nonrobbery areas are shown to

have high'robbery rates. There are no existing standard units

however, which do not ·cor .. ·.:ain the for describing urban areas, /

same kind Qf limitations.

To deal with this problem the St. Louis Police Department

called "Pauly" blocks. has developed a system of small areas

Each of these is between our f and six city blocks in size, and

for St. Louis there are about 400, or about three and a half times

more than the number of census trac s. t Even the pauly blocks,

however, generalize highly clustere even s s d t uch as robbery into

possible nonevent areas. The size of the Pauly block area is

t hat a reasonably accurate city-wide sufficiently small, however,

. d 21 pattern may be determ1ne •

. department, in order to obtain More recently the St. LOU1S

. dIed a .method of mapping even more precise information, has eve op

the site of traffic calls and criminal activity which uses the

22 Maps. are produced for each of actual location of the offense.

the nine districts • of the C;ty by a computer pen plotting system

using actual addre~ses. When there are more than ~ive events

. radius a circle is drawn upon the within a quarter of a mile ~n

Areas of dense occurrence are cbaracterized map in that area •.

by the numbers of circles.

B. Analysis By Actual Location

of the Present study, a unit of analysis For the purpose

-102-

,. .i -,. •• _ 4

.J..~.

---~------

I.

;

was sought that would minimize any invalid generalization of the

~ robbery pattern, be independent of the street pattern of the city,

but which would nevertheless allow some generalizations' to be made.

The use of a grid system of fine gradation was ultimately decided

upon. A coordinate system capable of displaying a linear distri­

bution and large enough to be practical fo~ coding was then sought.

Little guidance was found, however, for development of an optimal

size of stUdy unit.

o

What general gui.delines there are seem accurate enough, but

not very helpful in concrete cases. Thus, the level of detail

of the data on a map is said to depend upon a combination of the

scale of the available base map and the requirements of the map­

ping sYmbolism.23

Since a map is an abstraction of reality in

which the symbol represents the occurrence of a real phenomenon,24

both the size and character of the symbol and the adoption of an

appropriate scale to display the symbol are important.

While a square grid coordinate system is independent of the

street pattern, its utiiity varies with the size of the grid unit.

The larger the area of each grid unit, the less clear the clllste,r-

ing of robbery about the streets. As the size approaches a cen­

sus tract in area, the robbery distribution obviously becomes sim­

ilar to the distribution of the census tract map and the focus upon

the major streets is lost. As the size of the grid unit decreases

the street focus pecomes clearer, as shown in Figure'lS. (The

subfigures show ·the results of a decreasing grid size~,)' Since the

street focus of robbery tends to cluster within a half city block of

o the major streets, a grid area which approximates this size was

chosen (Figure 15.D).

-103-

. -.... ~.----.,..~"''''-.. -"",,,,._" '-. -.....,..---

( \

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[Insert Figure 15]

The visibility using this method 'of analysis of robbery

patterns is considerably better with the large, 39" x 26" maps

originally produced than ~wi th the 8 1/2" x II" reproductions neces­

sarily used in this report. It is difficult in the smaller version

either to show the basic events or to add additional information

such as street patterns that would aid in the analysis.

This method of analysis and those now being used by the St.

Louis department are still in their infancy. Their cost and their

ultimate potential on any basis of wide-scale use either for short

range tactical problems or for longer range. analysis and planning

has not yet been determined. They seem to offer, however, a great

deal of promise and to warrant further experimentation and

development.

-104-

.-~.,...----,;:~-_, ...... "'l!P:tI="""")a:4""' ____ ' ___ --7-;.---~ ~:--'",: ... --'.-"'-''''" ~-""~..,~.< _ '\

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C)

.--~~ <-........ __ • . .-~. . __ . .,.-----Figure 15

Robbery Di~tribution in Central Oakland - 1966-1968 W~th Varying Size of Mapping Unit

(Robbery Increases With Intensity of Shade)

A

C

M e r r

e i t t

D

-105-

E

Size of Mapping Unit

i·.

('

'.

FOOTNOTES

1. Oakland City Planning Department, Options for Oakland: a

Summary Report on the Oakland 701 Project (Oakland, California:

Oakland City Planning Department), December 1969, pp. 77-79.

2. Letter from Alex Zuckermann, Lirarian, oakland City Planning

Department, August 4, 1971.

3. The landuse data was taken from a survey conducted in 1965 by

4.

I

the Oakland Planning Commission IS 701 Study staff. This land-\

use system is very generalized and; stresses thelanduse of the I

block rather than the individual parcel. with such a system

the landuse is a reflection of the neighborhood rather than the

site's individual functio·n. The neighborhood grocery and even

the supermarket, if located apart from other commercial establish­

ments, would be considered wi thin a noncommercial landuse area.

Thus while commercial robbery may not occur without the involve-

ment of a business of some sort it quite often does occur in

a noncommercial landuse area. The geperalization of this land-

use system resulted in a large number of grid areas, 15 percent,

with no landuse information. While this is unfortunate, the

use of such a generalized .landuse base shows the basic function

of the area of the site of the robbery rather-than the site's . uniqueness within an area.

Commercial robberies are those offenses whose victims were in

commercial enterprises. They' consist of only' 30 percent of

"i ·the robberies during the three year period, 1966-1968. These

j ' .. :;t4r-'. " ' . '.

-106-

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robberies, as well ~\s robbery of indi viduals--64. 5 percent of

the robberies--will be discussed in greater depth. The re­

maining 5.5 percent of the robberies were either residential

robberies or transportation robberies •. Because of the small

number of these two robbery types ,. they will not be dis cussed

separately.

5. In 1960 there were 3,293 persons living in this census tract

of which 94.5 percent were black; the mean average income for

this area was only $3,153 as compared with $6,303 for the city.

The Prescott area is surrounded on two sides by a large and

shabby industrial port area and on the other sides by the

6.

Nimi tz Freeway. The area may easily be classified as a ghetto

with near complete isolation ifrom the rest of the city. The

majority of the housing consists of old, dilapidated Victorian

style multifamily wood frame houses of which over 80 percent

were built before 1909. There is also a large federal housing

project covering two city blocks that is only one block from

the Seventh Street commercial strip, the focus of the indivi.dual

male robbery concentration.

The entire length of Seventh Street contains 88 robberies with

an additional 92 robberies within a half block of Seventh. As

may be seen on Map 13, all but approximately 25 of the r.obberies

on Seventh Street were in the Prescott area. The second major

street of this area, Willow Street, contains 50 individual

male robberies with an additional 34 robberies within a half

block of Willow.

-107-

-," -,~··-:--,~~",---o~-----· -------:-'--~.------~~ -~., C

7. :i (,

8.

9.

10.

12.

13.

14.

---~---~ .. - .~. -

The City of Oakland may be divided into northern and southern

sections by dividing the city with a line connecting the Bay,

Lake Merritt and the southern boundary of the City of Piedmont.

There is a definite difference between the density of residential

areas as well as type of commercial activity between the two

areas.

Dtlring the period of 1960 to 1966 the nonwhite po],ulation of

the area increased from 17,076 to 28,820 a 69 percent increase

while the white population decreased from 16,149 to 9,170,

a 58 percent decrease. Of note is the decrease in the median

age of the nonwhite population due to the increase in younger

families: from 18.8 to 14.9 years of age for males and from

20.0 to 17.2 for females. At the satt.e time the median age of

the white population remained virtually unchanged, going from

27.9 to 26.7 years for males and 29.8 to 29.7 years for females.

(Oakland City Planning Department, East Oakland: a 701 Subarea

Report, Oakland, California: Oakland City Planning Department),

1969, p. 9.

Clifford Shaw and Henry D. McKay, JuvenLle Deliquency and

Urban Areas, (Chi.cago: University of Chicago Press) , 1947.

Peter Haggett, Location Analysis in Human Geography, (New York:

St. Martin.ls Press), 1966, p. 177.

Shaw and McKay, supra, note 9, pp. 204-206. , ILcz1

Id., pp. 202-203. -

Calvin F. Schmid, "Urban Crime Areas, Part II.," American

Sociological Review, XXV , No. 10, (1960), pp. 664 .. 665.

ld., pp ... b55-678.

..

-.~

o

,

o

o . \

I· (/ I~

15. Sc;;hlomo Angel, Discouraging Crime Through City Planning,

Working Paper No. 75 (Berkeley .. Center for Planning and

Development Research, Univ. of calif.), February 1968, pp. 16-18.

16. Ibid.

l~. Id., pp. 12-15.

18.

19.

20.

21.

22.

23.

24.

The congestion-robbery ratio is the ratio of the nUmber of

robberies per 1000 vehicles per day per length of street.

All of the streets discussed'have a " / s~m~lar speed limit (25

m.p.h.). Thus, the speed of the traffic has little influence

upon the differences between the robbery concentrations.

Gerald Luedtke, Donald Lystad, James Kozlowsky and Stephen

Hamerink, Crime and the Physical City .. Neighborhood Design

Techniques for Crime Reduction, a pilot study prepared for the

National Institute of Law Enforcement d . an Cr~rninal Justice (Detroit: Gerald Luedtke and Associates), n.d., pp. 5-6.

Interview with Dr. Ne.lsol'l B. Heller, Metropolit.cm Police De­

partment of St. Louis, March 3, 1973.

Ibid.

Benjamin J. Garnier, Practical Work ;n ... Geography (New York:

St. Martin Pres~, Inc.), '1963, p. 73.

John P. Cole and Cuchlaine A. M. King, Quantitative Geography;

Techniques and Theories in Geography (New York:

and Sons, Ltd.), 1969, pp. 468-469.

-109-

John Wiley

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