Divergent Decision-Making in Context: Neighborhood Context Shapes Effects of Physical Disorder and Spatial Knowledge on Burglars’ Location Choice

Objectives Although the social disorganization tradition emphasizes the role of neighborhood context in shaping delinquent behaviors and neighborhood crime, researchers have rarely considered the influence of neighborhood context on criminals’ decision of where to offend. This study explicitly examines how concentrated disadvantage in both the origin and destination neighborhoods structures burglars’ preference for street physical disorder and spatial familiarity. Methods We measure observed and perceived physical disorder from 107,858 street view images using computer vision algorithms. Geo-referenced mobile phone flows between 1,642 census units are used to approximate offenders’ potential spatial knowledge about target neighborhoods. Discrete choice models are estimated separately for burglars from disadvantaged and non-disadvantaged neighborhoods (N=1,972). Results While burglars residing in non-disadvantaged neighborhoods are not sensitive to physical disorder in non-disadvantaged target neighborhoods, they strongly avoid disadvantaged neighborhoods with disorder. Conversely, residents of neighborhoods with concentrated disadvantage swiftly act upon street disorder in better-off neighborhoods but not in disadvantaged neighborhoods. These tendencies to react to the presence of physical disorder on the street are also contingent on burglars’ potential familiarity with the target environment. Conclusions We highlight the importance of larger neighborhood structural characteristics and their interactions with spatial knowledge and environmental conditions such as visual signs of disorder, in criminal decision making. Physical disorder is not uniformly indicative of decay across neighborhoods and offenders. This divergent decision-making may also partially explain spatial heterogeneity of crime. Moreover, spatial knowledge is most effective in triggering or deterring actions in places that are categorically different from offenders’ residential spaces.