Explaining temporal patterns in street robbery

This thesis is concerned with explaining spatio-temporal patterns in street robbery through the lens of environmental criminology. The research question ‘what makes a place criminogenic for street robbery at some times and not others?’ is used to frame seven hypotheses. These centre on some of the features of the natural and built environment that can be considered criminogenic (i.e. crime producing). Specifically, the hypotheses test the time-varying influence of darkness, weather conditions, and the use of land by different groups of victims. Through a variety of statistical methods, and data analyses at various micro-units of analysis, it is shown that all of these environmental features are associated with temporal patterns in police recorded street robbery in the Strathclyde area of Scotland. The findings from this research can be summarised as follows: 1) Aggregation bias is a threat to research on crime and place when micro-temporal patterns are ignored. 2) Seasonal patterns in robbery in the study area are (partly) driven by the condition of darkness. 3) Weather features exert their influence on the robbery event differentially over different seasons, days of the week and hours of day. 4) Spatio-temporal patterns in street robbery are related to facility types that are socially relevant to particular victim occupations. 5) Variations in levels of robbery seem to be strongly coupled to time periods where discretionary activities are prevalent. The micro-level approach taken in this thesis generates nuanced findings that elicit fresh insight into the characteristics of settings where street robbery concentrates. Consequently, this facilitates theorising on the mechanisms underpinning spatio-temporal concentrations in robbery. Crucially, the findings have tangible practical value in informing crime prevention activities that can be used to reduce robbery victimisation