Auto Theft in Central Philadelphia

Auto theft is a major concern for cities attempting to revitalize their centers. Tourists, shoppers and workers will avoid this region of the city if they think their property may be stolen. This research is an attempt to identify whether public and private facilities about which parked cars are expected to be clustered at specific times of the day provide a focus for auto thieves. Using the Spatial and Temporal Analysis of Crime computer program designed to identify spatial clusters of criminal events, auto theft in Central Philadelphia is shown to cluster about various sites at different times of the day. This information can be used to help local police focus directed patrol on these "hof localities when they are hot. Motor vehicle theft constitutes a substantial proportion of criminal incidents. In 1992, it accounted for 6.9% of all index crimes and 9.3% of all index property crimes reported to the police and documented in the Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (1992). This figure does not count vehicle thefts in a small but growing number of cases involving thefts at gunpoint (Freid, 1991), which are counted as robberies in the UCR. In Los Angeles, armed robberies made up 6% of vehicle thefts in 1990 (Dean, 1991). Motor vehicle theft is a legitimate concern of the public. BeAddress correspondence to: George F. Rengert, Department of Criminal Justice, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA 19122. 200 — George F. Rengert tween 1958 and 1989, motor vehicle theft increased by about 400% Clarke and Harris, 1992). The public pays both direct and indirect costs for this crime. The direct costs to victims are estimated to average $242 after taking into account recoveries and insurance reimbursements (Harlow, 1988). The indirect costs are more difficult to estimate. They include loss of earnings if the victim misses a day of work to replace a car or appear in court, the rental of a temporary vehicle until the stolen car is replaced, and the emotional trauma of finding one's car stolen, sometimes in an unfamiliar environment. Other indirect costs include the cost of insurance, the cost of measures taken by car owners to reduce their risks of theft (such as the "club"), the cost of accidents incurred in joyriding in a stolen car, and the criminal justice costs of auto theft (Clarke and Harris, 1992). Taking many of these indirect costs into account, Field (1993) estimates that the total social cost of auto theft in the U.S. in 1985 was $4 billion , or about $35 per automobile in use. In 1981, Brobeck (1983) estimated the total cost of motor vehicle theft to be at least $3.3 billion. These costs are not distributed evenly across the population. Brill (1982) argues that the costs of vehicle theft fall disproportionately on the less-affluent motorists who live in higher-risk areas, cannot park their cars in garages, and cannot afford to purchase preventive devices or comprehensive insurance. These costs also fall disproportionally on those individuals who may not be less affluent, but who choose to live and/or work in high-risk areas. Clarke and May hew (1994:94) note that in Britain "there are large differences in risk, with the highest risks in inner cities, multi-racial areas, and the poorest council estates." Rengert and Bost (1978) investigated where auto thieves who lived on the outskirts of Charlotte, NC were most likely to commit their crimes. A bimodal distribution emerged with most of the crimes occurring around offenders' homes in multi-racial low income neighborhoods and in the Central Business District of Charlotte. In other words, when the auto thieves left their own community, they most often chose the neighborhoods near the center of the city to commit a crime. Rengert (1981) discovered an identical scenario for residential burglaries in Philadelphia. Auto thieves generally go on foot or use public transportation. Otherwise, they would leave a car or bicycle in place of the car they stole. Therefore, they are unlikely to travel long distances to commit crimes and more likely to drift toward the center of a city than outlying areas (Costanzo et al., 1986). According to the NaAuto Theft in Central Philadelphia — 201 tional Crime Survey (Harlow, 1988), vehicle-theft risk varies with proximity to the center city, with inner-city residents experiencing the highest risks and residents of rural areas the lowest. Clarke and Harris (1992) calculated the disparity between cities and rural areas as a ratio of 6.6 to 1 in 1989 — a ratio much higher than for all other index crimes save robbery. There is little doubt that urban areas in general, and the central parts of urban areas in particular, are the main targets of auto thieves. The degree to which these crimes focus on the central sections of major cities has caused considerable concern among urban planners and government officials. The large investment in the physical infrastructure of this region of the city would be sacrificed if users abandoned these neighborhoods (Adams, 1988). For example, large department stores would not be economically viable if middleand upper-income customers traveled to suburban malls to do their retail shopping. Corporate headquarters would encounter difficulty arranging business meetings if their clients perceived the central city as being a dangerous place to conduct business. Capitalizing on this perception in Philadelphia, the CIGNA insurance corporation has offered $100,000 insurance policy to any business person to compensate them for assault, robbery, or kidnapping while not at home or on the job (Wedo, 1994). The business and civic leaders of Philadelphia believe the city center can be revived (Liedman, 1991). They have organized and held many strategy sessions to identify solutions to their problems, foremost of which was the perception that the city center was no longer safe. Not only was perceived violent crime a problem, but so was property theft. Especially important is the trauma that occurs when one returns to one's car from a center city function and discovers that it is no longer there. Although auto theft may not be as traumatic as other property crimes (Clarke and Harris, 1992), the trauma increases if one is left stranded in an unfamiliar environment or if the car is stolen at gunpoint (Dean, 1991). Business and civic leaders decided that the issue of crime in the center of Philadelphia must be addressed directly. First, they wanted to assess the extent of auto theft in the city center. Second, they wanted to know where in the city center these thefts were taking place. Third, they wanted to know what variation existed in the time of day the thefts were taking place. Finally, there was the issue of the interaction between time and place — 202 — George F. Rengert whether all places were being victimized at equal rates at various times of the day. This is the temporal-spatial aspect of the problem. Each of these questions will be addressed in the following section of this article. We begin by identifying the theoretical reasons to expect auto theft to vary at different times and in different places in central Philadelphia. THEORETICAL BASIS FOR AUTO THEFT The prevalence of auto theft in our society is not surprising when one considers that its targets are widely available, they offer a variety of strong temptations to thieves, they are afforded little guardianship by their owners, and they seem comparatively easy to enter and steal (Clarke and Harris, 1992). Criminologists have formulated a variety of theories to explain these characteristics of auto theft. Consider the fact that motor vehicles are widely available. Differential opportunity theory states that crimes will take place when a motivated offender encounters an opportunity to commit a crime. Both the motivated offenders and the crime opportunities have a spatial structure in metropolitan regions. Motivated offenders can be understood in terms of Merton's (1968) concept of anomie, in which access to legitimate avenues of success are blocked to certain portions of society, causing them to turn to crime. Considering that inner-city schools are not on the same level as suburban schools, one would expect to find more motivated offenders in inner-city neighborhoods. For example, the teacher-pupil ratio in Philadelphia public schools is nearly 40 to 1, while in most suburban schools the ratio is closer to 20 to 1. Under these circumstances, it is not surprising that the Philadelphia school system experiences a very high dropout rate relative to suburban schools. This leaves many young people with extra time on their hands, which can be used to commit crime and experience its associated thrills (Rengert and Wasilchick, 1985). Fleming et al. (1994) have identified joyriding as a major motive for auto theft. Opportunities for auto theft are widely available. However, they may be more available in center city locations because of a relative lack of guardians in these areas. Most cars in the city center are left unattended while owners go about their business or are Auto Theft in Central Philadelphia — 203 asleep at night. This idea is best articulated in the routine activity approach to property crime. The routine activity approach holds that crime will be most prevalent where three elements converge in time and space: (1) motivated offenders, (2) suitable targets, and (3) absence of capable guardians (Cohen and Felson, 1979). This approach is important because it recognizes the significance of time as well as place. An opportunity for auto theft may not exist at the location of a desirable car if the owner is in the driver's seat. However, a few minutes later, the owner may be on the twentieth floor of an office complex, making the car an excellent target of theft. On the other hand, if the car is parked in an attended lot or one equipped with surveillance cameras, it will not be a good target for theft. Both time and guardianship are important concepts in the routine activity approach to crime. There is a final aspect to auto theft that incorporates the time dimension. This is the fact that automobiles are not stationary objects that remain at the same location at different times of the day. They are moved from place to place following a daily rhythm of leaving home in the morning, arriving at work or shopping, moving to a location for leisure activity, and finally returning home for the night. An important concept here is the location of a specific activity or facility, which attracts the car's owner to a specific location at a specific time. This is the element left out of the routine activity approach; it does not identify the factor that brings a motivated offender in contact with a suitable target in time and space. Brantingham and Brantingham (1995) refer to these elements or activities as "crime attractors," which attract many users to a specific location for a specific time period and provide opportunities for crime. For example, the parking lot of a store may be nearly deserted before the store is open for business and after closing hours. Similarly, office buildings and tourist attractions may only be open to the public at specific hours. On the other hand, we also must consider "crime generators" (Brantingham and Brantingham, 1995). A drug treatment center may spatially cluster many motivated offenders at a specific location at specific time periods when it is open to clients. These motivated individuals may exploit any opportunity for crime located near them. In other words, a location that clusters motivated offenders at a specific location at a specific time (crime generators), and locations 204 — George F. Rengert that cluster opportunities for crime in time and space (crime attractors) are likely to be the "hot spots" of auto theft. In the following analysis, we consider the spatial location of important crime generators and attractors in Philadelphia's center. We identify those times at which they are likely to attract users who leave cars available for theft, or attract motivated offenders who are likely to cluster their crimes spatially around their locations. We begin with an overview of the entire region, followed by a spatial-temporal analysis of auto theft. ANALYSIS OF AUTO THEFT IN CENTRAL