It has long been argued that crime moves in response to targeted law enforcement (Repetto, 1974; Hakim & Rengert, 1981; Barr & Pease, 1990), although the empirical evidence is often less convincing than the rhetoric (Eck, 1993; Hesseling, 1994). There are arguments that due to the negative effects of the enforcement strategies that has actually resulted in a diffusion of crime rather than a displacement of crime, whereby the crime reduction benefits of the police operation spill over into areas not directly targeted by the law enforcement action (Clarke & Weisburd, 1994; Green, 1995; Ratcliffe, 2002). Until recently there has been no systematic approach in acquiring empirical support for either side of the argument, although there has been a need for a methodology that is solid enough to clarify any displacement or diffusion of benefits and being simple enough to be applicable across a range of situations and user accessibilities. The introduction of the weighted displacement quotient (WDQ) from Bowers and Johnson (2003) attempted to address many of these issues.
Normally crime incidents are neither uniformly distributed over space nor randomly distributed. Rather, they occur in some form of clusters or trends. Numerous researchers have identified various sociological, temporal, and behavioural characteristics of offenders and crime locations that inform the non-random nature of crime clustering as Chainey and Ratcliffe (2005) have discussed in their research. Building on both routine activities theory (Cohen & Felson, 1979; Felson, 1998) and the rational choice perspective (Cornish & Clarke 1986, 1987; Clarke & Felson, 1993), Brantingham and Brantingham (1993a) elaborated the idea that crimes occur as criminally motivated when individuals come into contact with suitable targets as they travel between places and through areas that are known to them and wherein they are comfortable (awareness spaces). Further, they stated that crimes occur within cities where criminal behaviour is highly patterned and frequently localized (Brantingham & Brantingham, 1993b). Due to the newly setup design on urban areas and also the people within the cluster therein, certain areas will experience disproportionate amount of different types of crime (Brantingham & Brantingham, 1993a). This idea, combined with place-specific attempts by crime prevention practitioners to reduce crime, is really concerned with the displacement of crime.
The central tenet of displacement concerns is that criminally motivated offenders, when prevented from committing crime at a particular location or in a particular way, will not be dissuaded from criminality but will simply be displaced to commit crime in some other manners. Repetto (1974), Hakim and Rengert (1981) identified five forms of displacement as the result of blocked criminal opportunities. The first three are temporal displacement where the time of the offense changes, spatial displacement where the location changes, and target displacement where the target changes. Further forms of displacement include method displacement, where the method the offender uses to commit the offense changes, and finally type displacement, where the offender changes from one type of offense to another (Repetto, 1974; Hakim & Rengert, 1981). From the perspective of action-oriented researchers aiming for a crime prevention outcome, Barr and Pease (1990) took a more theoretical approach in considering displacement as both a frustrating side effect and a predictable effect of specific policies and a manipulative tool of crime control. Barr and Pease (1990) concluded that displacement or deflection of crime is simply a reorganization of the space and time in which a potential criminal comes in contact with a potential victim, and that displacement is valuable not only for the planning of short-term strategies, but because it illuminates the choices that have been made which lead to the present pattern of crime (Barr & Pease, 1990). Most studies of crime displacement tend to test for spatial displacement (Hesseling, 1994); however, there is a test for a rare non-spatial example as discussed by Yang (2008). Yang (2008) focused on economic risks and loss resulting from changes in Philippines customs procedures, identifying predominantly method displacement, where changes and increases in enforcement of customs procedures caused adaptations in methods of evasion of duty payments. Spatial displacement is often articulated by practitioners and criminology researchers as a negative outcome from a crime prevention operation.
Ratcliffe (2002) cited various examples of researchers who have encountered a negative response of practitioners to suggestions of displacement. The general concern expressed is that crime displacement eliminates the effectiveness of crime reduction operations by pushing crime to nearby areas or other crime types. This assumption is often predicted on the overly optimistic notion that without displacement no crime would have occurred at all, a notion that places greater faith in crime prevention strategies. As Clarke (1995) noted that the uncritical acceptance of crime displacement may also mean that increases in crime, which might have occurred anyway, have sometimes been wrongly attributed to displacement. The incorrect view that crime displacement is inevitable which do not result in any net reduction in crime is a negative outcome of a crime prevention operation. It has not been effectively countered by a research tradition that although blessed with evidence, lacks appropriate tools and a public voice. Where crime displacement does occur, it is usually the result of situations that forces criminals to access nearby opportunities not within the confines of the enforcement operation. When criminals are forced into secondary and, by implication, less effective target choices, this will theoretically result in less crime. This idea was echoed by Eck (1993), who in his summary of thirty-three studies of crime displacement found that crime displacement is least likely to occur in the direction of unfamiliar places, times, targets and behaviours; what he termed as familiarity decay (Eck, 1993). Eck (1993) concluded that prevention and crackdown efforts focused on unique situations will have less displacement than prevention or crackdown efforts focused on general situations.
Empirical evidence supports a lack of total crime displacement. For example, both Hesseling’s (1994) meta-analysis and Ratcliffe’s (2005) empirical work in Canberra have concluded that crime displacement is not an inevitable outcome of a police crackdown on crime suppression operation. Green (1995), while examining the impact of a specialized multiagency response team on Cornish and Clarke (1987), conceptualized crime displacement from the perspective of rational choice theory. From their examination of the choices made by criminals in the decision to commit crimes and their choice of targets, they believed that crime displacement could best be explained and understood by concentrating on the criminal’s personal decisions and choices made in committing crime. The decisions, opportunities, costs, and benefits associated with particular offenses, in Cornish and Clarke’s view, work to establish the confines of crime displacement within different categories of offense. If this is the case, then it becomes less possible to justify a generalized approach to crime displacement and requires practitioners and researchers to be more open to the possibility that crime displacement might or might not occur with different spatio-temporal (and other crime displacement typology) characteristics for different crime types and situations. This raises the specter that crime displacement areas might not be uniform, with the corollary that the spatial context of the wider environment surrounding a crime prevention operation must be considered.
Diffusion of benefits is the spread of the beneficial influence of an intervention beyond the places which are directly targeted, the individuals who are the target of control, the crimes which are the focus of intervention and the time periods in which an intervention is brought (Clarke & Weisburd, 1994). Ratcliffe and Makkai (2004) identified two types of diffusion of crime control benefits: deterrence and discouragement. Deterrence relates to an increase in the potential criminal’s perceived risk of apprehension, and discouragement relates to an increase in the perceived effort required to complete the criminal act (Ratcliffe & Makkai, 2004). Both mechanisms are capable of reducing crime in areas not specifically targeted by a crime reduction policy because the levers they pull relate to criminal perception rather than increases in actual risk or actual effort to commit crime.
Evidence for diffusion of benefits can be found in Weisburd et al. (2006) on social observations and ethnographic research that examined immediate crime displacement and diffusion effects of Jersey City interventions focused on prostitution, disorder, and drug market activity. They found a tendency among those they interviewed to resist moving and re-establishing their prostitution or drug activity in another location. Further, they noted statistically significant trends in target and catchment areas regarding the decline of disorder offenses, leading to the conclusion that the crime control efforts diffused into the areas surrounding the target sites (similar trends were seen with prostitution and drugs, although the trends in drug crime lacked statistical significance). Their results supported rational choice and routine activity as theoretical explanations, as well as giving credence to Eck’s (1993) concept of familiarity decay. However, with the exception of a few research papers, it can be concurred with the view of Hesseling from over a decade ago that most of the extant research lacks interest in, or intent to seek, evidence of a diffusion of benefits (Hesseling, 1994). This situation remains today, even with the explosion in recent years of the use of geographic information systems (GIS) and GIS science within policing and criminal justice research. This is unfortunate given that actively seeking out evidence of this benefit will assist law enforcement in justifying operational expenses and planning future crime-reduction strategies (Ratcliffe & Makkai, 2004). Beyond the practical policing and crime reduction benefit, there is also the possibility of increasing the theoretical understanding of criminal response to targeted policing strategies.
Ratcliffe and Breen (2011) conducted research on the use of weighted displacement quotient (WDQ). The use of the WDQ has been shown to be of value beyond the initial application to burglary, as predicted by Bowers and Johnson (2003). Furthermore, with the inclusion of some relatively simple statistics; the research shows it is possible to enhance the WDQ and increase the statistical robustness, which helps determine the suitability of the chosen buffer area. The addition of the phi statistic helps to ascertain that the buffer and target areas are functioning relatively independent of each other. In this way security practitioners using the tool to examine police operations and crime prevention tactics are able to address better the possibility that any changes to the buffer area are not simply a corollary of changes in the target area but rather might be an independent reaction to the crime suppression operation. If there are noticeable changes to the buffer area, security practitioners are frequently interested to know whether the buffer area changes were a response to the treatment. This interest is usually confined to an assumption of complete crime displacement and rarely the more likely possibility of some diffusion of benefits. The phi statistic can inform this understanding by clarifying the relationship between target and crime displacement area; ruling out the possibility of spatial autocorrelation early in an analysis. If the phi value is low, it can be argued that the buffer area appears to be behaving largely independent of the target area. We can then use the WDQ to determine how much the treatment influenced the buffer area through crime displacement or diffusion and take this into account when assessing the value of the treatment.
Cargo thieves are becoming more strategic about how they strike. A thriving black market keeps cargo thieves in business to the detriment of the global economy. Cargo crime has been around for centuries, from robbers attacking merchants on trading roads to pirates seizing ships at sea to bandits on horseback robbing stage coaches. Unfortunately, crime has evolved along with cargo transportation methods. Trucks have replaced horse-drawn carriages, and today’s bandits are organized into international crime syndicates. Cargo crime is an international problem affecting consumers and businesses alike. In today’s global economy, raw materials for manufacturing and sourcing often occur in one part of the world, while the finished product is warehoused and consumed in another. Cargo can be stolen at any point in between, compromising product integrity and availability. Cargo criminals are becoming very professional and work in highly organized groups, targeting specific items and employing people who are specialist to bring a different set of criminal skills to the group. Take for example professional cargo criminals, whose bases of operations are truck yards, hubs for commercial freight cargoes, airports and sea ports. While other criminals target cash and valuable items, these professionals make of with other goods. Cargo criminal used sophisticated operations with well organized hierarchies of leadership. They employ specialists who can carry out different tasks and responsibilities including hijackers and brokers or fences that help dispose the stolen goods. The fences also work with drivers in transferring the stolen goods in the black market. Sometimes foreign labourers are used to move the goods and work with drivers in transporting the stolen merchandize from the docks or trucks. In fencing, goods are brought from another party who is in illegal possession of those goods. The cargoes stolen will be disposed through fences for local market and sometimes the cargoes are taken out of the country in a very short time to avoid being detected by the Police. Those gangs usually employ a specialist who is an expert at foiling the anti-theft locks and GPS system on truck and trailers. Cargo criminals usually heist whole truck load of cargo of which the average freight on a trailer can be valued up to a few million dollars depending on the type of cargoes. There are many cases especially cargoes of electronics products being hijacked from Malaysia and found in the black market overseas the next day. This is how efficient and sophisticated network that the professional cargo criminals have today.
Global economic crisis has increased the worldwide demand for black market goods. In the United States, an estimated $30 billion worth of cargoes are stolen annually and cargo criminals are sophisticated, organized, and, generally, not home-grown (Palmer, 2010). Palmer (2010) reviewed that the criminals are often recruited from the United States and trained by Cuban crime syndicates, then sent to Florida to establish their operations. Most of the stolen cargoes in the United States is brought to ports and exported in ocean containers to countries such as Paraguay, Venezuela, Colombia, Brazil, Argentina, the Dominican Republic, and Costa Rica. From there, they are sold through black market distribution channels. A range of new cargo crime tactics are being deployed to help thieves take better control and thus mitigate the risks of the crimes they are trying to commit, according to experts with insurance provider Travelers in an interview with Fleet Owner, Sam Rizzitelli, national director for transportation at Traveler Inland Marine division (Sean Kilcarr, 2013). Rizzitelli explained that these new tactics fall into three categories: identity theft, fictitious pickups and misdirected loads/fraudulent carriers. The criminals are trying to adjust their methods to develop better ways to get away with cargo. Rather than commit straight theft where loads are physically stolen from parking lots or terminals and risking getting spotted and potentially be involved in a high speed chase; the cargo criminals are trying to be more strategic about thefts so they can better pinpoint and steal specific types of cargo. More of these strategic kinds of thefts are due to a combination of factors: more technology being used with greater access to information within the logistics industry and the involvement of more intermediaries throughout the supply chain. This allows cargo criminals to be in better control of the timing and location of a theft. In many cases, getting the desired cargoes and handed them over to the criminals is easier than having to hunt it down and steal them.
Criminals are becoming increasingly creative in using the internet to pull off cargo crime throughout the supply chainâ€, law enforcement detectives told at a meeting of Harbor Truckers for a Sustainable Future in Long Beach (Bill, 2010). Cargo criminals are using the internet to track shipments, book transportation with legitimate motor carriers and conversely set up bogus trucking operations that arrange cargo pick-ups for legitimate shippers and forwarders. These thieves called a legitimate harbour trucking company whose drivers have the credentials to pick up the container at the marine terminal and deliver it to a non-descript warehouse location. Another ploy is for thieves to advertise on-line as a trucking company. Interested parties on these cargo or intermediaries whose regular motor carrier is unavailable for a particular job will hire the sham operation. The fly-by-night operator may hold the cargo hostage and demand a large sum of money to release it, or the criminal may sell the merchandise. Even rival street gangs that are known for their involvement in the narcotics trade are cooperating with each other in cargo theft because stolen merchandise such as flat-screen TVs are easy to sell, and penalties, if caught, are not severe (Bill, 2010).
Cargo crime is a multi-billion dollar criminal enterprise in the U.S., and the FBI has seven task forces located around the country to combat the problem. In the Memphis region, Special Agent Conrad Straube, coordinator of the Memphis cargo Theft Task Force reported that there is an average of one cargo crime a day in the year from January 2011 to September 2011 and the task force recovered more than USD$1.5 million in stolen cargoes and vehicles (Conrade, 2012). Some of the criminal crews are so organized that each member has their own specialty, from the break-in artist who can steal a rig in seconds to professional drivers, surveillance experts and the guys who know how to defeat the specialized devices that lock trailers carrying extremely valuable loads. Conrad (2012) agreed that thieves often rob warehouses on a Friday night and by the time the crime is discovered and reported on Monday morning, the stolen goods may already be on a store shelf or auctioned online. Cargo crime is sophisticated and becoming an organized enterprise.