Prospective Criminal Escape Routes

Prospective Criminal Escape Routes: An Exploration of Fugitive Escape Route Decision-Making using a Dual-Process Approach

Kempenaar, Tom (TU Delft Technology, Policy and Management)

Kwakkel, J.H. (mentor)
van der Wal, C.N. (graduation committee)
van Droffelaar, I.S. (graduation committee)

Delft University of Technology

Engineering and Policy Analysis

2022-08-10

The negatives effects of criminals are a threat to the Dutch society. In 2019, 15 percent of the Dutch citizens are victims of High Impact Crimes (HIC). Policy-makers have been mainly focused on disseminating information to businesses and individuals on how to protect themselves and their properties against crime and violence. However, an increased arrest rate is likely to have the largest impact on reducing the negative effects of HIC. Therefore, this research aims to explore the criminal escape route decision-making, to understand the choices made by criminals during their escape, resulting in a higher arrest rate. Since there is a lack data on escape routes, the modelling approach is used for this research. Therefore, a simulation model is developed to predict the prospective fugitive escape routes. The developed discrete-event model for criminal escape route decision-making within Rotterdam is developed based on both expert knowledge from the Dutch Police and the dual-process theory for criminal’s decision-making developed by van Gelder. Analysis of the interviews held with the Dutch Police shows that, type of crime, location of crime, and time of crime are varied to explore the escape route decision-making of criminals. From the analysis of the model outcomes, we conclude that organized crime criminals prefer the bigger (S and N) roads to escape the spatial area. Whereas local criminals prefer smaller (S and collector) roads to escape the spatial area. Traffic density influences the destinations and road use of organized crime criminals in a more distributed use of smaller roads instead of the bigger S and N roads. The location of crime results in different behavior in terms of destination, road use, and choices. The acquired knowledge of this research can result in catching the criminals faster after the crime, due to improved knowledge on potential decisions a criminal could take. Further research should focus on low-level decision-making to give researchers more detailed insights in criminals escape route behaviour. However, additional research is necessary on how personal and micro-level spatial factors influences the criminal escape route decision-making. Also, further research should focus on developing a real-time simulation model for the Dutch Police to predict possible locations of the criminals during the fugitive escape. Therefore, implementing additional features (e.g., live traffic, traffic lights, and micro-level spatial characteristics) to increase the feasibility of the simulation model is recommended. However, additional research is needed on how the additional features influences the criminal escape route decision-making.

Criminal Escape Route Decision-Making
Dual-Process Theory
Hot and Cool Framework
Discrete-Event Simulation

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:f3f734e3-3a5b-4fc7-8250-6099655b109c

Student theses

master thesis

© 2022 Tom Kempenaar