Repeat and near-repeat burglaries and offender involvement in a large Chinese city

Repeat and near-repeat phenomena indicate that victimization might form a contagion-like pattern in both near space and near time. The research community has built abundant empirical evidence of repeat and near-repeat patterns over the past 10 years. Along with these pattern analyses, scholars have also proposed theoretical explanation of the mechanisms of near-repeat burglaries. However, the empirical study of mechanisms is very limited and almost absent in China due to the data unavailability. Utilizing a recent burglary dataset in Wuhan (a large Chinese city), the current research examines repeat and near-repeat burglary patterns as well as the underlying theoretical hypotheses. Consistent with prior findings, the current study found significant and meaningful near-repeat patterns of burglary. In addition, the police detection data indicate that pairs of detected burglaries occurring close in space and time are more likely to involve the same offender than distant pairs. Finally, the implications of the findings and limitations are discussed.