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Scientists Study Crime In Progress In a VR Simulated Environment
HughPickens.com writes: Claire Nee writes in the NYT that for psychologists, it's best to observe actual behavior, in real time, and afterward interview research participants. Yet for obvious ethical and safety reasons, it's almost never possible to observe a crime as it happens. Now psychologists have devised a simulated environment that can be navigated using a mouse or a game controller. and had willing, experienced ex-burglars to commit a mock burglary in it. Ex-burglars approached the task in a dramatically different way from a comparison group of postgraduate students, of a similar age as our experienced ex-burglars. Burglars entered and exited the house at the rear, while students, unaware of the cover that the side and rear of the house afforded, entered at the exposed front. Burglars spent significantly more time in areas of the house with high-value items and navigated it much more systematically than the students did. They also showed greater discernment, by stealing fewer but more valuable items. Most important, all participants burgled the real and the simulated houses almost identically (PDF). We concluded that using simulations can be a robust way to study crime, and in studying it this way, we will not be limited to just burglary. "A better understanding of criminal behavior will help us reduce opportunities for crime in our neighborhoods," concludes Nee. "By knowing what the burglar is looking for — what signals wealth, occupancy, ease of access and security in properties — we can make adjustments in awareness and protection."
I doubt their motivations were the same as someone who had actually had the drive to steal in reality previously. Without having to be in the actual situation they never visualized the necessity of cover or the true value of the items they were stealing. A real burglar had already done these things before, so in the simulation all he had to do was emulate his previous actions from memory. It's a dumb study.
And as soon as one form of crime is understood and deterrents introduced, won't the (successful) criminals simply move their attentions to another neighbourhood, modus operandi or equally illegal field of endeavour?
No. Most crime is based on opportunity. More opportunities means more crime. Fewer opportunities means less crime.
This initiative doesn't seem to address the basic issue of the number of criminals
There is not a fixed number of criminals, nor a fixed amount of crime. If crime doesn't pay, potential criminals will do something else, and as crime in an area falls, businesses invest and other job opportunities tend to open up.
Actually, something new was learned. The goal of the experiement was to test whether virtual environments are a valid tool for observation of burglary techniques such that their use should be continued. They weren't looking for new insight into *actual* burglary techniques -- that comes later.
This is all called out explicitly in the paper -- the approx 10 page paper which took about 10 minutes to read.
Yes, it would make for a good grant write up because this paper suggests continued development of the virtual environment techique would be productive.