Distance decay function in criminal behavior: A case of Israel

Nearly a half of property crimes in major cities of Israel are committed by offenders who live outside these cities, with the numbers of crime-perpetrators dropping steadily as distances between the places of criminal residences and the central city increase. However, the situation is different for localities in which offenders reside. In many cases, property offenders travel considerable distances to their targets, showing no monotonic distance decay in their journey-to-crime patterns. The explanation proposed is that interurban income disparities, and not only travel distances, influence journey-to-crime areas, thus suggesting that the spatial unevenness of urban development (i.e., geographic proximity of affluent and poor towns) may spur property crime rates.