2025/02/01 by William P. McClanahan, Daniel S. Nagin, Marco Otte +2 · 1 voice · 1 citation
Social Sciences · #Crime Patterns and Interventions #Criminal Justice and Corrections Analysis #Policing Practices and Perceptions
paper · pdf · doi:10.1111/1745-9125.12401
openalex publication_date 2025/02/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/23
Abstract A central tenet of the criminal decision‐making literature is that perceptions of the environment shape decisions. Yet the underlying mechanisms linking environmental features to perception remain mostly untested. Those that have been tested have relied on methods that are either correlational or have limited generalizability. We aimed to fill this gap by harnessing the power of virtual reality. Using burglary as a case study, incarcerated residential burglars with varying degrees of proficiency ( N = 160) explored a virtual neighborhood with houses that differed in features related to the risks and rewards of burglary. In support of our preregistered hypotheses, offenders adjust their perceptions in response to environmental features related to risks and rewards. Moreover, proficiency modifies these perceptions, with more proficient offenders believing they are less likely to get caught and seen and, as a result, more likely to break into a house. We support our statistical findings with rich data from qualitative interviews.