UNDERSTANDING REGIONAL DISPERSION OF POLICE- RECORDED CRIMES IN TURKEY FROM THE ROUTINE ACTIVITIES THEORY PERSPECTIVE Türkiye'de Polise Kayıtlı Suçların Rutin Aktiviteler Teorisi Açısından Bölgesel Dağılımı Tuba TOPÇUOĞLU* Özet u çalışma, 2004 ve 2006 yıllarına ait polis kayıtlarını kullanarak Bhırsızlık, gasp, cinayet vc yaralama/darp olaylarının Türkiye'deki coğrafi dağılışını inceleyip sosyal çevrenin bu dağılışa etkisini anlamaya katkıda bulunmayı amaçlamıştır. Belirtilen her suç kategorisi için iller üç gruba ayrılmış (düşük suç oranı, orta suç oranı, yüksek suç oranı) ve sonrasında rutin aktiviteler teorisi ışığında iller arasındaki yapısal farklılıkların bu gruplar arasındaki suç oranı farklılıklarını açıklamaya etkisi incelenmiştir. Sonuçlar, incelenen teorik model ile kısmen uyumludur. Bulgulara göre hırsızlık ve gasp suçları hem coğrafi dağılım hem de belirleyici etkenler açısından benzerlik göstermektedir. Hedef uygunluğu (kişi başı gayrî safi yurt içi hasıla ve sanayileşme düzeyi) ve korumacılığın (hane halkı sayısı ve işsizlik oranı) ölçümünde kullanılan değişkenler bu suçların dağılımını belirleyen en güçlü etkenler olmuştur. Kişiye karşı suçların ise farklı etiyolojisi var görünmektedir. Korumacılık (işsizlik oranı ve hane halkı sayısı) ve maruz kalma (şehirleşme oranı) ölçümü için kullanılan değişkenler yaralama/darp suçlarının dağılımını belirleyen en güçlü etkenler iken, kullanılan hiçbir değişken cinayet suçlarının dağılımını yeterli ölçüde açıklayamamıştır. Bu bulgular hem araştırmanın kusurları hem de sonraki araştırmalar için arz ettiği önem ışığında değerlendirilmiştir. Anahtar Kelimeler: Türkiye'de şehir asayiş suçlan, Bölgesel dağılım, Rutin Aktiviteler Teorisi. ' Assistant Professor, Istanbul University Faculty of Law, Criminal & Criminal Procedure Law Department, [email protected] PBD, IS (3) 2013, sx. 125-147. 126 Polis Bitimleri Dergisi 15(3)2013 Abstract sing data from the police records for the years 2004 and 2006, Uthis study examines the regional dispersion in the incidents of theft, robbery, homicide and assault in Turkey to gain an understanding of the contribution of the social context to the geographic variability in these crimes. For each crime category, provinces were initially grouped into three crime regions (i.e., low- crime, moderate-crime, and high-crime), and then the influence of various socio-Structural characteristics were evaluated under the guidance of the routine activities theory (Cohen and Fclson, 1979). Results were partly in line with the predictions of the routine activities perspective. Findings indicate significant similarities in both the regional dispersion and the correlates of thefts and robberies. The measures of target suitability (i.e., the level of GDP per capita and industrialization) and guardianship (i.e., the household size and unemployment rate) were the strongest predictors of property crime rates. Person crimes seem to have a different etiology. Although the measures of guardianship (i.e., the rate of unemployment and the household size) and exposure (i.e., urbanity) emerged as the strongest predictors of the assault rates, none of the variables examined here adequately explain the regional variation in homicides. These results are discussed in terms of their limitations and implications for future research. Key Words: Turkish urban crime, Regional dispersion, Routine Activities Theory. Introduction Turkey is a safe country compared to most Western societies (Killias et al., 2003). Yet there has been great concern about the rise in crime rates in Turkey during recent years. According to the statistics obtained from the General Directorate of Public Security (GDS), the number of police-recorded property crimes per 100,000 city population increased by 231.6 percent in Turkey between 2000 and 2006 (from 281.1 to 932.4 property crimes per 100,000 city population) (GDS, 2000; 2006). Within the category of property offences, the increase in the theft rates was three-fold (from 222.7 to 707.5 per 100,000 city population). Robbery rates increased from a rate of 3,7 in 2000 to 17.7 per 100,000 city population in 2006, an increase of almost five• fold. During this same period, the rates for the police-recorded crimes against persons more than doubled (increased from 302.9 to 646.6 per 100,000 city population). Within this category of offences, while homicide rates have not Turkish Journal of Police Studies 127 changed much during this period (e.g., the rates were about 6.9 homicides per 300,000 city population in both years), the assault rates increased from 132.1 to 247.3 per 100,000 city population. Despite the increase in the overall crime rates over the recent years, there seems to be significant differences in the dispersion of crime rates across the country. Sargın and Temurçin (2011) used police statistics to examine the regional variation in most person and property crime rates in Turkey in 2006, and found that property crimes-and particularly thefts and robberies- increased from the eastern to the western part of the country and concentrated in the coastal provinces in the Aegean and the Mediterranean regions, and in the industrial provinces in the Marmara region. Although Sargm and Temurçin (2011) have not examined statistically the explanatory factors for the geographic variation in these crime rates, they discuss that property crimes are concentrated more in the socio-economically developed provinces, which experience high in-mİgratİon and urbanization due to advances in economic factors such as tourism, industry and commerce, than in the less developed provinces which experience high out-migration. The distribution of crimes against persons, however, seems to follow a different pattern in Turkey (Sargin and Temurçin, 2011). Sargin and Temurçin (2011) found that while the Mediterranean region had the highest homicide rates, followed by the Eastern Anatolia and the Aegean regions, homicides were lowest in the Central Anatolia and South East Anatolia regions. Assault rates, on the other hand, were highest in the Aegean region, followed by the Central Anatolia arid the Black Sea regions, and lowest in the Southeast Anatolia region. Although prior research demonstrated that property crimes and person crimes in urban areas display different concentration across the provinces in Turkey (Sargm and Temurçin, 2011), few studies examined the reasons behind these variations. Durusoy, Köse, and Karadeniz (2008) studied the variation İn person and property crimes in Turkey in terms of various social and demographic factors. However, the methodology used was problematic for two reasons. First, they studied the dispersion in the number of crimes rather than the rates and hence the findings do not account for the size of the city population in each province. Second, they initially included 19 independent variables and then applied linear regression analysis using backward elimination method. However, given the very high correlations amongst the variables used in the analysis, the fact that a variable is removed from the final model based on the removal criteria docs not necessarily suggest that variable to be unimportant. In another study, Cömertler and Kar (2007) examined various social and economic factors to explain the regional 128 Polis Bilimleri Dergisi 15(3)2013 variation in crimes against property in years 2000 and 2004 combined. They applied multivariate regression analysis again but this time used 36 different model specific actions taking multicollinearity into account. Findings suggest income per capita, unemployment rate, immigration, educational level, population density, birth rate, urbanism as the best predictors of these crime rates. However, according to the police records in 2004, thefts comprise about 69 per cent of all crimes against property and robbery include just 3 per cent, whereas the remainder include fires and other crimes. Thus, it is not clear whether the findings presented in Cömertler and Kar (2007) apply similarly to thefts and robberies as well as crimes against persons such as homicide and assault. Therefore, further research is needed to advance knowledge about the causes of the variations in these specific crime rates. Since the founding of the Republic in 1923, and especially after the World War II, Turkey has experienced substantial changes in its demographic and socio-economic structure (Baycan-Levent, 2002). Yet Turkey is still in a modernization process which has not been diffused equally into all the regions; as a result, there exist significant disparities in the level of social and economic development across the Turkish provinces due to differences in the level of industrialization, urbanism, economic resources, and social control systems (Dincer, Özaslan and Kavasoğlu, 2003). The routine activities approach (Cohen and Felson, 1979)-a theoretical perspective often used to link social structural conditions to the level of crime in cities (Miethe, Hughes and McDowall, 1991; Neuman and Berger, 1988)-can be used to explain how these disparities might be related to the geographic variation in crime rates in Turkey. The primary aim in this paper is therefore to examine the regional variation in property and person crimes in Turkey, and then assess the plausibility of some explanations for these variations using the routine activities approach as a guideline. 1. The Routine Activities Model The routine activities model takes criminal inclination as given and explains crime in terms of the changes in the structural