Offender Profile: Links With Other Crimes

Research points to links between vehicle crime and other types of offending, including serious traffic offences. For example, in one recent study (Rose, 2000):

• 30% of dangerous drivers and 51% of disqualified drivers had previous convictions including car theft

• 18% of car thieves had secondary convictions for serious traffic offences

• 23% of dangerous drivers had subsequent convictions for vehicle theft offences

These findings underline the importance of developing an ‘intelligence-led’ model of road policing. Links between disqualified driving and other kinds of offending should be exploited.

The same study found that, while vehicle crime offenders specialise to some degree, they are also involved in other types of offending.

• 47% of car thieves had recent car theft convictions (i.e. within the last 12 months)

• 75% had recent convictions for mainstream offences

• 44% of car thieves were reconvicted of vehicle theft offences in the following year.

• 74% were reconvicted of mainstream offences

Car thieves were much more likely to be reconvicted than other groups of offenders. The more offences committed, the higher the rate of reconviction.

Research based on interviewing and drug-testing arrestees at police stations identified high levels of drugs misuse among those suspected of vehicle crime (Bennett, (1998) Of those tested who were held for theft of a motor vehicle:

• 23% tested positive for opiates

• 31% tested positive for amphetamines.

Of those tested who were held for taking a vehicle without consent:

• 73% tested positive for cannabis, while 36% tested positive for alcohol.

See Home Office Research 183 - Drugs and crime: the results of research on drug testing and interviewing arrestees http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs/hors183.pdf