Testing the Impact of Road Network Connectivity on Criminal Lethality

• Author: Bert Burraston,Kayla Toohy,James C. McCutcheon,Aaron C. Poole
• Date: 01 August 2018
• Published date: 01 August 2018
• DOI: 10.1177/1088767918754307
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/1088767918754307

Homicide Studies

2018, Vol. 22(3) 277 –295

© 2018 SAGE Publications

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DOI: 10.1177/1088767918754307

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Article

Testing the Impact of Road

Network Connectivity on

Criminal Lethality

Aaron C. Poole1, James C. McCutcheon2, Kayla Toohy2,

and Bert Burraston2

Abstract

Increased road network connectivity has been linked to more positive outcomes

among all health outcomes. Road network connectivity has yet to be tested in

association with specifically criminal lethality. The current study looks to incorporate

road network connectivity as an explanatory variable for criminal lethality. Data

on Road Network Connectivity and Criminal Lethality are gathered for 190 cities.

Data sources include the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS), 2010

Census, 2010 American Community Survey, Google Earth, and Census Topologically

Integrated Geographic Encoding and Referencing (TIGER) files. The data demonstrate

that a city’s road network connectivity is related to decreases in the rates of lethality

among assaults. Implications of this finding are discussed.

Keywords

lethality, homicide, road networks, interstates, Nibrs, methodology

Introduction

The study of environmental factors, such as roadways’ impact on crime, is a burgeoning

area in criminology (Brantingham & Brantingham, 1981, 1984; McCutcheon, Weaver,

Huff-Corzine, & Burraston, 2016; Weaver, Corzine, Huff-Corzine, McCutcheon, &

Vrbas, 2014). This interest in roadways is also shared by human health research.

Studies that focus in this area test road connectivity as a factor related to outcomes of

1University of Central Florida, Orlando, FL, USA

2University of Memphis, Memphis, TN, USA

Corresponding Author:

James C. McCutcheon, Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice, University of Memphis,

317 McCord Hall, Memphis, TN 38152, USA.

Email: jcmcctch@memphis.edu

754307HSXXXX10.1177/1088767918754307Homicide StudiesPoole et al.

research-article2018

278 Homicide Studies 22(3)

potential life-threatening situations (Chon, 2010; Perry & Gesler, 2000; Taniguchi,

Ferreira, & Nicholson, 2012). Certain road segments and related environmental fea-

tures have been shown to be predictive of crime, and past criminological research

points to negative outcomes surrounding roads and crime. However, the impact of

road network connectivity1 on the level of lethality of criminal assaults has yet to be

tested from the criminological perspective.

Beyond criminology, researchers on the topic of broader human health have viewed

better and more connected roads as essential in facilitating adequate response to poten-

tial life-threatening situations (Chon, 2010; Midhet, Becker, & Berendes, 1998; Perry

& Gesler, 2000). This literature considers accessibility of medical resources during an

emergency to be the primary factor that road networks impact. Going back to research

in both the 1970s and 1990s, investigators noted that the mere presence of medical

resources in an area was insufficient to lower the rate of lethal outcomes of medical

emergencies (Adler, Boyce, Chesney, Folkman, & Syme, 1993; Anderson, Smedby, &

Anderson, 1970; Donabedian, 1972; Feinstein, 1993; Mackintosh, 1978). These scien-

tists made the distinction that in addition to availability, accessibility was also a major

consideration in whether any given individual would survive a potentially life-threaten-

ing injury. In respect to roads, the more paved roads and the more connected and reli-

able a road network, the better the locational and effective accessibility. Essentially, the

literature in this area supports the notion that connected roads are harm suppressive and

by extension, suppressive of certain crimes that are based on the scale of the harm done,

such as murder. These lines of research lead us to the important question: Do more con-

nected roads lessen lethal outcomes of criminal assaults within a given geography?

Using cities as the units of analysis and data from the Federal Bureau of

Investigation’s (FBI) National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS), the U.S.

Census, the American Community Survey, Google Earth, and Census Topologically

Integrated Geographic Encoding and Referencing (TIGER) mapping data, this study

incorporates the measure of road network connectivity from human health research as

a mitigating factor in lethality. Although much research in the field of criminology has

determined roadways and highways as crime aggravators, there has been no previous

study to examine the effect of roadway connectivity in relation to lethality from the

criminological perspective. The current study isolates the road network connectivity

index of 190 cities and uses it as a variable in a multivariate model to test the applica-

tion of the Human Health Narrative that more connected roads means less lethal out-

comes to criminal assaults.

Literature

Roads and criminology. Within criminology, roads and road networks have been inter-

preted as largely criminogenic variables that are positively related with the occurrence

of crime. Roads and crime literature are based largely in environmental criminology,

which branches into the journey to crime and crime pattern theory (Brantingham &

Brantingham, 1981, 1984, 1993, 2001; Frank, Andresen, & Brantingham, 2012). This

body of research focuses on how roads and road networks affect a potential criminal’s