From a storefront located in Philadelphia, in-depth interviews of two groups of offenders with varying commitments to drugs assess the impact of drug use and spatial and environmental factors on decisions to execute burglary and shoplifing offenses. More specifically, the research aims to determine the effectiveness of environmental factors on the crime commission patterns of addicts, and to determine whether these factors continue to be effective during periods of low drug availability and/or need. If obstacles prevent addicts from carrying out their crimes, the research asks whether addicts will commit other crimes at different locations. Of the two secondary objectives, the first is to establish the importance of drug use and socio-demographic characteristics on the development of daily activity patterns, and determine whether these patterns give rise to different interactions that provide the opportunities for crime in urban areas. Second, the influence of environmental factors on the execution and location of crime will be assessed in light of the supposed conditioning effects of crime partnership participation. Particular attention will be given to gender differences in the utilization of space as well as the gender- specific roles that addicts play in crime groups. The proposed research will illuminate several issues not previously considered in drug-crime research: Does drug use force addicts to disregard environmental crime prevention signals and accept greater risk in order to complete their crimes, or does drug use force addicts (in the face of environmental factors) to shift to different crime sites and/or crime types (commit crime displacement) that have lower environmental risks? Does drug use, along with socio-demographic characteristics influence the distribution of crime by influencing patterns of activity, space utilization, and crime site selection? To what extent do the drug using patterns of men and women influence crime group participation, and do these crime group affiliations result in different crime patterns?
