Convenience Store Crime in Georgia, Massachusetts, Maryland, Michigan, and South Carolina, 1991-1995 (ICPSR 2699)
Version Date: Mar 30, 2006 View help for published
Principal Investigator(s): View help for Principal Investigator(s)
Charles Wellford, Justice Research and Statistics Association
https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR02699.v1
Version V1
Summary View help for Summary
For this study, convenience store robbery victims and offenders in five states (Georgia, Massachusetts, Maryland, Michigan, and South Carolina) were interviewed. Robbery victims were identified by canvassing convenience stores in high-crime areas, while a sample of unrelated offenders was obtained from state prison rolls. The aims of the survey were to address questions of injury, to examine store characteristics that might influence the rate of robbery and injury, to compare how both victims and offenders perceived the robbery event (including their assessment of what could be done to prevent convenience store robberies in the future), and to identify ways in which the number of convenience store robberies might be reduced. Variables unique to Part 1, the Victim Data file, provide information on how the victim was injured, whether hospitalization was required for the injury, if the victim used any type of self-protection, and whether the victim had been trained to handle a robbery. Part 2, the Offender Data file, presents variables describing offenders' history of prior convenience store robberies, whether there had been an accomplice, motive for robbing the store, and whether various factors mattered in choosing the store to rob (e.g., cashier location, exit locations, lighting conditions, parking lot size, the number of clerks working, weather conditions, the time of day, and the number of customers in the store). Found in both files are variables detailing whether a victim injury occurred, use of a weapon, how each participant behaved, perceptions of why the store was targeted, what could have been done to prevent the robbery, and ratings by the researchers on the completeness, honesty, and cooperativeness of each participant during the interview. Demographic variables found in both the victim and offender files include age, gender, race, and ethnicity.
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Subject Terms View help for Subject Terms
Geographic Coverage View help for Geographic Coverage
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Date of Collection View help for Date of Collection
Data Collection Notes View help for Data Collection Notes
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The user guide, codebook, and data collection instruments are provided as a Portable Document Format (PDF) file. The PDF file format was developed by Adobe Systems Incorporated and can be accessed using PDF reader software, such as the Adobe Acrobat Reader. Information on how to obtain a copy of the Acrobat Reader is provided through the ICPSR Website on the Internet.
Study Purpose View help for Study Purpose
Homicide ranks as one of the leading types of occupational injuries in the United States, accounting for a large number of deaths. Convenience stores have the second highest prevalence of workplace homicide, second only to taxicabs. This has prompted leaders of the convenience store industry, public health officials, and criminal justice practitioners to search for ways in which these rates could be reduced and the safety of workers in convenience stores enhanced. A variety of reasons make convenience stores prone to robbery. These stores are easily accessible and are located in metropolitan areas. They have available cash on hand, which makes them attractive to robbers who need a quick source of funds. It was thought, however, since convenience stores are static establishments, that certain crime control strategies employed by police, by the stores, or through public ordinances might have a deterrent effect on robbery. The objective of this study was to advance research in the area of convenience store robberies by (1) addressing questions of injury, (2) examining store characteristics that might influence the rate of robbery and injury, (3) comparing how robbery victims and offenders perceived the robbery event, particularly their assessment of what could be done to prevent convenience store robberies in the future, and (4) identifying ways in which the number of convenience store robberies might be reduced.
Study Design View help for Study Design
Georgia, Massachusetts, Maryland, Michigan, and South Carolina were selected for the study because these states had previously conducted research to estimate the probability of convenience store robberies in their jurisdictions and the extent of injury in those robberies. For the victim file, 20 interviews were conducted in four of the five states participating in the study. In the fifth state (Michigan), primarily for logistical reasons of distance and difficulty in gaining access to convenience stores, victim interviews were not completed. This resulted in a sample of 80 victims from four states. Once victims were identified, they were interviewed either in person or by phone, depending on the distance to the store. Victims were interviewed for between 20 and 25 minutes. For the offender file, within each of the five states analyses of currently incarcerated robbers were conducted to identify those that had been convicted of a convenience store robbery. A total of 147 incarcerated robbers were interviewed in person, in interviews lasting on average from 25 to 40 minutes. Once data were collected from the individual sites, the interviews were forwarded to a central location to ensure consistency and comparability in coding and data entry.
Sample View help for Sample
Convenience sampling.
Universe View help for Universe
Persons (victims and offenders) involved in a convenience store robbery in which an injury may or may not have occurred.
Unit(s) of Observation View help for Unit(s) of Observation
Data Source View help for Data Source
personal and telephone interviews
Data Type(s) View help for Data Type(s)
Description of Variables View help for Description of Variables
Variables unique to Part 1, the Victim Data file, provide information on how the victim was injured, whether hospitalization was required for the injury, if the victim used any type of self-protection, and whether the victim had been trained to handle a robbery. Part 2, the Offender Data file, presents variables describing offenders' history of prior convenience store robberies, whether there had been an accomplice, motive for robbing the store, and whether various factors mattered in choosing the store to rob (e.g., cashier location, exit locations, lighting conditions, parking lot size, the number of clerks working, weather conditions, the time of day, and the number of customers in the store). Found in both files are variables detailing whether a victim injury occurred, use of a weapon, how each participant behaved, perceptions of why the store was targeted, what could have been done to prevent the robbery, and ratings by the researchers on the completeness, honesty, and cooperativeness of each participant during the interview. Demographic variables found in both the victim and offender files include age, gender, race, and ethnicity.
Response Rates View help for Response Rates
Not applicable.
Presence of Common Scales View help for Presence of Common Scales
Several Likert-type scales were used.
HideOriginal Release Date View help for Original Release Date
2000-03-21
Version History View help for Version History
- Wellford, Charles F. CONVENIENCE STORE CRIME IN GEORGIA, MASSACHUSETTS, MARYLAND, MICHIGAN, AND SOUTH CAROLINA, 1991-1995. ICPSR version. Washington, DC: Justice Research and Statistics Association [producer], 1997. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2000. http://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR02699.v1
2006-03-30 File CB2699.ALL.PDF was removed from any previous datasets and flagged as a study-level file, so that it will accompany all downloads.
2005-11-04 On 2005-03-14 new files were added to one or more datasets. These files included additional setup files as well as one or more of the following: SAS program, SAS transport, SPSS portable, and Stata system files. The metadata record was revised 2005-11-04 to reflect these additions.
2000-03-21 ICPSR data undergo a confidentiality review and are altered when necessary to limit the risk of disclosure. ICPSR also routinely creates ready-to-go data files along with setups in the major statistical software formats as well as standard codebooks to accompany the data. In addition to these procedures, ICPSR performed the following processing steps for this data collection:
- Standardized missing values.
- Checked for undocumented or out-of-range codes.
Notes
The public-use data files in this collection are available for access by the general public. Access does not require affiliation with an ICPSR member institution.