Testing the iCrime theory

In the past week, both the Omaha World Herald and the Lincoln Journal Star have contacted me about the involvement of iPods in violent crime. Apparently the Urban Institute, a Washington, D.C. think tank, recently released a paper by John Roman and Aaron Chalfin entitled Is there an iCrime Wave?

These authors contend that the increase in violent crime over the past two years in the United States is the result of the proliferation of iPods. The theory is that a small, high value, and ubiquitous item essentially increases the number of vulnerable targets for robbery--one of the most common of all violent crimes, and the offense that has driven the overall increase in violent crime in the U.S. during the past two years. The iCrime theory has been getting a lot of ink this week.

Both newspaper reporters wanted my take on the theory. Cory Matteson, the Lincoln Journal Star reporter, sent me an email inquiry last Thursday. Mr. Matteson, it turns out, was himself the victim of a lost-or-stolen iPod recently. He phrased his request like this:

"Did Lincoln see an upswing in robberies during that time? Did enough of the victims report their iPods taken to back what this policy center thinks is happening? I don't know if it's possible to run such a search over the last couple years, but if that report interests you enough to do it, I'd like to hear the results."

You'll notice he didn't really seriously question whether we would have the data, only if I'd be interested enough to search it out. I think he was not surprised when I emailed the results back to him in short order:

"Cory: Get a Shuffle with a big clip. Data on 2007 iPod's attached. Looks like the simple answer is 'No.' "

The Omaha World Herald reporter, Maggie O'Brien ,called late yesterday afternoon. She assumed that I would not have any data at all, and was quite surprised that I could immediately provide her the stats on iPod thefts by crime type back to January 1, 2007. Like any good reporter, she continued to mine that vein, upping the ante by asking me for the 2006 data. That took me a couple minutes, because I had just closed CrimeView and shut down my computer. Is it just me, or does that always seem to happen?

So, here's the data on stolen iPods in Lincoln since January 1, 2006:

Robbery	1
Auto theft	4
Burglary	36
Larceny from auto	184
Other larceny	210

Our data fails to confirm Roman and Chalfin's hypothesis. Only one iPod was reported stolen in a robbery during the past 26 months, a time period during which 388 total robberies were reported to the Lincoln Police Department. That lone case was an April 28, 2007 carjacking in which the victim, sitting outside a bar at 1:10 A.M., was approached by three suspects who pulled him out of the vehicle, roughed him up, took his car then crashed it a couple blocks away. His iPod and cell phone were missing when the car was recovered. Since the offense involved a theft of property by violence, it meets the definition of a robbery.