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Introduction
Carjacking involves the taking of a motor vehicle through force or its threat. These thefts are often considered highly opportunistic and their offenders are viewed as 'alert opportunists' who are primed to respond by using short-hand cues to quickly evaluate attractive targets (see Bennett and Wright, 1984; Katz, 1988; Jacobs, 2000; Jacobs et al , 2003). Such opportunistic offending is dictated in a large part by the unique mobility of motorized vehicles as crime targets. The emergence of carjacking in the last two decades has also been tied to the availability of criminal opportunities, with anti-theft technology making it increasingly more difficult to steal unoccupied vehicles (see Clarke and Harris, 1992).
Widely publicized media accounts of deadly carjackings have been a major contributing force in the proliferation of 'carjacking tips' by crime prevention specialists. These safety tips are designed to reduce both the opportunity for carjacking and minimize the risks of victim injury in these incidents by increasing one's awareness of the surroundings, alertness to potential dangers and avoidance of certain situations. However, the effectiveness of these situational crime prevention (SCP) activities ultimately rests on whether they are correctly linked to the particular situational contexts in which carjackings occur and their diverse consequences in terms of the risks of vehicle theft and victim injury in these incidents. Answers to this question about effectiveness require a systematic empirical analysis of the offender, victim and offense-related elements that are associated with the situational context of carjacking and its consequences.
Using a sample of 241 police narrative descriptions of carjackings, the current study is designed to identify the major factors associated with carjacking outcomes and examine whether their effects are similar across situations or context-specific. Our obtained results are then discussed in terms of their implications for increasing public awareness of carjacking and its control through SCP measures that are linked to its particular risk factors.
Types of Carjacking and Its Prevalence
Although carjacking is widely viewed as vehicle theft under force, carjacking situations may involve a variety of qualitatively distinct subtypes or forms. Young and Borzycki (2008), for example, identify four types of carjacking scenarios (that is, targeting of moving vehicles, targeting of stationary vehicles, targeting vehicle owners not in the immediate vicinity of their vehicle...