Arvind Verma | Indiana University (original) (raw)

Papers by Arvind Verma

The reasons why people commit crime willfully has been a matter of great concern. However, most t... more The reasons why people commit crime willfully has been a matter of great concern. However, most theories of criminal behavior are grounded in western society and culture. Attempts to explore the causes of crime in the Indian context and situation have been sporadic and generally non-empirical in nature. This research explores the causes for criminal motivations in India. The paper describes and analyzes the major reasons of criminality amongst convicted offenders. Results suggest that growing urbanization, breakdown of extended family system and lure of consumerism and influence of criminal associates are some of the main reasons for these people to fall into a life of criminality. ________________________________________________________________________

Journal of Victimology and Victim Justice, 2018

A popular perception is that left-wing extremism has its roots in the phenomenon of socio-economi... more A popular perception is that left-wing extremism has its roots in the phenomenon of socio-economic inequality. Yet, empirical work analysing this perception and exploring the links between left-wing extremism and socio-economic deprivation is limited. This article examines the relationship between socio-economic-demographic indices and left-wing extremism in the state of Jharkhand in India. The analysis tests the strength of the relationship linking left-wing terrorist incidents that occurred between the years of 2005 and March of 2012 and various socio-economic-demographic factors. The results suggest that the districts that report high incidents of terrorist attacks are not only linked to socio-economic inequality but also associated with socio-demographic conditions concerning state access and the lack of penetration by security and government agencies. In the conclusion, policy implications and future research for the state of Jharkhand are suggested.

Using Computer Simulations and Geographic Information Systems

Crime is a multi-dimensional and complex activity. In order to understand its nature one has to c... more Crime is a multi-dimensional and complex activity. In order to understand its nature one has to comprehend not only its spatio-temporal dimensions but also the nature of crime, the victimoffender relationship, the role of guardians and history of similar previous incidents. Visualization of all the dimensions is a formidable task due to the limitations of the present methods. Both for the police department and criminal justice researcher the need to deal with a vast amount of data is a prerequisite to the task of controlling the crime. This paper presents an interactive visualization technique intended to present the viewer with an accurate and intuitive view of the criminal activity in a cityscape. The technique employs many different visualization elements, which taken together presents a useful methodology to handle the important the associated factors of crime. The paper also describes the software technique and discusses avenues for future investigation.

2010 IEEE International Conference on Intelligence and Security Informatics, 2010

Computational criminology as such is an emerging inter-disciplinary field that applies computer s... more Computational criminology as such is an emerging inter-disciplinary field that applies computer science and mathematical methods to the study of criminological problems. The paper discuss the solutions with these multidisciplinary aspects of criminology, geography, mathematics and computer sciences. In order to understand its nature one has to comprehend not only its spatio-temporal dimensions, but also the nature of crime, the victim-offender relationship, role of guardians and history of similar incidents. In this position paper we explore a problem in rationalizing police patrolling beats using Voronoi Tessellations. Voronoi Tessellations provide a powerful technique to explore variety of criminological perspectives and understand the geography of crime and its control mechanism. The paper presents a method to rationally design an equitable workload amongst the police patrol beats to handle a specific nature of crime.

Security Informatics, 2013

The objectives of this research are to display the utility of using agent based model and simulat... more The objectives of this research are to display the utility of using agent based model and simulated experiments in understanding criminal behavior. In particular, this research focuses upon the distance decay function that has wide applicability in understanding ways in which offenders move about their awareness space and select their targets for committing crime. The basis for distance decay is an assumption that the offender apprehends recognition by his neighbors and so tends to commit his crime a little away but not too far from his home location. But this is an untested assumption and based upon another assumption that recognition comes from frequent interactions. There is no simple way to test these assumptions in real life. This paper argues that simulated experiments using agent based modeling are appropriate methods for difficult to test criminological concepts. In this research, two types of agents are created-one representing the offender and the other-the victim. They are assigned specific characteristics that control their action such as moving in a neighborhood, making rational choice to maximize their gain while minimizing the risk of apprehension from interaction with other residents of the neighborhood. The simulation result displays that beginning with these small principles the final model emerges as a pattern of target selection similar to the distance decay function. The importance of this technique lies in the fact that such experiments provide the means to apply agent based modeling to validate a variety of criminological concepts. While the technique has limitations of validation it can help in understanding the behavior of offenders as they commit their crimes individually as well as in groups.

Policing: An International Journal of Police Strategies & Management, 1997

Although fuzzy logic is being extensively used in electronics and mathematical sciences, it has f... more Although fuzzy logic is being extensively used in electronics and mathematical sciences, it has found little or no application in the social sciences, especially criminology. As a mathematical system, fuzzy logic generalizes the Boolean logic and can be a very useful tool for the social sciences where concepts and terms involve shades of meanings. Outlines the essential mathematics behind this approach and develops a technique that could be useful in building offender profiles from fuzzy descriptions provided by witnesses. Also suggests several other possible areas of applications of this mathematical system.

Crime Prevention and Community Safety, 2007

This paper seeks to extend the notion of rational choice from the individual to the group and sug... more This paper seeks to extend the notion of rational choice from the individual to the group and suggests the application of situational prevention to a new dimension-that of largescale disorder problems such as riots, anti-government demonstrations and confrontational religious celebrations. These disorder problems pose serious challenge since these involve vicious mobs violating prohibitory orders, attacking police personnel and indulging in wanton destruction of property and violence. We argue that even though a mob behaves irrationally and indulges in senseless acts of violence and damage, the individuals comprising the mob are rational and guided by self interest in their behavior. Therefore, even in riotous situations, rational choice perspective can be profitably exploited to prevent mayhem. We present several cases of handling major riots and group confrontation from different parts of India. We describe the applicability of several situational techniques to control disorder and prevent further escalation of violence. The generalization of Situational Crime Prevention techniques to large-scale order maintenance problems is suggested.

International Journal of Criminal Justice Sciences, 2009

Elections in India are major administrative problems due to the sheer size of the electorate and ... more Elections in India are major administrative problems due to the sheer size of the electorate and the geographical expanse of the country. In the 2004 elections there were an estimated 600 million eligible voters and the voting percentage was around 58%. This implied that around 360 million people actually stood in queues to cast their vote. Further, around 1.2 million police personnel were deployed to provide security during the election period. In the democratic polity of the country elections are always combative and require major administrative and police arrangements. Unfortunately, since the sixties elections have been vitiated by the involvement of antisocial elements who were hired to provide muscle power to the candidates and intimidate opponents. Now, many of these criminals have begun to contest the elections. State assemblies as well as the national parliament are witness to the strange phenomenon of charge-sheeted criminals serving as ministers in the government. This so called criminalization of politics is playing havoc with the election process and raising questions about the integrity of the democratic process. The Election Commission and the police administrators have evolved several promising situational preventive mechanisms to deal with this influx of criminalization in the voting process. This paper presents the problems of election process in India and the application of situational prevention techniques in dealing with them.

Justice Quarterly, 2014

The accuracy of the Content should not be relied upon and should be independently verified with p... more The accuracy of the Content should not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sources of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arising out of the use of the Content. This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden.

Page 1. Spatio-Temporal Visualization of Urban Crimes on a GIS Grid Suresh K. Lodha Computer Scie... more Page 1. Spatio-Temporal Visualization of Urban Crimes on a GIS Grid Suresh K. Lodha Computer Science University of California Santa Cruz, CA 95064 Iodha @ cse. ucsc.edu Arvind K. Verma Department of Criminal Justice ...

Policing-an International Journal of Police Strategies & Management, 2006

... The Authors. Arvind Verma, Department of Criminal Justice, Indiana University, Bloomington, I... more ... The Authors. Arvind Verma, Department of Criminal Justice, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana, USA. Srinagesh Gavirneni, Johnson Graduate School of Management, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, USA. Abstract. ...

International Criminal Justice Review, 1997

... The results were disastrous for the Indian political system, as this &amp;amp;quot;hi... more ... The results were disastrous for the Indian political system, as this &amp;amp;quot;high-handed&amp;amp;quot; police action aggravated the Punjab crisis and fueled antiestablishment feelings among the Sikh community, pushing them towards terrorist groups (Akbar, 1985; Nayar &amp;amp;amp; Singh, 1984; Tully &amp;amp;amp; Jacob ...