Offence location choices and modus operandi for motor car theft in Kuching, Sarawak, Malaysia

Abstract Car thefts issues rising concerns among individuals particularly in urban areas during to lack of security. There are three technique that were used in this study to identify the offence location choices, namely Kernel Density Estimation, Standard Deviational Ellipse, Mean Center and Optimized Hot Spot. Attribute data comprising motor car theft in 2018, a total loss of car theft, types of car model, name of car reported missing, date, time, address of crime location, and modus operandi, while spatial data consists of nine police station boundaries with 57 police station sectors. Car theft hotspots in Kuching’s urban areas is driven by opportunities created by a lack of security measures and a high concentration of cars. Offenders target cars parked outside of homes for longer periods, especially when there are no CCTV cameras or security guards present. Additionally, the time of day plays a significant role, with daytime being a prime target due to people being at work and a larger number of cars parked in urban areas. In residential areas, car left unattended without CCTV or witnesses are also vulnerable. Kernel Density shows Sekama police station sectors are being targeted for car theft as this area tend to be concentrated by people as it located in centre of urban area. Mostly the cars are locked when taken away. Car thieves often use altered keys or sophisticated electronic tools to bypass car security systems and steal vehicles in Kuching. The older model cars are the most common targets for car thieves in Kuching, Sarawak. Offenders select their targets based on the vehicles model. The report also highlights that foreign-made cars are the most common targets for car thieves in Kuching. SDE analysis shows that the distribution of car thefts in Kuching at night covers an area of 0.001969 square meters. Conversely, during the daytime the distribution of car thefts in Kuching covers a slightly larger area of 0.002465 square meters. This indicates the car thefts higher chance to occur during the daytime in Kuching. The car theft incidents are more spread out to occur in wider range of locations during the daytlight occur, while at nighttime the spatial distribution of car thefts is more limited during nighttime.