According the Federal Trade Commission's Consumer Sentinel Network, complaints of identity theft has increased from 86,250 in 2001 to 332,646 in 2014 (Consumer Sentinel Network Data Book for January - December 2014, 2015). Monetary losses due to identity theft totaled around $24.7 billion in 2012, though this dipped to $15.4 billion in 2014 (Harrell & Langton, 2013; Harrell, 2015). This emerging problem in criminal justice should be studied. However, studying identity theft poses substantive and methodological challenges. Substantively, studies of identity theft have been largely exploratory and have used a variety of definitions to characterize the crime. Due to a lack of information on offenders, low clearance rates and the multitude of ways in which identity theft can be committed both online and offline, a framework that can depict patterns of offending and victimization is lacking. Methodologically, victimizations are hard to track since it is not a crime that is routinely recorded in the Uniform Crime Reports. This study uses data from the 2014 National Crime Victimization Survey: Identity Theft Supplement to examine identity theft victimization. The theory of routine activities is used as a framework to assess potential patterns and precursors of victimization.
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