/
Choosing Crime in Everyday Life: Routine Activity and Rational Choice Theories Choosing Crime in Everyday Life: Routine Activity and Rational Choice Theories

Choosing Crime in Everyday Life: Routine Activity and Rational Choice Theories - PowerPoint Presentation

alida-meadow
alida-meadow . @alida-meadow
Follow
359 views
Uploaded On 2018-10-25

Choosing Crime in Everyday Life: Routine Activity and Rational Choice Theories - PPT Presentation

Lilly Cullen Ball Criminological Theory Sixth Edition 2015 SAGE Publications Criminological Theory Introduction These theories are concerned with crime and not with criminality and what is occurring ID: 697031

crime theory cullen criminological theory crime criminological cullen ball sage 2015 edition sixth publications routine choice rational opportunity activities

Share:

Link:

Embed:

Download Presentation from below link

Download Presentation The PPT/PDF document "Choosing Crime in Everyday Life: Routine..." is the property of its rightful owner. Permission is granted to download and print the materials on this web site for personal, non-commercial use only, and to display it on your personal computer provided you do not modify the materials and that you retain all copyright notices contained in the materials. By downloading content from our website, you accept the terms of this agreement.


Presentation Transcript

Slide1

Choosing Crime in Everyday Life: Routine Activity and Rational Choice Theories

Lilly, Cullen, Ball, Criminological Theory Sixth Edition. ©2015 SAGE Publications

Criminological TheorySlide2

Introduction

These theories are concerned with crime and not with criminality and what is occurring

in the present situation

Label this approach

crime science, which seeks to understand why crime events occur, and is opposed to criminology that tries to understand why people are criminalThe theories in this chapter assert that offenders are active, thinking participants in their criminal ventures; they make choicesOpportunity theoriesNo crime can be committed unless the opportunity to complete the act is present Traditional criminology has taken opportunity for grantedRational choice theoryOffenders are “rational” in the decisions they makeThey choose crimes that offer immediate gratification, that require little effort to complete, and that expose them to scant risk of detection and arrest

Lilly, Cullen, Ball, Criminological Theory Sixth Edition. ©2015 SAGE PublicationsSlide3

Introduction

Crime occurs in the context of the everyday lives that offenders and their victims lead

Emerging from the routines that people—whether offenders or their victims—follow as they go about their daily lives (

routine activities theory

)These approaches propose very practical methods for reducing crimeSituational crime preventionLilly, Cullen, Ball, Criminological Theory Sixth Edition. ©2015 SAGE PublicationsSlide4

Routine Activities Theory: Opportunity and Crime

Opportunity is a necessary condition for any specific crime to be

committed

The distribution of opportunities and individuals’ access to these opportunities explain why certain geographical areas have higher crime rates than other areas and why certain individuals are more involved in crime than other individuals

Marcus Felson and Lawrence Cohen developed routine activities theoryFor them, decrease opportunities for offending and crime will be reducedLilly, Cullen, Ball, Criminological Theory Sixth Edition. ©2015 SAGE PublicationsSlide5

Routine Activities Theory: Opportunity and Crime

Focus on aspects of the environment that are most easily manipulated

The tendency of this perspective to focus on the pragmatic and to avoid discussing issues of inequality and power—and how they structure criminal opportunities is an implicit ideological decision

Uses the term “pestilence fallacy” to describe the tendency of criminologists to treat crime “as one of many evils that comes from other evils in society”

Uses the term “the not-me fallacy” to describe the supposedly mistaken assumption that “most individuals would like to think that they are fundamentally different from serious offenders in their willingness to commit crimesLilly, Cullen, Ball, Criminological Theory Sixth Edition. ©2015 SAGE PublicationsSlide6

Routine Activities Theory: Opportunity and Crime

Americans have become suspicious of liberal efforts to build a large welfare state and of conservative efforts to create a state that simultaneously imposes right-wing morals on others and gives corporations and financial institutions unfettered discretion

The attractiveness of opportunity theories of crime is that they avoid larger discussions of whether the United States is excessively unequal or excessively morally permissive and argue that crime can be prevented meaningfully without a major cultural or social revolution

Lilly, Cullen, Ball, Criminological Theory Sixth Edition. ©2015 SAGE PublicationsSlide7

Routine Activities Theory: Opportunity and Crime: The Chemistry for Crime

Each successfully completed violation minimally requires an offender with both criminal inclinations and the ability to carry out those inclinations

Criminal

events require a motivated offender who has the opportunity to act on those

motivations (See Table 13.1)There must be a person or object providing a suitable target for the offenderThere must be an absence of guardians capable of preventing violationsThe ingredients must converge in time and spaceLilly, Cullen, Ball, Criminological Theory Sixth Edition. ©2015 SAGE PublicationsSlide8

Routine Activities Theory: Opportunity and Crime: The Chemistry for Crime

The major determinant of this convergence was the routine activities of people in society

The term routine carried two meanings:

Everyday activities

The mundane in lifeThe amount of crime was influenced not by the pathological features of society but rather but its normal organizationA key reason for crime in the US is because since the WWII, the US has experienced a major shift in routine activities away from the homeLilly, Cullen, Ball, Criminological Theory Sixth Edition. ©2015 SAGE PublicationsSlide9

Routine Activities Theory: Opportunity and Crime: The Chemistry for Crime

Felson argued that poverty areas may increase temptations and decrease

controls

However, still failed to develop systematically within his theory how the political economy shapes illegal opportunities and shapes the social distribution of crime

Research supports that routine activities influence rates of crime across ecological unitsRoutine activities theory has also been used to identify the individuals most likely to be victimizedLilly, Cullen, Ball, Criminological Theory Sixth Edition. ©2015 SAGE PublicationsSlide10

Routine Activities Theory: Opportunity and Crime: The Chemistry for Crime

There also is a growing body of scholarship showing how routine activities can affect who in society is most likely to be

victimized

Some individuals are more likely to be victimized than othersExplained this differential victimization by a “lifestyle model” in which those whose lifestyles or routine activities are riskier—exposing them to potential offenders—are more likely to experience a higher level of personal victimization (Garofalo, 1987)Lilly, Cullen, Ball, Criminological Theory Sixth Edition. ©2015 SAGE PublicationsSlide11

Routine Activities Theory: Opportunity and Crime: View of Offenders

Routine activity theory is most compatible with rational choice theory and theories of low

self-control

Crime is less likely to occur when it is made less

attractiveIn any situation where a crime event could transpire, the decision to offend will be influenced by the ease or difficulty with which the offender’s search for gratification can be satisfiedScholars argue that it is necessary to study not only the routines of the potential victims, but also the potential offendersOffenders play an active role in producing criminal opportunitiesLilly, Cullen, Ball, Criminological Theory Sixth Edition. ©2015 SAGE PublicationsSlide12

Routine Activities Theory: Opportunity and Crime: View of Offenders

Based on a view of offenders as gratification seekers who wish to gain quick pleasure and avoid imminent pain

Offender search theory:

The study of the routines of potential offenders and how they select their targets to victimize

Offenders develop cognitive maps and mental templates and offend in places that are familiar to themLilly, Cullen, Ball, Criminological Theory Sixth Edition. ©2015 SAGE PublicationsSlide13

Routine Activities Theory: Opportunity and Crime: Policy Implications

Routine activity theory forgoes any thoughts of how steps might be taken to change the criminality or motivations of

lawbreakers

The key to stopping crime is to prevent the intersection in time and space of offenders and targets that lack

guardianshipMake crime more difficultDefensible spaceCrime prevention through environmental designLilly, Cullen, Ball, Criminological Theory Sixth Edition. ©2015 SAGE PublicationsSlide14

Routine Activities Theory: Opportunity and Crime: Policy Implications

Situational crime prevention:

Increase the effort

needed to commit a crime

Increase the risks of attempting to commit a crimeReduce the rewards of crimeLilly, Cullen, Ball, Criminological Theory Sixth Edition. ©2015 SAGE PublicationsSlide15

Routine Activities Theory: Opportunity and Crime: Policy Implications

Felson argued blocking opportunities can be heightened through three strategies:

Natural strategies

: Space is designed in such a way that people are channeled to go where they will do no harm or receive no harm

Organized strategies: Security guards are hired for the express purpose of making crime difficultMechanical strategies: Alarms, cameras, and other hardware are employed to control access and provide surveillance Lilly, Cullen, Ball, Criminological Theory Sixth Edition. ©2015 SAGE PublicationsSlide16

Routine Activities Theory: Opportunity and Crime: Policy Implications

Eck’s controllers or those who discourage crime

Sees crime as the intersection of

offenders

and targets in a particular placeEach of these three elements has a potential controller—a person (or people) whose role it is to protect themIf a controller is present, then the opportunity for crime either is diminished or vanishesCrime triangle (See Figure 13.1)Lilly, Cullen, Ball, Criminological Theory Sixth Edition. ©2015 SAGE PublicationsSlide17

Routine Activities Theory: Opportunity and Crime: Policy Implications

Eck’s controllers

Offenders have handlers

Targets (victims) have guardians

Places have managersLilly, Cullen, Ball, Criminological Theory Sixth Edition. ©2015 SAGE PublicationsSlide18

Routine Activities Theory: Opportunity and Crime: Policy Implications

Advocates of opportunity reduction usually emphasize the importance of strategies that do not involve the use of police; however problem-oriented policing

Problem oriented policing

: Police would define a problem, and then devise strategies to make these specific offenses more difficult to commit

Lilly, Cullen, Ball, Criminological Theory Sixth Edition. ©2015 SAGE PublicationsSlide19

Routine Activities Theory: Opportunity and Crime: Policy Implications

Research generally suggests that situational crime prevention and efforts to design out crime achieve reductions in crime

Lilly, Cullen, Ball, Criminological Theory Sixth Edition. ©2015 SAGE PublicationsSlide20

Criticisms of Routine Activity Theory

Few

evaluations of crime prevention programs systematically take into account the “displacement effect

The possibility that when crime is made more difficult in one location, offenders will move on and commit their crimes in another locationHowever, unlikely that crimes blocked in one place are displaced 100% to another place When a crime is thwarted, finding a new opportunity to offend often takes time and effortA particular type of crime may have “choice structuring properties”A disruption in a community’s criminal opportunity structure may diminish offending until new routines and cognitive maps are developedLilly, Cullen, Ball, Criminological Theory Sixth Edition. ©2015 SAGE PublicationsSlide21

Rational Choice Theory

Derek, Cornish, and Clarke

Rational choice leads to a preference to control crime not through state criminal sanctions, but through more informal situational crime prevention

Lilly, Cullen, Ball, Criminological Theory Sixth Edition. ©2015 SAGE PublicationsSlide22

Rational Choice Theory: Rational Choice and Crime

Criminal motivations are important for giving people a taste for crime or in increasing the probability that crime will be subjectively available to people

However, crime also involves a concrete choice, or a sequence of choices, that must be made if these motivations are to result in an actual criminal act

Lilly, Cullen, Ball, Criminological Theory Sixth Edition. ©2015 SAGE PublicationsSlide23

Rational Choice Theory: Rational Choice and Crime

Take seriously how offenders

think

so as to predict when criminal events will occur

Decisions that offenders make are purposiveTheir decisions are based in bounded rationality Lilly, Cullen, Ball, Criminological Theory Sixth Edition. ©2015 SAGE PublicationsSlide24

Rational Choice Theory: Policy Implications

Every act of crime involves some choice by the offender and he/she can be held responsible for that choice and punished

Scare people straight with severe punishments

Situational

crime prevention: By studying how offenders make decisions, steps may be taken to reduce such opportunities for these offenses to occurThe danger in rational choice theory, however, is that offenders will be treated as though they were only decision makersLilly, Cullen, Ball, Criminological Theory Sixth Edition. ©2015 SAGE PublicationsSlide25

Rational Choice Theory: Are Offenders’ Choices Rational?

The core of this theory is offenders are rational but making a decision is a complex process

Wright and Decker showed that offenders make a series of choices about whether to offend, which targets to victimize, how to complete the crime effectively, and how to avoid detection

However, the offending decision did not appear to be independent; rather, it is shaped by the street culture

Lilly, Cullen, Ball, Criminological Theory Sixth Edition. ©2015 SAGE PublicationsSlide26

Rational Choice Theory: Are Offenders’ Choices Rational?

The real qualms about the use of the term rational are scientific

Criminologists in this perspective fail to provide any clear criteria that could be used to assess whether or not choices made by offenders are rational

Simple rational choice theory—sometimes called “neoclassical economics”—is under reconsideration more generally from “behavioral economics,” which merges the insights of economics with those of social psychology

Choices involve not merely incentives, as economists contend, but also social psychological processesLilly, Cullen, Ball, Criminological Theory Sixth Edition. ©2015 SAGE PublicationsSlide27

Rational Choice Theory: Are Offenders’ Choices Rational?

People’s decisions are systematically biased by the methods or short-cuts they employ when making choices

Rules of thumb or decision strategies that social psychologists call “heuristics”

Biases are likely a core reason why harsh penalties that seek to increase the costs of crime are of limited effectiveness

Behavioral economics shows us that all decision making is shaped by complex processes that cannot be reduced to the neoclassical view that judgments about utility—costs and benefits—rule human choice Lilly, Cullen, Ball, Criminological Theory Sixth Edition. ©2015 SAGE PublicationsSlide28

Rational Choice Theory: Are Offenders’ Choices Rational?

Emotion is a factor that adds to the complexity of decision making

Hard to test emotion because many students are self-report surveys

Emotions shape decision making in three ways:

Negative emotions can serve as costs that make the choice of crime less likelyPositive emotions about crime can servce as a benefitEmotional states can change the context of crimeLilly, Cullen, Ball, Criminological Theory Sixth Edition. ©2015 SAGE PublicationsSlide29

Rational Choice Theory: Are Offenders’ Choices Rational?

Emotions can affect actions before a conscious decision can be made

Done at the subcortical level

Emotions can incite “intrinsic attractiveness” or “

aversiveness” and lead us to assign valences to certain lines of actionEmotions shape not only individual but also collective decisions through “mimicking and emotional contagion” Lilly, Cullen, Ball, Criminological Theory Sixth Edition. ©2015 SAGE PublicationsSlide30

Perceptual Deterrence Theory

Perceptual deterrence theory proposes that individuals break the law when the costs outweigh the benefits

The decision to offend depends on the

perceptions

of the costs and benefits and not on actual or objective risks of being sanctioned or gaining rewardsLilly, Cullen, Ball, Criminological Theory Sixth Edition. ©2015 SAGE PublicationsSlide31

Perceptual Deterrence Theory

Differs from rational choice theory in three ways:

Does not assume rationality

Traditionally focused more on perceptions of legal punishments

The policy proposals from perceptual deterrence theory are often unstated or unclearLilly, Cullen, Ball, Criminological Theory Sixth Edition. ©2015 SAGE PublicationsSlide32

Perceptual Deterrence Theory

Arose in large part because of the weaknesses in traditional deterrence theory

Instead of actual risks of being caught, what should matter more is what individuals

thought were their chances of getting caught

(the “certainty” of punishment) and what they thought would happen to them after they were caught Lilly, Cullen, Ball, Criminological Theory Sixth Edition. ©2015 SAGE PublicationsSlide33

Perceptual Deterrence Theory

Early studies tended to show that there is a deterrent effect, especially for certainty of punishment

If the respondents thought they had a high chance of being caught and punished (regardless of how severe the resulting punishment might be), they were less likely to report breaking the law

However, these studies were often bivariate

Lilly, Cullen, Ball, Criminological Theory Sixth Edition. ©2015 SAGE PublicationsSlide34

Perceptual Deterrence Theory

In more methodologically rigorous investigations, the effects of perceptual deterrence factors were substantially diminished

Perceptual deterrence due to legal sanctions is likely a weak cause of crime

Perceptual deterrence needs to develop a richer perspective ho how deterrence is specified

Lilly, Cullen, Ball, Criminological Theory Sixth Edition. ©2015 SAGE PublicationsSlide35

Perceptual Deterrence Theory

Aside from the cost of arrest, there are other perceptions that must be taken into

account

Non-legal costs:

The stigma of arrestCommitment costsAttachment costsAdditionally:Socially-imposed costsSelf-imposed costs

Lilly, Cullen, Ball, Criminological Theory Sixth Edition. ©2015 SAGE PublicationsSlide36

Perceptual Deterrence Theory

Perceptual deterrence theory has focused disproportionately on the “cost” side of the cost-benefit calculus

Potential benefits of crime are unmeasured or are viewed as limited

Perceptual deterrence theory needs to explore more systematically how perceptions of punishment are shaped by individual differences among potential offenders

The perceived utility and consequences of crime are not judged equally by all potential offenders but rather are filtered through people’s personalities Lilly, Cullen, Ball, Criminological Theory Sixth Edition. ©2015 SAGE PublicationsSlide37

Perceptual Deterrence Theory

Perceptual deterrence theory needs to take into account the complex ways in which perceptions are formed and influence behavior

When people are punished for an offense, it tends to

lower

their perceptions of the certainty of punishment and to increase their offending (resetting)Lilly, Cullen, Ball, Criminological Theory Sixth Edition. ©2015 SAGE PublicationsSlide38

Perceptual Deterrence Theory

Warr and Stafford argue there are four potential sources of perceptions:

Direct punishment

Indirect punishment

Direct avoidance of punishmentIndirect avoidance of punishmentLilly, Cullen, Ball, Criminological Theory Sixth Edition. ©2015 SAGE PublicationsSlide39

Perceptual Deterrence Theory

Current perceptions of the risk of punishment are based both on past risk perceptions and on newly acquired information

Perceptions thus are not static but dynamic, always being updated as individuals’ experiences with punishment change

Lilly, Cullen, Ball, Criminological Theory Sixth Edition. ©2015 SAGE PublicationsSlide40

Perceptual Deterrence Theory: Policy Implications – Certainty, Not Severity

Kleiman’s

When Brute Force Fails

discusses how the U.S. has attempted to solve the crime problem with incarceration and severe punishment and it has been ineffective

Scholars are now arguing the key to crime control is to emphasize certainty over severity of punishmentProject HOPE Custodial sanctions do not specifically deterPolice practices that increase the certainty of arrest deterLilly, Cullen, Ball, Criminological Theory Sixth Edition. ©2015 SAGE PublicationsSlide41

Situational Action Theory

Per-Olof

Wikstrom’s

situational action theory (SAT) is complex theory that seeks to explain the likelihood that a person will come to see an act of crime as an action alternative and choose to carry it outCrime is a form of moral action (involves a decision of right and wrong)The decision occurs within a context or setting that has a moral quality Crime is thus a situation Lilly, Cullen, Ball, Criminological Theory Sixth Edition. ©2015 SAGE PublicationsSlide42

Situational Action Theory

Causal mechanism is:Choice of crime begins with people experiencing the motivation to engage in crime

A moral filter arises that affects the action alternatives or possible choices that can occur in response to motivation

Consists of a moral propensity and a moral context

A rational deliberation then occurs about whether to commit crimeLilly, Cullen, Ball, Criminological Theory Sixth Edition. ©2015 SAGE PublicationsSlide43

Situational Action Theory

Wikstrom also argues there are systemic factors and life-history factors are important and affect choice of crime to the extent they influence the variables in SAT

Lilly, Cullen, Ball, Criminological Theory Sixth Edition. ©2015 SAGE PublicationsSlide44

Situational Action Theory

SAT’s core construct, moral propensity, only conceives morality as a matter of whether an act is seen as wrong

Akers’s

definitions in a far more complex factor

Self-control may precede morality However, SAT has two important contributions:Choice of crime cannot be reduced to a simple calculation of costs and benefitsIllustrates the importance of seeing choices as situational, involving the interaction between individuals and contextLilly, Cullen, Ball, Criminological Theory Sixth Edition. ©2015 SAGE PublicationsSlide45

Conclusion

Concern is largely with the present and with the crime-inducing factors that are proximate or contemporaneous with the criminal act that is about to occur

Theories of choice and opportunity remind us that offenders are active and not passive participants in the decision to break the law

Need to consider how the decision to offend is affected by perceptions of costs and benefits and by situational factors such as the attractiveness of targets and the presence of controllers

The theories have important policy implications – reducing the opportunities to offendLilly, Cullen, Ball, Criminological Theory Sixth Edition. ©2015 SAGE Publications