Week 3 - Routine Activity & Rational Choice Theories

Routine Activity Theory - Opportunity and Crime

that crime occurs when three elements converge: a motivated offender, a suitable target, and the absence of capable guardianship.

This framework emphasizes the significance of everyday patterns of activity that create opportunities for criminal behavior.

Context of Routine Activity Theory

1979 - Lawrence Cohen & Marcus Felson

• Crime is going up, yet there’s an abundance of programs tackling inequality and society is seemingly thriving

Creators wanted to simplify the act of crime - not concerned about individual motivations

• Idea that everybody had the possibility for crime

• Normal, everyday occurrence

Geography and Opportunity for crime

Distribution of opportunites and access to opportunities of crime explains why offending occurs

• Decreasing geographic opportunities for offending will reduce crime by limiting access to targets

Elements of Oportunity for crime

1. a Suitable Target for the offender

2. Absence of Guardians

3. Convergence of time and space for all 3 elements (including offender)

VIVA - what makes a target suitable?

Value - attractiveness in person/object

• e.x. do they have expensive things?

Inertia - physical qualities of person/object

• e.x. do they appear threatening?

Visibility - more apparent, more suitable a target

• e.x. exposure to the target

Access - place where person/object is in

Guardians and Controllers

The presence of a guardian discourages crime

• Absence = criminal opportunity arises

  • e.x. being out of the house while on vacation

Capable Guardian - something capable of preventing crime through presence

• Controller of the victim

Controllers - individuals who discourage crime

Types of Controllers

Controller for offender - Handler; such as officer or someone the offender doesn’t wanna commit a crime in front of

Controller for Victim - Capable Guardian; such as friends nearby

Controller for Place - Surveillance cameras, security guards, well-lit streets

Convergence of time and space

For crime to occur, the elements of a motivated offender, vulerable victim, and absence of guardians or controllers all must converge at the same time and space

Motivated offender meets a suitable target, where there’s an absence of a guardian or controller

• Means time

What is the major determinant of the time/space convergences?

The routine activites of people in society

• Argued illegal activity feeds on routine activities

• Crime is driven by the everyday

The role of Routines

Offender Routines - commit crimes in familiar places, take certain routines

• Involved in identifying good opportunities for crime

  • Commit crimes in familiar, comfortable spaces

• Therefore, they are rational actors

Illegal activities feed on routine activities - therefore, crime is everyday

• Predictability of victim routines to take advantage of them when their routines meet

How did this happen?? (routine activity)

Higher crime rates post-ww2 occurred due to a shift in routine

• Kids gone and went to school at the same time, 9-5 workday meant the same routine

Increase of valuable products on a person (e.x. phones) meant higher rates of victimization

• More luxury = meeting the VIVA criteria

  • e.x. Phones are small, so th

Crime Preventing Strategies - Routine Activity

Prevent the time-space convergence of offenders and targets that lack a capable guardian

Control criminal behavior through environmental design

• e.x. Installing cameras, security guards, or even lighting

How can we combat against crime (Routine Activity)

Reduce risk/reward by:

• Carrying less valuable stuff

• e.x. no designer, beater phones, dye packs for money

Increasing effort to commit crime

• e.x. environmental design

Increase risk of consequence

• e.x. harsher punishments

Felson - Strategies for blocking opportunities for crime

Natural strategies - enhancements to space to increase security

• e.x. Design where criminals may run into places where there’s security, such as cameras or guards

Organized Strategies - capable guardians being there

Mechanical Strategies - alarms, security tags, etc

Urban planning can apply to crime prevention in relation to routine activity

Natural Access Control

Using space to place natural barriers to crime

• Criminals respect these boundaries

Territorial Reinforcement

Architectural design used to enforce a sphere of influence, so people sense an idea of “ownership”

• e.x. vari hall, or neighbors calling police out of concern for neighbors’ safety
  

Idea that ownership over a space can result in someone else taking responsibility over security

Criticisms of routine activity Theory (Displacement effect)

Idea that reducing crime in a specific area doesn’t reduce it overall

• Since offenders are rational, they’ll probably commit it elsewhere

  • Can be seen through pushing crime into different neighborhoods

Counterargument - unlikely crime will become displaced

Routine activity theory also does not account for psychological, biological, or structural factors of crime

The vagueness of a “rational thinker” can be very inaccurate

• Some people do it for the love of the game, others do it because they have to

Rational Choice Theory

A theory that posits individuals make decisions based on a rational assessment of the costs and benefits when choosing to engage in criminal behavior.

• Rationality guides criminality; we reason ourselves in and out of crime

Focused on how offenders think

• Crime = product of rational calculation

Made by Clarke, Cornish, and Derek

Criminal Decisions and Thought Process in Rational Choice Theory

1. Whether to commit the Crime - can be through material, psychological, strain factors

2. Selection of a specific target - e.x. VIVA factors

3. How frequently they should offend

4. Should they stop offending? - Biggest factor is aging out of crime (e.x. stake in conformity as an adult)

Bounded rationality (Rational choice)

A concept suggesting that individuals' decision-making is limited by cognitive constraints and the availability of information, leading them to make less than fully rational choices.

• Rationality is limited

• May not take into account consequences and may rely on heuristics rather than comprehensive analysis of outcomes.

Policy Implications - Rational Choice

If crime involves weighing consequences to desire, impose harsher punishments

• Appeal to rationality by imposing harsher punishments

• Crime control - scare them straight

Critiques of Rational Choice

Oversimplifies human behavior

• Is rationality subjective? - We can’t judge it by any standard or criteria

Decision is complex process, and can’t be just weighing hedonism and consequence

• e.x. factors of economic inequality, mental illness, biological damage, etc

Doesn’t talk about crimes lacking rationality

• e.x. Subcultural theory

What forces shape decision to offend (Critiques of Rational Choice)

Role of Heuristics

• Unconscious rules of thumb we follow to make quick decisions

• e.x. people beleiving a piece of information because of confirmation bias

Role of emotion

• Emotional states change the context of crime

• Negative emotions surrounding crime make it less likely

• Positive emotions surrounding crime make it more likely

  • e.x. the dopamine from indulging in deviance seen in youth crime

Social Media Example of Crime

Social media affects opportunities for crime

Routine Activity

Motivated offenders (gang recruiters) target youths (victims) because of the lack of internet regulation (controllers) to recruit them into gangs

• Absence of capable guardian = digital moderation

• Abundance of the internet = constant convergence of time and space

Rational Choice

The lack of consequence from cyberbullying allows perpetrators to berate victims for hedonistic pleasure constantly

• Absence of consequences = abundance of bullying