SOCI3603 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Environmental Criminology, Victimisation, Victimology
Places of criminality Feb 23
Environmental criminology
Examines the location of a specific crime and context in which it occurred to
understand and explain crime patterns
Principles of opportunity and crime
Opportunities play a role in causing all crime
Crime opportunities are highly specific
Crime opportunities are concentrated in time and space
Crime opportunities depend on everyday movements
One crime produces opportunities for another
Some products offer more tempting crime opportunities
Social and technological changes produce new crime opportunities
Opportunities for crime can be reduced
Reducing opportunities does not displace crime
Focused opportunity reduction can produce wider declines in crime
Rational choice perspective
Clarke and Cornish
Based on two main theoretical approaches:
oUtilitarianism: people make decision with the goal of max pleasure and
min pain
oEconomic choice theory: argues that people evaluate the options and
choose what they believe will satisfy their needs
Choice structuring properties to commit a crime tend to fall into the same seven
categories
oThe number of targets and their accessibility
oFamiliarity with the chosen method (fraud of credit card)
oThe financial yield per crime
oThe expertise needed
oThe time required to commit an act
oThe physical danger involved
oThe risk of apprehension
According to rational choice theory, involvement in crime depends on a personal
decision made after one has weighed available information
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Examines the location of a specific crime and context in which it occurred to understand and explain crime patterns. Opportunities play a role in causing all crime. Crime opportunities are concentrated in time and space. Some products offer more tempting crime opportunities. Social and technological changes produce new crime opportunities. Focused opportunity reduction can produce wider declines in crime. Based on two main theoretical approaches: utilitarianism: people make decision with the goal of max pleasure and min pain, economic choice theory: argues that people evaluate the options and choose what they believe will satisfy their needs. According to rational choice theory, involvement in crime depends on a personal decision made after one has weighed available information. Each type of crime has its own choice structuring properties. Focus on the routine activity or people to see how offenders come in contact with suitable victims and targets. Is generally a set of testable propositions designed to explain why a person is victimized.
