Routine Activity Theory
See Routine activity theory
Routine activity theory a sub-field of rational choice criminology, developed by Marcus Felson and Lawrence Cohen.
Routine activity theory says that crime is normal and depends on the opportunities available. If a target is not protected enough, and if the reward is worth it, crime will happen. Crime does not need hardened offenders, super-predators, convicted felons or wicked people. Crime just needs an opportunity.
The basic premise of routine activity theory is that most crimes are petty theft and unreported to the police. Crime is not spectacular nor dramatic. It is mundane and happens all the time.
Another premise is that crime is relatively unaffected by social causes such as poverty, inequality, unemployment. For instance, after World War II, the economy of Western countries was booming and the Welfare states were expanding. During that time, crime rose significantly. According to Felson and Cohen, this is because the prosperity of contemporary society offers so much opportunities of crime: there is much more to steal.
Routine activity theory is controversial among sociologists who believe in the social causes of crime. But several types of crime are very well explained by routine activity theory :
- copyright infringement related to peer-to-peer file sharing
- employee theft (internal theft)
- corporate crime
Read more about this topic: Rational Choice Theory (criminology)
Famous quotes containing the words routine, activity and/or theory:
“No method nor discipline can supersede the necessity of being forever on the alert. What is a course of history or philosophy, or poetry, no matter how well selected, or the best society, or the most admirable routine of life, compared with the discipline of looking always at what is to be seen? Will you be a reader, a student merely, or a seer? Read your fate, see what is before you, and walk on into futurity.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The mob is man voluntarily descending to the nature of the beast. Its fit hour of activity is night. Its actions are insane like its whole constitution. It persecutes a principle; it would whip a right; it would tar and feather justice, by inflicting fire and outrage upon the houses and persons of those who have these. It resembles the prank of boys, who run with fire-engines to put out the ruddy aurora streaming to the stars.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
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—H.L. (Henry Lewis)