Routine Activities Theory

Routine activity theory states that for a crime to be committed, three important factors need to be present including: a motivated offender, an accessible target, and the absence of a capable guardian against a violation. Marcus Felson and Lawrence E. Cohen introduced the routine activity theory in 1979, where they believed that an individual who has these three characteristics gives them a greater possibility of committing a crime. Moreover, situational crime prevention is known as strategies of ways for preventing or reducing the opportunities for criminals to commit crimes that derive from the routines of an individual’s everyday life. Ronald V. Clarke introduced situational crime prevention theory in 1983, where he believed that removing the situation instead of removing the criminal could prevent crime. In this paper, I will be discussing what routine activity/situational crime prevention theory is, and apply two peer-reviewed articles from Google Scholar that test the routine activity/situational crime prevention theory by discussing what the authors are trying to figure out and discuss their findings, and lastly, tie the routine activity/situational crime prevention theory articles to our textbook in hopes to fully understand in depth what the theory encompasses.

The routine activities theory is based on the concept of the crime triangle. This triangle consists of a “motivated offender a suitable target and the lack of guardianship” (Cohen & Felson, 1979). When Hot spot policing is employed its focus is directed at two of the three elements of the triangle. Those elements are the suitable target and the lack of a capable guardian (Hoover, 2014). Some of the major tenants of this perspective are geographic targeting, focused patrol, saturation patrol, and interactive programs. There are other tenants such as simple visibility and foot patrol but I will focus on the three mentioned above. Geographic targeting uses techniques which address crime based on the “hot spot” theory. Hot spots are another

The chapter goes on to overview the crime crisis happening the United States in the 1980s through the 1990s. After exploring possible causes of the problem and how bad everything has gotten, the authors go on to explore possible solutions to the crime epidemic. The solutions are quite varied, well thought out, and are supported with statistical facts. For example in talking about the effect of gun buyback programs and their effect on homicide: “Given the number of handguns in the United States and the number of homicides each year, the likelihood that a particular gun was used to kill someone that year in 1 in 10,000. The typical gun buyback program

The rate of violent crime jumped from five instances for every one-hundred thousandth person in 1980 to fifty instances for every one-hundred thousandth person in 2000, in other words the rate increased by 1,000% in twenty years. The rate of property crime jumped from one hundred instances for every one-hundred thousandth person in 1980 to four hundred instances for every one-hundred thousandth person in 2000, in other words the rate increased by 4,000% in twenty years. A criminological theory that could explain why the violent crime rate went up is general strain theory,

1.1. The community of Lowville has had over the last year a dramatic drop in its victims of crime even though the community already has unprecedented low crime stats. The crime figures for Lowville have dropped dramatically across all the different crime types; this includes a 12.2 percent drop of criminal damage offences and a 12.8 percent drop in drug offences. There have also been drops in other crime statistics such as robbery that has dropped by 7.5 percent, on top of this statistic public order offences have fallen by 7.5 percent also over this past year. More over, violent crimes have fallen 5 percent as well as theft offences decreasing by 4.4 percent over the course of the year and finally the report by the Lowville

attention to this topic, quantifying the factors most responsible for the observed crime drop has

Before the 1960’s during the postwar era, there was little crime and the United States crime rate was fairly low. During the early 1960’s, the crime rate accelerated tremendously. During the 1970’s the crime rate remained high, and was constant. Finally during the 1990’s, the United States finally seen a decline in the crime rate until the early 2000’s. With the constant increases and slight decreases in the crime rate, I believe that the crime rate will upsurge within the next decade. During this research paper I will also be discussing some of the underlying problems of the crime rate in the United States. Some problems that predict our crime rate are Drugs, guns, gang affiliations, rapes, murders, things of that nature.

In chapter 4 the chapter considers a variety of possible explanations for the significant drop in crime and crime rates that occurred in the 1990s. Based on articles that appeared in the country’s largest newspapers, the authors compile a list of the leading, commonly offered explanations. The next step is to systematically examine each explanation and consider whether available data support the explanation. What the authors, in fact, demonstrate is that in all but three cases–increased reliance on prisons, increased number of police, and changes in illegal drug markets–correlation was erroneously interpreted as causation and in some cases, the correlation wasn’t even that strong.

In Chapter one of our text, Introduction to Kinesiology the Science of Human Physical Activity by Stephan Wallace. We are introduced to three major types of movement, Sportive movement, symbolic movement, and supportive movement. At the basis of all three movements they are very similar although they highlight different attributes of an athlete or a person living an everyday lifestyle.

When considering the variables that were utilized in the study, the rates of crime, burglary, ambush, assault, thievery, robbery, etc. per predetermined population were identified by the scholars as dependent variables. It is worth mentioning that the data were retrieved from the FBI's Uniform Crime Reports (1981-2001). Due to the missing data issues, several cities were dropped by the researchers.

In 1979 the theorists Lawrence Cohen and Marcus Felson developed a theory based on their research on the increase of crime after the Word War II. They created a theory based on how the increase of suitable targets, the absence of capable guardianship, and motivated offenders are related when producing crime. This theory argues that time and space is one of the main factors when committing crime. Moreover, the theory helps us understand how our everyday activities might lead to criminal activity. Individuals that live in hotspots have more probabilities of being a suitable target because of the increase of motivated offenders in the area. In addition, RAT help us observe the correlation between individuals who stayed at home and the decrease in crime. Moreover, routine activity theory, helps us to change our lifestyle on order to reduce the probabilities that may lead to criminal victimization. Finally, RAT can be use in research in order to test data collection in the areas there of high concentration of crime and offenders.

Cullen, F., Agnew, R., & Wilcox P. (2014). Routine Activity Theory. In Criminological Theory: Past to Present (5th ed., pp. 469-479). New York, New York: Oxford University

The reason why Justine committed the crime involves the three key elements in Routine Activities Theory. One was motivation since Justine was made to move from her hometown into the inner city she meets and made friends with the wrong crew. They got into Justine's head by telling her robbing the old homeless man would be cool. Two was suitable since Justine lost her home because her father lost his job and her father left her mother, Justine, whole world had fallen apart. Not only did she lose all her close friends that she made at her old school, she started to fall behind in school and her emotions were no longer stable. She made friends who understood what she was going through and she felt like they were her new family ones that she could

In order for crime to arise according to routine activities theory, there are three necessary components: motivated offenders, suitable targets and the absence of capable guardians. Motivated offenders are simply those who possess the drive to commit a crime. Suitable targets are those items or victims who possess enough attractiveness to a motivated offender to incite crime. Capable guardians are those whose company can protect suitable targets (Cohen & Felson, 1979, p. 588-608). In the overlap where there is a motivated offender, suitable target, and absence of capable guardians, criminal activity will likely conspire (Walsh & Jorgensen, 2018, p. 87-88).

The hypothesis claims that “changes in routine activity patterns can influence crime rates by affecting the convergence in space and time of the three minimal elements of direct-contact predatory violations” and that “the absence of any one of these elements [motivated offenders, suitable targets, and the absence of suitable guardians against a violation] is sufficient to prevent the successful completion of a direct-contact predatory crime.” (1) The authors claim that controls for routine activities, therefore, are essential to maintaining order and keeping the crime rate down. They also note that and understanding of temporal and spatial relationships are key to understanding the changing crime rates. Illegal acts are events that occur in space and time and involve specific persons and/or objects. The spatio-temporal organization of everyday activities is what allows criminals to turn their criminal ideas into reality. Dispersion of activities away from the household has led to a change in the spatio-temporal relationship that increases the opportunity for crime, which in turn increases the crime rate itself.