3 - Situational and environmental perspectives on crime (L3, Wilcox & Gialopsos, Ruiter) Flashcards

1
Q

Where does traditional criminology focus on? (Wilcox)

A

Offenders.

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2
Q

Where does crime-event criminology focusses on? (Wilcox)

A

Tries to understand the spatial and temporal distribution of crime events.
- Beyond someone inclined to commit an offence, there must be an opportunity to do so
- Some situations provide more opportunity than others

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3
Q

What factors led scholars to theorize that certain demographic groups were more susceptible to victimization, and how did they link these factors to greater exposure to opportunities for victimization? (Wilcox)

A

Individuals that were most at risk of victimization were part of demographic groups that had lifestyles associated with greater environmental exposure to opportunity for victimization.

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4
Q

Why was there an increase in offenses during the 1960s? (Wilcox)

A

There was a growing shift in daily activities from inside the home to public space, motivated offenders were provided with a greater supply of suiable targets.

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5
Q

What is a multilevel opportunity perspective? (Wilcox)

A

looking at different factors all at once to understand how they work together to either increase or decrease the chance of a crime happening. we can figure out what situations make it easier or harder for crimes to occur. Studies various levels of analysis simultaneously in order to understand how embedded contexts work together to create more or less opportunity for crime.

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6
Q

What are four critique points of crime-event criminology? (Wilcox)

A
  1. Downplaying social problems: Some feel that crime event theories don’t focus enough on underlying social issues that might lead to crime.
  2. Victim-Blaming: Some theories sound like they’re blaming victims for crimes, which can be unfair and unhelpful.
  3. Superficial Solutions: Critics argue that strategies focused on reducing opportunities for crime are like putting band-aids on the problem. They don’t address the root causes of crime.
  4. Conservatism: Some view opportunity-reducing strategies as conservative because they rely heavily on state-based control, which can limit personal freedom and independence.
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7
Q

Despite the criticisms, why do the ideas of crime-event criminology will continue according to Wilcox & Gialapsos?

A
  1. Technological Advancements: New technology helps us study when and where crimes happen, improving our understanding of crime patterns.
  2. Public Focus: Crime-event criminology is practical and aligns with the field’s emphasis on public engagement, making it useful for real-world applications.
  3. Not Conservative: Unlike some other approaches, crime-event criminology’s suggestions for policies and practices are not overly cautious or resistant to change.
  4. Protecting Victims and Deterring Offenders: Strategies from crime-event criminology, like reducing opportunities for crime, can protect victims and discourage potential offenders from committing crimes.
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8
Q

What are geographic and environmental criminologists interested in? (Ruiter)

A

In those choices that affect the spatial and temporal patterns in crime.

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9
Q

Vul aan (Ruiter). Crime not only varies over space, but also …

A

in cyclic patterns at different scales of temporal resolution.

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10
Q

What does the article of Ruiter discusses? (Ruiter)

A

How offenders decide where to commit crime, and stresses the importance of more research into temporal aspects of target choice. So, the uneven spatial patterns in crime from an offender decision-making perspective.

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11
Q

What did Balbi and Guerry used in early 1800s to show that crimes were not uniformly distributed across different regions? (Ruiter)

A

Crime maps.

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12
Q

Where is the environmental criminology field primarily concerned about? (Ruiter)

A

About the circumstances in which crimes occur - when and where, how, and against what targets or victims - it treats criminal motivation as a given.

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13
Q

What does the Routine Activity Theory provide (RAT; Ruiter)

A

Provided a macro-level approach which posits that, when in the course of their daily routines, people who are motivated to commit crime converge with suitable victims or targets in the absence of capable guardians.

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14
Q

Why does spatiotemporal crime clusters exist in the Routine Activity Theory? (Ruiter)

A

Because these convergence settings are not uniformly distributed over time and space.

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15
Q

What is something the Routine Activity Theory can not account for? (Ruiter)

A

By emphasizing that crimes occur during the daily routines, it suggests that most crimes are opportunistic, and by this RAT can’t account for the goal-orientated behavior of many offenders.

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16
Q

What does the Rational Choice Perspective provide (RCP; Ruiter)

A

Provides an informal rational choice theory for understanding offender behavior as goal-oriented decision making. Offenders are goal-orientaed and weigh their decisions on advantages and risks of the location/time of the crime.

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17
Q

In what ways do offenders make a choice to perform certain behaviors, looking at Rational Choice Perspective? (Ruiter)

A

Weighing costs and benefits of different behavior alternatives, offenders would make those choices that are assumed to bring them closer to their goals. Important: when, where and how.

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18
Q

What does the Crime Pattern Theory provide? (CPT; Ruiter)

A

Provides a comprehensive explanation of crime that combines insights from behavioral geography with the Rational Choice Perspective and Routine Activity Theory. offenders commit crimes where they also have their non-criminal routine activities. its about physical space.

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19
Q

According to the Crime Pattern Theory, in what ways do offenders behave? (Ruiter)

A

Offenders search for suitable targets or victims at places that emit cues that fit their learned templates of the characteristics of a ‘good crime site’.

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20
Q

What does the Crime Pattern Theory (CPT) states? (Ruiter)

A

Crime occurs at locations where attractive opportunities for crime overlap with awareness spaces of individuals motivated to commit crime.

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21
Q

Which three approaches to study crime location choices were used before the discrete choice framework? (Ruiter)

A
  1. Offender-based approach
  2. Target-based approach
  3. Mobility approach
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22
Q

What does the Offender-based approach use to study crime location choices? (Ruiter)

A

Studies either the criminals or the crimes as the main focus. It looks at how far and in which direction criminals travel, considering the offender’s characteristics and the nature of the crime they commit.

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23
Q

What does the Target-based approach use to study crime location choices? (Ruiter)

A

focuses on potential victims. It studies how the likelihood of being a victim varies based on the characteristics of the targets, such as their location, habits, or possessions.

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24
Q

What does the Mobility approach use to study crime location choices? (Ruiter)

A

studies pairs of locations and how often crimes happen between them. It looks at the characteristics of both the starting point and the destination to understand the patterns of criminal activity.

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25
Q

What does the Discrete choice framework provide? (DCF; Ruiter)

A

focuses on individual decision-making. It looks at how criminals choose specific target locations from a set of options. The main idea is to understand why and how an individual offender picks a particular target out of many possible choices.

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26
Q

What are the four key elements to any choice situation of the Discrete choice framework (DCF; Ruiter)

A
  1. Decision makers
  2. Alternatives
  3. Attributes
  4. Decision rule
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27
Q

What does the key element ‘Decision makers’ of the discrete choice framework mean? (Ruiter)

A

these are the agents who make the choice

28
Q

What does the key element ‘Alternatives’ of the discrete choice framework mean? (Ruiter)

A

Decision makers must choose one alternative from the choice set - a set of countable, mutually exclusive, and collectively exhaustive alternatives

29
Q

What does the key element ‘Attributes’ of the discrete choice framework mean? (Ruiter)

A

All alternatives have characteristics that affect the utility a decision maker would derive from choosing the alternative. The decision maker evaluates the utilities of all alternativers. All decision makers have characteristics that potentially also affect the utility they derive from these alternatives

30
Q

What does the key element ‘Decision rule’ of the discrete choice framework mean? (Ruiter)

A

The random utility maximization (RUM) theory predicts that decision makers choose the alternative from which they expect to derive maximum utility (gain, profit or satisfaction)

31
Q

How does the Discrete choice frameworks’ general decision rule translate? (Ruiter)

A

Translates in the prediction that offenders will target those areas where they expect to obtain highest rewards (RE) with least effort (EF) and minimal risk (RI).

32
Q

What do burglars prefer as a target selection/location, according to Bernasco and Nieuwbeerta’s research? (Ruiter)

A

Affluent neighborhoods, with many residential units, better accessible targets, less likely that they would be disturbed by the residents or other guardians.

33
Q

Why is the proximity effect stronger for juveniles than for adults? (Ruiter)

A

Proximity effect = targets closer to home.
Juveniles are more constrained in their mobility and have smaller awareness spaces.

34
Q

What are the results of the study from Bernasco and Nieuwbeerta? (Ruiter)

A

Burglars target areas that are closer to home (or where they used to live), have more residental units, have more signle-family dwellings, and are ethnically heterogeneous.

35
Q

What is a finding of a later study about solo offenders and their target location? (Ruiter)

A

Solo offenders were more likely to target their own neighborhoods compared to co-offending groups.

36
Q

Does barriers (e.g. travel in a city because of major roads and rivers) have an effect on the target area of burglars? (Ruiter)

A

Yes, they will less likely cross barriers when traveling to their burglary target area. Potential target areas that are connected by major rail tracks are more likely to be targeted. The barriers have stronger effects the closer they are to the burglars’ homes.

37
Q

In what ways do social barriers affect the choice of a location for a robbery? (Ruiter)

A

Social barriers would deter offenders from committing crimes in areas that are socially (economically, culturally, ethnically) different from the areas in which offenders live. They will more likely commit a robbery in which the majority of the population is of their own ethnic background.

38
Q

Robbers will choose a location based on social aspects. Why? (Ruiter)

A
  1. They could spend more time in those areas and consequently also commit their robberies there.
  2. They are less conspicuous in those areas, this limits the risk of being identified as a outsider.
39
Q

What does a distinction between marauders and commuters mean? (Ruiter)

A

Those who use the home base as a start of their crime journeys vs. those who commit crimes outside their home range.

40
Q

What does the marauder model best predicts? (Ruiter)

A

The crime locations of serial rapists.

41
Q

Does offenders return to previously targeted areas? (Ruiter)

A

Yes, offenders are very likely to return to areas of their previous offenses, especially when the time between a previous offense and a new one is short.

42
Q

What is the computational challenge with spatial units of analysis? (Ruiter)

A

Caused by the fact that the likelihood function needs to be computed for each offense- by alternative combination. Decreasing the size of the spatial unit of analysis increases the number of alternatives and thereby the computational complexity.

43
Q

What are the theoratical challenges with spatial units of analysis? (Ruiter)

A
  1. Spatial spillover effect: the smaller the spatial units of analysis, the more likely it is that spatial spillover effects are in play
  2. Core assumptions of RUM theory: the decision maker is assumed to have complete information about the alternatives, this is not possible
44
Q

What is life course criminality? (HC)

A

How to change motivations to commit crimes and the object of the study is offenders lives.

45
Q

What is environmental criminology? (HC)

A

The study of crime (events). We look how to reduce opportunities to commit crime, and the object of the study is places/situations.

46
Q

Where do life course explanations look at as explanatory factors? (HC)

A

Unemployment and/or delinquent friends as explanatory factors.

47
Q

Where do situational explanations often look at? (HC)

A

They look at crime as unstructured activities that might be elicited by peer pressure. Where, when and how was the crime committed.

48
Q

What is a difference between life course explanations and situational explanations? (HC)

A

Situational explanations are more specific. It takes e.g. 10 minutes to commit a crime, and lifelong will say ‘in 2023 X committed a crime’, situational explanations just looks at those 10 minutes.

49
Q

How do you look at crime from a situational viewpoint? (HC)

A

How was the moment when the crime was committed? Its different from times when someone did not offend. You break down the entire year in which someone committed into tiny timeslots and then look at how these timeslots differ in characteristics and what kinds of activities people did. Crime is a rare event.

50
Q

What are the three main perspectives of environmental criminology? (HC)

A
  1. Routine activity theory
  2. Rational choice theory
  3. Crime pattern theory
51
Q

What is the Routine activity theory? (HC)

A

Assumes that crime happens when 1) motivated offenders converge in time and space 2) with suitable targets 3) in the absence of capable guardians.

52
Q

What is the Rational choice theory? (HC)

A

Posits that offenders are goal-orientated and weigh their decisions on whether to commit a crime on the basis of advantages and risks of the location and time.
- Abstract, applied to yes/no decision and target choice, situational crime prevention, costs and benefits

53
Q

What is the Crime pattern theory? (HC)

A

Integrates RAT and RCT. Emphasizes on offenders routines and opportunities for crime. Offenders commit crimes where they also have their noncriminal routine activities.
- Physcial space: youve know little about places youve never been

54
Q

What is the difference between rational choice theory and crime pattern theory? (HC)

A

The way you map (RAT is more random).

55
Q

What is geographic offender profiling? (HC)

A

Criminal investigation technique. You can make a model from known (linked) crime locations to anchor/starting point of the offender.

56
Q

What is predictive/hotspot policing? (HC)

A

Crime prevention technique. By knowing where crimes used to happen, you can predict where crimes will happen.

57
Q

What is the victim-orientated theory behind routine activity approach? (HC)

A

People move in time and space, and these patterns are rather predictable. The risk of victimization depends on where you go and what you do.

58
Q

What are routine activity patterns (lifestyle perspective; HC)

A

Dictate how much time people spend in high risk environments. Predicting victimization would be easier if you know: the routine activity patterns and the relative risk of activities/places.

59
Q

What is a space-time budget? (HC)

A

Kind of mapping what allows us to look at individuals behavior over a hour. We can look at where some activity (eg crime) happened. We can see whats special about this hour/place. Result: testing situational explanations of offending and victimization.

60
Q

Where does situational crime prevention look at? (HC)

A
  • Crime, not criminality
  • Events, not dispositions
  • Near, not distant causes
  • How crime happens, not why
  • Situational and opportunities
61
Q

What is the security hypothesis? (HC)

A

Crime drop in advanced countries is due to change in quantity and quality of security.

62
Q

What is the crime substitution hypothesis? (HC)

A

Crime drop in advanced countries is due to change in the routines of youngsters, now more engaged with online activities instead of hanging out down the street.

63
Q

What are examples of physical barriers? (WG)

A

Things what make it more difficult to commit crime (CCTV, dog at home, busy roads)

64
Q

What are connectors? (WG)

A

Things what make it more easy to commit crime, e.g. people don’t lock their doors, stuff in pockets, transport network

65
Q

What are crime generators? (WG)

A

E.g. supermarket, uni, shops, libraries. Its daily, stealing at zelfscan, not directly a place where a lot of crime is committed. It generates crime, not intended to commit crime.

66
Q

What is a crime attractor? (WG)

A

E.g. known drugs area, were attracting criminals, drug users, much riskier area, attracts people who consume drugs and sell drugs. Its a place where crime will take place, attract people who are more likely to commit crime.

67
Q
A