Contemporary Rational Actor Explanations Flashcards
5 different types of Rational Actor Explanations
- Contemporary desistance theory
- Rational choice theory
- Routine activity theory
- Situational crime prevention
- Crime and opportunity theory
3 components to crime
1) Target (e.g. houses, cars).
2) Victim (e.g. woman, drunk).
3) Crime facilitators (e.g. tools like a gun, or dis-inhibitors like alcohol).
How did it emerge?
Emerged to inform policy as other theories seemed to offer few practical solutions.
Key themes
- Element of rationality.
- Focus on criminal acts and circumstances.
- Focus on why people choose to commit specific crimes.
- Deterrence and prevention.
Evaluation
- ve begins from premise that crime is normal and that we would all do it if the benefits outweighed the risk.
- ve rather than crime reducing, it might just change.
- ve applications of the approach might be repressive - increased surveillance affects us all and diverts attention from real problems.
Cohen (1996)
“We now only have the criminal as consumer and market actor - someone who not only has more rationality than the determined creatures of sociological enquiry but has nothing but choice and rationality. Disembodied from all social context - deprivation, racism, urban dislocation, unemployment are airily listed as ‘background factors’ - they take their risks, assess their opportunities, have their targets hardened and stay away from others ‘defensible spaces’.”
Evaluation - Wright and Decker
They showed that offenders make a series of choices about whether to offend, which targets to victimise, how to complete it and how to avoid detection. However, the offending decision did not appear independent, it is shaped by street culture.
