Routine activity theory

Routine activity theory is a sub-field of crime opportunity theory that focuses on situations of crimes. It was first proposed by Marcus Felson and Lawrence E. Cohen in their explanation of crime rate change in the United States 1947 - 1974. The theory has been extensively applied and has become one of the most cited theories in criminology. Unlike criminological theories of criminality, routine activity theory studies crime as an event, closely relates crime to its environment and emphasize its ecological process, thereby diverting academic attention away from mere offenders. Routine activity theory is a sub-field of crime opportunity theory that focuses on situations of crimes. It was first proposed by Marcus Felson and Lawrence E. Cohen in their explanation of crime rate change in the United States 1947 - 1974. The theory has been extensively applied and has become one of the most cited theories in criminology. Unlike criminological theories of criminality, routine activity theory studies crime as an event, closely relates crime to its environment and emphasize its ecological process, thereby diverting academic attention away from mere offenders. The premise of routine activity theory is that crime is relatively unaffected by social causes such as poverty, inequality, and unemployment. For instance, after World War II, the economy of Western countries started to booming and the Welfare states were expanding. Despite this, crime rose significantly during this time. According to Felson and Cohen, the reason for the increase is that the prosperity of contemporary society offers more opportunities for crime to occur. For example, the use of automobile, on one hand, enables offenders to move more freely to conduct their violations and, on the other hand, provide more targets for theft. Other social changes such as college enrollment, female labor participation, urbanization, suburbanization, and lifestyles all contribute to the supply of opportunities and, subsequently, the occurrence of crime. Routine activity theory has its foundation in human ecology and rational choice theory. Over time, the theory has been extensively employed to study sexual crimes, robberies, cyber crimes, residential burglary and corresponding victimizations, among others. It is also worth noting that, in the study of criminal victimization, the routine activity theory are often regarded as 'essentially similar' to lifestyle theory of criminology by Hinderlang, Gottfredson, and Garofalo (1978). More recently, routine activities theory has been repeatedly used in multilevel frameworks with social disorganization theory in understanding various neighborhood crimes. In routine activities theory, crime is likely to occur when three essential elements of crime converge in space and time: a motivated offender, an attractive target, and the absence of capable guardianship. Motivated offenders are individuals who are not only capable of committing criminal activity, but are willing to do so. Suitable targets can be a person or object that are seen by offenders as vulnerable or particularly attractive. Guardianship can be a person or an object that is effective in deterring offense to occur and sometimes crime is stopped by simple presence of guardianship in space and time. The factors that render a particular target attractive are situational and crime specific.