The Role of Situation and Opportunity in Crime

About the lecture

In this lecture, we think about the role of situation and opportunity in crime, focusing in particular on: (i) fundamental attribution error (Ross 1977), the tendency for people to underemphasise situational and environmental explanations for an individual's observed behaviour while overemphasising dispositional and personality-based explanations; (ii) rational choice theory (Cornish and Clarke 1986), the idea that the people who commit crime are reasoning actors who weigh up means and ends, costs and benefits, in order to make a rational choice; (iii) routine activity theory (Cohen and Felson 1979), the theory that crime only occurs when three elements converge: a motivated offender, a suitable target, and the absence of a capable guardian; and (iv) crime pattern theory (Brantingham and Brantingham 1993), which considers how people's everyday activities influence their awareness of spaces, including how offenders choose where to offend, and why some areas are crime 'hotspots'.

References:
– P. L. Brantingham and P. J. Brantingham, 'Environment, Routine and Situation: Toward a Pattern Theory of Crime' in R. V. Clarke and M. Felson (eds.) Routine Activity and Rational Choice: Advances in Criminological Theory, Volume 5 (1993), pp. 259-94.
– L. E. Cohen and M. Felson, 'Social Change and Crime Rate Trends: A Routine Activity Approach', American Sociological Review 44 (1979), pp. 588-608.
– D. Cornish and R. V. Clarke, The Reasoning Criminal: Rational Choice Perspectives on Offending (1986).
– L. Ross, 'The Intuitive Psychologist And His Shortcomings: Distortions in the Attribution Process' in Advances in Experimental Social Psychology 10 (1977), pp. 173-220.

About the lecturer

Kate Bowers is a Professor in Crime Science at the UCL Department of Security and Crime Science. Kate has worked in the field of crime science for over 20 years, with research interests focusing on the use of quantitative methods in crime analysis and crime prevention Her most recent interests are big data approaches and the use of innovative data in understanding crime data. She has published over 100 papers and book chapters in criminology and in journals such as Criminology, the Journal of Quantitative Criminology and the Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency.