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Individuals, settings, and acts of crime: situational mechanisms and the explanation of crime
Abstract
Integration of disciplines, theories and research orientations has assumed a central role in criminological discourse yet it remains difficult to identify any concrete discoveries or significant breakthroughs for which integration has been responsible. Concentrating on three key concepts: context, mechanisms, and development, this volume aims to advance integrated scientific knowledge on crime causation by bringing together different scholarly approaches. Through an analysis of the roles of behavioural contexts and individual differences in crime causation, The Explanation of Crime seeks to provide a unified and focused approach to the integration of knowledge. Chapter topics range from individual genetics to family environments and from ecological behaviour settings to the macro-level context of communities and social systems. This is a comprehensive treatment of the problem of crime causation that will appeal to graduate students and researchers in criminology and be of great interest to policy-makers and practitioners in crime policy and prevention.
... This cross-situational consistency aligns well with the definition of personality traits as "relatively enduring patterns of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that reflect the tendency to respond in certain ways under certain circumstances" (Roberts, 2009, p. 140). Although some criminological theories have incorporated trait-like constructs into their accounts of criminal behavior (e.g., Agnew, 1992;Agnew et al., 2002;Akers, 1973;Akers & Jennings, 2015;Wikström, 2004Wikström, , 2006Wikström & Treiber, 2007), these constructs do not always conform to current conceptualizations of personality traits. Moreover, such research has rarely relied on established models of basic personality structure that summarize and structure the variety of personality traits into a small number of basic personality dimensions (Wiggins & Pincus, 1992). ...
... To overcome this situation, we herein provide both theoretical integration and empirical evidence on how personality relates to crime. More precisely, we link the HEXACO personality dimensions-honesty-humility, emotionality, extraversion, agreeableness vs. anger, conscientiousness, and openness to experience (Ashton & Lee, 2007;Zettler et al., 2020)-to crime, theoretically deriving (pre-registered) hypotheses based on implications from three important trait-related crime theories: self-control theory (also termed the general theory of crime; Gottfredson & Hirschi, 1990), situational action theory (Wikström, 2004(Wikström, , 2006Wikström & Treiber, 2007), and general strain theory (Agnew, 1992). Empirically, we link HEXACO estimates of a relatively large and relatively representative sample of the (Danish) adult population to officially registered data on participants' criminal convictions spanning a period of 41 years. ...
... A second influential criminological theory with implications for how basic personality dimensions might relate to crime is situational action theory (Wikström, 2004(Wikström, , 2006Wikström & Treiber, 2007). This theory posits that crime is determined by personenvironment interactions in situations in which individuals perceive crime as an option and ultimately choose to act on it. ...
Crime is an issue with severe consequences for individuals, economies, and society at large. Developing effective crime prevention strategies requires a clear understanding of who is likely to engage in crime and why. A promising approach in this regard likely is integrating established criminological theories with established models of basic personality structure. Correspondingly, the present investigation derives hypotheses from three criminological theories—self-control theory/general theory of crime, situational action theory, and general strain theory—on the relation between the HEXACO personality dimensions and crime. The preregistered hypotheses were tested by linking HEXACO data of a Danish adult personality panel (N = 12,496) to official records on all criminal convictions of the participants registered within the past 41 years. Results revealed negative associations of honesty–humility, emotionality, agreeableness versus anger, and conscientiousness with crime (0.71 ≤ odds ratios ≤ 0.88). Except for agreeableness, effects were robust to controlling for relevant background variables (e.g., sex, age, education, income). The relation of the HEXACO dimensions varied only slightly across different types of offenses (e.g., interpersonal crimes, property crimes). In sum, this investigation provides a robust theoretical and empirical basis for how personality relates to crime.
... However, SAT also considers the level of self-control an individual has when presented with situational triggers. Specifically, it suggests that even in the presence of high morals, some people who experience self-regulatory difficulties may also engage in offending behaviour (Wikström, 2004(Wikström, , 2006. Finally, SAT incorporates the automaticity of criminal behaviour, in that when criminal behaviour is repeated within an environment and without consequence, the behaviour can begin to be triggered autonomously, without rational deliberation (Wikström, 2004(Wikström, , 2006 or full consideration of the associated risks. ...
... Specifically, it suggests that even in the presence of high morals, some people who experience self-regulatory difficulties may also engage in offending behaviour (Wikström, 2004(Wikström, , 2006. Finally, SAT incorporates the automaticity of criminal behaviour, in that when criminal behaviour is repeated within an environment and without consequence, the behaviour can begin to be triggered autonomously, without rational deliberation (Wikström, 2004(Wikström, , 2006 or full consideration of the associated risks. Fig. 1 provides an adapted model of SAT, as applied to hand-held MPUWD. ...
... For each regression, age and gender were entered into the first step, attitudes were entered into Step two, the perceived risk of apprehension, injury, and judgement was entered into Step three, and self-control over behaviour and phone use was entered into Step four. The variables were entered in this order based on past SAT research and due to the guidelines of the framework (Wikström, 2004;2006). Specifically, this framework states that once environmental factors (including risk perceptions) are accounted for, morals are the significant predictor of offending behaviour, and finally, self-control is included once the offending behaviour is considered an action alternative. ...
Situational action theory (SAT) is a comprehensive theory that explains offending behaviour from the context of the interaction between interpersonal factors, such as morals, self-control, and habits, with situational factors, such as environmental risk and social conditions. Illegal hand-held mobile phone use while driving (MPUWD), a prevalent and risky road behaviour, has yet to be examined under the SAT framework. Therefore, by utilising SAT, this exploratory study sought to investigate the interpersonal and situational factors preceding hand-held MPUWD in three distinct road environments (highways, built-up areas and stopped-at-traffic lights). To achieve this, Queensland drivers aged over 18 who owned a mobile phone (N = 821, M age = 41.7 years, SD = 20.9 years) were invited to complete an online survey. Repeated measures ANOVAs demonstrated significant mean differences for participants' perceived risks associated with MPUWD and subsequent likelihood of offending across the three environments, with traffic lights being more conducive to MPUWD behaviours. Three hierarchical multiple linear regressions also revealed that age, attitude, risk of judgement, and self-control were significant predictors of MPUWD across all environments, while the results for gender, risk of injury and risk of being apprehended varied across the different driving contexts. Together, these factors explained 38.5-39.6 % of the variance in the perceived likelihood of illegally engaging in MPUWD. Overall, the findings indicated that the application of SAT has predictive utility in determining MPUWD engagement and can provide a more comprehensive framework for approaching and intervening in MPUWD behaviour.
... Keuze betekent dat actoren kiezen tussen hun gepercipieerde actie-alternatieven. Dit idee staat ook centraal in de situationeleactietheorie van Wikström (2006), maar hij laat na om concreet in te gaan op wat dit proces juist inhoudt. In ons kader stellen we dat dit proces wordt ingevuld op basis van een meer of minder complex beslissingsproces (zie Payne, Bettman & Johnson, 1993). ...
... Volgens de structuratietheorie van Giddens (1984) werkt de beperkende en bevorderende invloed van structurele kenmerken door dienst te doen als redenen voor een bepaalde actie. De invloed van structure is dus beperkt tot de mate waarin zij de elementen in het keuzeproces tussen actie-alternatieven beïnvloeden (Wikström, 2006). Hieronder gaan we in op de twee componenten die centraal staan in dit keuzeproces van de jongeren: (1) doelen en (2) waarden. ...
... In de tweede plaats worden mensen ook gemotiveerd tot '(in)actie' door waarden zoals moraliteit. De situationele actie theorie van Wikström (2006) toont aan dat de persoonlijke evaluatie van het morele karakter van delinquentie een erg belangrijke motivator is om deze acties al dan niet te stellen. Het is echter niet de enige motivator, zoals duidelijk gemaakt wordt door de notie 'morele motivatie' (Rest, 1994). ...
Numerous explanatory models and theories of youth delinquency focus on one or multiple structural factors, but neglect the importance of the youngster himself and his agency in the process of delinquency. Recent desistance research emphasises agency in the process of quitting crime but fails to provide a clear conceptual framework to study the meaning and explanatory value of agency and structure at the start of the delinquent process. Based on ideas from different disciplines as well as on qualitative interview data with youngsters who reside in juvenile institutions, this article aims to introduce an integrated framework of agency and structure and clarify how these elements can contribute to the explanation of youth delinquency.
... According to SAT, motivations are goal-directed and necessary for moral rule breaking to occur (Wikström, 2010). Motivations are key to the perception-choice process as they influence the types of actions someone will consider (Wikström, 2006). Temptations are considered the most attractive outcome and provocations are interferences by other people. ...
... Temptations are considered the most attractive outcome and provocations are interferences by other people. Perceived deterrence is defined by SAT as an unwillingness to break a moral rule in a certain setting due to fear of consequences (Wikström, 2006). Perceived deterrence can be examined as a person's perception of risk, as individuals may have their own perception of a setting's deterrent qualities (Wikström, 2006). ...
... Perceived deterrence is defined by SAT as an unwillingness to break a moral rule in a certain setting due to fear of consequences (Wikström, 2006). Perceived deterrence can be examined as a person's perception of risk, as individuals may have their own perception of a setting's deterrent qualities (Wikström, 2006). ...
Violence among spectators in sports is a global phenomenon posing hazards for players, match officials, and other participants. Despite its widespread prevalence, scant criminological research has investigated the matter. To fill this void, this study examines the predictive efficacy of key theoretical constructs derived from Situational Action Theory on aggressive behaviour among a sample of 384 soccer spectators in Iran. Results reveal that crime propensity, criminogenic exposure, action alternatives, and choice have direct effects on spectator engagement in violent behaviour. Furthermore, results demonstrate that crime propensity and criminogenic exposure (propensity*exposure) and action alternatives and choice (action alternatives*choice) interact to increase violence among sport spectators in a manner consistent with the theory. Theoretical and policy implications are discussed.
... En este caso, si la moralidad individual y las normas morales del contexto coinciden con la conformidad, solo se percibe una alternativa de acción asociada, fundamentalmente, al cumplimiento de la norma. Incluso, el acatamiento de la norma se puede dar también por un proceso de hábito -moralvinculado a la observancia no deliberada de la ley (Wikström, 2006). ...
... El autocontrol es un factor situacional que está involucrado en el proceso de elección deliberativo al inhibir exitosamente una alternativa de acción percibida o al dificultar un curso de acción que discrepa de la moral individual (Wikström y Treiber, 2009: 80). En otras palabras, una persona ejerce con éxito el autocontrol en el momento en que actúa en consonancia con su moralidad frente a la posibilidad de un delito (Wikström, 2006;Wikström y Treiber, 2009). Por su parte, la disuasión es un proceso situacional que evita la ruptura de la norma moral (delito) de un entorno por el efecto de la preocupación que generan las posibles consecuencias. ...
... Por su parte, la disuasión es un proceso situacional que evita la ruptura de la norma moral (delito) de un entorno por el efecto de la preocupación que generan las posibles consecuencias. De tal manera, la disuasión y el autocontrol solo pueden afectar el proceso de elección cuando se contempla el delito como una opción y se reflexiona sobre si se debe o no incurrir en el mismo (Wikström, 2006). ...
... In response to these stylized observations, recent accounts emphasize differences in actors' "deterrability" (Herman & Pogarsky, 2022;Pogarsky, 2002) and their capacity to engage in "thoughtfully reflective decision-making" (Paternoster & Pogarsky, 2009). Similarly, Wikström's Situational Action Theory of Crime Causation (SAT) claims that morality can lead actors to spontaneously abide or break rules, without even perceiving of an alternative and, hence, irrespective of the presence of deterrents (Wikström, 2006;Wikström et al., 2012). Controls should only become relevant under the condition that actors enter a process of deliberation on whether or not to break a rule. ...
... Moreover, we examine whether perceptual deterrence and self-control are only associated with lower levels of violent offending among students who perceive violent as well as non-violent alternatives. Doing so allows us to evaluate key implications of the theoretical ideas of differential deterrability (Pogarsky, 2002) and of the conditional relevance of controls (Wikström, 2006;Wikström et al., 2012). ...
The idea that individuals differ in their perceived choice sets or repertoires has a long tradition in criminology and is a common ingredient of modern choice theories. We test this assumption in a large-scale school survey of seventh graders in Germany. Eliciting perceived action alternatives in a provocation scenario, we examine the frequency of purely non-violent, purely violent, and mixed repertoires. Our results confirm that a large share of adolescents does not perceive of violence as an option. In contrast, relatively few adolescents could only imagine to react with physical or verbal violence to a physical provocation. We also examine whether self-control and the perceived certainty and severity of sanctions are differentially associated with violent offending across types of repertoires.
... Still, a disadvantage of our strategy is that respondents' reported willingness to commit an offence might not finally materialise. Whether or not it leads to corresponding offences depends, among other things, on individuals' differential exposure to environmental inducements (Wikström 2006). Notwithstanding this limitation, recent experiments by Pogarsky (2004) demonstrate that criminal intentions are indeed significantly correlated with subsequent criminal actions. ...
... Theory of Crime Causation (Wikström 2004(Wikström , 2006. Both theories argue that actors who feel bound by strongly internalised norms may not perceive crime as an option, and therefore may not deliberate on its costs and benefits. ...
... Third, SAT contains a well-specified action model that incorporates modern insights from other relevant behavioral sciences, such as the dual-process nature of decision making. It thus addresses what Wikström (2006Wikström ( , 2010 identified as a lack of an adequate action model in earlier theories of crime (see also Wikström & Treiber, 2016b). ...
... The latter procedure was applied in the Second International Self-Report Delinquency Study , which contains what is probably the most extensive source of self-reported information on crime and detection. The ISRD-2 collected data from 12-to 15-year-old juveniles in 31 (mainly European) countries between 2006. Enzmann's (2012 analysis of the ISRD-2 data indicates that police detection is a rare phenomenon, with juveniles typically reporting detection in only one out of ten offenses or even less frequently. ...
... The truth is that much is known about the correlates of crime and crime, but there is little agreement about what are its causes, which very often appear as an undefined and confusing amalgam of elements, and hence the proliferation of theories that overlap each other with little success. In fact, the emergence of SAT was presented with the need to integrate theoretical visions with relevant empirical evidence, within a framework that could effectively focus research on the causal processes of crime, and their interaction (Wikström, 2006;Wikström and colleagues, 2012;Wikström, Mann, and Hardie, 2018). The most important thing, be that as it may, is to try to capture in the theory the interaction between the processes of the personal characteristics of the offender, and the role of the social environment. ...
Objectives: to delve deeper into sexual assault crimes by testing two criminological theories (the situational action theory and the Relationship between low personal morality and impersonal sex with sexual aggression behaviors towards women in a sample of Spanish heterosexual men 110 revised confluence model). Method: a questionnaire with scales of low morality, low self-control, impersonal sex, hostile sexism, sexually aggressive behaviors, and other demographic data, was administered online to 328 heterosexual men living in Spain. Findings: two pathways to sexual aggression have been found: a) from low self-control, and b) from low morality and a tendency towards impersonal sex. Conclusion: these mechanisms suggest prevention based on education in adolescence: a) of moral rules and emotions; b) for the development of the social ability to exercise self-control; and c) to know the limit of impersonal sex: consent.
... The criminological theories suggest that the influence of places (environmental) and surrounding people may play a major role in explaining the observed relationship (Wikström et al., 2018). The situational action theory indicates that the YO offenders interact with their surrounding places that govern their rule-breaking behaviors and action mechanisms (Wikström, 2006;Wikström et al., 2018). Hence, the presence of VC in the surrounding environment of an adolescent individual may act as a driving force for criminogenic inducements. ...
Background setting
Traditional spatial or non-spatial regression techniques require individual variables to be defined as dependent and independent variables, often assuming a unidirectional and (global) linear relationship between the variables under study. This research studies the Bayesian shared component spatial (BSCS) modeling as an alternative approach to identifying local associations between two or more variables and their spatial patterns.
Methods
The variables to be studied, young offenders (YO) and violent crimes (VC), are treated as (multiple) outcomes in the BSCS model. Separate non-BSCS models that treat YO as the outcome variable and VC as the independent variable have also been developed. Results are compared in terms of model fit, risk estimates, and identification of hotspot areas.
Results
Compared to the traditional non-BSCS models, the BSCS models fitted the data better and identified a strong spatial association between YO and VC. Using the BSCS technique allowed both the YO and VC to be modeled as outcome variables, assuming common data-generating processes that are influenced by a set of socioeconomic covariates. The BSCS technique offered smooth and easy mapping of the identified association, with the maps displaying the common (shared) and separate (individual) hotspots of YO and VC.
Conclusions
The proposed method can transform existing association analyses from methods requiring inputs as dependent and independent variables to outcome variables only and shift the reliance on regression coefficients to probability risk maps for characterizing (local) associations between the outcomes.
... Finalizaremos el artículo con la responsabilidad de las organizaciones en generar estas actitudes y en evitar las contrarias, aquellas que nos transmiten la idea de que los códigos no sirven para nada o que un comportamiento honesto es contrario a tus intereses. Según la teoría criminológica (Wikström, 2004(Wikström, , 2006, la toma de decisiones individual, en la medida en que se relaciona con dilemas morales, es producto de la interacción entre a) las características individuales y b) los rasgos esenciales del espacio en el que un sujeto toma decisiones. Con respecto a las primeras, como hemos visto, están el desarrollo moral de una persona, las emociones presentes, la impulsividad y la capacidad de diferir la gratificación, y su actitud y motivación interna. ...
Objetivos: en un momento en el que miles de códigos éticos empiezan a aprobarse en las Administraciones públicas españolas, este artículo trata de aportar luz sobre sus posibilidades y limitaciones, considerando, especialmente, los retos cognitivos que representan y su inserción en entornos organizativos que, en ocasiones, socializan en malas prácticas a sus empleados. Metodología: se trata de un texto teórico y de reflexión, basado en teoría moral aplicada, centrado en la denominada ética administrativa, al que se aporta investigación reciente sobre ciencia cognitiva. Resultados: el texto resalta el destacado papel de la motivación moral y la construcción del carácter para el éxito de los códigos, pero también nos permite comprender los problemas que se derivan de los conflictos de valores en el servicio público y cómo afrontarlos. Se demuestra el papel de las emociones, sentimientos e intuiciones en la conformación de las decisiones éticas, así como el riesgo de los sesgos cognitivos en la toma de decisiones frente a problemas morales. Finalmente, se trata el problema de los riesgos de socialización y normalización de prácticas corruptas en las organizaciones. Conclusiones: derivadas de los resultados, se aportan recomendaciones para las personas y organizaciones públicas a la hora de desarrollar y utilizar los códigos.
... SAT's concept of 'setting' helps to clear up some ambiguity about the presence or near-presence of another person. SAT states that an individual is only influenced by the part of the social environment that they access with their senses, and that this environment is a 'setting' (Hardie, 2020;Wikström, 2006). Settings thus include the objects, persons, and events in environments to which individuals are exposed, including media and virtual content. ...
The presence of parents or other guardians (commonly termed ‘supervision’) and parental knowledge are factors that are both robustly negatively associated with a range of anti-social and risky behavioural outcomes such as adolescent crime. However, parental presence/supervision and parental knowledge are both (i) regularly used inaccurately as proxies for parental monitoring, (ii) poorly defined and operationalised, and (iii) rarely linked to negative behavioural outcomes with plausible mechanisms that adequately explain their association. These problematic aspects of the parental monitoring literature are a barrier to research into adolescent outcomes and the varied role of parents. This theoretical paper facilitates solutions these problems by clarifying the concepts of parental presence, supervision and knowledge.
This discussion delineates presence from supervision and knowledge from monitoring. It specifies how presence and knowledge are not parenting actions, and neither constitute parental monitoring. These concepts are clarified within the parameters of a recent framework of goal-directed parental action and parental monitoring. Doing so constitutes under-labouring that facilitates future discovery of their distinct and yet inter-related mechanisms of influence on adolescent action and development. These structured conceptual developments are also of benefit for our better future understanding of parenting and parental monitoring by providing a framework within which to re-situate existing empirical research findings.
... However, the assumption that individuals from lower socioeconomic backgrounds are more prone to engaging in criminal behavior than those with better economic conditions remains a subject of controversy (Patterson, 1991). All human behaviors, including crime, are the contextual outcomes of a perception-choice process (Wikström, 2006). The inclination of potential offenders to engage in criminal activities may be influenced by a myriad of factors, including individual cognitive abilities, access to information, moral standards, and risk tolerance, rather than solely focusing on the benefits (Bernasco and Nieuwbeerta, 2005). ...
While previous research has underscored the profound influence of the ambient population distribution on the spatial dynamics of crime, the exploration regarding the impact of het-erogeneity within the ambient population, such as different income groups, on crime is still in its infancy. With the support of mobile phone big data, this study constructs an index of ambient population heterogeneity to represent the complexity of the social environment. After controlling for the effects of total ambient population, nonlocal rate, transportation accessibility, crime attractors, and crime generators, this study employs a negative binomial regression model to examine the influence of ambient population heterogeneity and different income groups on the spatial manifestations of thefts. The findings indicate that ambient population heterogeneity significantly escalates the incidence of thefts, with middle and upper-middle-income groups acting as more attractive targets, whereas the higher-income group exerts a deterrent effect. The interaction analysis shows that increased population heterogeneity contributes to social disorder, thereby amplifying the attractiveness of the ambient population to perpetrators. These conclusions highlight the crucial role of ambient population heterogeneity in explaining crime dynamics and therefore enrich the routine activity theory.
... These categories point to the ways in which unethical behaviors relate to and are motivated by both internal and external contexts and opportunities, as well as the inability of codified laws, policies, protocols, and related procedures to fully prevent, detect, and respond to unethical behaviors. These areas also suggest that people within NGOs are exposed to possibilities for both situational (i.e., when the environment permits or encourages unethical behavior) and intentional (i.e., when people purposefully choose to behave unethically to meet their needs) offending (Kleinewiese, 2022;Wikström, 2006). ...
With the occurrence of high-profile scandals in the nongovernmental organization (NGO) sector, scholars and practitioners alike have questioned why “good” organizations behave badly, yet little empirical research has explored this topic in depth. The present study examines the NGO halo effect, a conceptual framework that proposes three mechanisms to explain how NGO moral goodness can lead to NGO unethical behavior, that is, moral justification, moral superiority, and moral naivety. Through an analysis of 34 interviews with NGO staff and volunteers, we identify 151 unique cases and 17 different types of unethical behavior. We find that 92% of these cases are related to the halo effect, with 22% through moral justification, 25% through moral superiority, and 45% through moral naivety. This study provides empirical support for the NGO halo effect as a factor for understanding NGOs’ unethical behavior, with implications for future research.
... Other theoretical developments also have emphasized the importance of moral values for offending, integrating adherence to conventional beliefs with constructs relevant for perceptions of action alternatives. Among these, Wikström et al. (2012) situational action theory identifies morality as playing a crucial role in decision-making, not only affecting individuals' likelihood of encountering criminogenic social settings but also informing their perceptions of appropriate conduct in contexts in which other controls are weak (see also Wikström, 2006Wikström, , 2019. Specifically, while "moral values or principles are the first line of defense against crime" (Gottfredson & Hirschi, 2020, p. 123), the presence of an effective "moral filter" also can help overcome low perceptual deterrence or deficits in self-control when delinquent opportunities arise (Desmond et al., 2013;Gallupe & Baron, 2014;Schoepfer & Piquero, 2006;Wikström & Svensson, 2010). ...
An abundance of research has revealed that religious salience is negatively associated with delinquent behavior, including illicit substance use. However, absent from prior work is a consideration of whether youths’ participation in personal religious rituals and acts of devotion might amplify the protective effects of religiosity. Theoretically, it may be expected that these private expressions of belief and identity can strengthen religious commitments and reaffirm membership within specific moral communities. Using data from the National Study of Youth and Religion on a nationally representative sample of adolescents ages 13-17 (N = 3,170), these findings reveal that religious salience inhibits cigarette use, alcohol use, drunkenness, and marijuana use, but only among youth who engage in at least some pious practices.
... The theory aims to identify the reasons for violent crime in Nigeria and takes into account the disciplines of cognitive, bioethical, socioeconomic, and environmental factors. In essence, it seeks to understand why individuals make the decision to transgress the rules and regulations, (Wikström, 2006;Bouhana and Wikstrom, 2011). A person's engagement with settings that encourage recidivism and their propensity for wrongdoing, or how much effort they expend in an uncontrolled or mismanaged environment, and how much consciousness they have, interact to produce criminal activity, which is unlawful behavior abhorred by society, (Wilkstrom, 2014). ...
There have been several agitations in Nigeria, but none have degenerated into the current barbaric, horrendous, heinous, and despicable dimensions of carnage, massacres, and bloodletting orchestrated by terrorists, bandits, kidnappers, and other organized violent crime syndicates. This study takes a holistic approach using secondary data sources to examine the root causes of the modern-day prevalence of kidnapping, banditry, terrorist attacks, and other organized criminal activities in Nigeria. The study finds that unemployment, excess supply of young people, neglect of certain regions in the distribution of national wealth, lack of government visibility, lack of equal economic opportunity for all, uncontrolled influx of fire arms, poverty, and religious fanaticism contributes to the increasing rate of violent crime in Nigeria. The article finds that the nature of banditry, kidnapping, and terrorist attacks are similar, and the modes of attacks on civilian and government installations are also related. The government should thus become proactively visible throughout the nation via its security agencies and economic development agenda. Additionally, the government should educate local officials and traditional councils on contemporary methods for reporting and addressing violent groups in their communities.
... This last point is critical to our current argument, given the advent of online technologies as a new social context for the commission of scamming. Criminology has a long history of integrating concepts of offender, victim, and context (variously referred to in research as "setting" or "situation" or "prevailing social conditions") together for the purpose of developing theories and models of offending (Cohen & Felson, 1979;Miethe & Meier, 1994;Wikström, 2006). However, its historical grounding in sociological definitions of context leaves it ill-suited to properly characterise and empirically investigate online offences (Yar, 2005). ...
his study focuses on advance fee fraud (AFF) scamming, a specific form of online deception in which scammers rely on social engineering techniques to deceive individuals into making advance payments to them. Several industry and law enforcement reports have emphasised that AFF scamming is among the most pervasive forms of online social engineering attacks against consumers, organisations, and online users. Although AFF scamming has received significant attention worldwide, it remains an under-researched and poorly understood crime, and little work has focused on offenders. Although studies on online scammers have inferred that digital environment attributes influence online deception, few studies have empirically clarified how such contexts explain online scammers’ motivations. The present study was designed to explore the motivations and deceptive practices of modern-day AFF scammers by using data from scammers. The empirical results urge the adoption of a model for AFF scamming that conceptually builds on social learning theory (SLT)’s core concepts but functions differently from it, warranting a new IT-based conceptual model. Accordingly, our contributions identify and explain cybercontextual social learning attributes that influence AFF scamming and underscore how traditional criminological theories, such as SLT, cannot sufficiently account for online offences, such as AFF scamming. Consequently, we propose cybercontextual transmission model (CTM) as a reformulation of SLT. Additional theory and practice implications are discussed.
... The causal link is a connection between two physical events (the crime and the crime's result), and its clear that it shows how the crime was caused by the crime (Wikström, 2006 an option means the same thing as breaking the law about improving the offspring or sex of animals and not following the orders and bans of the veterinary and agricultural instructions approved by law (Otto, 2005).The perpetrator is asked about the crime that occurred by his refusal. ...
Increase the productivity of farm animals such as (cows, sheep, goats, poultry, fish) by increasing the quantities of red and white meat, milk and its derivatives, eggs, wool and leather as a raw material for national industries and others in order to keep up with scientific developments in the field of geology. Through the Ministry of Agriculture's programs, to make a significant contribution to keeping up with the steady increase in the population and to enable the greatest number of them to obtain the productivity of this wealth from meat, milk, and eggs in a simple manner proportional to their limited monthly income, as well as the role of penal protection by making the criminal penalty a punishment that takes away freedom and the financial penalty a punishment that takes away money, it makes sure that productivity goes up which is good for food security and national wealth.
... Las conductas de los agresores sexuales en la escena del crimen pueden verse afectadas por factores situacionales, o de carácter contextual (Oziel, Goodwill & Beauregard, 2015;Goodwill, Lehmann, Beauregard & Andrei, 2016), pues el delito debe ser analizado al menos en dos niveles para comprenderlo: el individual y el socioambiental (Janosch & Soto, 2018). Con la denominación de factores situacionales nos referimos a elementos tales como la intensidad de la resistencia que ofrece la víctima (Salfati, Horning, Sorochinski & Labuschagne, 2015), determinadas condiciones ambientales inesperadas, el tiempo que dura la agresión, el lugar en el que se comete o bien la posible aparición de testigos y/o policías, pueden provocar un cambio en las conductas del delincuente, alterando el MO planificado (Wikström, 2006;2014). ...
Propósito: Estudiar la consistencia en las conductas de los agresores sexuales desconocidos y seriales en la escena del crimen, y la influencia de los factores situacionales. Método: Se analizan las conductas en la escena del crimen de 18 agresores sexuales desconocidos y seriales, que cometieron al menos 54 agresiones sexuales. Se han correlacionado con factores situacionales. Se ha estudiado también la consistencia de cada una de esas conductas. Resultados: Algunas conductas de los delincuentes están influidas por factores situacionales y, a la inversa, algunos factores situacionales pueden estar influidos por tales conductas. Algunas conductas que, prima facie, no están influenciadas por los factores situacionales son consistentes. Una excepción son las conductas sexuales del delincuente. Conclusión: Este análisis confirma, aunque limitadamente, relaciones conductuales esperables, pero nunca antes estudiadas, en una muestra española de agresores sexuales seriales y desconocidos.
... Las conductas de los agresores sexuales en la escena del crimen pueden verse afectadas por factores situacionales, o de carácter contextual (Oziel, Goodwill & Beauregard, 2015;Goodwill, Lehmann, Beauregard & Andrei, 2016), pues el delito debe ser analizado al menos en dos niveles para comprenderlo: el individual y el socioambiental (Janosch & Soto, 2018). Con la denominación de factores situacionales nos referimos a elementos tales como la intensidad de la resistencia que ofrece la víctima (Salfati, Horning, Sorochinski & Labuschagne, 2015), determinadas condiciones ambientales inesperadas, el tiempo que dura la agresión, el lugar en el que se comete o bien la posible aparición de testigos y/o policías, pueden provocar un cambio en las conductas del delincuente, alterando el MO planificado (Wikström, 2006;2014). ...
Filiación Institucional (1) Resumen Propósito: Estudiar la consistencia en las conductas de los agresores sexuales desconocidos y seriales en la escena del crimen, y la influencia de los factores situacionales. Método: Se analizan las conductas en la escena del crimen de 18 agresores sexuales desconocidos y seriales, que cometieron al menos 54 agresiones sexuales. Se han correlacionado con factores situacionales. Se ha estudiado también la consistencia de cada una de esas conductas. Resultados: Algunas conductas de los delincuentes están influidas por factores situacionales y, a la inversa, algunos factores situacionales pueden estar influidos por tales conductas. Algunas conductas que, prima facie, no están influenciadas por los factores situacionales son consistentes. Una excepción son las conductas sexuales del delincuente. Conclusión: Este análisis confirma, aunque limitadamente, relaciones conductuales esperables, pero nunca estudiadas, en una muestra española de agresores sexuales seriales y desconocidos. Palabras Clave Agresión sexual, desconocido, decisiones conductuales, situación, consistencia conductual. Abstract Purpose: To study the consistency in crime scene behaviors of unknown and serial sexual offenders and the influence of situational factors. Methods: The crime scene behaviors of 18 unknown and serial sexual offenders, who committed at least 54 sexual assaults, were analyzed. They have been correlated with situational factors. The consistency of each of these behaviors was also studied. Results: Some offenders' behaviors are influenced by situational factors and, conversely, some situational factors may be influenced by such behaviors. Some behaviors that, prima facie, are not influenced by situational factors are consistent. An exception is offender sexual behaviors. Conclusion: This analysis confirms, albeit to a limited extent, expected but never studied behavioral relationships in a Spanish sample of serial and unknown sex offenders.
... According to SAT, crime is 'as an act of breaking a moral rule defined in criminal law' (Wikström, 2006: 63), and Wikström suggests that it explains all acts of crime (Wikström, 2006). 15 In his opinion, the breach of moral law is what all crimes have in common (Wikström, 2010). ...
Much of the existing literature on young people in conflict zones has concentrated on violence and peace building. Little, if any at all, has discussed their involvement in regular crime, how to prevent it and the preventive role of the community. It is well established that civil war societies experience a dramatic increase in crime rates during and after the war. Syria is no exception. With a rise in crime since the eruption of the civil war in 2012, the official statements of the Syrian government indicate that youth crime has quadrupled. Coinciding with international and humanitarian reports, these statements attribute such a rise to socio-economic factors. This not only threatens the wellbeing of the youth and their future opportunities, but also places the development and the future stability of the country at stake since their impact is likely to be evident during the coming decades. Therefore, there is a need today to start a conversation on a national level in Syria about youth offending and seek humane approaches by involving the Syrian community and this thesis aims to inform such a conversation.
This thesis seeks to explore three crucial points. First, whether there has been or will be a rise in youth crime in Syria. Second, the thesis will provide an account of the factors that may have caused this rise. Third, in response to the collapse of the Syrian justice system and its inefficiency in dealing with the rising crime rates, the thesis will explore community crime prevention and what means suggest themselves as likely to be most effective based on existing literature and the original data of the thesis. This will lead to a discussion on the future desistence of young Syrians from offending and the legitimacy of community crime prevention, using civil society organisations and community police as case studies.
The study draws on 30 semi-structured interviews with practitioners and 50 surveys questionnaires that were responded to by young Syrians between the age of 16 to 24. It engages with the opinion of both practitioners and respondents on key concepts and issues such as youth crime, community crime prevention and its legitimacy. The key findings suggest that youth crime has risen since the beginning of the war, and this is unlikely to change once a ceasefire is declared. The study also indicates that while community crime prevention among young offenders in Syria has a potential, its preventive role is subject to questions of its legitimacy and which community agencies are capable of assuming such a preventive role. The findings also challenge the concept of legitimacy that is based upon consensus, concluding that the legitimacy of community crime prevention in Syria draws from necessity rather than a mutual recognition between the state and the community.
... Das CAMCB kann aber schon ohne weiterführende Spezifikation erklären, warum bestimmte gängige Risikofaktoren in diversen kulturellen Kontexten anders ausgeprägt sind bzw. in anderer Weise mit Delinquenz im Zusammenhang stehen. Dies ist mit den bisherigen Theorien, die nur für einen euroamerikanischen Kontext formuliert wurden, nicht konsistent möglich.Widerspruchsfreiheit Das CAMCB ist sehr nahe an bereits bekannten und teils gut etablierten Theorien(Crick und Dodge 1994; Lemerise und Arsenio 2000; Heffernan und Ward 2017; Anderson und Bushman 2002; Brandtstädter und Rothermund 2002;Wyer 2012; Eitam und Higgins 2010; Wikstrom und Treiber 2007;Wikstrom 2009) formuliert worden. Auch die Herleitung von unterschiedlichen Verarbeitungsmechanismen je nach kulturellem Trait gründet sich auf einer breiten empirischen Grundlage (dazuSchmidt et al. im Druck). ...
Die hohe kulturelle Diversität der Straffälligenpopulation bringt eine ganze Reihe an Herausforderungen für Forschung und Praxis mit sich. Diesen Herausforderungen ist mit gängigen Erklärungsmodellen von Delinquenz jedoch kaum zu begegnen. Einerseits bestehen erhebliche Zweifel an deren allgemeiner Gültigkeit im interkulturellen Kontext, weil sie fast ausschließlich für den euroamerikanischen Raum entwickelt wurden. Andererseits bauen viele der Theorien auf dem Konzept der dynamischen Risikofaktoren auf, welches vage definiert ist. Viele dieser Theorien können Delinquenz kaum erklären, weil sie die zugrunde liegenden psychologischen Mechanismen nur wenig spezifizieren. Mit dem Cultural Agency-Model of Criminal Behavior (CAMCB) schlagen die Autoren ein Rahmenmodell vor, das auf die zugrunde liegenden individuellen psychologischen Mechanismen zielgerichteten Handelns abhebt und dabei systematisch zwischen universellen Komponenten und deren kulturell und individuell gefärbten Ausprägungen differenziert. Im CAMCB wird der Einfluss der kulturellen Sozialisation nicht an eine geografische oder ethnische Herkunft gebunden, sondern an kulturelle „traits“ (z. B. interdependenter Verarbeitungsstil), welche die Verhaltensgenese allgemein beeinflussen. An einem Beispiel wird gezeigt, dass delinquentes Verhalten je nach angenommenem kulturellen Trait unterschiedlich erklärt werden kann, während sich die Situation und die Reaktion nicht unterscheiden müssen. Wesentlich sind: erstens die Identifikation der universellen Verhaltenskomponenten, zweitens die Beschreibung deren kulturell und individuell gefärbter Ausprägungen und drittens die Erklärung von Delinquenz auf der Grundlage dieses Wissens. Dieses stufenweise Vorgehen erscheint nicht nur für die kriminalpsychologische Theorieentwicklung von Bedeutung, sondern auch für die forensische Praxis, bei der für jeden Einzelfall kultursensibel eine individuelle Delinquenztheorie formuliert werden muss.
Background
This paper takes on ‘ Farrington's challenge ’ ‘to bridge the gap between risk factor research and more complex explanatory theories’ by offering an explanation for the unexplained statistical phenomenon of cumulative risk. We argue that cumulative risk primarily reflects the social contexts which crime relevant causal processes operate in and draw upon for their content and efficacy.
Aims
This paper tests if the immediate causes of crime according to Situational Action Theory (crime propensity and criminogenic exposure) can account for the relationship between cumulative risk (reflecting key features of family, neighbourhood, school and peer contexts) and crime involvement.
Methods
The paper uses data from the Peterborough Adolescent and Young Adult Development Study (PADS+) reflecting the social lives and criminal behaviour of a randomly sampled UK age cohort from ages 12 to 24 (2003–2016). Data used are drawn from parent and participant questionnaires, space–time budgets, community surveys, the UK Census and land use databases.
Results
Cumulative risk statistically accounts for 7% and 8% of the variance in crime prevalence and frequency, respectively, whereas crime propensity and criminogenic exposure account for 52% and 58%, respectively. Moreover, and importantly, measures of crime propensity and criminogenic exposure fully account for (statistically mediate) the association between cumulative risk and both crime prevalence and crime frequency.
Conclusions
Cumulative risk does not represent cumulative causation. The phenomenon of cumulative risk is best understood as representing the social context. Future research should focus on identifying features of social contexts that provide relevant content to and impact the efficacy of key action (and developmental) processes in crime causation.
Numerous studies emphasise that crime hot spots are antisocial activity nodes where disorder and crime are prevalent. However, researchers to date have not considered prosocial activities at crime hot spots, and how such activities compare to those at other streets in a city. We examine both antisocial and prosocial activities at crime hot spots and non-hot spots using unique quantitative and qualitative data collected in Baltimore City, Maryland, USA. We find, not surprisingly, that crime hot spots are places where antisocial activities such as adults loitering, people smoking tobacco, signs of drug activities and loud noise are much more common than on non-hot spot streets. However, we also find that crime hot spots evidence much higher levels of prosocial activities, including children playing outside, adults out on the street with their children or groups of adults socialising outside. These outcomes remain after taking into account a series of possible confounding factors. In concluding, we argue that scholars and practitioners need to reconsider how they imagine life at crime hot spots if they are to fully understand and prevent crime in urban areas. While crime and other antisocial activities tell part of the story at crime hot spots, it is not the whole story, and failing to recognise this hinders our ability to understand crime hot spots, as well as our efforts to improve them.
This is a precursor study of de-escalation and non-escalation. Using an interdisciplinary framework, we code emotion dysregulation derived from body-worn camera footage. We then test the influence of individual, situational, and environmental predictors on emotion dysregulation. We apply systematic social observation and systematic social event modeling to body-worn camera footage associated with 568 separate interactions for a small agency in the United States; involving more than 11,000 minutes of contact between police officers and community members. The largest predictor of emotion dysregulation on the part of the officer is dysregulation on the part of the person of interest. Given the role of emotions in decision-making and their largely neglected state in the policing literature, these results demonstrate the utility of drawing upon the rich data contained within body-worn camera footage. Results also highlight contextual factors influencing dysregulation.
Research increasingly aims to better understand criminal behavior in context. Invariably, this entails integrating sociological (and other) perspectives on structure and environment, with psychological and economic notions of individual decision processes. Unique among environmental influences on crime is the immediate context surrounding an offending opportunity. Here we focus on moral context. Perceived choice is often constrained by structural factors, such as concentrated disadvantage and social inequalities, which restrict prosocial opportunities and encourage offending. System 1 heuristic processes that involve moral salience can affect perceived choice sets as well. Such processes narrow choices by directing attention to one or a subset of behavioral options and away from others. They can also expand choices by counteracting the attention narrowing, criminogenic influences of competing heuristics such as temporally present orientation. Below we examine whether contextual circumstances can amplify the internal prominence of one’s moral self-conception, thus influencing moral judgements and related action. Using randomized experiments embedded in two online surveys, we assess the role of morally laden situational cues in choice processes.
Literature on predictors of youth crime is of special value to many fields. By examining the factors that predict youth offending behavior, this literature helps better understand appropriate prevention and intervention methods. These methods target specific predictive factors that increase the likelihood that youth offending behavior will initiate, persist, and/or escalate. Accordingly, this paper presents a review of literature on predictors of youth crime spanning over 80 years. Therein, this review starts by comparing two periods of literature: (research produced between 1940 and 2000) and (research produced between 2001 and 2024). These sections reveal a divide in major socio-political events and shifts to within standard approaches to research, and in doing so, these framings offer a more nuanced understanding of predictors of youth crime throughout the years. Following, this paper provides a critical discussion of theoretical gaps, unanswered research questions, variable re-considerations, and methodological shortcomings of this literature. This critical discussion yields that while research has been produced on a variety of predictors of youth crime, some cause-and-effect relationships, along with contextual relationships, and the role of modern technologies remain largely misunderstood.
Youth aggression is an international public health problem that has major consequences for victims and perpetrators. Given the social nature of aggression, understanding the situational role of peers is critical for informing effective prevention strategies. However, traditional research on situational peer influence has been limited by the neglect of the person–environment interaction and the failure to theorise the action decision making process. This article responds to these challenges by applying and developing situational action theory (SAT) to theorise the situational mechanisms and conditions of peer influence. The situational model of peer influence presented in this article moves beyond traditional rational choice approaches by integrating interdisciplinary research on situational peer effects with SAT's dual-process model. This model specifies how and why the presence of aggressive peers influences the action decision making process that leads to aggressive behaviour. This article also describes the Peer Relations and Social Behaviour (PEERS) space-time budget method which is a recent methodological innovation that can be used to test this theoretical model. It concludes by outlining the main practical implications for the prevention of youth aggression.
Juvenile delinquency is considered as the act of engaging in any illegal behavior by a person under the legal age of majority. Individual characteristics, family, school, peer groups and society play a crucial role in the adoption of delinquent behavior by a minor. Some protective factors that limit criminal behavior of children and adolescents are the ability of the minor to both self-regulate their emotions and comprehend the consequences of their acts, a supportive family, an efficient parental supervision, commitment in school, and the development of friendships focused on values such as solidarity or empathy. Society plays a crucial role in the moulding of a minor's behavior. The policies/measures that can be taken have to be compatible with a number of dispositions on both national and international level. The proposed chapter seeks to both present the risk factors of juvenile delinquency and suggest techniques for the prevention and repression of criminality in minors.
Victims of crime have seen a significant shift in the criminal justice approaches towards them over time: from rather passive observers of the conflict between the state and the offender to more active agents whose thoughts, wishes and emotions are allowed to be voiced and whose participation is recognised as legitimate in its own right within the criminal process. The article analyses to what extent this empowerment shift is reflected in Slovenia, specifically how the criminal law acknowledges and defines the victim in the criminal justice setting. While the European Union (EU) legislation in this area, as a top-down factor in shaping the rights and status of the victim, has provided an important impetus for legislative changes, particularly in relation to certain aspects, rights and categories of crime victims, as well as the definition of the victim, the more conceptual recent transformations (e.g. an altered model of rape) arose out of changed societal sensitivities spurred by triggering events and a wider social and political context. Implications and outstanding challenges are discussed in the concluding section.
We prove a fundamental attribution error connecting rule-breaking behavior to entrepreneurs. We do so in the research context of the US, where we recently sampled from medium-sized venture entrepreneurs and their corporate executive peers (as an applicable reference point). We chose the US not only for its high entrepreneurial activity, but also because of the not uncommon relationship between business leaders and religion. By including various measures of religiosity in the study, we could control for factors that would likely influence rule-breaking, which standard models like the fraud triangle do not explicitly consider. In fact, we add contingency theory ideas to the fraud triangle to determine whether it is the decision conditions that determine rule-breaking rather than the role of the person (i.e., as an entrepreneur). We find that once demographic, religious, firm and industry contingencies are controlled for, any statistically significant influence of being an entrepreneur (relative to being a corporate executive with similar opportunity, motivation, capability and rationalization) disappears when it comes to self-admitted value-bending behaviors at work. Our contribution consists of a novel analysis, results and discussion of the ‘bent’repreneur—adding to conversations on the under-researched nexus of entrepreneurship with religiosity and ethical decision-making.
Drawing on recent scholarship on mass incarceration and prisoner re-entry, this study examines the reciprocal relationship between returning parolees and neighbourhood crime rates in five large cities in Texas. Besides the more common approach of counting the number of people on parole in communities (parolee concentration), we propose a novel approach for measuring people on parole by capturing their exposure in the community as parolee embeddedness (i.e., the cumulative number of days that people on parole resided in the neighbourhood). Results show that parolee concentration has a significant positive effect on both violent and property crime, but parolee embeddedness is significantly associated with reductions in violent and property crime. Our findings detect different effects depending on the measurement of people on parole and their community context, illustrating the need to better understand the dynamics of parolee re-entry in the era of mass incarceration.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, stay-at-home restrictions significantly changed people’s daily lives around the world. Opportunity and strain theories predict this would lead to an increase in intimate partner abuse (IPA), including intimate partner homicide (IPH). This paper applies an alternative theoretical framework—situational action theory (SAT)—to explain mixed findings regarding changes in IPA and unexpected findings regarding (a lack of) changes in IPH. It is argued that SAT may contribute to explaining the impact of stay-at-home restrictions on IPA and IPH in three important ways:
1. by addressing the fact that motivation is necessary but not sufficient for explaining action and better specifying how motivation translates into IPA and IPH;
2. by addressing the fact that people perceive different alternatives for action and better specifying why some people come to see IPA and IPH as acceptable action alternatives;
3. by addressing the fact that exposure affects people differently and better specifying how stay-at-home restrictions shaped people’s activity fields and, in turn, their perceptions and action choices.
Much prior research has established an inverse relationship between religiosity and delinquency among adolescents, with particularly noteworthy effects observed for illicit substance use. These patterns correspond with the expectations of social bond theory and situational action theory, which posit that commitment to conventional religious norms can reduce youths' exposure to, and inform their experiences with, delinquent opportunities. However, little empirical attention has been given to youths' beliefs surrounding the nature of morality itself, which are theoretically expected to moderate the protective effects of religious salience. Specifically, while religious salience might have a general controlling influence on adolescents' use of cigarettes, alcohol, and marijuana, holding beliefs in moral relativism (i.e., the absence of definitive rights and wrongs) or moral contextualism (i.e., that rights and wrongs are fluid and dynamic) might weaken these inhibiting effects. Using data on a nationally representative sample of adolescents from the National Study of Youth and Religion (N = 3,170), this study's analyses reveal that the association between religious salience and substance use is conditioned by moral contextualism but not moral relativism, though this interactive relationship is found only for alcohol use and drunkenness.
Criminological rational choice theory is blighted by tautology—that if a crime occurs, then by definition the benefits must exceed the costs. The current analysis details the nature of this tautology as well as its theoretical and philosophical implications concerning the circumstances under which offenders make rational (thoughtful and reflective) or irrational (habitual, intuitive, or instinctual) choices. In short, rational choice theorists appear to side-step the problems presented by this tautology by attempting to coerce observations and theorizing to conform with assumptions about cost–benefit rationality. This essay concludes by setting forth an agenda for the continued empirical investigation of the rational choice perspective—one where the perceived cost/benefit analysis itself for criminal behavior is treated as the outcome of interest.
The idea of differential deterrence suggests that deterrent effects vary across individuals and settings. However, the pertinent research is poorly integrated and lacks a coherent theoretical conceptualization. This is why the present article seeks to (a) reconcile the empirical findings obtained for the most frequently investigated moderators of the magnitude of the deterrent effect, (b) introduce a novel model of a subsidiary relevance of deterrence, and (c) provide a first test of the new model. A narrative review of the previous research on differential deterrence forms the basis of theoretical efforts to build a model of subsidiary deterrent effects that is consistent with the available evidence. The proposed model synthesizes the conditioning roles of the strength of the moral filter and the level of trait self-control. In detail, it is assumed that the total strength of the moral filter governs whether controls affect behavior (because it determines whether crime is actually being pondered) and that, given a permeable moral filter, deterrence matters particularly for individuals with lower self-control ability. Following the presentation of the new model, we report the results of its first empirical examination. Analyzing a self-report survey on adolescent shoplifting activity yields supportive findings. There is evidence of a moderated moderation relationship according to which a poor capacity for self-control increases the association between the perceived risk of getting caught and the level of shoplifting delinquency mainly under conditions of a weak moral filter.
This chapter starts to develop a ‘Decision Structure model’ which can help explain criminal decision making, in seemingly rational and irrational circumstances, by bringing together personal motivation, potential costs and benefits, emotion and utilising the lead in or ‘chain of choices’ taken before an offending event as a potential chance to change outcomes. This idea is examined in light of other relevant literature and findings, and the importance of such a model to those working with people who offend is discussed.
This chapter outlines the roots of the Rational Choice Perspective and its research, which forms the focus of this book. Understanding criminal decision making has long been a focus of academics from various disciplines, and is an understanding that has real impact in terms of policy, practice and people’s lives within the justice system. To make sure our understanding of why people decide to commit crime is valid, we need to understand what the motivation, costs and benefits of a criminal action are to the offender and not the observer. This can be tricky, and has moved Rational Choice Approaches from their original economic origins, known as ‘thin’ models to wider models that take individual perspectives into account (‘thick’ models). In addition to this, there have been issues about how these approaches are researched—researching crime is always challenging and in many cases studies are done using proxies, usually students, to measure their ‘intent’ to offend based on different factors. This chapter suggests that this may not be the best approach, and sets out the reasoning for the research with real-crime experienced individuals covered in this book.
Literatur- und Stichwortverzeichnis
This book deals with criminological theory, criminology, and criminal justice. It addresses a wide range of topics relevant to criminology, including socioeconomic factors that contribute to crime such as biology, community and inequality, emotions, immigration, social institutions, social learning, social support, parenting, peer networks, street culture, and market economy. It also examines the developmental criminology perspective and the developmental risk factors for crime and delinquency across five key risk domains (individuals, family, peers, schools, and community). Moreover, it reviews criminological research that ascribes criminal behavior to the interaction between individuals and street culture; Cesare Lombroso's views about the causes and correlates of crime as delineated in his book, Criminal Man ; the state of contemporary gang ethnography; Travis Hirschi's major contributions to the methods of analysis in criminology; the role of gender in delinquency; the link between coercion and crime; the psychology of criminal conduct; violence in drug markets in suburbs and the code of the suburb; the impact of imprisonment on reoffending; green criminology; and why crime levels are extraordinarily high in some places but low or totally absent in most places, and how place management accounts for this disparity. The book also looks at a variety of theories on criminology, including the rational choice theory, the theory of target search, Robert Agnew's general strain theory, the “Integrated Cognitive Antisocial Potential” theory developed by David Farrington, routine activity theory, and crime-as-choice theory.
Objectives
Broken windows theory identifies community social control as a central mechanism for controlling crime. In turn, controlling disorder is seen as the primary method that police or other government agents can use to strengthen community social controls. Our study examined the antecedents of informal community social control, measured as collective efficacy, at street segments.
Methods
This article leverages multi-wave primary data collection at 447 street segments in Baltimore, MD including official crime statistics, survey responses, physical observations, and systematic social observations. We used mixed-effects OLS regression models to examine antecedents of collective efficacy at the street-level.
Results
We find that social disorder and crime, rather than physical disorder, are the primary antecedents of collective efficacy at the street-level. We also find that fear of crime does not have a direct impact on collective efficacy.
Conclusions
Our study suggests that police and city government more generally should not look to controlling physical disorder as a means of increasing community controls. At the same time addressing social disorder is an important mechanism to bolster collective efficacy, though care is needed to avoid bias or backfire effects from aggressive order-maintenance policing.
SPANISH: Una de las justificaciones más comunes sobre la pena es que la
misma sirve para prevenir delitos y lo haría desde su misma fase
de enunciación que consistiría en la comunicación de una
amenaza legal. Esta asunción está tan interiorizada en la
sociedad y en el legislador que una forma habitual de justificar
la criminalización de nuevas conductas y aumentar las penas es
apelar a la necesidad de aumentar los costes del delito para que
los potenciales infractores se retraigan de cometer delitos, algo
que supuestamente sucedería si se modifica el Código Penal en
tal sentido. Sin embargo, se ha tendido a aceptar que la pena
cumpliría tal función sin preocuparse ni el legislador ni la
dogmática de atender a la multitud de estudios procedentes de
las ciencias sociales que ayudarían a determinar qué
mecanismos están detrás de la prevención que puede producir
la enunciación del castigo. En el presente trabajo se ha tenido,
por tanto, un doble objetivo de investigación: por un lado, poner
a prueba la hipótesis que se encuentra detrás de la estrategia
legislativa consistente en aumentar las penas y los ámbitos de
criminalización esperando que ello produzca en los potenciales
infractores una necesidad de retraerse de realizar determinadas
conductas; y, por otro, poner de manifiesto otra serie de factores
que pueden estar relacionados con la prevención producida por
la enunciación de la norma penal y que van más allá de la mera
intimidación, relacionados con la comunicación del modelo de
conducta social y la legitimidad sustantiva de las normas. La
consecución de ambos objetivos se ha llevado a cabo por dos
vías: por un lado, mediante una revisión bibliográfica de la
literatura sobre la teoría de la disuasión general y de otros
factores relacionados con el cumplimiento como son la
influencia social y la legitimidad sustantiva de la norma; por
otro, con la realización de seis estudios empíricos propios en los
que se han puesto a prueba las diferentes hipótesis de los
principales enfoques de cumplimiento normativo. Entre los
principales resultados se encuentran que las variables de la
disuasión no suelen formar parte de los elementos que los
XVIII
sujetos de las muestras toman en consideración para la decisión
de cumplir. Este hallazgo iría en la línea de lo establecido en la
literatura sobre la disuasión que viene a sostener que para que
la misma pueda desplegar sus efectos deben de darse toda una
serie de requisitos que, normalmente, no se cumplen. En
cambio, sí tienen mucha más importancia para dicho
cumplimiento variables relacionadas con la transmisión del
modelo de conducta normativo, la desaprobación moral social,
o el juicio moral o sistema de valores del individuo. En este
mismo sentido, una ausencia de cualidades de la norma como la
legitimidad percibida de la misma puede producir efectos
perversos que derivarían en el incumplimiento y la erosión de
la legitimidad de la norma y la autoridad, confirmando la
necesidad de que la norma penal revista de legitimidad para que
la misma genere cumplimiento voluntario. Finalmente, se
establecen algunas conclusiones para la criminología, el
Derecho penal y la política criminal derivadas de la
investigación y que contribuirían a mejorar, por un lado, el
debate sobre los efectos de la sanción penal y, por otro, la parte
de la política criminal que corresponde a la regulación y sanción
de determinadas conductas socialmente disvaliosas // ENGLISH: One of the most common rationales for punishment is that it is
useful to prevent crime, and it would do so from its very phase
of enunciation, which would consist of the communication of a
legal threat. This assumption is so internalized in society and in
the legislator that a common way of justifying the
criminalization of new behaviors and increasing penalties is to
appeal to the need to increase the costs of crime so that potential
offenders are deterred from committing crimes, something that
would supposedly happen if the Penal Code were modified in
this sense. However, there has been a tendency to accept that
punishment would fulfil such a function without the legislator
or the legal academic community considering the multitude of
studies from the social sciences that would help to determine
what mechanisms are behind the prevention that can be
produced by the enunciation of punishment. The present thesis
has therefore had a double research objective: on the one hand,
to test the hypothesis behind the legislative strategy of
increasing penalties and areas of criminalization in the hope that
this will produce in potential offenders a need to refrain from
carrying out certain behaviors; and, on the other, to highlight
another series of factors that may be related to the prevention
produced by the enunciation of the criminal norm and which go
beyond mere intimidation, related to the communication of the
model of social behavior and the substantive legitimacy of the
norms. Both objectives have been pursued in two ways: on the
one hand, through a literature review of the literature on general
deterrence theory and other factors related to compliance such
as social influence and substantive legitimacy of the norm; on
the other hand, by conducting six empirical studies of our own
in which the different hypotheses of the main compliance
approaches have been tested. Among the main results are that
deterrence variables do not tend to be part of the elements that
subjects in the samples take into consideration in their decision
to comply. This finding would be in line with what is established
in the literature on deterrence, which argues that for deterrence
XX
to have an effect, a series of requirements must be met that are
not normally fulfilled. In contrast, variables related to the
communication of the normative model of behavior, social
moral disapproval, or the moral judgement or value system of
the individual are much more important for such compliance. In
this same sense, an absence of qualities of the norm such as its
perceived legitimacy can produce perverse effects that would
lead to non-compliance and the erosion of the legitimacy of the
norm and authority, confirming the need for the criminal norm
to have legitimacy for it to generate voluntary compliance.
Finally, some conclusions are drawn for criminology, criminal
law and crime policy arising from the research, which would
contribute to improving, on the one hand, the debate on the
effects of criminal punishment and, on the other, the part of
crime policy that relates to the regulation and punishment of
certain socially disvaluable conducts
En este estudio se testa empíricamente una de las principales hipótesis de la Teoría de la Acción Situacional (TAS) en el contexto de la actividad/competición deportiva. Se analiza si los actos de infracción de las normas (deportivas) son el resultado de la participación (exposición) de deportistas con tendencia a la infracción de esas normas (propensión criminal) en deportes (entornos) especialmente criminógenos. Para ello, se utiliza una muestra (n=329) de deportistas en activo que compiten en diferentes disciplinas y a diferentes niveles deportivos. Los resultados revelan que tanto la propensión criminal individual como el carácter criminógeno del tipo de deporte practicado son por sí mismos factores causalmente relevantes de conductas antideportivas. Los resultados también revelan que los efectos de la propensión individual son mayores para los deportistas que compiten en deportes especialmente criminógenos. Se analizan y discuten los resultados.
Bullying, particularly among teenagers and young adults, is one of the most important issues facing school communities. At its very heart, this issue speaks to a troubling form of deviant behavior. When students engage in bullying behaviors, the effects are felt far beyond that of the direct victim. As such, it is important to investigate the etiology of such behavior in an effort to implement preventative practices. Accordingly, the main purpose of this study is to explain why students engage in bullying. Specifically, we use Wikström’s situational action theory as a conceptual framework. A sample of 488 high school students (aged 15–18) from Rasht, Iran was used to test assumptions related to situational action theory, and the findings of this research generally demonstrated that the components of situational theory predicted students’ bullying behavior. Moderating relationships in the situational action model indicated an interactive effect on bullying between criminal propensity and exposure to crime. Moreover, three-way interactions (personal morality—self-control—situational morality and personal morality—self-control—deterrence) yielded mixed statistical effects on bullying. Specific results, policy implications, study limitations, and directions for future research are discussed.
Explores the related topics of self‐control and personal autonomy. Self‐control is understood as the contrary of akrasia or weakness of will, and autonomy is placed in the family of metaphysical freedom concepts: most notably, free will, free choice, and free action. The book's first half develops an analysis of the nature of self‐control and explains the potential influence of self‐control on actions, beliefs, reasoning, emotions, and values. It also develops an account of an ideally self‐controlled person and argues that even such a person will fall short of autonomy. The second half of the book first asks what may be added to ideal self‐control to yield autonomy and then defends two distinctive answers, one for compatibilist believers in autonomy (believers in autonomy who see it as compatible with determinism) and another for libertarians (believers in autonomy who see it as incompatible with determinism). The compatibilist answer features an account of control and a sensitivity to agents’ histories, and the libertarian answer adds to this a kind of causal openness that does not require agent causation and that avoids the sort of luck that undermines autonomy and moral responsibility. It is argued that the disjunction of these two answers as applied to actual human beings is more credible than the thesis that there are no autonomous human beings. This is “agnostic autonomism”: the position is agnostic about whether the falsity of determinism is required for autonomy while asserting that it is more credible that there are autonomous human beings than there are not.
Most contemporary moral philosophy is concerned with issues of rationality, universality, impartiality, and principle. By contrast Laurence Blum is concerned with the psychology of moral agency. The essays in this collection examine the moral import of emotion, motivation, judgment, perception, and group identifications, and explore how all these psychic capacities contribute to a morally good life. Blum takes up the challenge of Iris Murdoch to articulate a vision of moral excellence that provides a worthy aspiration for human beings. Drawing on accounts of non-Jewish rescuers of Jews during the Holocaust Blum argues that impartial principle can mislead us about the variety of forms of moral excellence.
This book presents a thorough overview of a model of human functioning based on the idea that behavior is goal-directed and regulated by feedback control processes. It describes feedback processes and their application to behavior, considers goals and the idea that goals are organized hierarchically, examines affect as deriving from a different kind of feedback process, and analyzes how success expectancies influence whether people keep trying to attain goals or disengage. Later sections consider a series of emerging themes, including dynamic systems as a model for shifting among goals, catastrophe theory as a model for persistence, and the question of whether behavior is controlled or instead 'emerges'. Three chapters consider the implications of these various ideas for understanding maladaptive behavior, and the closing chapter asks whether goals are a necessity of life. Throughout, theory is presented in the context of diverse issues that link the theory to other literatures.
Brings together 26 of Salmon's essays, including 7 that have never before been published and others that are difficult to find. Part I (Introductory Essays: Causality, Determinism, and Explanation) comprises five essays that presuppose no formal training in philosophy of science and form a background for subsequent essays. Parts II (Scientific Explanation) and III (Causality) contain Salmon's seminal work on these topics. The essays in Part II present aspects of the evolution of the author's thought about scientific explanation, and include critical examination of the claim that explanations are arguments and a carefully reasoned defense of explanatory asymmetry. Those in Part III develop the details of the theory sketched in Ch. 1. This theory identifies causal connections with physical processes that transmit causal influence from one space‐time location to another, and it incorporates probabilistic features of causality, keeping open the possibility that causality operates in indeterministic contexts. Part IV (Concise Overviews) offers survey articles that discuss advanced material but remain accessible to those outside philosophy of science. Essays in Part V (Applications to Other Disciplines: Archaeology and Anthropology, Astrophysics and Cosmology, and Physics) address specific issues, in particular, scientific disciplines, including the applicability of various models of explanation.
The study of rationality and practical reason, or rationality in action, has been central to Western intellectual culture. In this invigorating book, John Searle lays out six claims of what he calls the Classical Model of rationality and shows why they are false. He then presents an alternative theory of the role of rationality in thought and action.
A central point of Searle's theory is that only irrational actions are directly caused by beliefs and desires—for example, the actions of a person in the grip of an obsession or addiction. In most cases of rational action, there is a gap between the motivating desire and the actual decision making. The traditional name for this gap is "freedom of the will." According to Searle, all rational activity presupposes free will. For rationality is possible only where one has a choice among various rational as well as irrational options.
Unlike many philosophical tracts, Rationality in Action invites the reader to apply the author's ideas to everyday life. Searle shows, for example, that contrary to the traditional philosophical view, weakness of will is very common. He also points out the absurdity of the claim that rational decision making always starts from a consistent set of desires. Rational decision making, he argues, is often about choosing between conflicting reasons for action. In fact, humans are distinguished by their ability to be rationally motivated by desire-independent reasons for action. Extending his theory of rationality to the self, Searle shows how rational deliberation presupposes an irreducible notion of the self. He also reveals the idea of free will to be essentially a thesis of how the brain works.
Bradford Books imprint
Applies Davidson's Unified Theory of thought, meaning, and action to three families of problems involving various aspects of rationality, some degree of which Davidson's theory of radical interpretation attributes to any creature, which can be said to have a mind. These problems are the nature and our understanding of value judgements, the adequacy conditions for attributing mental states to a being, and the problem of irrationality.
The first four chapters apply Davidson's thesis that our interpretations of another person's mental states are a source of objectivity to value judgements: such judgements, Davidson argues in this section, are as objective as any judgement about the mind can be. Chs 5 to 10 develop Davidson's Unified Theory for interpreting thought, meaning, and action, the primary concern of this section being the specification of the minimal conditions for attributing mental states to an object or creature. Chs 11 to 14 deal primarily with the problems raised by those cognitive states and actions that seem to violate, in a fundamental way, the constraints of rationality. Since Davidson regards the constraints of rationality to be amongst the necessary conditions for both mind and interpretation, irrational thoughts, and actions pose a particular problem for his Unified Theory. The final four chapters attempt to remove the apparent contradiction.
This collection of essays by eminent philosopher Fred Dretske brings together work on the theory of knowledge and philosophy of mind spanning thirty years. The two areas combine to lay the groundwork for a naturalistic philosophy of mind. The fifteen essays focus on perception, knowledge, and consciousness. Together, they show the interconnectedness of Dretske's work in epistemology and his more contemporary ideas on philosophy of mind, shedding light on the links which can be made between the two. The first section of the book argues the point that knowledge consists of beliefs with the right objective connection to facts; two essays discuss this conception of knowledge's implications for naturalism. The next section articulates a view of perception, attempting to distinguish conceptual states from phenomenal states. A naturalized philosophy of mind, and thus a naturalized epistemology, is articulated in the third section. This collection will be a valuable resource for a wide range of philosophers and their students, and will also be of interest to cognitive scientists, psychologists, and philosophers of biology.
This is an important new book about human motivation, about the reasons people have for their actions. What is distinctively new about it is its focus on how people see or understand their situations, options, and prospects. By taking account of people's understandings (along with their beliefs and desires), Professor Schick is able to expand the current theory of decision and action. The author provides a perspective on the topic by outlining its history. He defends his new theory against criticism, considers its formal structure, and shows at length how it resolves many currently debated problems: the problems of conflict and weakness of will, Allais' problem, Kahneman and Tversky's problems, Newcomb's problem, and others. The book will be of special interest to philosophers, psychologists, and economists.
During the 1990s, there has been an enormous increase in influence in criminology of the risk factor prevention paradigm. This aims to identify the key risk factors for offending (in longitudinal studies) and implement prevention methods designed to counteract them (in experiments). In addition, protective factors are identified and enhanced. This paradigm has fostered linkages between explanation and prevention, between fundamental and applied research, and between scholars, practitioners, and policy makers. It has encouraged the globalization of knowledge, cross-national comparative studies, and the application of similar strategies for research and action in several different countries. The main challenges for the paradigm are to determine which risk factors are causes, to establish what are protective factors, to identify the active ingredients of multiple component interventions, to evaluate the effectiveness of area-based intervention programs, and to assess the monetary costs and benefits of interventions. The paradigm can be improved using longitudinal and experimental studies, which aim to retain its advantages while overcoming its problems. Ideally, an international network of researchers should collaborate in investigating and explaining results in different countries.
Problems involving causal inference have dogged at the heels of statistics since its earliest days. Correlation does not imply causation, and yet causal conclusions drawn from a carefully designed experiment are often valid. What can a statistical model say about causation? This question is addressed by using a particular model for causal inference (Holland and Rubin 1983; Rubin 1974) to critique the discussions of other writers on causation and causal inference. These include selected philosophers, medical researchers, statisticians, econometricians, and proponents of causal modeling.
John Searle's Speech Acts (1969) and Expression and Meaning (1979) developed a highly original and influential approach to the study of language. But behind both works lay the assumption that the philosophy of language is in the end a branch of the philosophy of the mind: speech acts are forms of human action and represent just one example of the mind's capacity to relate the human organism to the world. The present book is concerned with these biologically fundamental capacities, and, though third in the sequence, in effect it provides the philosophical foundations for the other two. Intentionality is taken to be the crucial mental phenomenon, and its analysis involves wide-ranging discussions of perception, action, causation, meaning, and reference. In all these areas John Searle has original and stimulating views. He ends with a resolution of the 'mind-body' problem.
Shaw and McKay's influential theory of community social disorganization has never been directly tested. To address this, a community-level theory that builds on Shaw and McKay's original model is formulated and tested. The general hypothesis is that low economic status, ethnic heterogeneity, residential mobility, and family disruption lead to community social disorganization, which, in turn, increases crime and delinquency rates. A community's level of social organization is measure in terms of local friendship networks, control of street-corner teenage peer groups, and prevalence of organizational participation. The model is first tested by analyzing data for 238 localities in Great Britain constructed from a 1982 national survey of 10,905 residents. The model is then replicated on an independent national sample of 11,030 residents of 300 British localities in 1984. Results from both surveys support the theory and show that between-community variations in social disorganization transmit much of the effect of community structural characteristics on rates of both criminal victimization and criminal offending. Sociology
The role of self-control in crime causation: beyond Gottfredson and Hirschi's General Theory of Crime
- P.-O Wikström
- K Treiber
- Maund