The Importance Of Routine Activity Theory

There is a link between Cornish and Clarke’s rational choice theory and Felson and Cohen’s routine activity theory which consists of offenders rationalizing when it is an ideal opportunity to commit a crime. The premises postulated by these theories are illustrated by Felson’s (1987) “Routine activities and crime prevention in the developing metropolis” article and Brantingham & Brantingham’s (1995) “Criminality of place: Crime generators and crime attractors” article. Rational choice theory proposes that people make rational choices by weighing the perceived costs and benefits associated with the criminal event. Routine activity theory allows us to get a more precise understanding of why crimes are more likely to happen in our daily activities,

Farrell & Hodgkinson (2015) state routine activity theory proposed two justifications for this occurrence, first being more items, such as cars and furnishings in homes that were easy to steal due to the large quantity that were available, and the second explaining that the increase in crime opportunities had been influenced by modern lifestyles. Furthermore, Farrell & Hodgkinson (2015) and Felson (1987) explain that as, women began going out to work to earn money and respect, thus, there were more chances of households getting robbed due to the homes being unoccupied with a large number of expensive good. Hence, the link between routine activity theory in this particular situation is, how households were generally suitable targets, which lacked guardianship since, the owners were living a more modern lifestyle, which left the houses being unprotected with expensive valuables which in return could be a massive gain in terms of money for the motivated

Farrell & Hodgkinson (2015) state that approaches such as situational crime prevention and environmental design attempt to prevent crime. Farrell & Hodgkinson mention that situational crime prevention takes into consideration the environmental elements that cause a crime to occur. They add that if offenders have a limit amount of rationalizing and they weigh the benefits and costs of committing an offence, however if one is able to outweigh the benefits then the offender is most likely to be less motivated to commit a crime. Farrell & Hodgkinson also state that it is important to realize that we all use situational crime prevention in our daily lives, for instance, making sure all the windows are closed in the car before leaving. Hence, with these approaches there are chances of diminishing the opportunities for criminals to commit an