Different Models of Crime Decision-Making and their Importance

An Introduction:
Elements of Crime, Patterns of Crime,
and Crime Prevention

What is crime prevention?

No agreed-upon definition, but generally has the following characteristics:
Inherently proactive
Looks beyond the criminal justice system (CJS) for crime-reduction strategies
Relies heavily on informal as opposed to formal social control
Focuses on all elements of crime events, not just offenders (so, it thinks about victim behavior, third party behavior, crime settings, crime tools, etc.)
Focuses on reducing not only crime, but disorder and fear of crime as well.

Why Not Focus on the Offender for Prevention?
Traditional criminology explains what motivates offenders to commit
crime, and therefore what should be addressed if we want to “fix”
crime
Biological factors/bio-social factors
Psychological deficits
Sociological deficits
Peer influence
Poor parenting/bonding
Institutional anomie
Traditional criminal justice focuses on punishing, isolating, and/or fixing
these offenders
These traditional views are based on the idea that “criminality” is the
aspect of crime that is non-random, that needs to be explained, and
that needs to be addressed in prevention

Instructions: The idea of "rational" offender decision-making serves as a foundation for many opportunity-based theories of crime. Explain the four models of offender decision-making, as outlined by Clarke and Cornish: 1) the initial involvement model; 2) the event model; 3) the continuation model; 4) the desistance model; Book/Readings: Schneider, Stephen. (2010). Crime Prevention: Theory and Practice. New York: CRC Press. Clarke, Ronald V. and Derek B. Cornish 1985 "Modeling offenders' decisions: a framework for research and policy."Pp. 147-85 in M. Tonry and N. Morris (eds.), Crime and Justice: Annual Review of Research, Volume 6. Chicago: University of Chicago Press

 No agreed-upon definition, but generally has the following characteristics:

o Inherently proactive
o Looks beyond the criminal justice system (CJS) for crime-reduction strategies
o Relies heavily on informal as opposed to formal social control
o Focuses on all elements of crime events, not just offenders (so, it thinks about victim behavior, third party behavior, crime settings, crime tools, etc.)
o Focuses on reducing not only crime, but disorder and fear of crime as well.

Crime Prevention
o "Crime Prevention" is a broad concept that includes proactive activities inside the CJS but also myriad proactive activities outside the CJS. The focus of this course is largely on proactive efforts taking place outside the CJS (or, at minimum, involving CJS-community partnerships) to reduce crime, related disorder, and/or fear of crime.
The object of these efforts is sometimes the offender, but often the offender is NOT to object of the prevention.
The focus of the effort depends upon specific sub-type of crime prevention we are talking about (situational, social developmental, community-based, or Cj-based)

Why Not Focus on the Offender for Prevention?

o Traditional criminology explains what motivates offenders to commit crime, and therefore what should be addressed if we want to "fix'1 crime
o Biological factors/bio-social factors o Psychological deficits o Sociological deficits o Peer influence o Poor parenting/bonding o Institutional anomie
o Traditional criminal justice focuses on punishing, isolating, and/or fixing these offenders
o These traditional views are based on the idea that "criminality" is the aspect of crime that is non-random, that needs to be explained, and that needs to be addressed in prevention
o HOWEVER, ALTERNATIVE VIEWS EXIST

The "Crime Event" Perspective: Crime Requires More than Just a Motivated Offender
o According to the crime event perspective, crime has important "situational" elements that can be useful in prevention:
o Situation o Target/Victim o Place/time context o Third Parties (Bystanders) o Mechanism
o Patterns of non-random concentration can be seen with offenders, but also with situational aspects of crime

Offender Concentration Patterns
o A long history of criminological research has demonstrated that a very small percentage of the overall population is responsible for most of the crime
o Example: Wolfgang et al.'s 1972 study, Delinquency in a Birth Cohort
o Followed for 18 years a cohort of over 9,000 boys born in Philadelphia in 1945
o Two-thirds engaged in no crime (police contact)
o The "chronic six percent" were responsible for 52 percent of the entire cohort's crime

Smaller-Scale Crime Place Concentration Patterns
o More recently, evidence shows crime is non-randomly distributed using much smaller geographic units of analysis
o Research by Sherman, Gartin, & Buerger (1989)key in this regard:
o 323,979 calls to police over all 115,000 addresses and intersections in Minneapolis over 1 year
o Relatively few "hot spots" produce most calls to police... o 50% of calls in 3% of places
o All robberies at 2.2% of places o All rapes at 1.2% of places o All auto thefts at 2.7% of places