Routine Activity Theory

Similar to the mantra of real estate agents, the recent focus of criminologists has become location. Increasingly, sociological research has found that the setting of crime is just as important in understanding deviance as is why people violate norms. One early [Page 605]theory that started this shift in perspective is routine activity theory developed by Lawrence Cohen and Marcus Felson in 1979. Routine activity theory provides the basis for criminal examinations that highlight place, risk, and opportunity rather than culture, motivation, and socialization.

At the core of routine activity theory are three necessary locational elements that must be present for crime to occur: (1) presence of potential offenders (individuals seeking/able/willing to commit offenses), (2) suitable targets (individuals or property that are vulnerable, desirable, and available), and (3) an absence of capable and willing guardians (a lack of protection/supervision or individuals/devices able to ward off offenders). With the postulation that these three elements are present in a setting, the theory is based on two central propositions. First, lifestyles or routine activities create criminal opportunity structures by increasing the frequency and intensity of contacts between potential offenders and suitable targets. Second, these criminal opportunity structures, or criminogenic locations, are enhanced by the absence of capable and willing guardians. To illustrate, if we use the assumption that potential offenders are all around, criminal opportunities are increased when suitable targets are in locations where they are less able to protect themselves, or social control is harder to maintain, thereby making the suitable targets even more vulnerable and available. In this way, routine activity theory differs from other criminological theories in that it does not identify or specify reasons for crime commission but instead focuses on differential risks for victimization that individuals and locations possess.

Additionally, routine activity theory not only provides insights regarding when, where, and against whom criminal events are more likely to be perpetrated but also explains how various aspects of individuals' daily routines are correlated with these differential patterns of victimization. Research using this perspective, then, identifies which typical behaviors of persons and which characteristics of situations/locations are associated with increased or decreased risks for criminal victimization.

Theoretically, even though persons may be willing to commit crime given sufficient opportunities, if those opportunities never arise, their crimes will not occur. Routine activity theory offers multiple reasons that opportunities may not arise. It may be that potential offenders cannot find persons sufficiently vulnerable or who possess property sufficiently valuable to merit interest. And, even if valuable or vulnerable targets are present, it may happen that these persons or items are accompanied by guardians who are capable and willing to intervene. As such, both structural aspects of specific locational contexts (e.g., where one lives and works and the conditions and structures that are present in those locations that may increase the number of potential offenders who are present and/or the types of guardianship that is available in the general area) and individual choices (e.g., where one goes for leisure, what one does, with whom one is, and any self-protective measures one takes to increase or decrease their vulnerability/suitability as a target) are important for understanding where, when, and to whom criminal events happen.

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