In the article “Social change and crime rate trends: A routine activity approach”, Cohen and Felson use an ecological theory perspective to explain the increase in crime rates in the United States of America (USA). They gathered data from the USA Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) from the years 1960 to 1975, in the period they witnessed a growth in crime rate trends. Cohen and Felson (1979) present a theory known as Routine Activity Theory and the three elements required for a crime to occur, while refuting the point of crime causation due to poverty. Rather, in their article they focus on the social change in American society, which ties into Sacco and Kennedy’s (2011) Criminal Event.
Cohen and Felson (1979) witnessed a growth in crime rate in 1960
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In 2007, Elizabeth R. Groff examined street robbery crimes and displayed how society has two types of individuals, police and civilians. Moreover, the police play one key part of being the capable guardian, while the civilians may take the form of either the target, an informal guardian or the offender (Groff, 2007, pg. 88). Groff (2007, Fig. 1, pg. 81) explained, how offenders make the decision of offending by weighing the attributes presented such as; police or informal guardianship, suitability of target in terms of wealth. In other words, if there is a form of capable guardianship the offender is undoubtedly not going to commit the crime since the benefits of the crime do not out-weight the risk presented Groff (2007, Fig. 1, pg. 81). However, if there is no capable guardianship present, then the offender will most definitely commit the act, because then the benefits out-weigh the risk Groff (2007, Fig. 1, pg. …show more content…
588). Cohen and Felson (1979, pg. 593) contend that these changes can be explained due to the major shift in routine activities of the citizens, particularly how activities are spent in nonhousehold areas with nonhousehold members. Furthermore, the statistics show this to be true. The number of victims, who happened to be on the street and with a stranger in 1974, was at total of 32,460 (Cohen & Felson, Table 1, pg. 595). These victims were involved in rape, robbery, assault and personal larceny with contact. This is a drastically higher than the next closet incident number of 7,167 which also happened to be street incidents, however occurred with a non-stranger. Also, between the years of 1960 to 1970 there were massive changes in activities for females as there was a 118% increase in the number of college female students (USBC, 1975: Table 225), an increase of 31% for married females entering the labour force (USBC, 1975: Table 563). Furthermore, there was an increase 81% in number of vacations taken by Americans from 1967 to 1972, (USBC, 1973a:
Through the first chapter of this book the focus was primarily on the notion of controlling crime. The best way to describe crime policy used in this chapter is comparing it to a game of ‘heads I win, tails you lose’. This chapter also addresses the causes for decline in America’s
Cohen, L. E., & Felson, M. (1979). Social change and crime rate trends: A routine activity approach. American Sociological Review, 44(4), 588–608. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/2094589
Levitt, S. D. (2004). Understanding why crime fell in the 1990s: Four factors that explain the
Travis, J., & Waul, M. (2002). Reflections on the crime decline: Lessons for the future. Proceedings from the Urban Institute Crime Decline Forum (pp. 1-38). Washington, D. C.: Urban Institute Justice Policy Center.
Cohen, L. E. & Felson, M. (1979). “Social change and crime rate trends: A routine activities approach,” American Sociological Review 44:588-608.
Crime has always been a hot topic in sociology. There are many different reasons for people to commit criminal acts. There is no way to pinpoint the source of crime. I am going to show the relationship between race and crime. More specifically, I will be discussing the higher chances of minorities being involved in the criminal justice system than the majority population, discrimination, racial profiling and the environment criminals live in.
Then all of a sudden, instead of going up and up and up, the crime rate began to fall. And fall and fall and fall some more. The crime drop was startling in several respects. It was ubiquitous, with every category of crime in every part of the country. It was persistent, with incremental decreases year after year. And it was entirely unanticipated, especially because the public had been anticipating the opposite...
Understanding Crime: Theory and Practice. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishers. Woodham, J., & Toye, K. (2007). Empirical Tests of Assumption of Case Linkages & Offender’s profiling with Commercial Robbery.
Crime is an extremely prominent part of American society. Recorded activity within the US saw 10,329,135 (1,246,248 violent crimes and 9,082,887 property crimes) crimes perpetrated with 62.5% of all violent crimes pertained to aggravated assault and 68.2% of all property crimes were considered larceny-theft in 2010. (FBI.2011) Despite the large number of crimes the United States also has the largest number of incarcerated citizens per capita in the world with nearly a quarter of the world’s prisoners coming from the United States’ 5% of the world population. This is due to much harder punishments in the US than those that are given a shorter longer period of incarceration or merely fined in other countries.(Liptak 2008) Due to the prevalence of crime in the US, economists have used models to explain the behavior and ramifications of government actions and the motivations behind crime and its effect on society that psychologists and sociologists are usually unable to address.
Wilson, James and Herrnstein, Richard. "Crime & Human Nature: The Definitive Study of the Causes of Crime" New York: Free Press, 1998.
Kelling, George L. Thinking About Crime: Is There a Right to Beg? 1993. Web. 10 December 2013.
There was a decline in crime during the 1990s. Our country enjoyed seven years of declining crime for the period 1991-98, the most recent data available. During this period crime declined by 22% and violent crime by 25%. These are welcome developments, particularly following the surge of crime and violence of the late 1980s. This decline occurred during a time when the national prison population has increased substantially, rising from 789,60 in 1991 to 1,252,830, a 59% rise in just seven years and a 47% increase in the rate of incarceration, taking into account changes in the national population (Mauer 21-24).
Crime exists everywhere. It is exists in our country, in the big cities, the small towns, schools, and even in homes. Crime is defined as “any action that is a violation of law”. These violations may be pending, but in order to at least lower the crime rate, an understanding of why the crimes are committed must first be sought. There are many theories that are able to explain crimes, but three very important ones are rational choice theory, social disorganization theory and strain theory.
Ronald V Clarke originally developed the idea of situational crime prevention in the 1980’s (Brantingham & Brantingham 2005). This particular crime prevention theory addresses techniques that increase the effort required to commit the crime, increase the risks involved with committing the crime, reducing the reward gained by the offender after committing the crime, reducing the provocation between the offender and others and remove excuses (Brantingham & Brantingham 2005). Majority of crime is believed to be committed because there are no high risks of being caught and the rewards outweigh the risks (Brantingham & Brantingham 2005). Increasing the effort by controlling access to locations and target hardening can deflect many offenders, as more effort is needed to commit the crime (Brantingham & Brantingham 2005). Another main technique would be to increase the risks; this may be achieved by extending guardianship, creating natural surveillance or artificial surveillance such as CCTV (Brantingham & Brantingham 2005).
Crime and criminalization are dependent on social inequality Social inequality there are four major forms of inequality, class gender race and age, all of which influence crime. In looking at social classes and relationship to crime, studies have shown that citizens of the lower class are more likely to commit crimes of property and violence than upper-class citizens: who generally commit political and economic crimes. In 2007 the National Crime Victimization Survey showed that families with an income of $15000 or less had a greater chance of being victimized; recalling that lower classes commit a majority of those crimes. We can conclude that crime generally happens within classes.