Reading 3) Cohen and Felson begin their article with the observation that crime was increasing after 1960 at the same time people were doing better economically

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Reading 3) Cohen and Felson begin their article with the observation that crime was increasing after 1960 at the same time people were doing better economically. What social changes were taking place during this time that help, according to Cohen and Felson, explain the increase in crime?

What does routine activities theory argue are the three things needed for crime to occur?

In what way(s) is routine activities theory similar to deterrence and rational choice theories? Reading 4) Gina Lombroso-Ferrero is Cesare Lombroso's daughter and provides a summary of his work (her father authored the introduction prior to his death).

What is Cesare Lombroso's theory of atavism and the born criminal? Are all criminals born criminals?

In what ways do Lombroso's ideas differ from the classical criminologists (Beccaria and Bentham) with regard to who is a potential criminal and the appropriate nature of punishment for dealing with crime? (That is, should the punishment fit the crime or the criminal, and why?)

Social Change and Crime Rate Trends: A Routine Activity Approach Author(s): Lawrence E. Cohen and Marcus Felson Source: American Sociological Review, Vol. 44, No. 4 (Aug., 1979), pp. 588-608 Published by: American  JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. . American Sociological Association is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to American Sociological Review. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 129.79.13.20 on Tue, 21 Jan 2014 17:37:44 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions SOCIAL CHANGE AND CRIME RATE TRENDS: A ROUTINE ACTIVITY APPROACH* LAWRENCE E. COHEN AND MARCUS FELSON University of Illinois, Urbana AmericanSociological Review 1979, Vol. 44 (August):588-608, In this paper we present a "routine activity approach"for analyzingcrime rate trends and cycles. Rather than emphasizing the characteristics of offenders, with this approach we concentrate upon the circumstancesin which they carry out predatorycriminalacts. Most criminalacts requireconvergencein space and time of likelyoffenders,suitabletargets and the absence of capable guardians against crime. Human ecological theory facilitates an investigationinto the way in which social structureproducesthis convergence,hence allowing illegal activities to feed upon the legal activities of everyday life. In particular,we hypothesize that the dispersionof activitiesawayfromhouseholdsandfamiliesincreasesthe opportunityfor crime and thus generates highercrime rates. A variety of data is presentedin supportof the hypothesis,whichhelps explaincrimeratetrendsin the United States 1947-1974as a byproduct of changes in such variablesas labor force participationand single-adulthouseholds. family income duringthe same period. Also during the same period the numberof persons living below the legally-definedpoverty level in cities declined from 11.3 million to 8.3 million. INTRODUCTION In its summary report the National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence (1969: xxxvii) presents an important sociological paradox: Why, we must ask, have urban violent crime rates increased substantially during the past decade when the conditionsthat are supposed to cause violent crime have not worsened-have, indeed, generally improved? The Bureau of the Census, in its latest reporton trendsin social and economic conditions in metropolitan areas, states that most "indicatorsof well-beingpoint toward progress in the cities since 1960." Thus, for example, the proportionof blacks in cities who completed high school rose from 43 percent in 1960to 61 percent in 1968;unemployment rates dropped significantly between 1959and 1967and the median family income of blacks in cities increasedfrom 61 percent to 68 percent of the median white * Address all communicationsto: Lawrence E. Cohen; Departmentof Sociology; Universityof Illinois; Urbana, IL 61801. For their comments, we thank David J. Bordua, Ross M. Stolzenberg,ChristopherS. Dunn, Kenneth C. Land, Robert Schoen, Amos Hawley, and an anonymous reviewer. Funding for this study was providedby these United States Governmentgrants: National Institute for Mental Health 1-RO1MH31117-0l;NationalScience Foundation, SOC77-13261; and United States Army RI/DAHC 1976-G-0016.The authors'name order is purelyalphabetical. Despite the general continuation of these trends in social and economic conditions in the United States, the Uniform Crime Report (FBI, 1975:49) indicates that between 1960 and 1975 reported rates of robbery, aggravated assault, forcible rape and homicide increased by 263%, 164%, 174%, and 188%, respectively. Similar property crime rate increases reported during this same period' (e.g., 200%ofor burglary rate) suggest that the paradox noted by the Violence Commission applies to nonviolent offenses as well. I Though official data severely underestimate crime, they at least provide a rough indicator of trends over time in the volume of several major felonies. The possibility that these data also reflect trends in rates at which offenses are reportedto the police has motivatedextensive victimologyresearch (see Nettler, 1974; and Hindelang, 1976, for a review). This work consistently finds that seriousness of offense is the strongest determinantof citizen reportingto law enforcementofficials(Skogan, 1976: 145;Hindelang,1976:401). Hence the upwardtrend in official crime rates since 1960 in the U.S. may reflect increases in both the volume and seriousness of offenses. Though disaggregatingthese two components may not be feasible, one may wish to interpret observed trends as generatedlargely by both. 588 This content downloaded from 129.79.13.20 on Tue, 21 Jan 2014 17:37:44 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions SOCIAL CHANGE AND CRIME RATE TRENDS In the present paper we consider these paradoxicaltrends in crime rates in terms of changes in the "routine activities" of everyday life. We believe the structureof such activities influences criminalopportunity and therefore affects trends in a class of crimes we refer to as directcontact predatory violations. Predatory violations are defined here as illegal acts in which "someone definitely and intentionally takes or damages the person or property of another" (Glaser, 1971:4). Further, this analysis is confined to those predatoryviolations involvingdirect physical contact between at least one offender and at least one person or object which that offenderattempts to take or damage. We argue that structural changes in routine activity patterns can influence crime rates by affecting the convergence in space and time of the three minimal elements of direct-contact predatoryviolations: (1) motivated offenders, (2) suitable targets, and (3) the absence of capable guardiansagainst a violation. We further argue that the lack of any one of these elements is sufficient to prevent the successful completion of a direct-contact predatorycrime, and that the convergence in time and space of suitable targets and the absence of capable guardians may even lead to large increases in crime rates without necessarily requiringany increase in the structuralconditions that motivate individualsto engage in crime. That is, if the proportionof motivated offenders or even suitabletargetswere to remainstable in a community, changes in routineactivities could nonetheless alter the likelihood of their convergence in space and time, thereby creating more opportunities for crimes to occur. Control therefore becomes critical. If controls throughroutine activities were to decrease, illegal predatory activities could then be likely to increase. In the process of developing this explanationand evaluatingits consistency with existing data, we relate our approach to classical human ecological concepts and to several earlier studies. 589 made little progress since Shaw and McKay and their colleagues (1929) published their pathbreaking work, Delinquency Areas. Variations in crime rates over space long have been recognized (e.g., see Guerry, 1833; Quetelet, 1842), and current evidence indicates that the pattern of these relationshipswithin metropolitan communities has persisted (Reiss, 1976).Althoughmostspatialresearch is quite useful for describing crime rate patterns and providingpost hoc explanations, these works seldom considerconceptually or empirically-the fundamental human ecological character of illegal acts as events which occur at specific locations in space and time, involving specific persons and/orobjects. These and relatedconcepts can help us to develop an extension of the human ecological analysis to the problem of explaining changes in crime rates over time. Unlike many criminologicalinquiries, we do not examine why individualsor groupsare inclined criminally,but ratherwe take criminal inclinationas given and examine the manner in which the spatio-temporal organization of social activities helps people to translate their criminalinclinations into action. Criminalviolations are treated here as routine activities which share many attributesof, and are interdependent with, other routine activities. This interdependencebetween the structure of illegal activities and the organization of everyday sustenance activities leads us to consider certainconcepts from human ecological literature. Selected Concepts froml Hawley's Human Ecological Theory While criminologists traditionallyhave concentrated on the spatial analysis of crime rates within metropolitan communities, they seldom have considered the temporal interdependence of these acts. In his classic theory of humanecology, Amos Hawley (1950)treats the communitynot simply as a unit of territorybut as an organizationof symbioticand rather The Structure of Criminll A ctivitY commensalistic relationships as human Sociological knowledge of how com- activities are performedover both space munity structuregenerates illegal acts has and time. This content downloaded from 129.79.13.20 on Tue, 21 Jan 2014 17:37:44 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 590 AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICALREVIEW Hawley identified three importanttemporal components of community structure: (1) rhythm, the regular periodicity with which events occur, as with the rhythm of travel activity; (2) tempo, the numberof events per unit of time, such as the numberof criminalviolations per day on a given street; and (3) timing, the coordination among different activities which are more or less interdependent,such as the coordinationof an offender's rhythms with those of a victim (Hawley, 1950:289; the examples are ours). These components of temporal organization,often neglected in criminologicalresearch, prove useful in analyzing how illegal tasks are performed-a utility which becomes more apparentafter noting the spatio-temporal requirementsof illegal activities. The Minimal Elements of Direct-Contact Predatory Violations As we previously stated, despite their great diversity, direct-contact predatory violations share some importantrequirements which facilitate analysis of their structure. Each successfully completed violation minimally requires an offender with both criminal inclinations and the ability to carry out those inclinations, a person or object providing a suitable target for the offender, and absence of guardians capable of preventing violations. We emphasize that the lack of any one of these elements normally is sufficient to prevent such violations from occurring.2 Though guardianship is implicit in everyday life, it usually is marked by the absence of violations; hence it is easy to overlook. While police action 'is analyzed widely, guardianship by ordinary citizens of one another and of property as they go about routine activities may be one of the most neglected elements in sociological research on crime, especially since it links seemingly unre2 The analytical distinction between target and guardian is not importantin those cases where a personal target engages in self-protection from direct-contactpredatoryviolations. We leave open for the presentthe questionof whethera guardianis effective or ineffective in all situations. We also allow that variousguardiansmay primarilysupervise offenders, targets or both. These are questions for future examination. lated social roles and relationshipsto the occurrence or absence of illegal acts. The conjunction of these minimal elements can be used to assess how social structure may affect the tempo of each type of violation. That is, the probability that a violation will occur at any specific time and place might be taken as a function of the convergence of likely offenders and suitable targets in. the absence of capable guardians.Throughconsideration of how trends and fluctuations in social conditions affect the frequency of this convergence of criminogenic circum- stances, an explanationof temporaltrends in crime rates can be constructed. The Ecological Nature of Illegal Acts This ecological analysis of directcontact predatoryviolations is intendedto be more than metaphorical.In the context of such violations, people, gainingand losing sustenance, struggle among themselves for property, safety, territorial hegemony, sexual outlet, physical control, and sometimesfor survivalitself. The interdependence between offenders and victims can be viewed as a predatoryrelationship between functionally dissimilar individuals or groups. Since predatory violations fail to yield any net gain in sustenancefor the largercommunity,they can only be sustained by feeding upon other activities. As offenderscooperate to increase their efficiency at predatoryviolations and as potential victims organize their resistance to these violations, both groups apply the symbiotic principle to improve their sustenance position. On the other hand, potential victims of predatory crime may take evasive actions which encourage offenders to pursue targets other than their own. Since illegal activities must feed upon other activities, the spatial and temporalstructureof routinelegal activities should play an important role in determiningthe location, type and quantity of illegal acts occurring in a given communityor society. Moreover,one can analyze how the structure of community organization as well as the level of technology in a society provide the circumstances underwhich crime can thrive. For example, technology and organization This content downloaded from 129.79.13.20 on Tue, 21 Jan 2014 17:37:44 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions SOCIAL CHANGE AND CRIME RATE TRENDS affect the capacity of persons with criminal inclinationsto overcome their targets, as well as affectingthe abilityof guardians to contend with potential offenders by using whatever protective tools, weapons and skills they have at their disposal. Manytechnologicaladvances designedfor legitimate purposes-including the automobile, small power tools, hunting weapons, highways, telephones, etc.may enable offenders to carry out their own work more effectively or may assist people in protectingtheir own or someone else's person or property. Not only do routinelegitimateactivities often provide the wherewithalto commit offenses or to guardagainstothers who do so, but they also provide offenders with suitabletargets. Target suitabilityis likely to reflect such things as value (i.e., the materialor symbolic desirabilityof a personal or property target for offenders), physical visibility, access, and the inertia of a target against illegal treatmentby offenders (including the weight, size, and attached or locked features of property inhibitingits illegal removal and the physical capacity of personal victims to resist attackers with or without weapons). Routine productionactivities probablyaffect the suitabilityof consumer goods for illegal removal by determiningtheir value and weight. Daily activities may affect the location of property and personal targets in visible and accessible places at particular times. These activities also may cause people to have on handobjects that can be used as weapons for criminalacts or selfprotectionor to be preoccupiedwith tasks which reduce their capacity to discourage or resist offenders. While little is known about conditions that affect the convergence of potential offenders, targets and guardians,this is a potentially rich source of propositions about crime rates. For example, daily work activities separatemany people from those they trust and the property they value. Routine activities also bring together at various times of day or night persons of different background, sometimes in the presence of facilities, tools or weapons which influence the commission or avoidance of illegal acts. Hence, the timingof work, schooling and leisure may 591 be of central importance for explaining crime rates. The ideas presented so far are not new, but they frequentlyare overlooked in the theoretical literature on crime. Although an investigationof the literatureuncovers significant examples of descriptive and practicaldata relatedto the routineactivities upon which illegal behavior feeds, these data seldom are treated within an analytical framework. The next section reviews some of this literature. RELATION OF THE ROUTINE ACTIVITY APPROACH TO EXTANT STUDIES A major advantage of the routine activity approach presented here is that it helps assemble some diverse and previously unconnected criminological analyses into a single substantive framework. This frameworkalso serves to link illegal and legal activities, as illustratedby a few examples of descriptive accounts of criminal activity. Descriptive A analyses There are several descriptive analyses of criminal acts in criminological literature. For example, Thomas Reppetto's (1974)study, Residential Crime, considers how residents supervise their neighborhoods and streets and limit access of possible offenders. He also considers how distance of households from the central city reduces risks of criminal victimization. Reppetto's evidence-consisting of criminaljustice records, observations of comparativefeatures of geographicareas, victimization survey data and offender interviews-indicates that offenders are very likely to use burglary tools and to have at least minimaltechnical skills, that physical characteristicsof dwellingsaffect their victimizationrates, that the rhythms of residential crime rate patterns are marked (often related to travel and work patternsof residents),and that visibilityof potentialsites of crime affects the risk that crimes will occur there. Similar findings are reported by Pope's (1977a; 1977b) study of burglary in California and by Scarr's (1972) study of burglary in and around the District of Columbia.In addi- This content downloaded from 129.79.13.20 on Tue, 21 Jan 2014 17:37:44 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 592 AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICALREVIEW tion, many studies report that architectural and environmentaldesign as well as community crime programs serve to decrease target suitability and increase capable guardianship(see, for example, Newman, 1973; Jeffery, 1971; Washnis, 1976), while many biographical or autobiographicaldescriptions of illegal activities note that lawbreakerstake into account the nature of property and/or the structure of human activities as they go about their illegal work (see, e.g., Chambliss, 1972; Klockars, 1974; Sutherland, 1937; Letkemann, 1973; Jackson, 1969; Martin, 1952; Maurer, 1964; Cameron, 1964; Williamson, 1968). Evidence that the spatio-temporalorganization of society affects patterns of crime can be found in several sources. Strong variations in specific predatory crime rates from hour to hour, day to day, and month to month are reported often (e.g., Wolfgang, 1958; Amir, 1971; Reppetto, 1974; Scarr, 1972; FBI, 1975; 1976), and these variations appearto correspond to the various tempos of the related legitimateactivities upon which they feed. Also at a microsociological level, Short and Strodtbeck(1965: chaps. 5 and 11) describe opportunitiesfor violent confrontations of gang boys and other community residents which arise in the context of community leisure patterns, such as "quarter parties" in black communities, and the importance, in the calculus of decision making employed by participants in such episodes, of low probabilitiesof legal intervention.In addition, a wealth of empiricalevidence indicates strong s...