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
Crime Protection
Name:
Institution:
Crime Protection
Introduction
Following high rate of crime within different communities globally, many people have lost life, properties while other victims have got different forms of injuries (Welsh & Farrington, 2012). The above impacts make the practice of crime to be unacceptable act, which need to be eradicated. Due to the fact that crime offenders are within the communities, it is important for the prevention of crime practices to start with individuals themselves. For instance, societies need to come up with effective laws and regulations that curb crime practices. Crime practices and crime offenders can also be prevented through having programs that are aired to the people concerning effects of crime and various consequences that crime offender face when they found committing crime (Clarke & Cornish, 1985). In the process of preventing crime, there are four models of crime decision making that need to be considered. These include the initial involvement model, the event model, continuation and the desistance model. Therefore, this paper provides broad information concerning the above models and their importance towards crime protection.
Initial Involvement Model
Initial Involvement Model is an important model in preventing crime. In the process of using this model, there are two decisions that need to be considered. The first decision that needs to be considered is the person's recognition of his or her willingness to involve in a planned crime act for one to satisfy some of his or her needs as revealed by Clarke and Cornish (1985). Therefore, these crime offenders are ready to commit such crimes because they take the planned crime practices to be their only solutions or way of getting their needs. In order for these crime offenders to reach such decisions of committing crime to satisfy their needs, they usually consider various ways through which to help themselves. Among these ways of getting their needs, crime becomes one of their available options.
These crime offenders also consider various factors that includes; which people they are, their personal experience as far as crime is concerned and their abilities to plan and achieve their crime missions. According to Clarke and Cornish (1985), getting answers to the above questions is influenced by various factors such as social demographic, psychological and familial. It is also through socio demographic, familial and psychological factors that determine these offenders' attitudes, values and individual characters that drive them to crime practices (Welsh & Farrington, 2012). However, this may contradict factors that influence decision making, which block people from making crime decisions, as they are decisions that may affect someone negatively. Additionally, it important to understand that contribution of the mentioned background factors in making crime act decisions, may be facilitated by transitory and situational. Similarly, the second factor is the chance event such as peer influence from friends. For instance, one may decide to commit a crime because his or her friends have proposed to commit a crime (Clarke & Cornish, 1985). This will make one to commit a crime without having proper need for committing the crime.
Event Model
The event model focuses on the sequence of decision making in order to determine the event of the crime by crime offenders. In the case where the sequence is lengthier, more alternative options for the crime offenders arise (Clarke & Cornish, 1985). For instance, in the process of planning a more general model of crime, a wide range of crime locations would be included. However, in planning for crime activities but the target areas are few, then crime offenders would be required to plan for the crime a number of time. Additionally, in the process of planning for crime practices in the presence of fewer target areas, it focuses these crime offenders to consider their crime experience based on their past crime activities. Moreover, event model is always prone to changes, especially where a final decision has not...