The New Criminologies of Everyday Life: Routine Activity Theory in Historical and Social Perspectiv
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Description
Criminological theory has adapted in interesting ways to the structural conditions of late modernity—conditions in which high crime rates are a normal social fact and the limited effectiveness of criminal justice is widely acknowledged. The most fundamental aspect of this development has been the shift in the discipline's focus away from theories of social deprivation (or relative deprivation) towards explanations couched in terms of social control and its deficits. ‘Control’ is the defining term of the new problematic—social control, self-control, situational control—and criminologies that are otherwise quite opposed nowadays share this common problem-space. We can see this clearly if we consider ‘the new criminologies of everyday life’. The appearance of a revised edition of Marcus Felson's text Crime and Everyday Life (1998), originally published in 1994, offers an opportunity to consider the characteristics of this new criminological genre in a little more detail. Felson's book is particularly apposite for this purpose because in this new edition Felson has expanded his account to merge routine activity theory with the themes and insights of the other criminologies of everyday life, most notably situational crime prevention, lifestyle analysis, and rational choice theory. If there is a text that exemplifies this new genre, then this is undoubtedly it. The acknowledged background to the new criminologies of everyday life—like their contrasting counterpart, the ‘criminology of the other’—is the emergence, since the 1960s, of comparatively high levels of crime and violence as stable features of the social structure and culture of late modernity—levels that remain high despite the significant declines of recent years. Felson's response to this, which I take to be typical of his genre, is adaptive, pragmatic and focused upon everyday social practices: we need to understand the ways in which our daily activities produce criminal opportunities and we need to invent routine precautions that will minimize these. This, of course, is by no means the only possible response to the normality of high rates of crime. William Bennett's and his co-authors' recent book Body Count: Moral Poverty and How to Win America's War Against Crime and Drugs (1986) responds in a strikingly contrary manner by identifying an immoral culture as the ‘root cause’ of the ‘crime epidemic’ and calling for a concerted moralising effort, a renewal of religious faith, and drastic enhancements of penal and welfare controls. In rhetorical, political and criminological terms these two positions could not be more different. One response presents a ‘criminology of the self’, refusing to draw lines between offenders and the rest of us, characterizing criminals as rational individuals who respond to temptations and controls in much the same way as anyone else. The other revives the ancient 'criminology of the other', of the threatening outcast—Bennett and his colleagues talk of the ‘superpredator’—who is deeply marked by moral deprivation and a profound lack of empathy and impulse control. One criminology de-dramatizes crime, seeks to allay disproportionate fears and promotes routine preventative action. The other demonizes the criminal, works to arouse popular fears and hostilities, and strives to excite popular support for drastic measures of control. But both share a common situation (as responses to the pervasive crime problem and the limits of the criminal justice state), both share the new emphasis upon the enhancement of control (situational controls in one case, social and moral controls in other), and both represent significant shifts away from the liberal and conservative positions that characterized the earlier period of correctionalism. Felson's criminology emphasizes the ways in which criminal opportunities are structured by, and arise out of, the recurring transactions and routines that characterize daily life. In his account, the ‘chemistry of crime’ can be reduced to the interaction of three vital elements—a likely offender, a suitable target, and the absence of a capable guardian against the offence. The ways in which these elements are made to coincide in time and space is a function of our social arrangements and everyday routines. The commute to work, our leisure time activities; the flow of customers through a shopping mall; the daily passage of teenagers as they go to and from school or home; the rapid circulation of goods and cash - these are the patterned activities that make crime a built-in feature of our social organization.
Source Publication
Ethical and Social Perspectives on Situational Crime Prevention
Source Editors/Authors
Andrew Von Hirsch, David Garland, Alison Wakefield
Publication Date
2000
Recommended Citation
Garland, David W., "The New Criminologies of Everyday Life: Routine Activity Theory in Historical and
Social Perspectiv" (2000). Faculty Chapters. 686.
https://gretchen.law.nyu.edu/fac-chapt/686
