Theory and practice

I am going to write a series of posts this week about the application of criminological theory to police practice. Most everything we do about crime is guided by theory in one way or another. Some of those theories are untested or unproven, but they are theories nonetheless. When you operate under the belief that people won't steal stuff if they see you giving them the hairy eyeball, that's an activity based on a theory. If you think cruising through the lot at a nightclub will deter drunk drivers, that's grounded in a theory, too.

There are many theories about the causes of crime. Two of the primary competing schools of thought (at least in my little oversimplification) are routine activities and social disorganization. Actually, I don't think they compete at all, and both have power in explaining certain aspects of crime.

Social disorganization is basically the concept that crime emerges from deprived conditions, such as poverty, urban decay, unemployment, lack of opportunity, and so forth; and the lack of capable institutions of social control: strong families, cohesive neighborhoods, and other kinds of "social capital." You might say that our efforts with Stronger Safer Neighborhoods are consistent with social disorganization theory. Other popular police strategies, such as weed and seed, police athletic leagues, and "broken windows" policing have a strong leaning in that direction. Community redevelopment, urban renewal, early childhood education, mentoring, neighborhood organizing, leadership development, and similar strategies are grounded in social disorganization theory. When LPD was engaged in Free to Grow, it was a good example of social disorganization theory turned into police practice.

Theory number two, routine activities, was originally framed by Larry Cohen and Marcus Felson. Routine activities theory essentially says that crime occurs when there is a motivated offender meets up with a suitable target in the same place and time and in the absence of a capable guardian . If you believe routine activities explains crime, you try to reduce the supply of motivated offenders and suitable targets, while increasing the supply of capable guardians. You can build a whole range of strategies around offenders, targets, and guardians. The approach geared towards increasing the risk to offenders while decreasing the vulnerability of targets is generally known as situational crime prevention. A useful model of how routine activities theory is turned into action is the crime triangle:


Offenders are impacted by handlers--police officers who make arrests, probation and parole officers who supervise offenders, and so forth. Places are impacted by managers--landlords, store managers, barkeeps, and the like. Victims (or targets) are impacted by guardians, or by guardianship. The convergence of offender, victim, and place has been cleverly characterized by John Eck and others as ravenous wolves (motivated offenders), sitting ducks (suitable targets), and dens of iniquity (criminogenic places). Remember that for the exam in Sociology 209.

Wolves, ducks and dens. You can build police strategies aimed at any or all of them, and when you do, your strategy is based on the underlying routine activities theory and situational crime prevention--whether you realize it or not. In the next few days, I'll review what we're doing about wolves, ducks, and dens.


The Series:

Theory and practice
Wolves
Ducks
Dens
Evidence-based policing