Psychology of Crime

RATIONAL CHOICE THEORY

NURULLAH ALKAN

RATIONAL CHOICE THEORY

1. Offenders seek to benefit themselves by criminal behaviours: 2. Doing so involves making decisions and choices, however rudimentary these might be.

RATIONAL CHOICE THEORY

3. The decision-making process is constrained by the time available (many criminal opportunities have a limited life-span), by the availability of relevant information (frequently this will be incomplete) and by the (related, presumably, to verbal IQ) offenders own cognitive abilities . It follows that rationality will be limited, rather than complete.

RATIONAL CHOICE THEORY

4. Both the decision-making process and the factors taken into account by offenders vary greatly at different stages of decision-making and between different crimes (and presumably also between different offenders within crimes; there are marked differences in success-rates, with planning ahead being a key feature of the more successful offenders).

RATIONAL CHOICE THEORY

Cornish and Clarke (1987) argue the need to be:

(a) crime-specific when analysing criminal choices (b) to treat decisions as relating to varying stages of the involvement of an offender in a particular crime.

RATIONAL CHOICE THEORY

Thus, they distinguish between:

initial involvement, the event, continuation, desistance.

RATIONAL CHOICE THEORY

The following is a list of choice structuring properties for crimes involving cash (i.e., money rather than goods, from bank robbery to computer fraud, Cornish and Clarke 1987).

1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Availability (number of targets, accessibility) Awareness of method (i.e., technical know how). Likely cash yield per crime. Expertise needed. Planning necessary.

RATIONAL CHOICE THEORY

Resources required. 7. Solo versus assistance required. 8. Time required to commit. 9. Cool nerves required. 10.Risk of apprehension. 11.Severity of punishment (if caught). 12.Instrumental violence required. 13.Confrontation with victim. 14.Identifiable victim.
6.

RATIONAL CHOICE THEORY

15. Social cachet [in the criminal world] (safebreaking versus mugging). 16. Fencing accessories (getting rid of any goods stolen). 17. Moral evaluation.

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Their work is supplemented and illustrated by a report by Walsh (1980), based on interviews with 45 men in British prisons who had been convicted of burglary. Their ideal target was a business firm rather than a private house (more to be stolen) and, while half used information, the other half burgled on impulse (presumably, the latter were more likely to be caught and hence were more available for interview).

RATIONAL CHOICE THEORY

There was much fear concerning being interrupted during a burglary, with the consequent possibility of violence and, hence, of a more severe sentence if arrested. They found it easier to justify to themselves a business than a household target (particularly if the latter were ordinary), adding to their preference for the former. They saw themselves as desisting with increasing age (the risks of capture increased, sentences stiffened and the risk/return balance generally less favourable).

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