Criminal Circumstance

A Dynamic Multi-Contextual Criminal Opportunity Theory

Pamela Wilcox, Kenneth Land, Scott A. Hunt, Kenneth Land

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• eBook ISBN: 9781351524940
• Topic: Sciences sociales
• Subtopic: Criminologie

The main objective of this book is to propose an alternative criminal opportunity theory. The authors build upon social control and routine activities to develop a dynamic, multi-contextual criminal opportunity theory. Emphasizing the importance of contextual explanations of criminal acts, they propose two levels of analysis: individual and environmental. At each level, the theory pivots on three broad organizing constructs--offenders motivated to commit criminal acts, targets such as persons or property suitable as objects of criminal acts, and the presence or absence of individuals or other defensive mechanisms capable of serving as guardians against criminal acts. Crime is profoundly real, possessing qualities that make its occurrence and prevention pressing and persistent matters for individuals and societies. Theory, in contrast, is seen as highly abstract and removed from the seriousness of "real life." Theory almost seems to be a peculiar sport of an academic class. The practically minded, even some academic criminologists, are often perplexed by the seeming obsession some scholars have with theory, which, after all, is nothing more than an explanation of facts. The practically minded, seeing a compelling need to identify the crucial factors that could be used to predict and prevent crime, wonder why anyone would invest precious time and energy into speculating about the abstract, underlying details of why crime occurs when and where it does.The authors contend that every intervention, prevention, and policy is based on some theoretical explanation of the causes of human behavior. The improvement of interventions, preventions, and policies is thus directly related to the improvement of theoretical understandings of the abstract, underlying details of the causes of crime. The development of explanations of events, when properly done, is a crucial component to understanding and possibly improving the "real world." This work does just that.

1

Theory Generally and a General Theory of Crime

Some Preliminary Considerations

The main objective of this book is to propose an alternative criminal opportunity theory. We build upon social control and routine activities theories to develop a dynamic, multicontextual criminal opportunity theory. Emphasizing the importance of contextual explanations of criminal acts, we propose two levels of analysis: individual and environmental. At each level, the theory pivots on three broad organizing constructs—offenders motivated to commit criminal acts, targets (persons or property) suitable as objects of criminal acts, and the presence or absence of individuals or other defensive mechanisms capable of serving as guardians against criminal acts. Our efforts are intended to more fully explore criminal opportunity theory’s potential as a multilevel, general theory of crime.

This advancement of a multilevel criminal opportunity theory has its origin in a series of collaborative, empirical studies by Pamela Wilcox and Kenneth Land.¹ These studies revolved around a straightforward, twopronged empirical question: What are the antecedents and consequences of criminal victimization? Puzzling out this line of inquiry, we confronted some intriguing theoretical and methodological issues. We discovered that even the most compelling individual-level explanations of the antecedents and effects of criminal victimization were unsatisfactory because they tended to neglect the influences of social context (e.g., neighborhoods). At the same time, we determined that potent contextual explanations tended to gloss over individual factors. Following groundbreaking work by Sampson and Wooldredge (1987), Miethe and Meier (1990, 1994), as well as Miethe and McDowall (1993), we concluded that an adequate account of criminal victimization must involve a theory that is multilevel, incorporating both individual and environmental concepts. To move toward a more satisfying explanation of victimization, we borrowed from social control and routine activities theories to form a framework that maintains that the amount or rate of occurrence, location, and distribution of criminal acts across social and physical space can best be explained in terms of criminal opportunity contexts—the circumstances surrounding the convergence in time and place of motivated offenders, suitable targets, and the absence of capable guardians. Methodologically, we found a relatively new statistical tool that fit our desire to study individual-environmental contextual effects. Multilevel or hierarchical linear models (HLM) provided the means to examine nested data (e.g., individuals embedded in particular social environments such as schools or neighborhoods) in such a way that individual effects, environmental effects, and the interaction between the two could be isolated with precision.

These initial theoretical and methodological developments opened up a productive line of inquiry that has consistently contributed to an understanding of the rate, location, and distribution of criminal acts in dynamic, multilevel terms. Pursuing this multilevel, criminal opportunity research agenda, Wilcox and Land noticed that advances in the methodological techniques used to study nested data outstripped theoretical developments that could explain multilevel phenomena. HLM could detect individual-environmental main and interaction effects, but a theoretical framework that could systematically explain the origins and consequences of these effects was lacking. The impetus for this book thus rests in a desire to contribute to the development of a theoretical framework of the ecology of criminal acts that is explicitly centered around multilevel analysis.

WHY BOTHER?

This is often the first question anyone claiming to advance a theory of anything must face. This is especially true for theories about serious concerns such as crime. Crime is profoundly real, possessing qualities that make its occurrence and prevention pressing and persistent matters for individuals and societies. Theory, in contrast, is seen as highly abstract and removed from the seriousness of “real life.” Theory almost seems to be a peculiar sport of an academic class. The practically minded—including undergraduates, graduate students, practitioners, and even some academic criminologists—are often perplexed with the seeming obsession some scholars have with theory, which, after all, is nothing more than an explanation of facts. The practically minded, seeing a compelling need to identify the crucial factors that could be used to predict and prevent crime, wonder why anyone would invest precious time and energy into speculating about the abstract, underlying details of why crime occurs when and where it does.

Sometimes those who place little value on theory suggest that it is a purely “academic” (read “useless”) exercise. Akers sums up this problem nicely:

To many students, criminal justice practitioners, and other people, theory has a bad name. In their minds, the word “theory” means an irrelevant antonym of “fact.” Facts are real, while theories seem to involve no more than impractical mental gymnastics. Theories are just fanciful ideas that have little to do with what truly motivates real people. (1997:1)

From this perspective, theories are nothing more than elaborate opinions professed by quixotic intelligentsia. Further, theorizing is seen to be very similar to (if not exactly the same as) the zealous professing of religious or political ideologues. It even seems that theoreticians who espouse views most removed from common sense earn the greatest praises. From this perspective, theory masquerades as science and is irrelevant at best; at worst, theory is seen to impede or even work against efforts to deal with very real problems such as violence, theft, and recidivism.

Without completely dismissing the likelihood that theoreticians have earned some part of their negative reputations among students, practitioners, and others, we take exception to the notions that theory is a useless and unnecessary enterprise. Again, we agree with Akers in his assessment of the scientific and practical importance of theory:

Theory, if developed properly, is about real situations, feelings, experience, and human behavior. An effective theory helps us to make sense of facts that we already know and can be tested against new facts…. [Theory refers] to statements about relationships between actual events; about what is and what will be. They are not answers to questions of what ought to be, nor are they philosophical, religious, or metaphysical systems of beliefs and values about crime and society… . Criminological theories are abstract, but they entail more than ivory-tower or arm-chair speculations. They are part of the broader social science endeavor to explain human behavior and society… . Moreover, [theoretical] understanding is vital for those who plan to pursue specialized careers in the law or criminal justice. Virtually every policy or action taken regarding crime is based on some underlying theory or theories of crime. (ibid.:1–2)

We bother with theory because it has scientific and practical utility when done properly. When done properly, theory can help us to test supposed relationships between facts. Such testing sometimes confirms suspected relationships between variables. At other times, theory testing reveals that supposed associations between crime and other variables do not exist or exist in a manner very different from what was suspected. Further, theory can be used to identify new factors that could be associated with the occurrence of crime; or it can be used to more precisely specify the nature of the relationships already established between crime and the factors that produce it. We bother with theory—we bother with explaining the abstract, underlying causes of crime—because such exercises can help to better understand and predict the occurrence of crime. Also, we bother with theory because it is a practical matter. Every intervention, prevention, and policy is based on some theoretical explanation of the causes of human behavior. The improvement of interventions, preventions, and policies is directly related to the improvement of theoretical understandings of the abstract, underlying details of the causes of crime. We engage in theorizing simply because the development of theory, when it is properly done, is a crucial component to understanding and possibly improving the “real world.”

WHAT IS THEORY?

The foregoing introduction presumes knowledge of a number of key concepts and terms. We now slow down the pace of description to provide definitions and descriptions of these key elements. The first of these is the term “theory” itself.

In order to have a means of assessing when theory is properly done, it is necessary to consider what constitutes a theory and upon what criteria it can be evaluated. A useful place to begin is an examination of what is meant by theory. Even those with only passing familiarity of the social sciences probably know that raising the question of what is meant by theory opens up a number of philosophy of science issues. Given that our emphasis revolves around crime and not theory per se, we might be justified in not broaching this perplexing topic at all. In fact, leading works in criminological theory tend to avoid this subject altogether. However, we believe that an explication of our general orientation toward theory will facilitate a more complete understanding of our multicontextual opportunity theory of crime.

Consensus does not exist on what constitutes a theory.² Given this lack of consensus, we desire to have a working definition of theory that is compatible with our objective of developing a multicontextual explanation of criminal opportunity across time and space. We find Cohen’s definition to be useful:

A theory is a set of interrelated universal statements, some of which are definitions and some of which are relationships assumed to be true, together with a syntax, a set of rules for manipulating the statements to arrive at new statements. (1989:178)

This definition highlights several key aspects of properly done theory that require brief elaboration.

First, theoretical statements are universal. By universal we mean that theoretical statements are abstract assertions taken as general truths about concepts and relationships between concepts that transcend time and space. In contrast to universal statements, idiographic statements are limited to the particulars of a specific time and place. In its most extreme form, idiographic explanation is merely a microscopic depiction of the unfolding of the actions of specific individuals moving in certain space-time contexts (e.g., an explanation of how and why J. Smith came to murder T. Jones in a bar in Wahoo, Nebraska, in 1909). In a less extreme form, idiographic explanations attempt to describe how and why a type of event occurs in a specific time and place in history (e.g., an explanation of serial killings in the United States in the first-half of the twenty-first century). Idiographic statements are descriptions of actions in particular times and spaces; they are not intended to be general explanations of behavior across time and space (i.e., they are not universal statements).

From our view, theory cannot be limited to particular time and space situations. It seems to us that, by definition, situational explanations of events do not constitute “theories.” A properly done theory of crime would try to explain the rate, location, and distribution of criminal acts in all times and places. The requirement of being universal does not mean that theory is ahistorical and unable to incorporate cultural variations or context specificity. For instance, to say that increased social control decreases the likelihood of criminal acts occurring universally does not preclude the fact that social control has taken different forms across time—e.g., consider the movement from nineteenth-century private policing to modern public professional police forces to the recent growth in private security efforts.³ Also, such a universal statement about the relationship between social control and crime does not overlook the fact that social control has distinctive cultural features across societies—e.g., consider the differences in shaming practices in Japan and the United States.⁴ These examples suggest that theories with universal statements are not necessarily ahistorical and ethnocentric. Our multicontextual opportunity theory of crime provides universal statements that have the capacity to account for human behavior across time and cultural contexts.

A second key feature of our working definition of theory is that theoretical statements are interrelated. Statements must be interrelated in a couple of different ways. First, the statement that “increased social control decreases the likelihood of criminal acts occurring” would not be useful at all if there were not definitions of social control and criminal acts. In this sense, statements that posit relationship between concepts (e.g., social control and criminal acts) must be interrelated with definitions of those concepts. Another way in which theoretical statements are interrelated is that statements of relationships between concepts are connected by common terms. For instance, these statements are interrelated because they share a common term:

• Increased informal social control (e.g., neighborhood watches) decreases the likelihood of the occurrence of criminal acts.

• The more social ties in a neighborhood (e.g., regular interactions between neighbors) the greater the informal social control.

Disparate statements about some phenomenon, even if empirically true, do not constitute a theory about that phenomenon. For example:

• Increased levels of poverty in a neighborhood increases the likelihood of the occurrence of criminal acts.

• Higher percentages of male residents in a neighborhood increases the likelihood of the occurrence of criminal acts.

Disparate statements such as these do not constitute a theory because they are not logically connected to one another. In elaborating our multicontextual opportunity theory of crime, we provide definitions for all our key concepts and develop propositions with interrelated terms.

Logic, or syntax in Cohen’s (1989) words, is the third key component of our working definition of theory. Logic in essence is a set of rules for advancing theoretical arguments. That is, the structure and forms of theoretical arguments must conform to the rules of logical reasoning. Logical arguments can be either inductively generated (from facts to theory) or deductively derived (the application of a theory to a particular case).⁵

ASSESSING THEORY

Regardless of whether a theory employs inductive or deductive reasoning, its statements must be both connected and consistent logically. Thus, logical consistency is one criterion for evaluating theory.⁶ That is, the explicit statements of a theory must avoid logical contradiction. Akers makes this point when he writes:

A theory which proposes that criminals are biologically deficient and that deficiency explains their criminal behavior cannot also claim that family socialization is the basic cause of criminal behavior. (1997:6)

A more difficult task than avoiding logical contradiction among explicit theoretical statements is to eliminate contradictions among tacit theoretical assumptions. This task is more difficult in that the existence and logic of underlying assumptions are not readily apparent. In our multicontextual opportunity theory of crime we not only strive to develop explicit statements that are logical, but we also reconcile potential contradictions in opportunity theory’s tacit premises about offender motivation.

Another important criterion for assessing theory is that it must be empirically testable. In other words, theoretical propositions have to be advanced in such a fashion that objective evidence could be gathered that would either support or refute them. This criterion that a theory be amenable to empirical tests is more demanding than merely marshaling evidence in support of stated propositions. An adequate theory must be falsifiable.⁷

There are several ways in which theories can be unfalsifiable. One way a theory can be unfalsifiable is if its definitions and propositions are tautological (i.e., they are true by definition). When properly formulated, a theory avoids unconscious circular reasoning. To illustrate tautology, the following argument is true by definition, and is therefore unfalsifiable:

1. An antisocial personality trait is defined as violent behavioral expressions.

2. The antisocial personality trait causes violence.

Such an argument could never be proven to be false because the cause (antisocial personali...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• Acknowledgments
• Preface
• 1 Theory Generally and a General Theory of Crime: Some Preliminary Considerations
• 2 Criminal Opportunity: A Necessary Condition and Central Construct
• 3 A Multicontextual Approach
• 4 Evidence and Specification of Main Effects
• 5 Evidence and Specification of Moderating Effects
• 6 Implications for Reactions to Crime
• 7 A Dynamic Perspective
• 8 Possibilities and Limitations for Empirical Research
• 9 Implications for Policy and Practice
• References
• Index