Perceiving crime as alternative Engels

Description

In the past 200 years, many explanations have been givenfor rule-breaking behavior. A classic idea, that was developedduring the Enlightenment, was that crime shouldbe understood as the outcome of a rational choice process.While much criticism exists with regard to rationalchoice theories, the fact remains that humans deliberatewhen committing acts. This process of deliberation deservesattention in etiological research, despite the factthat some of the assumptions of rational choice theoriesdo not hold. This is exactly what this book is all about.This book is the result of an innovative attempt to studycriminal decision-making using a less studied methodin criminological inquiries, namely randomized scenariostudies. A randomized scenario study combines theprinciples of survey research with ideas that are central inexperimental design.This book is an elaboration of a dissertation written by BenjaminVan Damme, who personally developed an internetapplication for randomized scenario studies that can beused to test ideas developed in theories of crime causation.This dissertation is part of a larger research initiative of LievenPauwels, who supervised Benjamin Van Dammes masterdissertation, namely a study on the empirical status ofsituational action theory. Benjamin Van Damme and LievenPauwels empirically demonstrate that criminal decisionmakingcan be seen as a perception-choice process, i.e. theresult of person-environment interactions. Environmentalcharacteristics trigger criminal decision-making, but only inindividuals that see crime as an alternative. The theoreticaland methodological consequences for criminological inquiriesare discussed.