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Routine Activities Approach Essay

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Recommended: Summarize the theories of victimization

Cohen and Marcus (1979) advanced the routine activities approach motivated by Hawley’s (1950) work on human ecology and that of Shaw and McKay (1950) on juvenile delinquency. According to William and McShane (1994: 250), the routine activities approach is somewhat of a recent approach, utilizing two central concepts, freedom of choice and action based on routine behaviours to explain and predict criminal victimisation.
2.1.1 Exposition of the routine activities approach
In its early development, the routine activities approach mainly focused on property crimes. As a result many scholars believed that it could not be used in explaining personal or violent crimes, as it seemed to focus on a static state of affairs as far as the victim was concerned (Mustaine and Tewksbury, 2000: 340). This misconception and understanding of the routine activities approach has changed and it is now believed to be able to be applied in understanding offenders and criminal context, instead of merely a means to explain or predict the risk of criminal victimisation (Felson, 1997: 209).
Cohen and Felson (1979: 593) describe routine activities as “any recurrent and prevalent activities which provide for basic population and individual needs, whatever their biological or cultural origins”. Therefore, routine activities is …show more content…

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