Suitable Targets

Gershon Ben Keren

Mon 28th Feb 2022

What makes a suitable target or victim differs by offenders e.g., a suitable target for a sex offender who victimizes teenage girls will not be the same as one targeted by an offender whose preference is for young boys etc. An experienced shoplifter will probably have more suitable targets, than someone who is looking to steal for the first time, as they are going to have a more intricate understanding of how store security operates, and have more options etc. The same can be said of a burglar who has broken into a large number of homes and is aware...Click To Read More

The Motivated Offender

Gershon Ben Keren

Mon 21st Feb 2022

Crime, including violent crime, is a statistically rare phenomenon, when compared to other activities, such as driving, shopping, and going out to eat/drink etc. Even in high crime areas, acts of offending are low in comparison to other routine activities – they are just more likely to occur in these locales than in lower crime areas. This is not to diminish the impact of crime, especially violent crime, on those who are victimized, or to suggest that there is little or no need to take steps to avoid victimization but rather for us to understand that crime for most of...Click To Read More

Routine Activity Theory

Gershon Ben Keren

Mon 14th Feb 2022

Something that confounded many criminologists in the post-war period (1940’s – 1970’s) was the fact that crime increased dramatically – including violent crime that went up almost six-fold both in the UK and US - at the same time as standards of living increased. This went against the prevailing view that crime, and acts of violence, were largely linked to poverty, and that it was largely poverty that was responsible for creating criminality i.e., developing individuals who could be labelled as criminals and offenders etc. To try to explain why there had been such a rapid increase in incidents of...Click To Read More

Groupthink And Conformity

Gershon Ben Keren

Mon 7th Feb 2022

In last week’s article, I looked at how being part of a group effects the way that people think, act, and behave i.e., that when somebody identifies as belonging to a group, whether that’s a temporary (such as joining in with looting during or riot), semi-permanent or permanent thing (being a member of a formal or informal gang), the group can influence the way they think etc., and redefine their identity. In last week’s blog, I detailed two theories that go some way to explaining why someone might act differently when they are part of a group compared to how...Click To Read More