Sociology & Criminology for a Changing World
The Crime Pattern Theory is a central theory within environmental criminology and explains why crime tends to concentrate in specific spatial patterns. Developed by Paul J. Brantingham and Patricia L. Brantingham, the theory argues that criminal events are not randomly distributed across space but are closely connected to the spatial organization of everyday life. People
The Situational Action Theory (SAT) developed by the Swedish criminologist Per-Olof H. Wikström explains criminal behavior as the result of a decision-making process within specific social situations. According to the theory, crime occurs when individuals with a certain crime propensity encounter situations in which rule-breaking is perceived as a possible course of action. At the
Victimology is the scientific study of victims of crime, their experiences, and their interactions with offenders, society, and the criminal justice system. As a subfield of criminology, it emerged in the mid-20th century and has since developed into an independent research tradition. Victimisation, by contrast, refers to the process and experience of becoming a victim.
Situational Crime Prevention (SCP) is an evidence-based strategy that reduces crime by altering environmental conditions and increasing the perceived risks for offenders. It shifts the focus from changing offender motivation to managing the situations in which crimes occur. Situational Crime Prevention (SCP) represents a shift in criminological thinking from offender-focused explanations of crime toward a
Space and Surveillance theories examine how crime is shaped by physical environments, urban structures, neighborhood conditions, and practices of surveillance and social control. Rather than locating the causes of crime solely in individual motivation or pathology, these approaches analyze how spatial organization, environmental design, community structures, and visible disorder influence where and under what conditions
Classical and Rational Choice Theories Classical and rational choice theories explain crime as the result of purposeful decision-making by individuals who weigh opportunities, risks, rewards, and situational conditions. These approaches assume that people are capable of choosing between lawful and unlawful behavior and that criminal acts emerge within concrete social situations rather than from deterministic