I am student of BS sociology at University of Sargodha. This is my presentation rational choice theory about criminology

1. Definition:
“Punishment should fit for crime”.

2. CHOICE THEORIES
 RATIONAL CHOICE (law-violating behavior occurs after
offenders weight information on their personal need and situational factors
involved in the difficulty and risk of committing a crime.)
 Strategies for controlling crime flow from premise.
1. GENERAL DETTERENCE (people will commit crime and
delinquency if they perceive that the benefits outweigh the risks. Crime is a
function of the severity, certainty, and speed of punishment.)
2. SPECIFIC DEDERENCE ( if punishment is severe enough,
criminal will not repeat their illegal act.)
3. INCAPACITATION (Keeping known criminals out of circulation will
reduce crime rate.)

3. CONCEPTS OF
RATIONAL CHOICE THEORY
• Law violating behavior is product of careful thought and
planning.
• Offender choose crime after both personal and situational
factors.
• Before deciding to commit a crime the reasoning criminal
evaluates risk of
• apprehension,
• seriousness of expected punishment,
• the potential value of the criminal enterprise,
• his/her ability to succeed,
• the need of criminal gain.

4. OFFENCE & OFFENDER
SPECIFIC CRIME
 OFFENCE
SPECIFIC
CRIME:
 OFFENDR
SPECIFIC
CRIME:
 Offender react selectively to the
characteristics of an individual
criminal act.
 E.g. the decision to commit a burglary.
 To commit crime individuals must
decide whether they have the personal
needs skills, and nuts and bolts to
commit a crime.

5. STRUCTING CRIMINALITY
Economic need/Opportunity:
 People commit crime because they need money or
 Misled about financial reward
 They know the people who are quite successful at crime.
Evaluating personal traits and experiences:
 Career criminals may learn the limitation of their powers.
 They know when to take chance and when to be cautious.
 Experienced criminals may turn away from a life of crime
when they believe that risk of crime is greater then any
potential profit.
 Criminal is more impulsive and have less self controlled.
 Typically they are under stress and facing serious personal
problem
Criminal enterprises:
 They learn techniques to help them avoid detection while
making their own illegal profit.

6. STRUCTURING CRIME
Choosing the place of crime
 Criminal carefully choose where thy will commit crime.
Choosing target
 Criminals locate there target in such a way

7. IS CRIME RATIONAL?
IS THEFT
RATIONAL?
IS DRUG USE
RATIONALS
 Crimes are the product of careful risk related
assignment including environmental, social,
and structural factors.
 Target selection seem highly rational.
 Criminal believe that drug will provide them
fun, exciting and thrilling experience.
 They choose what they consider safe sites to
buy and sell drugs. Their entry into
substance abuse is facilitated by their
perception,
 Research seems to indicate from it onset drug
use is controlled by rational decision making.
 Drug dealers show signs of rationality and
cunning in their daily activities

8. IS CRIME RATIONAL?
Can violence
be rational?
 Market related robberies emerge from disputes
involving partners in trade, rivals, or generalized
predators.
 Status-based violations involve encounters in
which the robber’s essential character or value
have been changed.
 Personalistic violations floe from indicates in
which the robber’s autonomy or sense of value has
been jeopardized.
Robbery in this instance is an instrument
used to settle score, display dominance, and stifle
potential rivals. Jacobs and Wright conclude
retaliation certainly is rational in the sense that
actor who lack legitimate access to the law and
rize respect above everything else will often
choose to resolve their grievances through a rough
and ready brand of self-help.

9. SITUATIONAL CRIME PREVENTION
 To reduce criminal activity public official must be aware of
the characteristics of the sites and situation that are
conductive for crime, the things that people toward these
and what equips people to take the advantage of the
criminal opportunities offered by these sites and situations
and what constitute the immediate criminal actions.
 This approach was popularized in the united state in early
19thcenturies by Oscar Newman. Who coined the term
defaceable space the idea is that crime can be prevented
or displaced through the use of residential design that
reduce criminal opportunities such as well-lit-housing
projects that maximize surveillance.

10. CRIME PREVENTION STRATEGIES
 Increase the afford needed to commit crime
 Increase the risk of committing crime
 Reduce rewards of crime
 Induce gilt and increase shame
 Deduce provocation
 Remove excuses

11. COSTS OF SITUATIONAL CRIME
PREVENTION
 Hidden Benefits:
 Diffusion
 Occurs when efforts to prevent one crime
unintentionally prevents another
 When crime control efforts in one locale reduce crime
in other non-target areas
 Discouragement:
 Occurs when crime control efforts targeting a particular
locale help reduce crime in surrounding areas and
populations

12. BENEFITS OF SITUATIONAL
CRIME PREVENTION
 Hidden Costs:
 Displacement
 Crime is not prevented but simply re-directed,
deflected, or displaced to a more vulnerable area
 Extinction:
 Phenomenon in which crime reduction programs
may produce short-term positive effects but criminals
adjust to new conditions
 Dismantling of alarms
 Trying new offenses previously avoided
Replacement:
 an effect that occur when criminal try new offences
they had previously avoided because situational
prevention program neutralized their program choice.

13. 1. GENERAL DETERANCE
 A crime control policy that depends on the fear of
penalties, convincing the potential law violator that
the pains associated with crime out weigh its benefit.
 Theory holds the greater the severity, certainty, and
speed of legal sanctions, the lower crime rate.
 Theory not only actual chance of punishment but also
the perception that punishment will be forth coming,
influences criminality.

14. CERTAINTY OF PUNISHMENT
 If people believe their criminal transgressions will almost
certainly result in punishment, then only truly irrational
will commit crime.
 research shows a direct relation ship between crime rate
and certainty of punishment.
 Increasing the number of police on street should cut the
crime rate.
 Police officers should active, aggressive and fighter.
 Improving response time and increasing number of patrol
cars that response one crime.

15. SEVERRITY OF PUNISHMENT
 Threat of severe punishment should also bring the
crime rate down.
 Little consensus that strict punishment alone can
reduce criminal activities.
 Certainty of punishment has greater deterrent effect
then its severity.
 Fear of death penalty should significantly reduce crime
rate.

16. CRITIQUE: Some experts believe that the purpose
of the law and justice system is to create a threat system.
Rationality
System
effectiveness
 Criminals can be desperate people and commit crime
because of no alternative.
 Criminal may be suffering from personality disorder
 Threat of punishment involve not only its severity but
also its certainty and speed.
 Not every crime can be discouraged, nor is every
criminal deterrent. Research shows that deterrent
measure may be have greater impact on some people
and leaser effect on other.

17. SPECIFIC DETERRENCE
 The theory of specific deterrence holds that criminal sanction
should be so powerful that known criminals will never repeat
their criminal acts.
 In principles, punishments works when a connection can be
established between the planned action and memories of its
consequence if these recollection are adequately intense ,the
action is unlikely to occur again
 Incarcetion
 confinement in jail or prison.
 Recidivism
 repletion of criminal behavior.

18. INCAPACITATION
 Keeping known criminal out of circulation will reduce
crime rates.
 There is little evidence that incapacitating criminals deters
them from future criminality
 Stable crime rates may be controlled by:
 The size of the teenage population
 The threat of mandatory sentences
 Economy
 Gun laws
 The end of the crack epidemic
 The implementation of aggressive policing strategies

19. INCAPACITATION
 Research focus:
 Prison population and crime rate
 Sentence length and crime