Explaining Crime and Criminal Careers: the DEA Model of Situational Action Theory

Funder: University of CambridgeAbstract: Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to outline Situational Action Theory (SAT) and its Developmental Ecological Action Model (DEA model) as applied to the explanation of criminal careers. The DEA model of SAT was first presented by Wikström in 2005, [34]), and subsequently refined in Wikström and Treiber in 2018, [43]), and is further elaborated in this paper. Methods: This paper provides a theoretical analysis of the role of crime causation in the explanation of criminal careers and pathways in crime. The central argument is that if we want to explain stability and change in people’s crime involvement we first have to understand what factors and processes move people to commit acts of crime. Only then can we adequately assess what factors and processes are involved in the explanation of criminal careers and people’s differential pathways (trajectories) in crime. Results: The DEA model of SAT address some of the main limitations of current dominant explanatory approaches in Developmental and Life-Course (DLC) Criminology [39], and champions a general, dynamic and mechanism-based account of the causes of crime [38], and the drivers of criminal careers [47]. It integrates and extends key insights from two great but poorly amalgamated traditions in the study of crime and its causes: the individual/developmental and ecological/environmental traditions. It provides a new approach to the study and explanation of crime and criminal careers with implications for how we approach the problem of crime prevention policy and practise

Social Disadvantage and Crime: A Criminological Puzzle

In this article, we analyze the relationship between social disadvantage and crime, starting from the paradox that most persistent offenders come from disadvantaged backgrounds, but most people from disadvantaged backgrounds do not become persistent offenders. We argue that despite the fact that social disadvantage has been a key criminological topic for some time, the mechanisms which link it to offending remain poorly specified. Drawing on situational action theory, we suggest social disadvantage is linked to crime because more people from disadvantaged versus affluent backgrounds develop a high crime propensity and are exposed to criminogenic contexts, and the reason for this is that processes of social and self-selection place the former more frequently in (developmental and action) contexts conducive to the development and expression of high crime propensities. This article will explore this hypothesis through a series of analyses using data from the Peterborough Adolescent and Young Adult Development Study (PADS+), a longitudinal study which uses a range of data collection methods to study the interaction between personal characteristics and social environments. It pays particular attention to the macro-to-micro processes behind the intersection of people with certain characteristics and environments with certain features – i.e., their exposure – which leads to their interaction.This work was supported by the Economic and Social Research Council [grant number ES/K010646/1

Por qué se delinque: una teoría de la acción situacional

Las personas cometen actos delictivos porque perciben y eligen (de forma habitual o tras alguna deliberación) una determinada clase de acto delictivo como una alternativa de acción en respuesta a una motivación específica (una tentación o una provocación). Las personas son la fuente de sus acciones, pero las causas de las mismas son situacionales. Determinadas combinaciones de clases de personas (propensiones personales) y de clases de contextos (inductores ambientales) promueven la percepción de determinadas clases de alternativas de acción y determinadas elecciones (algunas de las cuales pueden dar lugar a una acción que vulnera las reglas legales) en respuesta a una motivación concreta (tentaciones o provocaciones). Por ejemplo, una persona con poco dinero que encuentra una cartera repleta del mismo en un vestuario vacío ve esto como una oportunidad de sustraer dinero; otros no

О становлении трансплантологии в Украине: юридические аспекты

Рассмотрены основные аспекты развития трансплантологии, их положительное и отрицательное влияние на прогресс пересадки органов в странах с различным уровнем развития демократических принципов. Показано значение юридических проблем в развитии клинической и экспериментальной трансплантологии.Main aspects of transplantology development, their favorable and unfavorable influence on the process of organ transplantation in the countries with different level of democracy are featured. Significance of legal problems in clinical and experimental transplantology is shown

Risk and promotive effects in the explanation of persistent serious delinquency in boys

Risk and promotive effects were investigated as predictors of persistent serious delinquency in male participants of the Pittsburgh Youth Study (R. Loeber, D. P. Farrington, M. Stouthamer-Loeber, & W. B. van Kammen, 1998), living in different neighborhoods. Participants were studied over ages 13–19 years for the oldest sample and 7–13 years for the youngest sample. Risk and promotive effects were studied in 6 domains: child behavior, child attitudes, school and leisure activities, peer behaviors, family functioning, and demographics. Regression models improved when promotive effects were included with risk effects in predicting persistent serious delinquency. Disadvantaged neighborhoods, compared with better neighborhoods, had a higher prevalence of risk effects and a lower prevalence of promotive effects. However, predictive relations between risk and promotive effects and persistent serious delinquency were linear and similar across neighborhood socioeconomic status. Although advances have been made in the study of predictors of serious delinquency (Hawkins et al., 1998; Lipsey & Derzon, 1998), little is known about predictors of persistent serious offend-ing, which from a societal point of view is of particular concern. Most youth commit some delinquent acts in childhood or adoles

How collective is collective efficacy? The importance of consensus in judgments about community cohesion and willingness to intervene

Existing studies have generally measured collective efficacy by combining survey respondents’ ratings of their local area into an overall summary for each neighborhood. Naturally, this approach results in a substantive focus on the variation in average levels of collective efficacy between neighborhoods. In this article, we focus on the variation in consensus of collective efficacy judgments. To account for differential consensus among neighborhoods, we use a mixed‐effects location‐scale model, with variability in the consensus of judgments treated as an additional neighborhood‐level random effect. Our results show that neighborhoods in London differ, not just in their average levels of collective efficacy but also in the extent to which residents agree with one another in their assessments. In accord with findings for U.S. cities, our results show that consensus in collective efficacy assessments is affected by the ethnic composition of neighborhoods. Additionally, we show that heterogeneity in collective efficacy assessments is consequential, with higher levels of criminal victimization, worry about crime, and risk avoidance behavior in areas where collective efficacy consensus is low

An Ancient Duplication of Exon 5 in the Snap25 Gene Is Required for Complex Neuronal Development/Function

Alternative splicing is an evolutionary innovation to create functionally diverse proteins from a limited number of genes. SNAP-25 plays a central role in neuroexocytosis by bridging synaptic vesicles to the plasma membrane during regulated exocytosis. The SNAP-25 polypeptide is encoded by a single copy gene, but in higher vertebrates a duplication of exon 5 has resulted in two mutually exclusive splice variants, SNAP-25a and SNAP-25b. To address a potential physiological difference between the two SNAP-25 proteins, we generated gene targeted SNAP-25b deficient mouse mutants by replacing the SNAP-25b specific exon with a second SNAP-25a equivalent. Elimination of SNAP-25b expression resulted in developmental defects, spontaneous seizures, and impaired short-term synaptic plasticity. In adult mutants, morphological changes in hippocampus and drastically altered neuropeptide expression were accompanied by severe impairment of spatial learning. We conclude that the ancient exon duplication in the Snap25 gene provides additional SNAP-25-function required for complex neuronal processes in higher eukaryotes