Question

What types of policy strategies derived from rational choice and routine activities theories do you think would be most effective? Which types would be least effective?

Answer 1

Rational choice Theorey

Rational choice theorey is basically based on the classical criminology of the Fundamental tents. According to this theorey, people always choose behavior and can avoid pain to get pleasure. Rational choice helps to build a idea about why people commits some specific crime, people commites crimes because it gives satisfaction, fun and feeling of pleasure. According to this Rational Theorey,we can controll someone's behavior by giving fear of punishment.

Rational choice theorey also believs that crime is a personal choice.Not only that, this theorey also stated that, people considers all the factors before commiting a crime. Such as they considers the fearing facts, the benefits of the crime and the consequences of the crime also.Rational choice theorey also foucsed on other factors like the agression,needs for money, the security of the crime place everyrthing.Basically this theorey foucuses on the situation of the crime and how the situation effects the criminal choices in commiting the crime.

Routine Activities Theorey

Routine activities theorey was proposed by Cohen and Felson in 1979. According to this theorey, 3 factors have the most influences in commiting crimes.

• A person with crime intentions.
• A person who is targeted in the crime/A strong target of the crime
• The absence of the others while attending crime.

This 3 elements are co-related with time and space. Beacuse time also has a deep influence in occuring crime.Not only that the routine Activities theorey also helps to understand how social and economical conditions are related with crime rates. This theorey have stated that, Crime is normal to the criminals and it can be happened on available opportunity.

The another factor of commiting a crime is the target. Basically this theorey concluded that, a strong target can be build up by some factors like agression, Need of money, revenge etc.So a strong target has a great influence in attending crimes.

According to this theorey, another big influence is the situation. If the situation is safe and controlled by the criminal, then it will be an added advantage for the criminals to commiting crimes. As example, the absesnce of parents can be the best situation for the criminals to commiting the crime.

Conclusion

After discussing all two theories, i can conclude that both the theories have some similarities and effectiveness in describing the criminal behavior. But according to me the rational theorey needs to explain more such as this theorey does not question or describe about the people's preference.As not all the choices are for economical drive, this theorey fails to describe about the preferences of others.This theorey has given all the preference to the wealth and power,but does not provide the description of other values. So i think this theorey is least effective rather than Routine activities theorey.

In other hand, Routine activity theorey mainly focuses on the three factors of commiting a crime and also stated that motivation of the offenders are responsible for attending a crime. But it fails to give explanation how these criminals are motivated or what is the main cause of this kind of crime motives.

So we can conclude that, both theories are not perfect. But as Routine activities theorey explains the main factors behind a crime, it is more acceptable to the people and we can find how the factors or opportunity influence a criminal to commiting a crime by explaining this theorey. So this theorey is more appropiate rather than Rational choice theorey.