Download now
The “lifestyle/exposure theory” was developed simply by Hindelang, Gottfredson, and Garofalo (1978: 243; e. g., see Goldstein, 1994; Maxfield, 1987: 275; Miethe, Stafford, and Long, 1987: 184). This model of criminal occasions links victimization risks to the daily activities of specific people (Goldstein, year 1994: 54; Kennedy and Forde, 1990: 208). Lifestyles will be patterned, frequent, recurrent, common, or “routine activities” (Robinson, 1997b; also see Cohen and Felson, 1979; Felson, 1994; Hindelang, Gottfredson, and Garofalo, 1978: 241; Garofalo, 1987: 24, 39). Life-style consist of the activities that people participate in on a daily basis, which includes both necessary and discretionary activities. LeBeau and Coulson (1996: 3; also discover LeBeau and Corcoran, 1990) assert that: The former happen to be activities that must be undertaken even though the latter as they are pursued by decision are called discretionary.
‘An activity is discretionary if there is a greater chance of choice than constraint, and obligatory if there is a greater degree of constraint than choice” (Chapin, 1974: 38). Both actions have a duration, situation in time, a spot in a collection of occasions, and a set location or perhaps path in space (Chapin, 1974: 37).
Kennedy and Forde (1990: 208) summarized the lifestyle/exposure model since “lifestyle, encompassing differences in era, sex, relationship status, family members income, and race, impacts daily routines and vulnerability to legal victimization, causing the fact that “Victimization is not evenly distributed randomly across space and time — there are high-risk locations and high-risk time periods” (Garofalo, 1987: 26). “Lifestyle habits influence (a) the amount of contact with places and times with varying hazards of victimization, and (b) the prevalence of groups with other folks who are usually more or not as likely to dedicate crimes. “
A similar theoretical model produced by Kennedy and Forde (1990: 209, 211) suggested that background qualities and day to day activities affect period spent in risky lifestyles which lead to dangerous effects (i. e., criminal victimization). In their terms, “demographic and lifestyle parameters… can be viewed as leading to more or less ‘time spent in risky activities’ and indirectly contributing to ‘dangerous results'” (Kennedy and Forde, 1990: 209). Numerous research have shown relationships between activities of individuals and their likelihood of legal victimization (Riley, 1987: 340). In other words, what individuals do and exactly how they respond places them at both more or less likelihood of criminal victimization (Maxfield, 1987; Miethe, Stafford, and Long, 1987; Sampson and Wooldredge, 1987). Relating to Sampson and Wooldredge (1987: 372): “An energetic lifestyle… seems to influence victimization risk by increasing coverage of people and homes to potential offenders when guardianship is usually low. “
Yet, an energetic lifestyle may well not necessarily maximize one’s risk of criminal victimization. For example , if you have a great deal of activity by occupants, neighbors, or perhaps passers by around a house, then this activity might serve to cure the likelihood which a property arrest will victimize a property. In fact , various property offenders are nonconfrontational and want to steer clear of being noticed by residents, neighbors, or passers simply by (Cromwell, Olson, and Avary, 1991; Tunnell, 1994; Wright and Decker, 1994). If an active lifestyle leads to larger or reduce risks for criminal victimization may be based upon several elements. It might be based upon the nature of your activities — i. e., whether they happen to be patterned and predictable to offenders, or perhaps sporadic and less predictable.
This problem has not been completed by academic research, although the majority of life-style research shows that active life styles increase hazards for lawbreaker victimization (Robinson, 1997b). A part of why there exists some uncertainty about this concern is because the moment relationships among lifestyles and crime are studied, dependent variables typically consist of a lot of composite way of measuring crime (see Robinson, 1997b; Thompson and Fisher, 1996). Whether energetic lifestyles result in higher or perhaps lower risks for criminal offenses might be based upon the specific form of crime that is certainly being studied. Since composite measures of crime have been completely utilized by experts rather than distinctive measures of individual crime types (Bennett, 1991; Maxfield, 1987; Thompson and Fisher, 1996), it really is nearly impossible to differentiate the consequences of peoples’ life styles on several types of criminal victimization.
This is troublesome, because lifestyle/exposure theory can be “crime specific” (Bennett, 1991: 158; Thompson and Fisher, 1996). For example , crimes including burglary and theft may create different opportunities for offenders: For a burglary to occur, an offender has to break and enter in a house to get the desired goods. An offender who have commits a larceny, alternatively, may trip off with a bicycle ignored on the grass or grab something from the porch of any home.
These kinds of examples illustrate that the opportunity structure pertaining to burglary and larceny are very different and therefore the two crimes must be examined independently in study (Thompson and Fisher, 1996: 52; also see Gottfredson, 1984; Maxfield, 1987; Sampson and Wooldredge, 1987). Study examining the relationship between life-style and offense should steer clear of pooling or perhaps aggregating criminal offenses types, because examining the effects of lifestyles upon composite steps of criminal offense leads to inconsistent findings (Thompson and Fisher, 1996: 53).
one particular
