examining routine activity theory

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EXAMINING ROUTINE ACTIVITY THEORY: A REVIEW OF TWO BOOKS Crime and Everyday Life, by Marcus Felson 1 Crime and Its Social Context, by Terance D. Miethe and Robert F. 2 Meier.

JOHN E. ECK Crime Control Institute University of Maryland

Criminologists are more interested in criminals than in crime, if we may judge from their basic texts and articles. That is, mainstream criminology examines why some people commit crimes and others do not, why some people commit crimes at very high rates and others do not, and when people begin committing crimes and when they stop. How, where, and when these crimes are committed has not been a central concern to the discipline. Though there are a variety of reasons for this imbalance, it mirrors the society's interest in criminality and its lack of interest in crime. We need only recall the political debates about how the government should fight crime: should the United States control crime by being nice to potential criminals (e.g., with midnight basketball) or by being mean to those who have committed crimes (e.g., through three-, two, and one-strike laws)? Like criminologists debating the relative merits of control theory and strain theory, the public debate ignores the events that are the source of concern. Consequently, elected officials have made as little progress in controlling crime as have criminologists in understanding it. Fortunately, criminologists are becoming increasingly interested in explaining crime events. Two recent books illustrate this trend and show how this approach can be wedded to mainstream criminologists' obsession with criminality. Marcus Felson's Crime and Everyday Life and Terance Miethe's and Robert Meier's Crime and Its Social Context share several themes. Both books examine opportunities for crime events and the relationships between these 1 Thousand Oaks, CA: Pine Forge Press, 1994. 2 Albany: SUNY, 1994. JUSTICE QUARTERLY, Vol. 12 No. 4, December 1995 © 1995 Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences

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opportunities and the volume of crime events. The authors of both books view routine activity theory as the linchpin explanation for crime. Also, the authors of both books try to show how crime event theory can be linked to criminality theory. Nevertheless, these books are very different. Crime and Everyday Life was written as a textbook; Crime and Its Social Context was written as a research monograph. Still, Felson's text is the most complete description of routine activity theory to date, bringing together in one volume the elaborations of the theory since 1979. Therefore this book makes a substantial contribution to criminological theory. As an example of a research paradigm and of an application of theoretical integration, Meithe's and Meier's book would make an interesting text in a graduate seminar. The differences in the authors' purposes, however, are less important than the differences in their approaches to theory building in criminology. Thus a comparison of these books gives us insight into routine activity theory, its relationship to theories of criminality, and research methods useful for examining it. CRIME AND EVERYDAY LIFE Marcus Felson is the codeveloper of routine activity theory (Cohen and Felson 1979). The original theory asserted that if a crime event is to occur, an offender and a target must come together at the same place and time without the presence of anyone who could and would protect the target. This is a micro-level theory; it describes a unit of analysis, the criminal event, and the minimal elements required for occurrence. In its most basic form, it does not mention macro-level social constructs. No constructs larger than individual actors (the offender, the victim, and the guardian), places, and moments in time are required or used. This basic statement is almost tautological. The statement that the offender and the target must be at the same place at the same time may be insightful, but it delivers no new information. This theory is saved from a simple restatement of the obvious by its implication that changes in the number of targets and in the presence of guardians can explain changes in crime levels. Thus it has macro-level implications. Further, explanations for changes in target availability and guardianship are social and economic. Cohen and Felson (1979) went on to show how their micro-level premise explains why crime levels are altered by macro-level changes in social relationships and economics. Subsequently a host of macro-level studies have examined the utility of routine activity theory. As we will see below, it is debatable whether these studies test the theory or help us understand its application.

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Felson (1986) has expanded and elaborated this theory, showing how routine activity theory can be linked to Hirschi's (1969) control theory. To attach his event theory to Hirschi's criminality theory, Felson suggests that intimate handlers control offenders' behaviors. Like guardians, who are interested in protecting the target, intimate handlers are concerned about the behaviors of offenders. When an intimate handler is present at a place at the same time as a desirable target and a motivated offender, the offender will not attack the target. Felson (1987) also has shown how changes in marketing and land development affect the spatial arrangement of places in the urban landscape, the arrangements for guardianship at these places, and ultimately the spatial distribution of crime. Crime and Everyday Life makes routine activity theory, and its developments since 1979, accessible to students. Its goal is to show readers "how the United States developed and maintains its huge crime rates." Felson begins with a humorous and pointed attack on popular theories of criminality and crime control policy. Subsequent chapters describe how different crimes are committed (with close attention to the conditions necessary in various situations if a crime is to take place); the development of cities and how such development has changed the nature, frequency, and distribution of crime events; changes in young people's roles and behaviors; and crime prevention measures, particularly situational crime prevention and crime prevention through environmental design. Throughout, Felson shows how crime rates are influenced by changes in the way we organize our lives. He closes with an optimistic view of the future. As schools become smaller, as more people work at home, and as the social/economic environment becomes more local, guardianship and handling will increase, thus crime should decline. The strength of this text is that it is well written and often humorous. Felson uses a variety of historical and contemporary examples to illustrate how routine activities influence crime in a variety of settings. He places emphasis on rational choice theory and how offenders find targets. The book is also short, less than 150 pages. Thus it has a fresh and exciting feel, unlike most standard criminology texts. Its weaknesses stem from its strengths: Crime and Everyday Life is rather cavalier in describing mainstream theories of criminality, and many of Felson's conjectures many appear superficial. Still, the book stimulates students to consider many of the common, everyday institutions and routines of their lives and to contemplate how they may influence deviant behavior.

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CRIME AND ITS SOCIAL CONTEXT Like Felson, Miethe and Meier begin by focusing on the criminal event as the appropriate unit of analysis. Unlike Felson, however, they see no existing link between victimization theories (opportunity theories in general and routine activity theory in particular) and offender theories (theories of criminality). Thus they set out to integrate the two kinds of theories. The first half of their book addresses the current theories commonly discussed in criminology; the second half describes how they operationalized these theories and examined them, using three data sets. Chapter 1 provides an overview of the book and a justification for integrating the two perspectives. The authors examine offender theories in the second chapter, rounding up all of the usual criminological theories. Miethe and Meier are particularly concerned with reductionist tendencies, asserting that we cannot understand criminality if we examine only individual offenders. The third chapter reviews theories of crime opportunity, with emphasis on lifestyleexposure theory (Hindelang, Gottfredson, and Garofolo 1978) and routine activity theory (Cohen and Felson 1979). Though they discuss each theory separately, the authors conclude that the principal difference between lifestyle-exposure and routine activity is in the terminology (p. 36). In chapter 4, Miethe and Meier discuss their integrated approach. They believe that victimization and offender theory constructs directly influence the social context, and that the social context directly influences crime. Victimization and offender constructs are also presumed to have direct effects on crime. In Miethe's and Meier's conceptual schema, victimization theory constructs are based on routine activity theory. The authors are less clear, however, about the sources of their offender theory constructs. Sometimes they describe them as originating in disorganization theory; at other times, they portray them as a collection of elements from virtually every theory of criminality currently under discussion in the field, including biological, psychological, and childrearing theories as well as subcultural, poverty, and legitimate opportunity theories. The social context includes attributes of the physical environment, interpersonal relationships, and the behavioral setting. Miethe and Meier use three data sets for their study. First, they examine 148 SMSAs for 1970, using a combination of UCRreported crime data and census information. They also look at a panel of 548 U.S. cities for 1960, 1970, and 1980, drawing on the same data sources. Finally, they use data collected on a probability sample of 5,302 residents in 114 census tracts in Seattle. This last

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data set allows the authors to examine both individual and smallarea influences on crime. In the end they find that variables associated with each perspective (victimization and offender) are associated significantly with crime. The final chapter summarizes the implications of the study for criminological research. It shows that explanations of crime must take into account the opportunities for crime, the production of offenders, and the context in which they come together. The authors suggest that some approaches to this problem need to be reexamined namely, the use of highly aggregated data and models that exclude one or more of the three major components. Though the findings are interesting, readers may be more interested in the issues concerning how criminologists investigate routine activity theory. In particular, we can use this book to explore theory building and integration, reductionism and aggregation, and the appropriateness of linear models for examining placespecific crime events. BUILDING AND INTEGRATING THEORIES Felson and Miethe and Meier take contrasting routes to building theories. Felson begins by discarding all theories of criminality save control theory. Then he builds it into the routine activity theory schema. Felson does not make any explicit tests of this integrated theory, but uses examples to demonstrate the plausibility of this approach. In contrast, Miethe and Meier keep all criminality theories, making no judgment as to their validity. Then they use three carefully constructed data sets to determine the empirical relationships among the theories they examine. In short, it is only a slight exaggeration to claim that Felson follows the deductivist "theory first" tradition, while Miethe and Meier follow the inductionist "data first" tradition. Felson's approach to theory construction is to begin with the smallest unit of analysis possible, a single event. He expands the theory at three attachment points: targets, offenders, and places. Two subtheories can be connected to each of these three points. To targets, Felson attaches an explanation of the availability of crime targets and a subtheory of the presence of guardians. The.growth in quantity of small portable, expensive items (CD players, portable televisions, stereo equipment, lightweight bicycles, firearms and all the other things we buy in such quantities) is an example of a target subtheory. An example of a guardianship subtheory might be the movement of women's work from the home to places outside the home.

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To offenders, Felson attaches a subtheory regarding how offenders develop and a subtheory of the control exercised by handlers. He particulary likes control theory as an explanation of criminality. An explanation of the deterioration in the functioning of intimate handlers might involve the proliferation of automobiles and shopping malls, which allow young people to escape their parents. One can attach two explanations to places. The first subtheory explains the growth and changes in places that are accessible to people. Felson's metropolitan reef analogy (1987) is the beginning of such a subtheory. In addition, one can create a subtheory of place regulation or management. Eck (1994) shows that place managers may provide an explanation for why some locations have more crime than others, even in the same neighborhood. Place managers are controllers, like handlers and guardians, but their primary concern is the functioning of their places. Examples of place managers are lifeguards, janitors, airline flight attendants, shopkeepers, apartment managers, and other people who own or are appointed to control the behavior of people using a place (Eck 1995; Felson 1995). A place management subtheory explaining the concentration of crime in low-income transitional neighborhoods might proceed as follows. Most rental housing is owned by small-time landlords. In the past, these landlords rented to relatives, friends, and acquaintances or to friends of those people. Thus apartment managers and owners often had some personal connection to their tenants. When property values declined and new people moved into neighborhoods, property managers had less ability to rent to people they knew. If the new tenants were culturally different from the owner, there was even less personal affinity between the two groups. Consequently managers became less able to control tenant behavior: fewer informal sanctions were available, and the decline in their resources made them hesitant to evict. As a result, managers became unable to keep their property in a condition that would attract higher-income tenants. Under these circumstances, drug dealers, prostitutes, and others involved in consensual crimes became able to use the property with relative impunity (Eck 1995). The idea of management can be applied to public places, such as parks and street corners, or to abandoned places, such as vacant lots and buildings. These places often have little or no management. Consequently they are often vulnerable to disorder and crime. A full explanation of any type of crime event requires six subtheories pertaining respectively to targets, guardians, offenders,

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handlers, places, and managers. Nevertheless, the choice of a specific subtheory depends on the types of events one is interested in. An explanation of shoplifting from mall stores requires subtheories about retail places, people who frequent malls, and the goods sold at malls. An explanation of commercial robbery needs subtheories of small, stand-alone retail places (e.g., gas stations and convenience stores), the people who use these places, and the availability of targets (e.g., cash, cigarettes, and beer). Thus, routine activity is a general theory for organizing crime-specific explanations. Whereas routine activity theory begins as a micro-level theory examining individual people and places, the six subtheories (targets, guardians, offenders, handlers, places, and managers) that attach to it contain micro- and macro-level explanations. For example, the management of small motels requires an explanation of the economic conditions of the motel market as well as of the customers' and employees' behaviors. An explanation of women's movement into the marketplace requires social, economic, and political explanations describing the changing role of women in society. In contrast to Felson's "theory first" approach, Miethe and Meier take a more inductionist line. They begin by reviewing current theories, and operationalize key concepts under the constraints of the secondary data available or the survey methods feasible. Next they estimate a variety of cross-sectional and longitudinal multivariate models, using either multiple regression or logistic function analysis. Third, they show that some of the variables associated with each theory are significant and contribute to the variance in the dependent variable. Although the authors make some effort to apply existing theories, this approach is overwhelmingly inductionist because the data, with the aid of the statistical procedures used, dictate how the victimization, offender, and contextual theories should combined. The authors impose no explicit substantive restrictions. The theory integration approach used by Miethe and Meier may make sense if two or more theories are valid and if we can gain more by uniting them than by discarding one, or by discarding both and beginning from scratch (Liska, Krohn, and Messner 1989). Nevertheless, the popularity of theoretical integration may be due to criminologists' reluctance to make hard choices among theories (Hirschi 1989). Most theories of criminality can be molded to suit any empirical results; thus criminological theories tend not to be refutable (Gibbs 1985, 1987). As a result, there is an incentive to sidestep decades-long debates about their relative merits and ask, "Can't we all get along?" Combining theories answers this question

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in the affirmative. Further, theoretical integration fits the incentive structure of the discipline because more status is awarded to researchers who can apply abstruse methods to complex data sets than to theorists who can articulate clear, testable theories. Nevertheless, if two theories explain different but related phenomena, there can be some value in finding ways to link them. Thus it is worth comparing the approaches to integration used by Felson and by Miethe and Meier. As stated earlier, routine activity theory has two attachment points for explanations of criminality. First, a crime cannot occur without the presence of a motivated offender. Thus theories of criminality are important. Something else is needed, however. Routine activity theory assumes a control perspective: the presence of controllers converts a situation ripe for a crime to one in which a crime is unlikely. Thus, as Felson is a pains to point out in Crime and Everyday Life, this theory assumes that people deviate easily and that the presence of controls prevents them. Hirschi's control theory is particularly amenable to routine activity theory (Felson 1986); other theories, however, such as strain, labeling, and subcultural, cannot be connected easily without distorting them beyond recognition. Despite their use of routine activity theory, Miethe and Meier ignore Felson's (1986) discussion of the link between control theory and routine activity theory. This is perplexing: Miethe and Meier must have been aware of this addition to routine activity theory because Felson's (1986) article was published in the same volume (Cornish and Clarke 1986) as six other works, which Miethe and Meier cite. Instead the authors take an empirical approach-operationalizing key constructs of the theories, entering them into a multivariate model, and observing which ones survive (i.e., are significant). How valuable is this inductionist approach to uniting an event theory to one or more theories of criminality? Theories of criminality and theories of crime events have two very different dependent variables. For a theory of criminality, the dependent variable must be a person's status: delinquent or nondelinquent, offender or nonoffender, or some measure of the degree of offending. For a theory of crime events, the dependent variable must be an event or act: crime or no crime, victimization or no victimization, offended against or not offended against. Miethe and Meier use event measures as their dependent variable; therefore, they are explaining events, not criminality. Thus it is not clear how to interpret the association between the dependent variables and the independent variables that are operationalizations of presumed causes of criminality.

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This confusion is most obvious when Miethe and Meier try to interpret the finding that "(t)he socio-economic condition of the neighborhood was the contextual variable that had the strongest net impact on victimization risks for each crime type" (p. 163). They argue that this statistical finding could support social disorganization theory because socio-economic conditions are related to "levels of supervision of youth or weakening internal social control, and the ability of residents to articulate and achieve community goals" (p. 163). On the other hand, "(f)rom a criminal opportunity perspective, the greater risks of victimization for residents of lower socio-economic areas are attributed to their greater proximity to pools of motivated offenders" (p. 163). Yet because the chance of a victimization is their dependent variable, their analysis has nothing to say about social disorganization and the deterioration of controls on youths. In short, the inductionist approach used by Miethe and Meier cannot address one of the main questions they set out to answer. Miethe and Meier fail to consider that linking two theories is an effort at theorizing. Data analysis is useful for verifying or falsifying the new conjecture, but it is not a useful way of producing a new idea. Felson's approach to linking theories of events with theories of criminality has much more to recommend it; it is simple and testable. THEORETICAL REDUCTIONISM AND UNITS OF ANALYSIS A parallel confusion appears when we turn our attention to the unit of analysis. Miethe and Meier abhor reductionism. They assume that the audience shares their abhorrence; therefore, merely pointing out that a particular argument leads to reductionism demonstrates the falsity of the argument. But where does this lead us? Let's assume that a valid explanation of crime events or criminality involves some conceptual level above individual people and places. Are standard metropolitan statistical areas and cities "social" constructs? Probably not. They are political, historical, and bureaucratic artifacts that include a rich diversity of places and neighborhoods. Housing density, poverty, racial heterogeneity, and other interesting constructs are not homogeneous across these aggregations, and the variation within these aggregations is probably as great as the variation among them. Cities and SMSAs are meaningful only because we happen to collect data on them. They have none of the attributes that Bursik and Grasmick attribute to neighborhoods:

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1. A small physical area embedded in a larger area in which people inhabit dwellings; 2. A collective life that arises from social networks that have arisen among the residents; and 3. [A] tradition of identity and continuity over time (1993:6). Thus it is not surprising that Miethe and Meier found SMSA level data less than useful for examining crime and criminality. What is surprising is that the city-level data are not so obviously irrelevant. Earlier I noted that routine activity theory is a micro-level explanation but that it has macro-level implications. More important for our purposes, each of the six subtheories that come together in routine activity theory (targets, guardians, offenders, handlers, places, and managers) may have macro-level explanations. The level of place management, for example, can be explained in part by economic conditions and population changes. Thus we have no valid reason to artificially require social explanations in a theory of crime events. The proximal influences on the likelihood of a crime event are micro-level, but macro-level explanations can be important, even if they reflect distal influences. The explanation of a crime event, according to routine active theory, requires a physical area smaller than a neighborhood; it requires a place. Thus the only units of analysis that are suitable for applying or testing routine activity theory are locations no larger than addresses and street corners. Except for mail bombing, some white-collar crimes (such as computer fraud), and a few other offenses that allow offenders to be far removed from their targets, the distance between an offender and a target at the moment when a crime is committed must be measured in feet and inches, not in miles. Places have been neglected in criminological research; they require much greater attention than they have received (Eck and Weisburd 1995; Sherman, Gartin, and Buerger 1989). PLACES AND MODEL SPECIFICATION Bursik and Grasmick (1993: 72) point out something that should be obvious: routine activity theory is inherently nonlinear. Three elements must be present at the same time-place, target, and offender-and three others must be weak or absent-management, guardianship, and handling-if a crime is to take place. If any one of these conditions is not met, a crime will not occur. Thus, to explain a crime or a non-crime event, we must know all six conditions at the same moment. No aggregate data, of any type, can test routine activity theory. Aggregate data are simply irrelevant.

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Yet merely collecting time-and place-specific event data is not sufficient to overcome this problem. Consider the following formulation of routine activity theory: L(Stjj)=[8akTtkpjkOtjka -tj 1f(l+YakGtidCl+PtukHtij) (1+stMd],

(1)

where L(Stij), is the likelihood of a criminal event in situation S, t is the time, i is the place, j is the offender, and k is the offense type. The variables T, 0, P, G, H, and M represent respectively the presence of a target, an offender, a place, a guardian, a handler, and a manager. Each takes the value 1 when present in Stuk, and 0 otherwise. The coefficients 5, p, a, y, P, and e, represent respectively the degree of target desirability, offender's motivation, place accessibility, guardianship capability, handler's intimacy, and effectiveness of management. Each of these coefficients can take a value between 0 and 1. Thus, when T=O=P=I,a crime is neither certain nor impossible. As suggested by the subscripts, Eq. (1) is specific as to time, place, offender, and offense type. As required by routine activity theory, Eq. (1) shows that if either T, 0, or P is absent, the likelihood of a criminal event is 0. When G, H, and M are 0 (and when the numerator is greater than 0) then the likelihood of a crime is determined by the numerator. The presence of any of the controllers in the denominator reduces the likelihood of a crime. This suggests that Eq. (1) is the instantaneous propensity for a crime (see Brandon 1990:14-24; Humphreys 1989; Popper 1992:281-300 for discussions of a propensity interpretation of probability in scientific explanations) because it is specific to a small time interval. The size of the time interval examined in criminology is usually arbitrary, depending on the vagaries of the data set available. The time intervals, however, are critical to understanding crime because they must be no longer than the time required to commit a crime. If the time interval is too long, each interval is likely to contain both crime and noncrime periods. That is, the interval will contain moments when T=O=P=Iand moments when T=O, 0=0, or P=O. The interval also will contain moments when G>0, H>0, or M>0 and moments when G=H=M=O. As the time interval, place size, target specificity, and offender specificity become smaller and finer, the instantaneous propensity of a crime decreases to 0. Thus, if we measure the time in seconds, the place in square feet, targets as individual items or persons, and offenders as individual persons, the instantaneous propensity of a crime may be smaller than the measurement error of currently available measurement instruments. Actually we observe mean propensities in our research data. To explain crime events, we sum over space, time, crime type, or all

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three. The mean propensity for crime in an area can be described by summing over all of the places in that area. The mean propensity for crime in a place sums over the time periods. Similarly, we can use Eq. (1) to calculate offenders' mean crime propensity by summing over all offenders, and the mean propensity of a crime type by summing over all the targets. This creates problems for linear, additive models of the form (2) C=gO+8T-&Af -PH-yG+v, where C is a measure of crime in an area, v is a stochastic error term, and the other terms are as described earlier. Clearly, an increase in targets in places where offenders are never present will not create an increase in crime. Similarly, increases in guardianship, handlers, and management at places without both targets and offenders will not decrease crime, as Eq. (2) suggests. Thus, many of the studies of routine activity theory using aggregate data find nothing but weak support for the theory. In view of misspecified models, aggregated data, and the interactions between the two, this is not surprising. The fault is not with the theory but with the tests. We need data sets that can differentiate among times and places with various mixtures of offenders, targets, handlers, guardians, and managers. RESEARCH ON CRIME EVENTS What can we learn from Felson and from Miethe and Meier? If the preceding critique is even somewhat valid, criminologists interested in examining crime events now should know enough to avoid at least five problems: 1. Ignoring the internal logic of the theories being examined and compared; 2. Using data aggregated to large areas such as census tracts, police precincts, city subdivisions, cities, counties, SMSAs, states, or countries; 3. Using data aggregated to long periods such as weeks, months, years, or decades; 4. Examining broad crime classifications such as property crime, personal crime, burglary, robbery, and other heterogeneous categories; and 5. Using linear additive models for parameter estimation and theory testing. Ignoring the internal logic of routine activity theory has resulted in a failure to recognize that the components are interactive. The fact that routine activity theory is a micro-level explanation suggests that tests of this theory will be most powerful at the micro

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level. Data aggregated either in space or in time make it exceedingly difficult to test the interactive specification required. Consequently much research on routine activity theory is largely irrelevant. Ignoring the internal logic of the the theory also has led Miethe and Meier into a mistaken attempt to integrate explanations of people with theories of events. Because the most effective forms of guardianship, management, and handling depend on the crime being addressed, aggregation of crime types creates other problems. Consider, for example, two apparently similar offenses, theft from cars and theft of cars. Poyner (1992) showed that the protection required to curtail one may not curtail the other. Surveillance by guardians seems to prevent theft of automobiles, while control of access to place seems to prevent theft from autos. Similarly, Eck (1994) has shown that some of the same measures which can protect apartment dwellers from burglars may attract drug dealers to the location. We should not ignore requirement of crime specificity in rational choice theory (Cornish and Clarke 1986) or disregard the close ties between rational choice and routine activity theories (Clarke and Felson 1994). Linear models cannot capture the intrinsic nonlinearities implied by routine activity theory. By "intrinsically nonlinear" I mean that the model is nonlinear with respect to the parameters. In such cases, simple transformation (such as taking the natural logarithm) cannot convert the equation to a linear form that can be estimated with ordinary least squares regression (Kmenta 1971:461). This is true of the mathematical form proposed in Eq. (1). Although other formulations of routine activity theory are possible, we cannot assume a priori that they will be linear with respect to their parameters. If the five points listed above are the hazards to avoid, what should criminologists interested in crime events do? First, more care must be given to the theory being tested and to what the theory implies about the variables to be measured, the level of aggregation, and the functional form of the estimators. Second, specific places should be a focus of research. Felson's text contains many interesting examples showing how routine activities in different settings influence the chances of crime. The research should examine specific and homogeneous sets of places. Thus, for example, apartment buildings should be distinguished from single-family detached dwellings, and gas stations without attached convenience stores should be distinguished from gas stations with convenience stores. Third, the routine activities and schedules of these places should be examined so that the presence of targets, guardians,

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managers, offenders, and handlers can be documented for small time increments. Moments when both offenders and targets are present at the place can be compared with moments when only one is present, and moments when one or more controllers are present can be compared with moments when no controllers are present. Fourth, specific offense types should be examined separately in these places. The mechanisms for controlling underage drinking in bars, for example, may be very different from those for controlling bar fights or thefts of purses in bars. Fifth, nonlinear estimation and testing procedures should be employed where required. To examine routine activity theory, simulations could be conducted to determine whether the crime patterns created match those observed in the real world. Finally, we need additional research into all six subtheories of routine activity theory. Though offenders have received much attention, more research is needed into handlers', managers', and guardians' behaviors, as well as into place accessibility and target availability.

REFERENCES Brandon, R. N. (1990) Adaptation and Environment. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Bursik, R. J., Jr. and H. G. Grasmick (1993) Neighborhoodsand Crime: The Dimensions ofEffective Community Control. New York:Lexington Books. Clark, R. V. and M. Felson, eds. (1994) Rational Choice and Routine Activity. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction. Cohen, L. E. and M. Felson (1979) "Social Change and Crime Rate Trends: A Routine Activity Approach." American SociologicalReview 44:588-605. Cornish, D. B. and R. V. Clarke, eds. (1986) The Reasoning Criminal: Rational Choice Perspectives on Offending. New York: Springer-Verlag. Eck, J. E. (1994) "Drug Markets and Drug Places: A Case-Control Study of the Spatial Structure of Illicit Drug Dealing." Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Maryland, College Park. (1995) "A General Theory of the Geography of Illicit Retail Markets." In J. Eck and D. Weisburd (eds.), Crime and Place. Mousey, NY: Criminal Justice Press. Eck, J. E. and D. Weisburd, eds. (1995) Crime and Place. Mousey, NY: Criminal Justice Press Felson, M. (1986) "Linking Criminal Choice, Routine Activities, Informal Control, and Criminal Outcomes." In D. Cornish and R. V. Clarke (eds.), The Reasoning Criminal: Rational Choice Perspectives on Offending, pp. 119-128 New York: Springer-Verlag. (1987) "Routine Activities and Crime Prevention in the Developing Metropolis." Criminology 25:911-32. (1995) "Those Who Discourage Crime." In J. E. Eck and D. Weisburd (eds.), Crime and Place. Mousey, NY: Criminal Justice Press. Gibbs, J. P. (1985) "The Methodology of Theory Construction in Criminology." In R. F. Meier (ed.), Theoretical Methods in Criminology, pp. 23-50, Beverly Hills: Sage. (1987) "The State of Criminological Theory." Criminology 25:821-40.

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