Victimization and Routine Activities Theory

Michael C

Pro. Rodrigues

September 26, 2015

“Crime in the News” Project #1

                        Victimization and Routine Activities Theory

Crime. Crime is something the world can’t really escape. No matter how many laws there are, no matter how many police there are in the world, crime is going to happen. One theory that is used to explain how crime can happen is called the Routine Activities Theory.

        Routine Activities Theory is a theory that was introduced by Lawrence Cohen and Marcus Felson and is used in criminology to explain and predict crime rates in certain situations.  Routine Activities Theory suggests that crime results from the interaction of three everyday factors, which are the availability of suitable targets, the absence of capable a guardian and finally, the presence of motivated offenders. The availability of suitable targets can involve objects of interest, such as expensive jewelry, expensive cars, and easily transportable goods that are “present” or “available in a situation. Examples of this would be if a woman had a loose pocket book that can easily be grabbed by a robber or if someone leaves a nice car with the key in it.. Suitable targets can also be people who are perceived vulnerable such as children to a pedafile or women to a rapist or people who are targets of predjudice. . The second factor is the absence of capable guardians; they are the effective deterrents to crime such as police or security cameras . The third and final factor is the motivated offenders. These are the people willing and able to commit crimes. People such as teenage boys, unemployed people who are craving money to help benefit themselves or their family , the addict population who need their drugs or finally, people who are just hateful and want to harm others.

        The crime that I am going to be covering for this paper happened on May 27th 2014. It was the day six students at UC Santa Barbra were murdered in a violent rampage. Elliot Rodger caused this rampage. Rodger, who was 22, had been a student at Santa Barbara City College, on again and off again, for a little over two half years. On the day of the attack he had posted a video on YouTube about how for eight years of his life girls have rejected him and how he craved to be loved by someone. He also states how he now hates these girls and the popular boys who get attention from these girls. He calls himself the Alpha male. His resolution is to go to the most attractive sorority house and slaughter everyone he sees. He ends up killing his 3 roommates by stabbing them a total of 134 times, proceeds to go to a deli and kill a random man,  and then finally shoots 3 people at the sorority house in which he intended to attack. He then killed himself. In his video he spoke so evil, and so cruel like he was possessed. He spoke about being the perfect gentleman, and then, literally said how he was going to slaughter people. Really scary stuff!

        This crime fits perfectly with the Routine Activities Theory. What police have discovered is that this whole rampage by Rodger was not a “wake up one morning a plan to kill people” situation. This was a motivated plan. Police have records of Rodger buying a gun, two months earlier and attending different gun ranges to practice shooting. Police also have notifications from Rodger’s mother about these weird sketchy videos that her son was posting to YouTube. Unfortunately, the police never opened them. Finally police found in Rodger’s apartment that he was studying Hitler and Nazi ways. Rodger was a motivated offender, he wanted to kill people. Rodger had availability of suitable targets. He happened to be attending a college. So, there are plenty of people available. As a college student, you are surrounded by people. It is easy to find people to hate, such as roomates or sorority girls. Finally, there was the absence of capable guardians. Schools and dorms and sorority houses do not have police or metal detectors or any type of strong security that would have scared Rogers away.