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ingham, 1998). Despite their differences, these approaches all share a common
concern for context. Felson and Clarke (1998) suggest that individual behav-
iour is a product of a person’s interaction with their physical setting, and that
setting provides varying levels of opportunity for crime. Routine activity,
rational choice, and pattern theories have different emphases — society, local
area, and the individual, respectively. But all three perspectives converge at
the nexus of setting and opportunity. Crime opportunities depend on every-
day movements and activities. Society and locality can change and structure
crime opportunity, but it is the individual who chooses to offend.

Geographic profiling is based on the ideas and theoretical principles of

environmental criminology. Pattern, routine activity, and rational choice
theories all provide relevant perspectives, as does the geography of crime
research within the event mobility model. 

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Any research into the target

patterns and hunting behaviour of criminal predators must be aware of the
microlevel dimensions of offender, victim, crime, and environment.

7.2.1 Routine Activity Theory

For a direct-contact predatory crime to occur, the paths of the offender and
victim must intersect in time and space, within an environment appropriate
for criminal activity. The routine activity perspective studies the processes
and patterns associated with these requirements by examining how illegal
acts depend upon regular legal activities. “Structural changes in routine activ-
ity patterns can influence crime rates by affecting the convergence in space
and time of the three minimal elements of direct-contact predatory violation:
1) motivated offenders, 2) suitable targets, and 3) the absence of capable
guardians against a violation” (Cohen & Felson, 1979, p. 589). The oppor-
tunity structure for crime can therefore be summarized as follows:

crime = (offender + target - guardian)(place + time).

The potential criminal must be motivated at the time of the encounter.

The target needs to be seen as suitable or desirable from the perspective of
the offender. Capable guardians include police, security, place managers, and
ordinary citizens going about their daily activities. John Eck expanded routine
activity theory by also considering the role of offender handlers (e.g., parents,
work colleagues, etc.) who control the criminal, and place managers (e.g.,
shopkeepers, building superintendents, etc.) who supervise the environment,
in addition to victim/target guardians.

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The event mobility model, pioneered by James LeBeau and George Rengert, sees crime

as a dynamic byproduct of spatial mobility influenced by nodes, paths, and movement.

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Felson (1998) suggests that to learn about a crime’s “chemistry,” one

must first find who and what must be present, and who or what must be
absent, for the crime to occur. Determine the setting (time and place) where
these conditions are likely to happen, and then establish the access to and
escape from this location. The acronym VIVA — the value or desirability
of the target, the inertia of the target, the visibility of the target, and the
access to and escape from the target — describes the salient risk factors
associated with crime.

Rhythms are important for understanding the ebb and flow of people

through an environment (Felson, 1998). A given location may range from
crowded to deserted, depending upon the time, day of week, or month. There
are rhythms associated with work, entertainment, shopping, bars, transit,
traffic, parking, temperature, weather, lighting, police, victims, guardianship,
and sleep. Rhythms make it difficult to think about geography independently
of time. In order to understand the rational order of crime we need to
consider, in Marcus Felson’s words, “map, clock, and calendar” (1986, p. 128).

Serial rape patterns are shaped by both offender activity space and victim

routine activities and a useful investigative perspective may be gained by
considering how the spatial and temporal patterns (time, weekday, season,
weather, date, place) of each bring them into contact. Current and past
routine daily activities of the rapist are important, as is the influence of prior
crime “successes.” A sexual predator will “pass by the same bus stop every
morning of his way to work for a month, seeing the same person or same
type of person, nursing his fantasy, building up his confidence, until finally
he assaults him or her” (Pearson, 1997, p. 160). Ouimet and Proulx (1994)
found pedophiles had a higher chance of recidivism if their routine activities
put them in contact with places frequented by children (e.g., schools, play-
grounds, parks, daycare centres, etc.).

A framework for analyzing factors of importance in geographic profiling

may be built from routine activity theory. A given crime can be dissected
into components of offender, target, and environment. Productive lines of
inquiry are then developed by considering the individual components and
their respective overlaps. The Venn diagram in 

Figure 7.1

 shows the interre-

lationship between different crime components.

This breakdown results in seven different areas for consideration. These

areas, along with associated issues, are outlined as follows:

1. Offender — typology;
2. Victim — victimology;
3. Environment — neighbourhood, landscape, situation;
4. Offender/target — victim preference and specificity, hunting style;

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5. Offender/environment — transportation, offender’s mental map and

activity space, hunting ground;

6. Target/environment — target backcloth, neighbourhood rhythms,

encounter site; and

7. Offender/victim/environment — crime and crime scene.

This framework suggests other questions of interest to a geographic

profile, some of which are presented in Chapter 10.

7.2.2 Rational Choice Theory

The rational choice perspective takes a decision-making approach to explain-
ing crime (Clarke & Felson, 1993b; Cornish & Clarke, 1986b). It is a “vol-
untaristic, utilitarian action theory in which crime and criminal behavior are
viewed as the outcomes of choices. These, in turn, are influenced by a rational
consideration of the efforts, rewards, and costs involved in alternative courses
of action” (Cornish, 1993, p. 362).

[Rational choice theory assumes] that offenders seek to benefit themselves
by their criminal behavior; that this involves the making of decisions and
of choices, however rudimentary on occasion these processes might be; and
that these processes exhibit a measure of rationality, albeit constrained by
limits of time and ability and the availability of relevant information. (Cor-
nish & Clarke, 1986a, p. 1)

Figure 7.1

Offender/target/environment Venn diagram.

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This theoretical perspective can trace its roots to the economic model of

“rational man” and the classical school of Cesare Beccaria and Jeremy
Bentham (Jeffery & Zahm, 1993; see also Jacoby, 1979). The original psycho-
logical and economic models had a utilitarian philosophy that analyzed cost
vs. expected utility, but their lack of concern with motive and preference
limited their application to an understanding of criminal behaviour.

The rational choice perspective as presented by Cornish and Clarke

(1986a) is based on three concepts: (1) criminal offenders are rational and
make choices and decisions that benefit themselves; (2) a crime-specific focus
is required; and (3) there is a distinction between choices related to criminal
involvement and decisions related to criminal events. This framework results
in a significant degree of importance being laid on situational variables such
as scene and victim characteristics, and their choice-structuring properties.
Offender perceptions are also meaningful for an understanding of the crime-
related calculus.

Experience changes an individual’s information processing, and a crim-

inal may improve his or her decision making over time. Learning is an integral
part of rational choice theory which sees behaviour as interactional and
adaptive (Cornish, 1993), but rational does not equal intelligent or sophis-
ticated. The cleverness of the average offenders is exaggerated in what Felson
calls the “ingenuity fallacy.” Most crime is quick, easy, and unskilled. It is
typically spontaneous or, at best, only casually planned; it is rarely well
thought out. Many rapes, for example, occur by accident, the result of a
burglar encountering a woman during a break in. The choices of offenders
are often based on standing decisions that exhibit bounded rationality, lim-
ited by constraints of time, effort, and information. This is best understood
through the concept of akratic behaviour, or temporal rationality, in which
temptations override long-term decisions, especially if the former are visceral
or emotional and the latter are rational (Trasler, 1993).

Pathological crimes involve non-pathological behaviour, and contrary to

some beliefs, violent criminals including sex offenders exhibit a substantial
degree of rationality (Miethe & McCorkle, 1998). Even psychotic individuals
with unfathomable motives commit their crimes in manners that contain
rational elements (Homant, forthcoming). “It may be that our reluctance to
construe aggressive or violent behaviour as instrumental rather than expres-
sive (or normal rather than pathological) sometimes has more to do with
our own fears than with the facts of the matter” (Cornish & Clarke, 1986a,
p. 14).

Former Florida deputy sheriff Gerard Schaefer, Jr., convicted in 1973 of

two homicides and suspected of 11 others, wrote out the following murder
plan, showing rationality in choice of crime location: 

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In order to remain unapprehended, the perpetrator of an execution-style
murder such as I have planned must take precautions.  One must think out
well in advance a crime of this nature, in order for it to work.

We will need an isolated area, accessible by a short hike, away from any
police patrols or parking lovers.  The execution site must be carefully
arranged for a speedy execution, once the victim has arrived... A grave must
be prepared in advance away from the place of execution.  (King, 1996, p.
219)

Rational choice and routine activity theory together provide powerful

tools for understanding predatory criminal behaviour. In Felson’s view,
“rational choice theory deals mainly with the content of decisions; routine
activity approaches, in contrast, are seen to deal with the ecological contexts
that supply the range of options from which choices are made” (Cornish &
Clarke, 1986a, p. 10; see also Clarke & Felson, 1993a, 1993b; Felson, 1986).
This is a useful convergence, and pattern theory, situational crime prevention,
and problem-oriented policing (POP) all draw from their juxtaposition.
Offender foraging space is determined by routine activities and rational
choice (Canter & Hodge, 1997), and the perspectives have much to offer for
both the theoretical and practical components of geographic profiling.

7.2.3 Crime Pattern Theory

As chaotic as crime appears to be, there is often a rationality influencing the
geography of its occurrence and some semblance of structure underlying its
spatial distribution. Using an environmental criminology perspective, Brant-
ingham and Brantingham (1981, 1984) present a series of propositions that
provide insight to the processes underlying the geometry of crime. Their
model of offence site selection, called crime pattern theory, suggests that
criminal acts are most likely to occur in areas where the awareness space of
the offender intersects with perceived suitable targets (i.e., desirable targets
with an acceptable risk level attached to them).

These ideas suggest that most offenders do not choose their crime sites

randomly. While any given victim may be selected by chance, the process of
such random selection is spatially structured whether the offender realizes it
or not. The psychological profile prepared by the FBI in the case of the Atlanta
Child Murders proposed the following:

Your offender is familiar with the crime-scene areas he is in, or has resided
in this area. In addition, his past or present occupation caused him to drive
through these areas on different occasions ... the sites of the deceased are
not random or “chance” disposal areas. He realizes these areas are remote
and not frequently traveled by others. (Linedecker, 1991, p. 70)