---
title: "Criminology"
chunk: 5/8
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criminology"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T03:57:42.603938+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

Rational choice theory is based on the utilitarian, classical school philosophies of Cesare Beccaria, which were popularized by Jeremy Bentham. They argued that punishment, if certain, swift, and proportionate to the crime, was a crime deterrent, with the risks outweighing any possible benefits to the offender. In Dei delitti e delle pene (On Crimes and Punishments, 1763–1764), Beccaria advocated a rational penology. Beccaria conceived of punishment as the necessary application of the law for a crime; thus, the judge was to confirm their sentence to the law. Beccaria also distinguished between crime and sin, and advocated against the death penalty, as well as torture and inhumane treatments, as he did not consider them as rational deterrents.
This philosophy was replaced by the positivist and Chicago schools and was not revived until the 1970s with the writings of James Q. Wilson, Gary Becker's 1965 article Crime and Punishment and George Stigler's 1970 article The Optimum Enforcement of Laws. Rational choice theory argues that criminals, like other people, weigh costs or risks and benefits when deciding whether to commit crime and think in economic terms. They will also try to minimize risks of crime by considering the time, place, and other situational factors.
Becker, for example, acknowledged that many people operate under high moral and ethical constraints but argued that criminals rationally see that the benefits of their crime outweigh the costs, such as the probability of apprehension and conviction, the severity of punishment, and their current set of opportunities. From the public policy perspective, since the cost of increasing the fine is marginal to that of increasing surveillance, one can conclude that the best policy is to maximize the fine and minimize surveillance.
With this perspective, crime prevention or reduction measures can be devised to increase the effort required to commit the crime, such as target hardening. Rational choice theories also suggest that increasing risk and likelihood of being caught, through added surveillance, law enforcement presence, added street lighting, and other measures, are effective in reducing crime.
One of the main differences between this theory and Bentham's rational choice theory, which had been abandoned in criminology, is that if Bentham considered it possible to annihilate crime (through the panopticon), Becker's theory acknowledged that a society could not eradicate crime beneath a certain level. For example, if 25% of a supermarket's products were stolen, it would be very easy to reduce this rate to 15%, quite easy to reduce it until 5%, difficult to reduce it under 3% and nearly impossible to reduce it to zero (a feat which the measures required would cost the supermarket so much that it would outweigh the benefits). This reveals that the goals of utilitarianism and classical liberalism have to be tempered and reduced to more modest proposals to be practically applicable.
Such rational choice theories, linked to neoliberalism, have been at the basics of crime prevention through environmental design and underpin the Market Reduction Approach to theft  by Mike Sutton, which is a systematic toolkit for those seeking to focus attention on "crime facilitators" by tackling the markets for stolen goods that motivate for thieves to supply them by theft.

=== Routine activity theory ===

Routine activity theory, developed by Marcus Felson and Lawrence Cohen, draws on control theories and explains crime in terms of opportunities for crime that arise in everyday life. A crime opportunity requires that elements converge in time and place, including a motivated offender, a suitable target or victim, and a lack of a capable guardian. A guardian at a place, such as a street, could include security guards or even ordinary pedestrians who would witness the criminal act and possibly intervene or report it to law enforcement. Routine activity theory was expanded by John Eck, who added a fourth element of "place manager", such as rental property managers who can take nuisance abatement measures.

=== Biosocial theory ===
Biosocial criminology is an interdisciplinary field that seeks to explain crime and antisocial behavior by examining biological and environmental factors. While sociological theories have dominated contemporary criminology, biosocial criminology also recognizes the potential contributions of fields such as behavioral genetics, personality psychology, and evolutionary psychology. Various theoretical frameworks such as evolutionary neuroandrogenic theory have sought to explain trends in criminality through the lens of evolutionary biology. Specifically, they seek to explain why criminality is so much higher in men than in women and why young men are most likely to exhibit criminal behavior.
Aggressive behavior has been associated with abnormalities in three principal regulatory systems in the body: serotonin systems, catecholamine systems, and the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical axis. Abnormalities in these systems are also known to be induced by stress, either severe, acute stress or chronic low-grade stress.
Biosocial approaches remain very controversial within the scientific field.

=== Marxist ===