NCJ Number
160010
Date Published
1993
Length
36 pages
Annotation
This chapter discusses a new approach to criminology which depicts crime as complex, but finds discernable patterns both for crimes and for criminals at both general and specific levels of analysis.
Abstract
This pattern theory of crime holds that crimes do not occur randomly or uniformly in time, space, or society, but rather that they result from interactions among a set of highly variable, ever- changing sociocultural, legal, economic, and physical variables. The pattern theory of crime is discussed here in terms of the actual process of committing a crime, general crime templates and activities of offenders at the actual time of crime commission, offenders' willingness to commit a crime, and the interaction of process, template, activity, and willingness. The functional relationships explained by pattern theory are applied to the examples of office supply theft, household burglary, and serial rape. 1 table, 6 figures, 27 notes, and 123 references