After revealing inconsistent data support for the conventional wisdom relating crime rates to urbanization, population, age structure, and economic factors, a theoretical framework is provided whereby changing crime patterns are viewed as a normal response to changing routine activities of society that affect the motivation of potential offenders, target suitability, and effective guardianship of people and their property (formal and informal social controls). A discussion of the necessity of differentiating short-term fluctuations from long-range trends is followed by a forecast of various social trends expected to affect crime patterns to the year 2000. Highly probable changes include relative economic deterioration, centralization, public sector fiscal restraint, innovations in the computer and telecommunications industries, continuing increases in the private security industry, a continuing boom in economic crime, population redistribution away from central Canada, intensified metropolitanization, and a trend for more activities to take place outside the home. The effects of such social trends on target suitability, motivated offenders, and effective guardianship are outlined. Implications for various aspects of policing operations are drawn. A total of 134 references are provided. (Author summary modified)