Encyclopedia

University of Cincinnati

Routine activity theory also sometimes referred to as lifestyle theory has proven to be one of the more useful theories for understanding criminal victimization and offending patterns in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. This theoretical explanation, which has primarily focused on providing information regarding who is more or less likely to be a crime victim, was originally formulated by Lawrence E. Cohen and Marcus K. Felson with the 1979 publication of their seminal article “Social Change and Crime Rate Trends: A Routine Activity Approach.” In this research, Cohen and Felson examined temporal changes in U.S. crime rates from 1947 to 1974. They highlighted the dramatic increase in predatory crime over thatime period, especially that during the decade of the 1960s. At the time, most scholars attributed the rise in crime to an increase in the number of those willing to break the law a group that Cohen and Felson called “motivated offenders.” Taking an alternative approach, they suggested...