Cognition and Crime: Offender Decision Making and Script Analyses

288 Pages·2013·3.641 MB·English

by  Benoit Leclerc, Richard Wortley

Cognition and Crime
The rational choice perspective developed by Cornish and Clarke in 1986 provides
criminologists with a valuable and practical framework for the purposes of crime
control and prevention. More than 25 years later, Cognition and Crime pushes the
boundaries of this field of research by bringing together international leading (or
emerging) researchers in this area of script analysis into a single volume for the first
time. It also presents a series of original contributions on offender decision making
during the crime commission process as well as offering a critical perspective of
what could be achieved in the future to further help develop this field of research
for prevention purposes. In addition, each empirical chapter treats a specific and
important form of crime such as stalking violence, drug dealing, human trafficking
for sexual exploitation, child sexual abuse, and the transnational illegal market of
endangered species.
Academics and students from various backgrounds, and interested in investigat-
ing and preventing crime, will benefit from this book. It discusses new and future
developments in crime script analysis and the rational choice perspective.
Benoit Leclerc is a criminologist and a Senior Lecturer in the School of Criminology
and Criminal Justice at Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia. He has been
involved in research and clinical work with adolescent and adult sex offenders at
the Philippe-Pinel Institute of Montréal from 1999 to 2006 and received his PhD
from the Université of Montréal, Canada. His research interests include crime script
analysis, situational crime prevention, and sexual offending. A recently funded pro-
ject involves the study of the effectiveness of situational crime prevention to prevent
sexual offences.
Richard Wortley is Director of the Jill Dando Institute of Security and Crime
Science at University College London. He has published widely in the areas of
situational crime prevention, corrections, and sexual offending. He has recent
books entitled Situational Prison Control: Crime prevention in correctional institu-
tions (Cambridge University Press), Situational Prevention of Child Sexual Abuse
(co-edited with Stephen Smallbone—Criminal Justice Press), Environmental
Criminology and Crime Analysis (co-edited with Lorraine Mazerolle—Willan
Publishing), and Preventing Child Sexual Abuse (co-written with Stephen Smallbone
and William Marshall—Willan Publishing).
Crime Science Series
Edited by Richard Wortley, UCL
Crime science is a new way of thinking about and responding to the problem of
crime in society. The distinctive nature of crime science is captured in the name.
First, crime science is about crime. Instead of the usual focus in criminology on
the characteristics of the criminal offender, crime science is concerned with the
characteristics of the criminal event. The analysis shifts from the distant causes of
criminality—biological makeup, upbringing, social disadvantage and the like—to
the near causes of crime. Crime scientists are interested in why, where, when and
how particular crimes occur. They examine trends and patterns in crime in order
to devise immediate and practical strategies to disrupt these patterns.
Second, crime science is about science. Many traditional responses to crime
control are unsystematic, reactive and populist, too often based on untested
assumptions about what works. In contrast, crime science advocates an evidence-
based, problem-solving approach to crime control. Adopting the scientific method,
crime scientists collect data on crime, generate hypotheses about observed crime
trends, devise interventions to respond to crime problems, and test the adequacy
of those interventions.
Crime science is utilitarian in its orientation and multidisciplinary in its
foundations. Crime scientists actively engage with front-line criminal justice prac-
titioners to reduce crime by making it more difficult for individuals to offend, and
making it more likely that they will be detected if they do offend. To achieve these
objectives, crime science draws on disciplines from both the social and physical
sciences, including criminology, sociology, psychology, geography, economics,
architecture, industrial design, epidemiology, computer science, mathematics,
engineering, and biology.
1 Superhighway Robbery
Graeme R. Newman and Ronald V. Clarke
2 Crime Reduction and Problem-oriented Policing
Edited by Karen Bullock and Nick Tilley
3 Crime Science
New approaches to preventing and detecting crime
Edited by Melissa J. Smith and Nick Tilley
4 Problem-oriented Policing and Partnerships
Implementing an evidence-based approach to crime reduction
Karen Bullock, Rosie Erol and Nick Tilley
5 Preventing Child Sexual Abuse
Stephen Smallbone, William L. Marshall and Richard Wortley
6 Environmental Criminology and Crime Analysis
Edited by Richard Wortley and Lorraine Mazerolle
7 Raising the Bar
Preventing aggression in and around bars, pubs and clubs
Kathryn Graham and Ross Homel
8 Situational Prevention of Organised Crimes
Edited by Karen Bullock, Ronald V. Clarke and Nick Tilley
9 Psychological Criminology
An integrative approach
Richard Wortley
10 The Reasoning Criminologist
Essays in honour of Ronald V. Clarke
Edited by Nick Tilley and Graham Farrell
11 Patterns, Prevention and Geometry of Crime
Edited by Martin A. Andresen and J. Bryan Kinney
12 Evolution and Crime
Jason Roach and Ken Pease
13 Cognition and Crime
Offender decision making and script analyses
Edited by Benoit Leclerc and Richard Wortley
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Cognition and Crime
Offender decision making and
script analyses
Edited by Benoit Leclerc and
Richard Wortley
First published 2014
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2014 Benoit Leclerc and Richard Wortley, selection and editorial material,
individual chapters, the contributors.
The right of Benoit Leclerc and Richard Wortley to be identified as author of
this work has been asserted by them in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any
information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the
publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record has been requested for this book
ISBN: 978-0-415-68860-4 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-203-08348-2 (ebk)
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Contents
List of figures ix
List of tables x
Notes on contributors xii
Foreword by Derek B. Cornish xvii
Acknowledgments xxii
List of abbreviations xxiii
1 The Reasoning Criminal: twenty-five years on 1

BENOIT LECLERC AND RICHARD WORTLEY
2 What are violent offenders thinking? 12

RICHARD B. FELSON
3 How house burglars decide on targets: a computer-based
scenario approach 26

ROSS HOMEL, STUART MACINTYRE AND RICHARD WORTLEY
4 The risks and rewards of motor vehicle theft: implications
for criminal persistence 48

HEITH COPES AND MICHAEL CHERBONNEAU
5 The rational choice perspective and the phenomenon
of stalking: an examination of sex differences in behaviours,
rationales, situational precipitators and feelings 70

CARLEEN M. THOMPSON AND BENOIT LECLERC
6 Interpersonal scripts and victim reaction in child sexual abuse:
a quantitative analysis of the offender–victim interchange 101

BENOIT LECLERC, STEPHEN SMALLBONE AND RICHARD WORTLEY
viii Contents
7 Drug dealing: Amsterdam’s Red Light District 120

SCOTT JACQUES AND WIM BERNASCO
8 Human trafficking for sexual exploitation in Italy 140

ERNESTO U. SAVONA, LUCA GIOMMONI AND MARINA MANCUSO
9 Script analysis of corruption in public procurement 164

MARCO ZANELLA
10 Cigarette smuggling and terrorism financing: a script approach 186

ALEXANDRA HIROPOULOS, JOSHUA D. FREILICH, STEVEN CHERMAK AND
GRAEME R. NEWMAN
11 Script analysis of the transnational illegal market in
endangered species: dream and reality 209

WILLIAM D. MORETO AND RONALD V. CLARKE
12 New developments in script analysis for situational crime
prevention: moving beyond offender scripts 221

BENOIT LECLERC
13 Rational choice and offender decision making: lessons from
the cognitive sciences 237

RICHARD WORTLEY
Index 253
Figures
3.1 Age by estimated number of B&Es for the 96 subjects 35
3.2 Total number of cues selected for each scenario 36
3.3 Total number of cues selected over the 20 scenarios by the total
estimated number of burglaries for each participant 38
3.4 Decision tree when cue 6 (inside information) is selected first
and reveals valuable goods in the house 42
6.1 Approaches employed to investigate crime-commission processes
in adult–child sexual abuse 104
7.1 General drug dealing script and track level script for street dealing
in Amsterdam’s Red Light District 125
8.1 Crime script case study 1: from Eastern Europe to Italy 149
8.2 Crime script case study 2: from Nigeria to Italy 151
9.1 (KS1 ) moves in KS1 170
m
9.2 (KS2 ) moves in KS2 173
m
9.3 (KS3 ) moves in KS3 174
m
9.4 The script of CPP in works contracts 177