Explaining Crime and Criminal Careers: the DEA Model of Situational Action Theory
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Explaining Crime and Criminal Careers: the DEA Model of Situational Action Theory Per-Olof H. Wikström 1 Received: 18 February 2019 / Accepted: 29 April 2019/ # The Author(s) 2019
Abstract Purpose The purpose of this paper is to outline Situational Action Theory (SAT) and its Developmental Ecological Action Model (DEA model) as applied to the explanation of criminal careers. The DEA model of SAT was first presented by Wikström in 2005, [34]), and subsequently refined in Wikström and Treiber in 2018, [43]), and is further elaborated in this paper. Methods This paper provides a theoretical analysis of the role of crime causation in the explanation of criminal careers and pathways in crime. The central argument is that if we want to explain stability and change in people’s crime involvement we first have to understand what factors and processes move people to commit acts of crime. Only then can we adequately assess what factors and processes are involved in the explanation of criminal careers and people’s differential pathways (trajectories) in crime. Results The DEA model of SAT address some of the main limitations of current dominant explanatory approaches in Developmental and Life-Course (DLC) Criminology [39], and champions a general, dynamic and mechanism-based account of the causes of crime [38], and the drivers of criminal careers [47]. It integrates and extends key insights from two great but poorly amalgamated traditions in the study of crime and its causes: the individual/developmental and ecological/environmental traditions. It provides a new approach to the study and explanation of crime and criminal careers with implications for how we approach the problem of crime prevention policy and practise. Keywords Crime . Criminal careers . Causes . Causal mechanisms . Situational action
theory . The developmental ecological action model
* Per-Olof H. Wikström [email protected]
1
Institute of Criminology, University of Cambridge, Sidgwick Avenue, Cambridge CB3 9DA, UK
P. H. Wikström
A criminal career is made up of a series of crime events occurring over some period of time at some (typically) unequal interval. How do we explain people’s criminal careers and their different pathways in crime involvement? I submit that without first understanding the causes of crime events it is not possible to adequately explain people’s criminal careers. If we do not know why people commit acts of crime how would we know why they embark on a criminal career (repeated offending over some time period)? And how would we know why people’s crime involvement change over the life course? Effectively addressing questions of onset, duration and desistance in crime involvement requires knowledge about what moves people to engage in acts of crime. Without such knowledge, it is difficult to identify with any certainty what changes in what personal and environmental factors are causally relevant and what processes may be the drivers of stability and change in these personal and environmental factors.
Developmental and Life-
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