Book Review: Crime and Everyday Life (3rd ed.)

• Author: E. Frances Rees
• DOI: 10.1177/0734016806295595
• Published date: 01 December 2006
• Date: 01 December 2006
• Subject Matter: Articles

Book Reviews

Felson, M. (2002). Crime and Everyday Life (3rd ed.).

Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

DOI: 10.1177/0734016806295595

Well known for his writing and research on routine activities theory, Marcus Felson chal-

lenges criminologists and students of criminal justice in the third edition of his book, Crime

and Everyday Life, to streamline their thinking about criminal offending. Taking the focus

off the offender, Felson proposes examining the crime incident itself as part of an ecologi-

cal system of human activity for the purpose of making sense of different types of crime in

a variety of settings spanning many historical eras. This type of research, called crime sci-

ence, greatly expands the explanatory power of routine activities theory, subsuming many

other theories and explanations of crime into one general theory.

Felson credits a diversity of disciplines to the formation of this single and “tangible

theory of crime.” The work of urban planners, anthropologists, geographers, political scien-

tists, economists, psychologists, sociologists, and business specialists provides clues to the

fundamentals of crime science, or the three principles Felson believes identify criminal

offending as an ecological process of innovation and adaptation to either “seeking out or

removing crime opportunities.” These three principles equate to matter-of-fact observations

and the synthesis of macro and micro approaches to explanations of crime:

1. An offender seeks to gain quick pleasure and avoid imminent pain.

2. Routine activities of everyday life set the stage for the offender’s illegal choices.

3. Inventions, by altering daily routines, force crime to change.

Based on these principles, Felson characterizes crime by the fact that, like nature, change

happens often but moves at an incremental pace, stimulated by innovation and adaptation.

In terms of criminal offending, innovation and adaptation are key concepts.

Opportunity is the central factor in the hypothesis. As opportunities for criminal offend-

ing change, certain types of crimes increase or decrease. As crime prevention techniques

become more sophisticated, new ways of committing crime come into play and old ones

die out. As always, the criminal is a pleasure-seeking actor, but one who adapts his or her

offending to innovations in the pattern of opportunity. Situating criminal offending within

the classical school of thinking, Felson reiterates that the decision to criminally offend is a

more or less rational one, made when an opportunity presents itself and the gain outweighs

the pain.

To clarify and demystify theory making, Felson positions his methodology as crime sci-

ence, which he delineates with six rules. His approach is logical and practical, easily adapt-

able to crime prevention strategies, and it catapults theorizing out of the murky abyss of

determining the pathology of individuals, communities, and/or society. His assumption is

that the question to ask is not “Why do people commit crimes?” but “Why has this crime

been committed in this way at this time?” Revealed in the process are explicit, tangible pat-

terns of human activity that foster opportunities for a certain crime to be committed in a

particular way at that specific time.

369

Criminal Justice Review

Volume 31 Number 4

December 2006 369-405

© 2006 Georgia State University

Research Foundation, Inc.

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