INCORPORATING ROUTINE ACTIVITIES, ACTIVITY SPACES, AND SITUATIONAL DEFINITIONS INTO THE SOCIAL SCHEMATIC THEORY OF CRIME

• Author: RONALD L. SIMONS,MAN‐KIT LEI,ERIC STEWART,CALLIE H. BURT,ASHLEY B. BARR
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9125.12053
• Date: 01 November 2014
• Published date: 01 November 2014

INCORPORATING ROUTINE ACTIVITIES, ACTIVITY

SPACES, AND SITUATIONAL DEFINITIONS INTO THE

SOCIAL SCHEMATIC THEORY OF CRIME∗

RONALD L. SIMONS,1CALLIE H. BURT,2ASHLEY B. BARR,3

MAN-KIT LEI,1and ERIC STEWART4

1Department of Sociology, University of Georgia

2School of Criminology and Criminal Justice, Arizona State University

3Department of Sociology, University at Buffalo, SUNY

4School of Criminology, Florida State University

KEYWORDS: criminal propensity, neighborhood, action contexts, routine activities

Simons and Burt’s (2011) social schematic theory (SST) of crime posits that ad-

verse social factors are associated with offending because they promote a set of social

schemas (i.e., a criminogenic knowledge structure) that elevates the probability of sit-

uational definitions favorable to crime. This study extends the SST model by incorpo-

rating the role of contexts for action. Furthermore, the study advances tests of the SST

by incorporating a measure of criminogenic situational definitions to assess whether

such definitions mediate the effects of schemas and contexts on crime. Structural equa-

tion models using 10 years of panel data from 582 African American youth provided

strong support for the expanded theory. The results suggest that childhood and adoles-

cent social adversity fosters a criminogenic knowledge structure as well as selection into

criminogenic activity spaces and risky activities, all of which increase the likelihood of

offending largely through situational definitions. Additionally, evidence shows that the

criminogenic knowledge structure interacts with settings to amplify the likelihood of

situational definitions favorable to crime.

How do past experiences influence an individual’s propensity to offend? This key the-

oretical question drives criminological theorizing. Most theories of individual offending

attempt to identify the elements of criminal propensity and the mechanisms and processes

whereby past experiences give rise to these characteristics. In their recently developed so-

cial schematic theory (SST), Simons and Burt (2011) proposed social schemas to be the

∗Additional supporting information can be found in the listing for this article in the Wiley Online

Library at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/crim.2014.52.issue-4/issuetoc.

Ronald L. Simons and Callie H. Burt contributed equally to this article. This research was sup-

ported by the National Institute of Mental Health (MH48165 and MH62669) and the Center for

Disease Control (029136–02). Additional funding for this project was provided by the National

Institute on Drug Abuse (DA021898 and 1P30DA027827) and the National Institute on Alco-

hol Abuse and Alcoholism (2R01AA012768 and 3R01AA012768–09S1). Direct correspondence

to Ronald L. Simons, Department of Sociology, University of Georgia, 324 Baldwin Hall, Athens,

GA 30602 (e-mail: rsimons@uga.edu).

C2014 American Society of Criminology doi: 10.1111/1745-9125.12053

CRIMINOLOGY Volume 52 Number 4 655–687 2014 655

656 SIMONS ET AL.

key theoretical mechanisms that account for the effect of past experiences on criminal

behavior.

SST emphasizes the role of several criminogenic social environments in shaping so-

cial schemas. In doing so, it integrates findings from a variety of traditions in criminol-

ogy that evince the importance of social adversity in shaping criminality, including those

related to neighborhood conditions, parenting, and racial discrimination (e.g., Agnew,

2006; Loeber and Farrington, 2000; Sampson and Laub, 1993; Tittle, 1995; Unnever and

Gabbidon, 2011). What unites these seemingly disparate social influences, according to

SST, is that all teach similar lessons about the future, social norms, and the nature of

people and relationships. As such, learning is central, and SST can be thought of as a

life-course learning theory. However, SST departs from the dominant learning theory in

criminology in several ways. Primary among these is its focus on the content of learn-

ing rather than on its form. Whereas Akers’s (1985) social learning theory emphasizes

operant learning principles, SST shifts the focus to the messages or tenets implicit in

the repeated patterns of interaction that occur in an individual’s social environment. Si-

mons and Burt (2011) argued that criminogenic conditions such as harsh parenting, racial

discrimination, and community disadvantage promote social schemas involving a hostile

view of people and relationships, a preference for immediate rewards, and a cynical view

of conventional norms. Furthermore, they posited that these three schemas are intercon-

nected and combine to form a criminogenic knowledge structure (CKS) that gives rise to

situational interpretations legitimating or compelling criminal and antisocial behavior.

In their initial test of the theory, Simons and Burt (2011) found strong support for the

SST model, as the identified social factors strongly influenced individuals’ social schemas,

which in turn increased the likelihood of offending. Indeed, with one exception, the effects

of all of the social factors they examined as well as of sex/gender and prior offending were

fully mediated by the CKS. Additional support for the theory was provided by Simons and

Barr (2012), who reported that much of the effect of romantic relationships on desistance

is explained by a reduction in the CKS. In addition, Burt and Simons (2013) showed that

racial discrimination increased the likelihood of offending through the CKS and that a

resilience factor, racial socialization, reduced offending through its effect on the CKS.

Thus, the initial support for SST is strong and promising. This work can be extended in

two clear ways. First, SST proposes that the CKS increases an individual’s probability of

engaging in crime by making it more likely that situations will be perceived as justifying

or requiring acts of law violation. As a result of data limitations, prior tests of SST were

unable to test the idea that the CKS influenced offending through definitions of the situ-

ation. With the addition of a measure of criminogenic situational definitions in the most

recent wave of the Family and Community Health Study (FACHS), we can test the idea

that criminogenic situational definitions are the mechanism through which CKS increases

the likelihood of offending. This is the first aim of the current study.

In addition, in their initial presentation of the theory, Simons and Burt (2011) focused

on the role of social environments as contexts for learning and development. As Wik-

str ¨

om et al. (2012; Wikstr ¨

om and Sampson, 2003) have noted, however, contexts are not

only sites for development but also sites for action. Individuals bring their social schemas

into various contexts, but schemas alone are not sufficient to motivate action. Actions,

including crime, result from the combination of individual characteristics and situational

cues. Moreover, individuals are not randomly placed in various contexts, but they ac-

tively seek out certain contexts consistent with their aims and preferences. Consistent with

CONTEXTS AND KNOWLEDGE STRUCTURES 657

recent work, rather than viewing selection as a nuisance in modeling, we view it as an im-

portant mechanism and causal force (e.g., Wikstr ¨

om et al., 2012; Sampson, 2012). Thus,

we examine whether individuals’ CKSs influence their likelihood of offending in part by

influencing the contexts in which they choose to spend their leisure time (selection). In

addition, we explore the idea that an individual’s CKS interacts with criminogenic con-

texts to amplify the likelihood of criminogenic situational definitions and, in turn, criminal

behavior. This idea, as will be elaborated on in the following section, is that individuals

with high CKSs are more likely to respond to situational inducements with crime than

those with lower criminal propensity.

In sum, the purpose of this article is both to elaborate SST and to test this elaboration in

a theory-sensitive research design. In doing so, we incorporate the role of social contexts

as sites both for development and for action into the theoretical model. In addition, we

test whether situational definitions serve as the mechanisms through which social schemas

and contexts influence criminal behavior. In the following pages, we discuss SST, focusing

extra attention on the elaborated role of context as a site for action, drawing especially on

insights and findings from situational action theory (Wikstr ¨

om et al., 2012), crime pattern

theory (Brantingham and Brantingham, 1984), and routine activities theory (Cohen and

Felson, 1979). We then test this model using several waves of panel data from a sample

of several hundred African American young adults from the FACHS. Given its inclusion

of measures of both developmental and interactional contexts, as well as a host of other

strengths including its longitudinal design and measures designed to test SST, the FACHS

is particularly well suited for evaluating the elaborated SST model under consideration.

SOCIAL SCHEMAS AND SITUATIONAL DEFINITIONS

SST starts with the assumption that humans adapt to survive in their environments,

and a significant part of this adaptation is cognitive. The theory assumes, consistent with a

burgeoning body of work on human morality, that humans are born with innate capacities

to be fair, cooperative, and sympathetic (e.g., Alexander, 1987; De Waal, 2006; Hauser,

2006) as well as to be selfish, egoistic, and sometimes aggressive (Shermer, 2004; Smith,

2007). Rather than being born good, bad, or as empty vessels into which society pours

its views of morality, SST assumes that we are born with the capacity (i.e., the wiring) to

adapt our orientation to fit our environment. Humans have evolved to survive in a variety

of contexts, which vary in the degree to which they are supportive and predictable versus

hostile and dangerous and, thus, require different orientations and competencies (Belsky,

Scholomer, and Ellis, 2012; Ellis et al., 2012). The emphasis is on the fact that individuals

adapt to survive, not necessarily to thrive, in the contexts in which they find themselves

and that egoistic, unkind, and criminal behavior can be incited by such adaptations. Given

these assumptions, the theory’s focus is on the role of social environments—especially

persistent and memorable ones—in blunting humans’ innate capacity to be sympathetic,

fair, and cooperative into an orientation that is cautious, self-defensive, selfish, and even

hostile.

From this perspective, offenders do not engage in criminal behavior despite their

“morality” or commitment to conventional norms. Rather, individuals offend because

their interpretations of situations shaped by past experiences lead them to believe that

criminal acts are required or justified by the exigencies of the situation. This perspective

is supported by evidence that most individuals do not believe that their illegal actions