Science and technology as social institutions, belief-systems, and practices are examined in this course, with a focus on how cultural, political, and socio-economic dynamics influence scientific thought and technical applications. Using sociological and other social scientific frameworks, the firs...
and is not prevented as a result of these crime prevention measures, but it's simply displaced as
displacement displaced from one area or neighborhood to another. So if you focus on a specific
hotspot, downtown Toronto, a right outside the center hypothetically they are higher high rates of safe
that around the center and so there was an effort to introduce the Sunday situational crime effective
strategies. The rate of fat decreased in all likelihood from what had been transferred into the displaced
to some other parts of the city, some other neighboring neighboring areas. neighboring community
around Eaton center rather than resulting in an overall reduction in crime in the city. So this is similar to
if you have a balloon with a long head of balloons, you press down on one end, what happens the other
end expands so the volume of air remains exactly the same. You're just moving it from one part of it to
the same kind of thing here and there's been research to support this documented decreases in
specific areas, but increases in surrounding areas surrounding neighborhoods, the emergence of new
hotspots. So crime, the displacement, misplacement and displacement very significant and finally are
two more third, there's an overemphasis in these approaches on policy relevance and practical utility
and neglect of the underlying causes of trauma. And the proponents of this approach will be very
honest about this. They will say we're really not all that concerned with why people commit crime. All
we're really interested in doing is being able to reduce crime in particular places where individuals with
businesses in particular may be motivated to do so. And because of this quite narrow focus on
opportunities in specific situations, specific places, there's little attention to some of the broader causes
of criminal behavior. Everything gets reduced to opportunity and neglect the larger potential motivation
again, as I mentioned, in terms of limitation. This is from two key contributors to rational choice theory.
Again, the very, very bottom is very straightforward. A statement is true that the rational choice
perspective a relatively little attention to the motivational variables and traditional peer acceptance
backgrounds, understanding decision to become involved with certain forms of family. There are so
many of these variables so many factors come into play. And the relationship to crime is unclear, such
that they become unrewarding to study. So, basically what they're saying is the causes of crime are
super complex. There's so many different factors that people can't figure out how these factors relate to
each other how they cause a crime. It's so confusing and challenging. That this just isn't very rewarding
or interesting. And so instead, the focus is on crime prevention is much more narrowly defined. And
they say that this approach this way of thinking is particularly true, when the goal is to develop practical
prevention policies, and to develop a practical prevention policy. To get all of you to watch your laptops.
It's got a library that doesn't require some understanding why the person is stolen. All we need to do is
to prevent that from occurring. In that specific situation. very pragmatic, very practical focus, but again,
one that is very quite limited. And the last limitation is a tendency towards a victim and we saw this in
what I mentioned before with respect to that article, from the newspaper as well as the library said to
me, to be extended to behaviors of victims can create opportunities for crime. Victims can ultimately be
blamed after the fact for the crime occurred and they can be held partially responsible for having
become a victim. This may be a problem issue in the context of a property offense where you can
argue that it's unfair to be blamed for the victims. But it's especially a problem. It's especially damaging
when it comes to a crime like sexual assault where you can have some of the same kinds of ideas
being bought. This is something that we'll talk about much, much greater depth. Towards the end of this
term, we look at domestic violence and sexual violence, but to the extent that victims of sexual violence
are held responsible for creating an opportunity, by virtue of their appearance by virtue of behavior, and
thereby contribute to victim blaming, that can have a devastating effect on the victim. It can also make
that victims much much less likely to report the crime. So this element of victim blaming is a problem
has generally been particularly in the context of some of these especially devastating crimes, sexual
assault domestic violence, crimes involving power, in particular. So those are some of the key
limitations of rational choice theory. Despite these limitations, as with biological and psychological
theories, these approaches carry significant cultural and political, cultural and political significance.
There is widespread endorsement of rational choice theories as the foundation for crime control
policies. These approaches are well known. They are popular. They are routine. I'm sure every one of
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