Crimes as Scripts

  • Harald Haelterman
Chapter
First Online:
Part of the Crime Prevention and Security Management book series (CPSM)

Abstract

Although crimes may be considered events with a specific location in time and place, the crime event itself is only one among many events that occur within the crime-commission process (Cornish 1994: 155). The unfolding of a crime involves a series of sequential decisions and actions (or units of behaviour), and is exposed to a variety of influencing and interrupting factors. As Wortley (2012): 186) puts it, the crime event is considered a multistaged, dynamic process that involves a connected chain of decisions based on an ongoing evaluation of the available options in a given situation, and that may take different paths depending upon the nature of the environmental feedback.

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Copyright information

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016

Authors and Affiliations

  • Harald Haelterman
    • 1
  1. 1.Ghent UniversityGhentBelgium

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