CJ 7350 - ENVIRONMENTAL CRIMINOLOGY
Spring, 2011
Professor Marcus Felson
Course Information
Class Time:
6:30 to 9:20 pm Tuesday
Location of Class:
Hines Hall 207
Course code:
379915
Instructor’s Office:
Hines Hall 120
Office Hours:
Wednesday afternoons 2-3:30, and by appointment,
but I am around the office a lot
Phone:
512-245-1886
Email:
mf38 @ txstate.edu
Course Overview and Description
Environmental criminology is the study of how the larger environment creates
crime opportunities, and how that environment can be modified to reduce
those opportunities and lessen the crime problem. Secondarily, environmental
criminology is beginning to study, too, crimes against the environment. The
current course does not consider this secondary set of issues. Rather, we
focus on how the larger sociophysical environment sets the stage for crime to
happen.
The term “sociophysical” is interesting, for it considers human beings and human
society but also emphasizes the physical manifestations, such as how homes
are distributed over space, how businesses are laid out, how offenders find
victims and how in practical terms crime is carried out. This is a very down to
earth course in some ways, yet it is also a course in theory. We might call
environmental a middle level theory rather than a grand theory, since it does
not cover individual motivation in a general sense, nor the predisposition of
individuals to commit crime. Rather it takes that predisposition as granted,
examining how it is put into practice.
In reality, this course represents a convergence of several overlapping theoretical
traditions, including
Environmental criminology
Geography of crime
Situational crime prevention
Routine activity approach
Life style approach
Problem oriented policing
Situational crime prevention
Rational choice theory (as seen by Cornish and Clarke)
These approaches overlap in their concern with practical crime prevention, crime
in everyday life, crime’s link to larger daily activities, crime’s location in time and
space, and the modus operandi used by offenders in carrying out illegal acts.
The fundamental principles of this course are easy. But their many applications
provide you with a challenge that I think you will see as time goes on.
Rather than teaching this as a lecture course with a list of readings and topics, I
have a particular method that works well with graduate students – if you allow me
a few weeks to prove that! I assign several rather short papers for you to do. I
only give you starting references, and you have to take it from there (although I
will help you whenever you ask). I give some lectures, but I also require each of
you to present each paper each time. Again I help if you are nervous about
presenting, but I also challenge you and interrupt you. This may be hard on
students the first few times, but they get better and over time can handle it very
well.
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My goal is to wean you away from being a student and move you towards being
a professor, professional researcher, staff member, or whatever other job
requires you to present information cogently. The great task is this: Link each
idea to a practical application – idea, application, idea, application, idea,
application. It’s hard at first, but I’ve never had a graduate student who doesn’t
get it given time.
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You will have to write five papers of about 6 or 7 pages each, double spaced.
Make them good. Write an abstract for each paper, and give it a specific title.
Then do a half sheet handout with the main ideas, with copies of the handout and
abstract for the whole class. Speak for about 10 minutes (I may vary that).
I am counting on perfect attendance. If there’s a departure from that, let the class
know, and me.
Expected Learning Outcomes:
a. To think specifically about crime, while putting crimes into reasonable
categories.
b. To understand how offenders think and act and how this varies.
c. To understand variations in crime, their modus operandi, likely locations
and situations, both generally and specifically
d. To recognize how crime opportunities emerge and how they can be
reduced.
e. To recognize all the theories listed above and the fact that they overlap.
f. To start on the road towards becoming an advanced crime analyst.
g. To learn how to teach elementary crime analysts how to think cogently
about crime.
h. To become conversant with www . popcenter . com especially its library,
and the online issues of CRIME PREVENTION STUDIES.
Your five papers, one due approximately every two weeks. Often a draft paper
will be due one week and the final paper the next. I may add an extra two-page
assignment any week you have nothing else due.
1. The Brantinghams’ legacy. Write your first paper on Patricia and Paul
Brantingham. Attach a bibliographical list of their top 10 or 15 papers.
Write an organized description of their contribution to environmental
criminology and what they mean by it, along with their main findings. Start
with www. popcenter . org
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2. Review those aspects of situatonal crime prevention that are not local.
Emphasize the work of Ronald V. Clarke and begin with steering wheel
locks in Germany. Review five of his main discoveries about situational
features of crime.
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3. Take the phrase, “journey to crime.” What does it mean and what do we
know about it? Does it vary by age, crime, and any other major
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dimension? Consider Beavon’s work on street networks and Bernasco’s
work on offenders foraging for crime targets. How do these works fit in.
4. Write a paper on how crime risk converges in space and time. Explain why
a high crime neighborhood can still have low crime streets or addresses.
Use such sources as
a. Dennis Roncek, several papers on dangerous places.
b. Sherman, L. W., Gartin, P. R., & Buerger, M. E. (1989). Hot spots
of predatory crime: Routine activities and the criminology of place.
Criminology, 27, 27-56.
c. Cohen and Felson, 1979. The original routine activity paper.
d. Felson on crime prevention in the developing metropolis, 1987. You
can find these papers easily enough.
5. Discuss violent crimes that are not acquisitive and hence seem irrational
afterwards. What sorts of reasons can generate such crime? Consider
how such crime is prevented, using pamphlets from www . popcenter . org
to illustrate the theory.
If any of these papers puzzle you, I’m the guy to ask! Marcus
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