Homo Economicus in Crime

Imagine you are walking through the city and see someone withdrawing 5,000 CHF from an ATM. without noticing, the person drops a thousand francs on the ground. The person walks away and there is no one else in sight. What do you do? Do you pocket the banknote, or do you alert the person to their loss? You could argue that by picking it up, you could keep it for yourself and that the likelihood of being caught is low. However, there would be legal consequences if you are caught and you may also believe that pocketing the banknote is morally reprehensible. Quickly, you weigh up the costs and benefits of such an action in your head and determine a course of action.

The rational crime 

Do potential offenders make economic and therefore “rational”, on-the-spot decisions? Is there such a thing as a “rational” crime, or is committing offences always an expression of irrationality? These questions have shaped the discussion in criminology not only since Gary S. Becker's economic analysis of crime but were already considered in the 18th century in the classical school of criminology. Scholars such as Cesare Beccaria (1738-1794) and Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) assumed that people act freely and rationally and explained the emergence of crime by saying that offenders calculate whether the expected benefits of a crime are higher than the expected costs such as the risk of punishment. This line of thinking is how Cesare Beccaria derived his theory, which remains influential to this day. Simply put, the deterrent effect of punishment depends on the probability of punishment, the severity of the punishment and the speed with which the punishment is carried out.

Situational crime theories 

This cost-benefit consideration also gave rise to the so-called situational crime theories, which can be summed up by the saying “opportunity makes thieves”. As the most prominent representatives of these situational crime theories, Lawrence E. Cohen and Marcus Felson postulate in their Routine Activities Theory that a crime is always committed when the following three conditions are met:
 

• (1) There is a motivated perpetrator,

• (2) there is a suitable and attractive target, and

• (3) this target is inadequately protected.
   

The case described at the beginning illustrates such an “opportunity to commit a crime”: if the thousand francs had not been lost, the question of pocketing it would not have arisen in the first place.

Situational explanations have the advantage of being extremely good at crime prevention. After all, if attractive opportunities encourage crime, then crime can be reduced by measures that make it more difficult to commit it. For example, the attractiveness of a target can be reduced by diminishing the potential profit. One example, which in recent years have led to many people hardly using cash anymore. For this reason, robberies and bank heists are hardly worthwhile nowadays, as significantly less cash is in circulation. However, situational prevention measures can also increase the protection of the object of the crime and, accordingly, the risk of being caught in the act. Improved protection of the object of the crime can be achieved, for example, through anti-theft devices, but also through surveillance by video cameras or police presence. If the police monitor certain illegal markets on the darknet, for example, the risk of being discovered when buying or trading in prohibited goods increases. At the same time, the example of digital crime in particular shows that digitisation has also created numerous new opportunities for potential perpetrators and that anonymity on the internet significantly reduces the risk of being discovered, such as with online fraud and sextortion.

Criticism of homo economicus and rational theories of crime

However, rational theories of crime have also been repeatedly criticised. One criticism is that these theories fail to take social, psychological and biological factors into account. In addition, their basic premise that people – and especially offenders – act primarily rationally is rightly questioned. Criminal behaviour in particular is often not the result of sober calculation, but rather an expression of aimlessness or of strong emotional impulses. This is especially true for crimes such as domestic violence, where rational consideration hardly plays any role. Prevention through changing opportunity structures is therefore only effective for selected offences. Despite this justified criticism, rational theories of crime offer important added value for crime prevention. They highlight how strongly the environment influences criminal behaviour – and how this environment can be shaped to prevent offences. That is why they will continue to play a central role in the future when it comes to developing effective strategies for reducing crime.