Felson's Routine Activities Theory

We go throughout our daily lives doing subconscious actions that were drilled into our brain from a young age. We lock our house door, lock our car doors, carry our keys tightly in our hand, and sometimes even check behind us every so often just to be sure no one is following us. We take these precautions because of the “What if’s”, an immense amount of possibilities that could happen at any time. While some of us have grown used to these actions it is still puzzling that they must be made. We avoid even having to face certain case scenarios and while this makes life easier in the long run they shouldn’t be necessary and only creates an illusion of reality, and a sad one at that. As absurd as it sounds according to criminologist victims can
These opportunities change based on the time, space, and people. Felson viewed crime as an event that happened in a specific location and included an offender, suitable target, and the absence of a guardian that could prevent the crime (4). What exactly is a suitable target? Felson explained a suitable target as being of value to the offender, physically incapable of defense, visible, and accessible (5). The guardian that prevented the crime could have many different motives. They could be a manager protecting the place, a handler protecting the offender, or the guardian protecting the target. When the offender and the suitable target crossed paths without one of these guardians present than the potential for a crime to occur increases
Some would argue that the opportunity and crime even increases in agricultural areas. Mears conducted research and hypothesized that this could be because of the location and seclusion of farms. He suggested that because agriculture is more exposed and less guarded it attracted offenders (158). In order for the opportunity to be viable the knowledge must be present. In this case the offender must know the daily routines and how to operate the machinery. Since most farms have a variation of who is responsible for what different measures are taken to ensure security. It is assumed that the measures will be taken and executed as they should but doesn’t get checked on too