The Procedural Analysis of Offending and Its Relevance for Situational Prevention

Successful situational crime prevention measures tend to be characterized by their crime-specific approach, and by their considerable knowledge about how the crime In question was committed. Beyond these general prescriptions for approaching the tasks of crime analysis and crime control, however, little further guidance Is available. This paper borrows a concept from cognitive science—the notion of the script—to examine the crime-commission process In more detail. By drawing attention to the way that events and episodes unfold, the script concept offers a useful analytic tool for looking at behavioral routines In the service of rational, purposive, goal-oriented action. A script-theoretic approach provides a way of generating, organizing and systematizing knowledge about the procedural aspects and procedural requirements of crime commission. It has the potential for eliciting more crime-specific, detailed and comprehensive offenders' accounts of crime commission, for extending analysis to all the stages of the crimecommission sequence and, hence, for helping to enhance situational crime prevention policies by drawing attention to a fuller range of possible intervention points. As to theory, the script concept enables one aspect of the rational choice perspective on criminal behavior—the unfolding of criminal events—to be developed further, and captures something of the routlnlzed quality, yet flexibly responsive nature of criminal decision making.