The Theory of Reasoned Action: A Decision Theory of Crime

The rational choice perspective as outlined in the Introduction to this volume is concerned mainly with presenting in a general way the advantages of treating criminal behavior as a broadly rational activity. It therefore has little directly to say about the specific nature of the decision-making processes used in making criminal choices. Despite the criticisms of expected utility theories met with elsewhere in this volume, there is no doubt that subjective expected utility (SEU)-derived expectancy-value theories have proved successful at predicting some aspects of choice behavior in certain areas of application. In the present chapter Mary Tuck and David Riley provide a succinct outline of one such approach. Fishbein's theory of reasoned action (TORA), a sophisticated social psychological theory whose origins lie in attitude theory and measurement research. TORA is intended both to explain and to predict human behaviors by means of a small number of concepts—beliefs, attitudes, and intentions—located within a single theoretical framework. As Tuck and Riley argue, given the likely importance of social and familial norms to the decision to offend (and, hence, to questions of deterrence), the fact that TORA was specifically developed to take such variables into account is a significant argument in its favor. The theory is seen as applicable to all criminal decision making, whether related to events or involvement, whatever the timescale , whatever the level of generality or specificity under current consideration (e.g., from traveling on public transport without a ticket to "delinquency"), and whatever the forms of information processing involved. Given its range of applications to date, however (for example, career intentions, family-planning behaviors, voting behavior, consumer choice) and its continued reliance on certain aspects of the SEU paradigm, the theory may initially prove more useful in exploring the determinants and processes of choice behavior in relation to criminal involvement, continuance, and desistance than in relation to criminal events. Within the former spheres, TORA's emphasis upon (and methods for) exploring the influence of salient behavioral and normative beliefs on the formation of an intention to commit a crime