Victim Selection Procedures Among Economic Criminals: The Rational Choice Perspective

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Abstract

This chapter contrasts the decision-making activities of commercial burglars and robbers and paints a vivid picture of the nature of the criminal's sources of information and the way in which this is handled during the processes of assessment and planning which precede the criminal event. It focuses on the distinction between normative and bounded rationality, which is a persistent theme. The author reports on the results of his retrospective interviews with imprisoned burglars and robbers about their techniques of victim/target selection and rejection. The discussion of attitudes to risk, the importance of previous experience, and the roles of luck and fatalism provide pointers to how sudden hazards during commission of the crime may be handled. Although Petersilia, Greenwood, and Lavin discovered that about a quarter of their sample could be described as planning robbers. Rationality in the sense of being logical and methodical is commonly present apparently among economic criminals.