OPPORTUNITY THEORY

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Presentation Details: Slides: 6 Duration: 00:18:32 Filename: C:\Users\PadenSL\Desktop\Opportunity\Opportunity.pptx Description:

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Slide 1 Opportunity Theory Duration: 00:00:15 Advance mode: Auto

Notes: OPPORTUNITY THEORY Hello. In this presentation, I’m going to provide a short discussion of Opportunity perspectives on crime and discuss how it builds on and connects with several other theories we’ve discussed in previous modules.

Slide 2 Opportunity Theory Duration: 00:03:31 Advance mode: Auto

Notes: OPPORTUNITY THEORY Opportunity theory is one of our newer theories in criminology. It is one of the more misunderstood theories and has not been given as much direct attention as other perspectives. Many scholars see it as simply an addition to Merton’s strain theory. And while it does build on his ideas, it’s also an independent theory that gives us some unique perspective on crime by considering opportunity. The opportunity theory of crime was developed by Richard Cloward and Lloyd Ohlin in the 1960s, who were students of Robert Merton. As a result, it does have a number of similarities to Merton’s strain theory and builds on his work.

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If you’ll recall, Merton’s strain theory was all about blocked opportunities for success. It said there was greater pressure toward crime on the poor because they didn’t have legitimate means available. But people criticized Merton because he didn’t explain why one poor person committed crime and another (who also had strain) didn’t. Cloward and Ohlin had some ideas on this. They said that Merton had only considered access to legitimate opportunities but had overlooked ILLEGITIMATE OPPORTUNITY. They said that in order to explain crime, you had to account for access to legitimate opportunity and access to illegitimate opportunity. Or as I like to say, you have to consider the “closed doors” for legitimate success and the “open doors” for crime. Just because someone can’t get a good education or good job, doesn’t mean they will embark on a life of drug dealing or fraud. They may not have the open doors for these criminal activities and may not know the right people, have the right circumstances, or have the technical knowhow to pull it off. But if they have the close doors for legitimate success and have the right connections and opportunities for crime, then they are much more likely to be involved in criminal activity. Their goal in presenting these ideas was to fill in the gaps in Merton’s strain theory by accounting for both legitimate and illegitimate opportunity, and they were trying to bridge ideas from Merton’s strain theory with some of the ideas from learning theories (as you’ll see in the next slide) as well as social disorganization. As a result, they added some

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important points to Merton’s theory. Notably, it isn’t common to see students critique their mentor’s theory as these 2 scholars did, but perhaps more notably, Merton said they were right! He commended their work and said that he hadn’t really discussed illegitimate opportunities and the ways that open doors to crime might matter. Thus, he said it was an extremely important addition to the ideas he presented earlier.

Slide 3 Opportunity Structures Duration: 00:03:33 Advance mode: Auto

Notes: OPPORTUNITY STRUCTURES In their theory, they explained that both legitimate and illegitimate opportunity were shaped by 2 types of opportunity structures: 1. Learning structures, and 2. Performance structures. And they said that these explained whether you had the opportunity to become a Doctor, Lawyer, Police officer, and Professor, but they also explained whether you had the opportunity to cook crystal meth, run an illegal sports betting operation, embezzle hundreds of thousands of dollars from your company, or become involved in organized crime. Both legitimate and illegitimate opportunities for success were shaped by these types of opportunity structures. The first component is the learning structures, and this is where they bring in the ideas from learning theories. They explain that you have to have the opportunity to gain the mindset, skills, and expertise needed to be a doctor,

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lawyer, drug dealer, or white collar criminal. If you don’t know people or have opportunities to learn skills for a profession and learn the mindset that says it is something worth doing, well then you probably will find other things to do and other ways to spend your time. Cleary, this is closely connected to learning theories, but they are recognizing that not everyone has the same access to messages about different jobs and criminal activities and they are combining it with performance opportunities, the second type of opportunity structure described next. In addition to having the knowhow, they said you also have to have the physical opportunities to become involved in a profession or in a certain criminal activity. For example, if you wanted to start your own restaurant, you’d have to have the right resources, tools, location, funds, marketing help, and contacts to make it happen. Likewise, if you wanted to go into business selling oxycontin or other controlled substances, you would also have to have the right tools, contacts and connections, know the right location, and have the resources for the job. In other words, just having the knowhow isn’t enough. Opportunity and open doorways for success (in crime or legitimate work) involves a lot of other components, tools, and contacts.

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Slide 4 Opportunity and Criminality Duration: 00:02:20 Advance mode: Auto

Notes: OPPORTUNITY AND CRIMINALITY By introducing the idea of illegitimate means and discussions both open/closed doors for success and open/closed doors for crime, Cloward and Ohlin were able to do something that Merton’s strain theory couldn’t… they were able to tell us why some people with strain became conformists and didn’t commit crime, while others innovated or became retreatists. In other words, they explained not all people who experienced strain committed crime, and why some who didn’t have much strain or blocked opportunity might still commit crime. It all depended on their open/closed doors to illegitimate opportunity (which Merton didn’t discuss). For example, they explained that the innovators from Merton’s strain adaptations were most likely to be the people who had blocked means for legitimate success (good jobs, education), but had plenty of open doors for crime. So they may realize that they can’t afford college and won’t get far at their fast food job, AND they see their friends making more money selling drugs and offering them a piece of the action, and they decide to take advantage of the opportunity. In contrast, they explain that the conformists are most often the people who do have legitimate means available and have blocked access to crime. They have legitimate pathways to success open to them, and it

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would be difficult for them to engage in extensive criminal activity because they simply don’t have those doorways open to them. Last, they explained that retreatists (the drug addicts, homeless, and vagrant populations) that Merton described tended to be the people that had few opportunities for legitimate success but also had few criminal opportunities. They essentially had no opportunities for either legal or illegal success, and thus fell into patterns of retreatism.

Slide 5 Strengths and Weaknesses of Opportunity Theory Duration: 00:02:48 Advance mode: Auto

Notes: STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES OF OPPORTUNITY THEORY As I noted on the previous slides, this opportunity perspective helped fill in several key gaps and criticism of Merton’s strain theory. Notably, it could explain why there were many good kids in bad areas, which was a common critique of Merton’s theory (why so many people with strain didn’t commit crime and only a few did). Here, Cloward and Ohlin explain that simply having closed doors for success doesn’t mean you will instantly be a successful career criminal and become a major underworld entrepreneur. You must have open doors for crime, contacts with others, opportunities to learn messages and definition and skills for crime, and performance opportunities to commit the acts. Otherwise, you will likely fall into one of the other adaptations Merton described. In addition,

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they were able to explain why some offenders who have very little strain according to Merton (like White Collar criminals) might commit crime. These offenders have few blocked opportunities for legitimate success. But at the same time, they have little oversight and many opportunities to break the rules and feel like crime opportunities fall into their lap. In other words, it’s not all about strain. Sometimes, it’s just about whether you have access to crime opportunities that seem too good to pass up. However, as with all the theories, opportunity perspectives also have some problems. By focusing on external opportunities, they don’t seem to pay as much attention to the role of motivation as some of the other theories we’ve discussed. In addition, one of the biggest critiques is that people don’t really think it adds that much to our understanding of crime. The opportunity perspective seems very straightforward (you either have opportunity for crime or you don’t), and so many criminologists have overlooked it or assumed that it’s just a small addition onto Merton’s strain theory. As a result, it hasn’t gotten the attention it probably deserves and we tend not to think about people’s opportunity for crime as much as we might (which could have important policy implications if we gave this perspective more attention and consideration and really tried to target criminal opportunity).

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Slide 6 Routine Activities Theory Duration: 00:06:05 Advance mode: Auto

Notes: ROUTINE ACTIVITIES THEORY One theory related to opportunity perspectives that has received much more attention from researchers and policy makers though, is Routine Activities Theory. The excerpts you are reading on this theory do a nice job summarizing the main ideas, so I won’t go into extensive detail on this. But I will give you a bit of history and context to this theory. Routine Activities theory is one of our newest theories in criminology and has received considerable attention in the last few decades. It was developed in the 1970s by Cohen and Felson is considered a theory of VICTIMIZATION. That means that instead of trying to explain why some people become criminals and decide to commit crime, Cohen and Felson were trying to explain why some people and places are more likely to be victimized. And they said it was due to the routine activities of victims and offenders that bring them together in the right circumstances to create opportunity for crime. Specifically, they said these crime opportunities occur with the convergence of 3 factors. Motivated Offender Presence of a Suitable Target, and Absence of a Capable Guardian. They said that these 3 things had to occur for crime/victimization to take place and the absence of any one factor would likely prevent

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it. Now because it was a theory of victimization, they didn’t talk about the first factor much. They don’t really explain why offenders are motivated and simply argue there are always motivated offenders present (which has been a point of substantial disagreement for the theory). They leave offender motivation to others to explain, and then go on to talk about the other two factors. They argue that when you have suitable targets and few capable guardians, it creates opportunity for crime and victimization (and those motivated offenders to act). And the idea of a capable guardian doesn’t just have to be a human guardian like security or police officers. Guardianship can be provided by alarms, pedestrians walking by, someone at home at night, ample lighting, locked doors, cameras, or signs that say you have a security system. Anything that seems to add guardianship. To help illustrate their theory, they argue that these factors helped explain why property crimes like burglary and theft became so much more common in the 1970s and 80s. And again they said, it wasn’t because of a change in offender motivation (like many other theorists had argued). Instead, they claimed that it was due to changes in guardianship and suitability of targets due to several societal changes around this time (like women working outside the home more, people traveling more, and consumer goods getting more valuable, smaller and easier to steal), which you’ll read more about in your articles/chapters.

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This theory has been extremely popular in policy circles because it presents very straightforward and practical policy suggestions. If crime occurs because targets look suitable and there’s not enough guardianship, then simply make the targets look less suitable and add guardianship. These “target hardening” policy efforts have been very popular and have been implemented in many places. For example, just look at the gas station the next time you fill up your car and notice all the ways that gas stations have changed in the last 20 to 30 years to add guardianship and make them seem like bad targets for robbery. They have added lighting, cameras, glass fronts, timed safes, cameras, and reminders that the cash drawer has less than $50, all to illustrate that they are not suitable targets and have plenty of guardianship. Likewise, we’ve seen these types of approaches and similar “broken windows” and “order maintenance” models of crime control adopted on a larger scale in places like New York, where the idea has been to eliminate small crimes and signs of disorder (vagrancy, homeless people sleeping on benches, graffiti, litter, prostitution, etc.) to send a message to would-be offenders that this is not a suitable target for crime and that guardians are present. Overall, this theory has gained a lot of attention and popularity among the public, policy makers, researchers, and agents of the criminal justice system. But people have raised some concerns about these ideas as well. First, it doesn’t really explain or address

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offender motivation in any real way. So even if you prevent a would-be offender from committing crime at one location, it doesn’t mean you’ve stopped them from causing trouble if they just find another suitable target without guardians. Second, one of the biggest concerns is that by focusing on the victim, this perspective can be pretty controversial when applied to some offenses like rape and sexual assault. The idea that rape or sexual assault occurs because the target looked too suitable or the victim didn’t have enough guardianship around has been a bit of a lightning rod for this theory, and is probably the reason that this perspective tends to focus on property crime more than crimes like rape.