Crime prevention in terms of criminal intent criteria in white-collar crime

Tage Alalehto

Journal of Financial Crime, 2018, vol. 25, issue 3, 838-844

Abstract: Purpose - In the field of crime prevention there are several theoretical approaches explaining why crime occurs and how to prevent it. Three of them – routine activity theory, crime pattern theory and the theory of crime-as-choice – are logically tested in this work. The point of departure is to test if the theories are logical consistent and logical valid, irrespective of whether the criterion for criminal intent is changed from direct intention to negligence. Design/methodology/approach - The issues will be explored in a logical structure by a first-order logic propositional analysis. Findings - The analysis shows that all three theories are logical consistent, but only routine activity theory is logical valid. The conclusion is that crime prevention should in general assume that routine activity theory is the legitimate theory and that social prevention as a prevention strategy is logically unnecessary to adopt because it does not matter whether the offender is motivated (direct intention) or not (negligence). Practical implications - It does not really matter if the authors theoretically treat white-collar offenders as motivated, because if they have committed anactus reus, they are an offender according to the objective requisites. This means that the best strategies to prevent a potential white-collar criminal are situational prevention, i.e. complicate their access to money, where it becomes irrelevant if the potential offender has amens reaor not. What counts is the prevention ofactus reusby a potential offender. Originality/value - As far as I know, no one has previously investigated the logical consistency and/or logical validity of routine activity theory, crime pattern theory and the theory of crime-as-choice as theories of crime prevention.

Keywords: White-collar crime; Crime prevention; Propositional logic (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eme:jfcpps:jfc-05-2017-0051

DOI: 10.1108/JFC-05-2017-0051

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