"The routine activity theory is a type of “rational choice theory”. Rational choice theories suggest that individuals freely choose to engage in criminal behavior when the benefits outweigh the costs. The routine activity theory is unique in that the theory recognizes that the degree to which a person can freely choose is constrained by a multitude of factors and forces. For example, if an individual who is biologically predisposed to commit crime (ie., a person with low autosomic arousal, low self-control, and traits such as impulsivity, irresponsibility, etc.) finds him- or herself in a situation in which there are high temptations and low controls (e.g., brand new Range Rover with keys in the ignition left in a dark parking lot with no one around), he or she would be more inclined to “choose” to steal the car then someone who is not biologically predisposed to commit crime. From the perspective of the routine activity theory, crime is the product of the interaction between individual, situational/contextual, and environmental factors that converge in a way that increases the likelihood that crime will occur. Certain types of crime are more likely to occur in certain contexts where there are particular presences and absences. For example, violent crime is more likely to occur in a setting such as a bar where there a high number of young males drinking alcohol. In such a setting, there are presences (young males, alcohol) and absences (a prosocial audience-elderly individuals, children). A particular “chemistry for crime” exists in this setting, with elements such as a likely offender, a suitable target, and the absence of capable guardians converging to produce a crime-generating context that produces a crime-attracting sequence of events (Felson, 2002). Routine activity theory is one of the more applicable theories in terms of providing concrete recommendations to policy aker charges with increasing public safety. Box 2.2. provides an example of how routine activity theory has been applied to community gang problems."

"Culture plays a contributing role in the development and expression of criminal behavior. In her book “Zero Tolerance: Punishment Prevention, and School Violence”, Casella (2001) states, “Whether people in the United States are willing to accept it or not, violence is a defining characteristic of U.S. Culture. (p.2). According to Levin and Fox (2001), We used to put our heroes on pedestals where they could be admired, revered and emulated, but those days are long gone. Today’s children grow up collecting trading cards which bear the images of mass murderers rather than baseball payers. On their bedroom walls youngsters hang calendars featuring Ted Bundy and the Hillside Strangler. Instead of chronicling the good deeds of superheroes, cartoons and comics today depict the seedier side of life. Batman and Robin have been supplanted by Beevis and Butthead as well as [[South Park. The conquests of Superman have been replaced by a comic book version of Jeffrey Dahmer. Children can also locate killer websites, wear killer t-shirts, and join killer fan clubs. They listen to the lyrics of Marilyn Manson who inspires them to try Satanism, vampirism, Gothic fashion, and mass murder. (p.83)"

""Criminal behavior is a cultural and subcultural product”. Media and popular culture and the escalating number of “media junkies” and media-mediated crimes (Black, 1991) call attention to the need to make sense of how media and popular culture shape criminal behavior."

"Non nella pena, Nel delitto è la infamia."

"Il reo D'un delitto è chi'l pensa: a chi l' ordisce La pena spetta."

"Oh! ben provvide il cielo, Ch' uom per delitto mai lieto non sia."

"A man who has no excuse for crime, is indeed defenceless!"

"Le crime fait la honte et non pas l'échafaud."

"C'est plus qu'un crime, c'est une faute."

"Crime is not punished as an offense against God, but as prejudicial to society."

"Every crime destroys more Edens than our own."

"Deprendi miserum est."

"A crafty knave needs no broker."

"'Tis no sin love's fruits to steal; But the sweet thefts to reveal; To be taken, to be seen, These have crimes accounted been."

"Se judice, nemo nocens absolvitur."

"Multi committunt eadem diverso crimina fato; Ille crucem scleris pretium tulit, hic diadema."

"Nam scelus intra se tacitum qui cogitat ullum, Facti crimen habet."

"Non faciat malum, ut inde veniat bonum."

"Solent occupationis spe vel impune quædam scelesta committi."

"Pœna potest demi, culpa perennis erit."

"Factis ignoscite nostris Si scelus ingenio scitis abesse meo."

"Ars fit ubi a teneris crimen condiscitur annis."

"Le crime d'une mère est un pesant fardeau."

"With his hand upon the throttle-valve of crime."

"Prosperum ac felix scelus Virtus vocatur; sontibus parent boni; Jus est in armis, opprimit leges timor."

"Nullum caruit exemplo nefas."

"Scelere velandum est scelus."

"Cui prodest scelus, Is fecit."

"Ad auctores redit Sceleris coacti culpa."

"Qui non vetat peccare, cum possit, jubet."

"Dumque punitur scelus, Crescit."

"Amici vitium ni feras, facis tuum."

"Du repos dans le crime! ah! qui peut s'en flatter."

"La crainte suit le crime, et c'est son châtiment."

"Yet each man kills the thing he loves, By each let this be heard, Some do it with a bitter look, Some with a flattering word, The coward does it with a kiss, The brave man with a sword."

"If England treats her criminals the way she has treated me, she doesn't deserve to have any."

"Poverty is the mother of crime."

"We don't seem able to check crime, so why not legalize it and then tax it out of business?"

"The doctrine that the cure for the evils of democracy is more democracy is like saying that the cure of crime is more crime."

"Whatever opens opportunity and hope will help to prevent crime and foster responsibility."

"Hungry men have no respect for law, authority or human life."

"Anyone who takes it on himself, on his own authority, to break a bad law, thereby authorizes everyone else to break the good ones."

"One man's justice is another's injustice; One man's beauty another's ugliness; One man's wisdom another's folly."

"Justice is truth in action."

"Crime is contagious."

"The chief problem in any community cursed with crime is not the punishment of the criminal, but the preventing of the young from being trained to crime."

"The poacher … is asserting a right (and an instinct) belonging to a past time—when for hunting purposes all land was held in common. … In those times private property was theft. Obviously the man who attempted to retain for himself land or goods, or who fenced off a portion of the common ground and—like the modern landlord—would allow no one to till it who did not pay him a tax—was a criminal of the deepest dye. Nevertheless the criminals pushed their way to the front, and have become the respectables of modern society."

"Nor all that heralds rake from coffin'd clay, Nor florid prose, nor honied lies of rhyme, Can blazon evil deeds, or consecrate a crime."

"Society already understands that the criminal is not he who washes our dirty linen in public, but he who dirties the linen."

"There's not a crime But takes its proper change out still in crime If once rung on the counter of this world."