International Journal on Criminology Volume 3, Number 2, Fall 2015 | Page 94

International Journal on Criminology
the case in France, 2 and also in Switzerland, Great Britain, and Belgium. For security
and prevention policies to be effective, it is necessary to bring all of the available
information to the attention of public decision makers and citizens.
Criminology, meanwhile, has paid particular attention to this topic, aiming
to describe and explain its workings through the development of various theories.
Three main currents allow us to grasp this issue by means of general or individual
approaches, focusing either on the perpetrator alone or on the relationship between
the perpetrator, the victim, and the surrounding circumstances.
The phenomenon can be analyzed using a macro approach, according to which
crime is to be explained on the basis of social disorganization (Shaw and McKay 1942),
decreasing social control, and the inadequacy of institutional control. 3
A more individual analysis of motivation can also be carried out on the basis
of the concepts of control and opportunity. Rational-choice and opportunity theories
(Cloward and Ohlin 1960) emphasize the cost-benefit calculations (the cost of the
punishment against the benefits from the theft) carried out by the potential perpetrator
on the one hand and the significance of the lack of surveillance for the opportunity
represented by the theft on the other.
Routine activity theory offers a more comprehensive approach to crime
and brings together a motivated perpetrator, a suitable target, and the absence or
insufficiency of control (Cohen and Felson 1979).The importance attached to the
victim and the situation opens up a rich seam of analytical possibilities in terms of
victimology and prevention. Since the early 1980s, these theories have stimulated
a major school of research, and in English-speaking countries and some European
countries they have often been applied to the theme of burglaries, particularly as
addressed on the basis of victimhood surveys (Tseloni, Wittebrood, and Pease 2004).
In France, however, this area remains little explored. Research on some aspects
of burglary such as the circumstances (Rober, Zauberman, and Névanen 2011),
security devices (Le Jeannic and Tournyol du Clos 2008), and the types of theft (Rizk
2010) has been produced based on the “Cadre de Vie et Sécurité” (Living Environment
and Security (LES)) victimhood survey.
This study addresses the issue of burglaries from the point of view of the victim
and of his or her environment by proposing a typology of households and a proportional
measurement of victims of burglaries in France based on the LES survey. This work
is therefore very much in line with routine activity theory, since it sheds light on the
characteristics of potential victims (the suitable target) and their environments. This
study is also significant at the national level, since it offers an analysis that complements
the relevant French studies, which, to our knowledge, have only partially explored the
victimological dimension of burglaries.
2
The Ministry of the Interior launched a national plan to combat burglaries in September 2013 (see:
http://www.interieur.gouv.fr/content/download/84436/618928/file/2013_plan_national_de_lutte_contre_les_cambriolages_et_les_vols_a_main_armee.pdf).
3
See Hirshi and Gottfredson (2005) for a summary of the subject.
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