Situational Action Theory

The Situational Action Theory (SAT) is a general theory of crime that has been developed since 2004 by the Swedish criminologist Per-Olof H. Wikström at Cambridge University . With the SAT, central criminological insights are brought together in a new, integrative explanatory model. According to the theory, crimes are committed on the basis of personal characteristics and experiences of the person acting in combination with characteristics of their environment and the respective action situation.

According to SAT, every act, including a criminal act, is the result of a perception and decision-making process that is created through the interaction of individual factors (motivation, inclination, morality) and situational factors (influences from people and the environment, "person-environment interaction" ) is conditional. Because the individual as a moral actor moves into the center of the analysis, SAT differs from the rational choice approach , which sees personal self-interest as the decisive drive. The SAT emphasizes that the process of perception precedes the decision-making process. It is pointless to claim that someone has decided against an action after considering the costs and benefits if this action has not already been considered as a real alternative for normative considerations.

How a person develops a criminal tendency or why a setting has a special criminal burden is not part of the primary SAT question. According to Wikström, such questions are upstream causes that explain the root causes of delinquency.

literature

Helmut Hirtenlehner and Jost Reinecke (eds.): Situational Action Theory. Research results from the German-speaking and neighboring countries . Special issue of the monthly magazine for criminology and criminal law reform, volume 98, issue 3, June 2015 (editorial online: The Situational Action Theory - an originally European research engine ).

Web links

Situational Action Theory (SAT) , Center for Analytic Criminology, University of Cambridge .

Individual evidence

↑ ^a ^b Frank Neubacher : Criminology . 3rd edition, Nomos-Verlag, Baden-Baden 2017, ISBN 978-3-8487-3036-0 , p. 108.
^ Karl-Ludwig Kunz and Tobias Singelnstein : Criminology: A foundation . 7th, fundamentally revised edition, Haupt, Bern 2016, ISBN 978-3-8252-4683-9 , p. 164.
↑ Michael Bock : Criminology . 5th edition, Munich: Vahlen, 2019, ISBN 978-3-8006-5916-6 , p. 97.

[Neubacher108-1] Frank Neubacher : Criminology . 3rd edition, Nomos-Verlag, Baden-Baden 2017, ISBN 978-3-8487-3036-0 , p. 108.

[2] Karl-Ludwig Kunz and Tobias Singelnstein : Criminology: A foundation . 7th, fundamentally revised edition, Haupt, Bern 2016, ISBN 978-3-8252-4683-9 , p. 164.

[3] Michael Bock : Criminology . 5th edition, Munich: Vahlen, 2019, ISBN 978-3-8006-5916-6 , p. 97.