M Felson
Biographic Data
| ID | 1911 |
|---|---|
| NAME | M Felson |
| GIVEN NAMES | M |
| FAMILY NAME | Felson |
| SIGNATURE | FELSON M |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-3173-072X |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 55 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 2157 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 55 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1971 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 11 |
The mystery of organised crime
Carjacking
Carjacking calls for a specialized analysis because it occurs at lightning speed within very brief windows of opportunity. This article describes the geographic distribution of carjacking in Campinas, Brazil, and then compares this pattern with Detroit, Michigan. We learn that raw numbers of carjackings are widely dispersed in both cities. Although these cities differ greatly in daily transportation systems, in both cities the carjacking risk est…
Property crime specialization in Detroit, Michigan
Routine activity effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on burglary in Detroit, March, 2020
The spread of the coronavirus has led to containment policies in many places, with concomitant shifts in routine activities. Major declines in crime have been reported as a result. However, those declines depend on crime type and may differ by parts of a city and land uses. This paper examines burglary in Detroit, Michigan during the month of March, 2020, a period of considerable change in routine activities. We examine 879 block groups, separati…
Crime Rates in a Pandemic
Crime and Everyday Life
Crime and Everyday Life offers a bold approach to crime theory and crime reduction. Using a clear, engaging, and streamlined writing style, the Sixth Edition illuminates the causes of criminal behavior, showing how crime can affect everyone in both small and large ways. Renowned authors Marcus Felson and Mary Eckert then offer realistic ways to reduce or eliminate crime and criminal behavior in specific settings by removing the opportunity to com…
Four Images of the Delinquency Area
This chapter sorts out some of the ideas that are sometimes mixed together under the rubric of “social disorganization.” It argues that (1) social disorganization is really not an independent variable or a theory; (2) rather, it is a composite image of the “delinquency area”—the part of town that also has very high crime rates; and (3) this composite image can be disentangled and then clarified, allowing students to learn it and researchers to sh…
Policy Levels for Situational Crime Prevention
An organizing framework is useful for scientific progress as well as the application of knowledge in practical situations. This article advocates supplementing the classification of situational crime prevention methods, proposing seven levels of classification for how crime prevention policy is applied. The seven levels are organized by distance from the criminal event, and examples of application are offered in liquor control and auto theft redu…
Breaking rules
In this book a team of researchers led by Per-Olof Wikstrom conclude that moral training is the most important factor for reducing criminal behavior among youths. Their study of adolescents in Pete
Juvenile offenders
The current study focuses on crime location characteristics of juvenile offenders. Based on the argument that juveniles have limited routine activities that restrict their awareness space, where juvenile offenders commit crimes becomes important to understand. Specifically, the current study examines the distance juveniles travel to specific crime types. As juveniles age towards 18 years, it is expected that the distance traveled to commit crime …
In their own words
Paul Cromwell has a special talent for making ethnography serve science. This explains why this collection is still in print and its sixth edition is coming out (with co-editor Michael Birzer). I u
Age and the distance to crime
The journey-to-crime literature consistently shows that the distance to crime is short, particularly for violent crimes. Recent research has revealed methodological concerns regarding various (improper) groupings of data (nesting effects). In this article we investigate one such nesting effect: the relationship between age and the distance to crime. Contrary to much of the research that investigates this phenomenon, using a large incident-based d…
The capable guardian in routine activities theory
Crime in the Broad Sweep of History
This is one author’s view of the major transformations in the long history of human crime opportunity, based on reading a few books and articles. Most of the sources used to write this chapter were written in English, only one of the Earth’s thousands of tongues. Despite that bias, this chapter still covers a rather wide range of historical experience. These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and t…
Crime and Everyday Life
In this work, the author shows how everyday life generates opportunities for crime to occur while also providing chances to prevent it
International Crime and Justice
International crime and justice is an emerging field that covers international and transnational crimes that have not been the focus of mainstream criminology or criminal justice. This book examines the field from a global perspective. It provides an introduction to the nature of international and transnational crimes and the theoretical perspectives that assist in understanding the relationship between social change and the waxing and waning of …
The Impact of Co-Offending
Co-offending has a major impact on the arithmetic of crime rates and the burdens on the justice system. This paper studies co-offending by single year of age using data that comprise 750,000 negative police contacts (those charged, chargeable and suspected in criminal offenses) in a largely metropolitan dataset from British Columbia, Canada, 2002-06. We find that shifts in co-offending rates within teenage years are extremely rapid and highly sen…
Crime and Nature
La théorie des opportunités et l’erreur de généralisation
Crime relationships are often inconsistent at different levels of aggregation for good theoretical reasons. That is why we should avoid committing the fallacy of composition, namely, drawing inferences between individuals and aggregates or from one level of aggregation to another. The routine activity approach becomes part of the solution
The Topography of Crime
Techniques for collecting saliva from awake, unrestrained, adult monkeys for cortisol assay
Cortisol levels serve as an index of pituitary-adrenal activity in nonhuman primates. In adult monkeys, cortisol is normally measured in blood (typically requiring restraint or sedation) or urine (reflecting a state rather than point estimate). In contrast, saliva collection is less invasive than drawing blood and allows for repeated sampling within a short period of time. Although protocols exist for collecting saliva from young monkeys, these p…
Advances in Criminological Theory. Volume 5
Choosing Crime
Routine Activities and Crime Prevention in the Developingmetropolis
Routine activities deliver easy crime opportunities to the offender. Astute planners and managers can interfere with this delivery, diverting flows of likely offenders (such as adolescents) away from streams of suitable targets (such as television sets). They can engineer traffic to provide “natural surveillance.” Past trends encouraged crime rate increases, but the developing metropolitan facility could reverse this, privatizing substantial port…
Crime and Everyday Life
Social Change and Crime Rate Trends
Routine Activities and Crime Prevention in the Developingmetropolis
Routine activities deliver easy crime opportunities to the offender. Astute planners and managers can interfere with this delivery, diverting flows of likely offenders (such as adolescents) away from streams of suitable targets (such as television sets). They can engineer traffic to provide “natural surveillance.” Past trends encouraged crime rate increases, but the developing metropolitan facility could reverse this, privatizing substantial port…
Property Crime Rates in the United States
This paper presents several macrodynamic social indicator models of post-World War II trends in robbery, burglary, and automobile theft rates for the United States. A theory of the ways in wich changes in criminal opportunity affect these Index Crime property crime rates is deveoped. Definitions and postulates are presented from which we derive a main theorem which states that, other things being equal, a decrease in the density of the population…
A General Framework for Building Dynamic Macro Social Indicator Models
It is generally agreed that social indicators are measures of social conditions. Accordinlgy, recent interest in measuring social conditions and in building models of how various social forces determine changes in social conditions was predated by work of William F. Ogburn and his collaborators over 50 years ago. In this paper, we argue for a revival of analyses of social change based upon time series of indices of social conditions. To provide a…
The capable guardian in routine activities theory
The Impact of Co-Offending
Co-offending has a major impact on the arithmetic of crime rates and the burdens on the justice system. This paper studies co-offending by single year of age using data that comprise 750,000 negative police contacts (those charged, chargeable and suspected in criminal offenses) in a largely metropolitan dataset from British Columbia, Canada, 2002-06. We find that shifts in co-offending rates within teenage years are extremely rapid and highly sen…
On estimating the social costs of national economic policy
Age and the distance to crime
The journey-to-crime literature consistently shows that the distance to crime is short, particularly for violent crimes. Recent research has revealed methodological concerns regarding various (improper) groupings of data (nesting effects). In this article we investigate one such nesting effect: the relationship between age and the distance to crime. Contrary to much of the research that investigates this phenomenon, using a large incident-based d…
Social Indicators of Adolescent Activities near Peers and Parents
This paper reconstructs social indicators of activity patterns at age 17. Respondents were asked to recall various features of daily life at that age. The results indicate a secular decline in the time adolescents spend in family and household settings and with parents nearby
Community Structure and Collaborative Consumption
The Fertility-Inhibiting Effect of Crowded Apartment Living in a Tight Housing Market
After reviewing the literature relating density to fertility, the authors consider how housing configurations might influence fortility. They suggest that persons living in crowded apartments with little option of moving elsewhere will tend to reduce fertility. Quasi-experimental data from a Colombian public housing project indicate that apartment living significantly reduced fertility among lower-middle- and upper-working-class persons living in…
Social Status and the Married Woman
The dependence of married women upon men for their achievement of social status is examined. A status-borrowing model is contrasted to an independent-status model. Data from a 1972 national survey indicate that the former model fits better than the latter. Both husbands and wives appear to pay rather little attention to the attainments of wives when evaluating their own social status. However, a statussharing model is not totally ruled out
A dynamic macro social indicator model of changes in marriage, family, and population in the United States
Juvenile offenders
The current study focuses on crime location characteristics of juvenile offenders. Based on the argument that juveniles have limited routine activities that restrict their awareness space, where juvenile offenders commit crimes becomes important to understand. Specifically, the current study examines the distance juveniles travel to specific crime types. As juveniles age towards 18 years, it is expected that the distance traveled to commit crime …
The differentiation of material life styles
A Social Indicator Model of Changes in the Occupational Structure of the United States
This paper presents a ten-equation dynamic structural equation model that shows how aggregate changes in the occupational structure of the United States affect each other and are affected by economic, technological and institutional changes. The model postulates a recursive flow of causation from changes in sectorial (agricultural, manufacturing, services) demand and productivity to changes in the distribution of occupations by sector, bureaucrat…
The Accuracy of Presidential Preference Primary Polls
Journal Article THE ACCURACY OF PRESIDENTIAL-PREFERENCE PRIMARY POLLS Get access MARCUS FELSON, MARCUS FELSON Marcus Felson is Assistant Professor of Sociology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar SEYMOUR SUDMAN SEYMOUR SUDMAN Seymour Sudman is Professor of Business Administration and Sociology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Search for other works by this…
Sensitivity Analysis of Arbitrarily Identified Simultaneous-Equation Models
Current sociological theory often leads to underidentified simultaneous-equation models, some of which are 'identified' by arbitrary specification. This paper applies the term sensitivity analysis to methods for exploring how numerical parameter estimates depend upon the identifying assumptions in such models. Three ad hoc sensitivity analysis methods are identified that have been used in the literature: (1) estimation under alternative specifica…
Property crime specialization in Detroit, Michigan
How to rig your results with a fancy coding scheme
Standardization of scales in social science research
The Topography of Crime
Using social indicators to forecast partisan alignments in congressional election years
The Masking of Material Inequality in the Contemporary United States
Student Award Papers
Journal Article STUDENT AWARD PAPERS: FIRST PRIZE THE SOCIAL BASIS OF POLITICAL PROTEST: THE WALLACE VOTE IN DISTRICTS OUTSIDE THE SOUTH Get access Harold H. Kassarjian, Harold H. Kassarjian Chairman University of California at Los Angeles Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Marcus Felson Marcus Felson University of Michigan Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Public Opinio…
Commentary on Racially Changing Neighborhoods
Mortality and Political Partisanship
The Mortality Hypothesis In their seminal study of British politics, David Butler and Donald Stokes deal with the relationship between basic demographic processes and changes in the levels of support for the major British political parties.1 In particular, they hypothesize that, in the short run, mortality differentials are likely to benefit the Conservative party. Women, who are more likely to be Conservative than men, also live longer than men.…
Social Status and the Married Woman
The dependence of married women upon men for their achievement of social status is examined. A status-borrowing model is contrasted to an independent-status model. Data from a 1972 national survey indicate that the former model fits better than the latter. Both husbands and wives appear to pay rather little attention to the attainments of wives when evaluating their own social status. However, a statussharing model is not totally ruled out
How to rig your results with a fancy coding scheme
Standardization of scales in social science research
The Accuracy of Presidential Preference Primary Polls
Journal Article THE ACCURACY OF PRESIDENTIAL-PREFERENCE PRIMARY POLLS Get access MARCUS FELSON, MARCUS FELSON Marcus Felson is Assistant Professor of Sociology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar SEYMOUR SUDMAN SEYMOUR SUDMAN Seymour Sudman is Professor of Business Administration and Sociology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Search for other works by this…
The Fertility-Inhibiting Effect of Crowded Apartment Living in a Tight Housing Market
After reviewing the literature relating density to fertility, the authors consider how housing configurations might influence fortility. They suggest that persons living in crowded apartments with little option of moving elsewhere will tend to reduce fertility. Quasi-experimental data from a Colombian public housing project indicate that apartment living significantly reduced fertility among lower-middle- and upper-working-class persons living in…
The Fertility Effect of Crowded Apartment Living in a Tight Housing Market
A General Framework for Building Dynamic Macro Social Indicator Models
It is generally agreed that social indicators are measures of social conditions. Accordinlgy, recent interest in measuring social conditions and in building models of how various social forces determine changes in social conditions was predated by work of William F. Ogburn and his collaborators over 50 years ago. In this paper, we argue for a revival of analyses of social change based upon time series of indices of social conditions. To provide a…
The differentiation of material life styles
A Social Indicator Model of Changes in the Occupational Structure of the United States
This paper presents a ten-equation dynamic structural equation model that shows how aggregate changes in the occupational structure of the United States affect each other and are affected by economic, technological and institutional changes. The model postulates a recursive flow of causation from changes in sectorial (agricultural, manufacturing, services) demand and productivity to changes in the distribution of occupations by sector, bureaucrat…
A dynamic macro social indicator model of changes in marriage, family, and population in the United States
Urban Crowding and Its Consequences
Community Structure and Collaborative Consumption
Sensitivity Analysis of Arbitrarily Identified Simultaneous-Equation Models
Current sociological theory often leads to underidentified simultaneous-equation models, some of which are 'identified' by arbitrary specification. This paper applies the term sensitivity analysis to methods for exploring how numerical parameter estimates depend upon the identifying assumptions in such models. Three ad hoc sensitivity analysis methods are identified that have been used in the literature: (1) estimation under alternative specifica…
How Should Social Indicators be Collected, Organized, and Modeled
The Masking of Material Inequality in the Contemporary United States
Social Change and Crime Rate Trends
On estimating the social costs of national economic policy
Human ecology and crime
Developing social indicators research on the military in American society
Property Crime Rates in the United States
This paper presents several macrodynamic social indicator models of post-World War II trends in robbery, burglary, and automobile theft rates for the United States. A theory of the ways in wich changes in criminal opportunity affect these Index Crime property crime rates is deveoped. Definitions and postulates are presented from which we derive a main theorem which states that, other things being equal, a decrease in the density of the population…
Using social indicators to forecast partisan alignments in congressional election years
Quantitative output of the criminal justice system
Sociology (36 works) · Crime Patterns and Interventions (26 works) · Criminology (26 works) · Political science (23 works) · Psychology (21 works) · Computer Science (20 works) · Crime, Illicit Activities, and Governance (17 works) · Economics (16 works) · Law (14 works) · Mathematics (13 works)