2.5 Economic Theory

The rational-choice-and-opportunity face: the crime as the economic decision — the costs- benefits calculus (the Becker's economics of crime: the offence's expected utility vs the expected punishment's cost — the certainty-severity-and-swat's model); the routine-activity theory (Cohen-and-Felson: the crime's triangle — the motivated offender + the suitable target + the absence of the capable guardian — the opportunity's theory); the situational prevention's penology (the crime's design-out: the guardianship's strengthening, the target's hardening — the CPTED's world). The structural-economic face: the poverty-and-crime debate (the correlation's complexity — the honest audit: the poverty alone does not explain; the inequality- and-unemployment's faces); the strain theory's economic root (Merton — the anomie: the culture's goals vs the means' blockage — the innovation's adaptation: the crime as the success- goal's illegitimate pursuit — the sociological bridge); the Marxist faces (the crime as the class society's product; the capitalist criminogenesis — the critical criminology's root). The Nepal relevance: the migration-and-unemployment era's property crime; the informal economy's victimisation (the unreported world); the corruption's political economy (the white-collar world's lesson: the crime's economics is not the poor's monopoly).