Opportunities and decisions: Interactional dynamics in robbery and burglary groups

Abstract

Street offenders more often than not are co-offenders. The theoretical importance of understanding how co-offending shapes conduct has been recognized for decades but is often ignored by investigators. Drawing from interviews with 50 male robbers and burglars who committed their crimes with others, this paper examines how interactional dynamics modify both the perception of criminal opportunities and criminal decision making. Offenders construct opportunity by improvising situational interpretations, communicating expectations and negotiating shared meanings. As opposed to many prevailing notions of criminal decision making, decisions in groups are incremental, contextually situated, and affected significantly by variation in members' influence. The findings, therefore, highlight shortcomings of decision-making investigations that obscure marked variation in choice by focusing narrowly on individual assessments of risks and utilities.