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Sex offenders and victims • 19 *Routine Activities and Crime In 1979, Cohen and Felson presented a theory that took a different view of criminal behavior. Instead of only examining the activities of offenders or victims, Cohen and Felson proposed that criminal behavior is a union of criminal, victim, time, and place. This became known as routine activities theory. The focus of routine activities theory is the natural activity patterns of people. Cohen and Felson (1979, p.593) define routine activities as “any recurrent and prevalent activities which provide for basic population and individual needs.” They argue that criminal activities follow patterns similar to those of “everyday suste- nance activities,” meaning that criminals go about their lives in the same kinds of movement and behavior patterns as those who go to work, school, shop, and undertake hobbies. It is when the “routine activities” of a criminal overlap the “routine activities” of a victim that the potential for a criminal violation occurs. According to Cohen and Felson, routine activities bring people together in both criminal and non-criminal behaviors. “Hence the timing of work, schooling, and leisure may be of central importance for explaining crime rates” (Cohen & Felson, p.591). It is this convergence of victims and offenders in time and place that is central to routine activities theory, and to the research at hand. Cohen and Felson (1979) propose that their theory is most applicable to “direct-contact predatory violations,” that is, when an offender has direct physi- cal contact with a victim. They believe that routine activity patterns are affected by three elements: motivated offenders, suitable targets, and the absence of ca- pable guardians against a violation. A change in any one of these could increase or decrease the crime rate. While it has been popularly held that an increase in the number of offenders could increase the crime rate regardless of the number of vic- tims, it may also be true that an increase in the number of suitable targets in an area could increase the crime rate, even without an increase in the number of offenders. In a follow-up study published in 1987, Felson extended the original theory by focusing on urban characteristics, including locations that attract both poten- tial offenders and victims. In this research, Felson proposes that criminals often position themselves to naturally come into contact with potential victims: “Just as lions look for deer near their watering hole, criminal offenders dis- proportionably find victims in certain settings . . ..” (1987, p. 914). He goes on to suggest that certain areas of the city bring offenders and targets together so effectively that they almost draw the people to the area, they make it easy for offenders to find suitable victims, and they create areas of the city that are very high crime risk areas. Public facilities such as parks and schools were among the areas mentioned. As such, routine activities theory was expanded to show that not only do offenders and