Laying the Groundwork for Testing Routine Activity Theory at the Microlevel Using Japanese Satellite Positioning Technology

Abstract

We carried out several studies that may lay the groundwork for testing routine activity theory in its original form, using satellite positioning technology as principal method of measurement. These include (1) a survey of criminal and crime-related incidents against elementary school students using a combination of questionnaires and maps; (2) a survey of the routine activities of 80 elementary school students, which recorded and analyzed the after-school activities of second-grade and fifth-grade students for 2 weeks, using GPS loggers as tracking devices; and (3) studies of town-watch activities by voluntary crime prevention groups that used a software tool that integrates GPS track-logs, digital photos, and descriptive texts (derived from voice recordings) into spatial-temporal datasets.

The results suggest that (a) the routine activities of potential targets of crime (e.g., elementary school students) and guardians (e.g., crime prevention volunteers) can be tracked and recorded with reasonable accuracy using low-cost, easy-to-use satellite positioning devices such as GPS loggers; (b) the survey of criminal victimization and potentially dangerous incidents may be a preferable candidate for the dependent variable in testing the routine activity theory, since a considerable number of these incidents are not reported to official institutions; and (c) although the GPS works reasonably well in suburban and rural settings, the level of positioning accuracy tends to be far less than satisfactory in highly urbanized settings, which is where crime problems tend to be most overwhelming.

The use of satellite positioning technology, in combination with routine activity theory, may have great practical implications in the area of community-based crime prevention. Such pieces of information can then be used for space-time-focused efforts for the prevention of victimization in high-vulnerability situations. In this way, routine activity theory may prove to be a guiding theoretical framework for the everyday practice of community-based crime prevention.