ABSTRACT
While many Enlightenment ideas and thinkers challenged the theologically oriented theories, one man’s work changed the way in which society viewed criminal behavior. This chapter discusses the development of rational choice and deterrence theories from their inception during the enlightenment. If people are rational, which classical theory says they are, then people can be deterred from harming one another using the strategies implicit in deterrence theory. Rational choice is a theory in its own right, but it also informs other theories. Many theories implicitly incorporate ideas of a rational criminal into their framework for explaining criminal behavior. Routine Activity Theory which focuses on large-scale, macro-level factors, and lifestyles theory which focuses on individual factors and behaviors, offer two related but distinct theories couched in the rational choice/deterrence literature. The legacy of theories based in rational choice is complicated. In some ways, rational choice theories are a double-edged sword.
