ABSTRACT
Most criminological theory moreover lacks a developed theory of action which outlines how personal and environmental characteristics, and, in particular, their interaction, impact on action, and specifically upon acts of crime. Situational action theory is a general theory of moral action and crime devised by the Scandinavian criminologist Per-Olof Wikström during the first decade of the twenty-first century. Situational action theory proposes that crime is best considered as moral action, which is defined as action guided by moral rules about what is right or wrong in a particular circumstance. Humans are viewed as essentially rule-guided actors and social order is fundamentally based on the adherence to common rules of conduct. From the situational action theory perspective, the two main categories of motivation in crime causation are temptation and provocation and these come about as an outcome of the person–setting interaction. Changes in exposure may lead to changes in propensity through changes in the processes of socialization and habituation.
