Crime rates and the technological transformation of leisure: A routine activities approach

From the late 1970's to the early 2000's property crime victimization rates dropped rather steadily. Violent crime victimization rates also trended downward before rising briefly in the 80s and early 90s and then dropping precipitously from the mid-1990s to the early 2000s. Researchers have yet to utilize the routine activities approach to understand changes in crime rates from the late 1980s to the early 2000s. Empirical tests of routine activities theory have consistently supported the idea that levels of household and non-household activity are correlated with victimization rates. Since the late 1970s technologies such as the VCR, Cable TV, video games, and the computer have helped transform the use of leisure time. It is hypothesized that the technological transformation of leisure has produced increases in home-bound activity and, therefore, helped produce decreases in victimization rates. In order to test this hypothesis national time-series data were collected for criminal victimization rates and for various indicators of home-based technologically oriented leisure time activities such as TV, video games, and the Internet. The data were analyzed using first-order differencing equations in OLS regression. The results of the analysis were strongly supportive of the hypothesized relationship between levels of 'techno-leisure activities' in the home activities and victimization rates. Specifically, negative and statistically significant relationships were observed between the 'techno-leisure index' and criminal victimization rates between 1978 and 2002---even after statistically controlling for variables such as incarceration and crack cocaine use. The analysis indicates that the relationship between the use of technologically based leisure activities and victimization rates was stronger for property crime than for violent crime and was more pronounced for whites and males. These findings are largely consistent with prior routine activities research. A consideration of future trends suggests that the technological transformation of leisure may help to continue producing lower victimization rates for several years to come. A variety of suggestions are offered for future research that more thoroughly investigates the link between technological change and criminal victimization rates.