EAGER: Rational Choice in the Real World: Unpacking Neighborhood Influences on the Decision Process for Youth Violence

Within Criminology, rational choice theory provides the dominant framework by which researchers have attempted to understand the decision process as it relates to crime. Traditional examinations of rational choice theory have assumed that would-be criminals prefer crime and therefore only calculate its costs and benefits to decide whether to commit it. However, little is known about how the full, more nuanced decision process (from decision sciences) plays out in actual criminal incidents or how it is shaped by living in areas of concentrated disadvantage that contribute to high rates of community violence. This omission can distort how we view offenders and produce less effective policy based on faulty assumptions. The overarching goal of this EAGER project is to unpack the black box of the decision process as it unfolds in incidents of violence among youth living in disadvantaged neighborhoods. This basic science can advance understanding of all forms of crime by drawing on insights from those navigating the real-world contexts associated with crime to understand the role of neighborhoods in the decision process. In addition to these theoretical insights, this project will inform efforts to reduce youth violence through decision aiding that targets specific components of the decision process and by seeking to change the contexts that produce such outcomes. The impact of this work will be enhanced by providing students and a postdoctoral fellow with research and professional development opportunities, partnering with a community advisory board from the communities most impacted by community violence, and creating a technical advisory board to inform the dissemination plan. To achieve project goals, the research team will collect data from multiple interviews with youth ages 18 to 24 residing in disadvantaged neighborhoods in Lansing, Michigan, to examine how the decision process operates during violent incidents and the contextual influences on it. Interview protocols will be derived using inductive and deductive techniques, and a coding scheme will be developed to construct mental models of youth’s decision process and its neighborhood influences. Completion of this work will produce an updated choice framework to the field of Criminology to improve understanding of decision-making and violence and inform related policies that largely respond to crime as though it is unrelated to the social milieu in which it occurs. It is imperative that we address this problematic aspect of criminological theory, as current policies (e.g., mass incarceration) are detrimental to an already marginalized segment of society (i.e., young Black males) for whom we tend to overlook the complexity of decision processes. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.