Crime Decline

Gershon Ben Keren

Mon 28th Mar 2022

Several weeks back I wrote an article on why crime, including violent crime, rose significantly in the post-war era. In this article I want to look at some of the reasons why crime has declined dramatically and consistently since the early 1990’s; something that many people are unaware of due to the way that the media reports and presents on criminal acts etc. I also want to look at the connection between certain crimes such as burglary and car thefts and how a decline in these activities can create a decline in other offenses, such as street robberies etc., rather...Click To Read More

Self-Defense & Pavlov’s Dogs

Gershon Ben Keren

Mon 21st Mar 2022

When I first became academically interested in psychology, over thirty years ago, I was interested in learning what made people tick i.e., why do certain people have certain personalities, character traits, etc. – so I was initially disappointed when in my first class, I was informed that psychology was the study of behavior, not personality. It soon became obvious why this was: behaviors can be identified and to a degree measured (could be subject to a scientific process), whereas personality cannot e.g., a person may be reserved in almost all of their day-to-day dealings, leading us to believe that they...Click To Read More

Non-Verbal Cues & Deception

Gershon Ben Keren

Mon 14th Mar 2022

Although we are better at detecting deception verbally, rather than through non-verbal cues, we tend to trust and rely on and use body language more when discerning if someone is being truthful e.g., if someone says – genuinely – that they are really excited about something, but their body language doesn’t seem to suggest/confirm this, we are more likely to believe that they aren’t telling us the truth. This is partly based on the correct belief that people have greater difficulty concealing their body language than their words (this is because most people are better practiced at “telling” lies/using words...Click To Read More

The Capable Guardian

Gershon Ben Keren

Mon 7th Mar 2022

Cohen and Felson’s Routine Activity Theory (RAT) posits that for a crime – including an act of violence – to take place there must be a motivated offender, a suitable victim/target, and the absence of a capable guardian. In the previous two articles I have described what constitutes a motivated offender and a suitable victim/target (click on the underlined links to read these). Both of these ideas are fairly obvious and straightforward e.g., in an act of spontaneous aggression where someone has had a drink spilt over them, it is easy to understand their motivation e.g., they feel an injustice...Click To Read More