"Reasonably rational offenders, while engaging in their routine activities, will know places where victims can be contacted, abducted or assaulted without the interference of guardians or managers and where their handlers are unlikely to show up".
[2] The Routine Activity Theory, developed in 1979 by Marcus Felson and Lawrence E. Cohen, argued that crime occurs because of setting and opportunity.
The two theorists believe that there is little influence from a perpetrator's socioeconomic status at the time when criminal activity begins, but that the possibility of crime occurring to a particular group of people "...was influenced by the convergence in space and time of three main elements: Sexual violence in society is considered a highly deviant, and anti-social activity.
The individuals conducting the study wanted to determine the offenders' patterns through interviews, questionnaires, and police reports.
The basic tenet underlying this theory is that an individual will weigh the cost and benefits of their actions, prior to execution.