III. Summary of Routine Activity TheoryA. Definition of approach to routine activities. According to Cohen and Felson (1979), the routine activities approach is based on three main conditions to rationalize crime. For a crime to occur, these conditions must coincide in the same space and time: motivated offender, suitable target and absence of guardians capable of discouraging the crime. The authors used human ecological theory to examine social structure and how such coincidences occur and cause crimes in everyday life. They believe that people's lifestyle increases the possibility of committing crimes especially when they leave their homes (Cohen & Felson, 1979). Children's lifestyle could be a major factor in cybercrimes related to child sexual abuse. of questions relating to the validity of routine activity theory. Recall that routine activity theory states that for a crime to occur, a pair of factors must coincide in time and space: a motivated offender, a suitable target, and the absence of a capable guardian. Not allowing these factors to coincide in time and space consequently leads us to lower crime rates. (Spano & Freilich, 2009) concluded that a capable guardian has a negative relationship with crime rates and that all other factors have a positive relationship. The findings are consistent with theoretical factors that influence crime rates. For example, they found that a capable guardian is predicted to be over 5 times more of a defensive factor, that target suitability is 3.33 times more of a threat factor, that motivated offenders are 3.12 times more a threat factor and that lifestyles in general are 7.4 times more important. threat factors. However, studies that support the theory have focused on youth or college age samples (Spano & Freilich, Researchers can use routine activity theory as a general theory of crime to study child sexual abuse crimes. As long as the routine activity theory has both macro and micro level scope, so we can use it to explain crimes committed by strangers and relatives alike. Commonly, researchers use theories such as the cycle of violence, the economic/social structure model, and the sociocultural explanation, the ecological model and the exchange theory of child abuse when examining child sexual abuse crimes and are now trying to apply other criminological theories (Andrews,