Rewriting the Script: Cross-Disciplinary Exploration and Conceptual Consolidation of the Procedural Analysis of Crime

The use of Cornish’s crime-scripts approach in situational crime prevention grows apace. However, we believe the conceptual foundation of cognitive scripts imported from Abelson and colleagues was rather unclear and is too narrow to support current script research. We therefore review the notion of scripts to both promote clarity and better connect it to mainstream situational prevention and criminology more generally. We also seek to broaden the approach by exploring additional cross-disciplinary links. We believe all this will support the progressively more demanding uses to which the procedural analysis of crime may be put in research and practice and—more broadly—challenge how human behaviour in crime is analysed.