Introduction to the Special Issue with some reflections on the role of self-control in Situational Action Theory

In recent years, Per-Olaf Wikstrom's Situational Action Theory (SAT) (for example, Wikstrom, 2010; Wikstrom et al., 2012) has become one of the most-examined crime theories among European criminologists interested in crime causation. Although devised as a tool to explain rule-breaking behaviour in general, most contemporary applications deal with its potential to account for the formation of criminal or delinquent conduct. The theory's key argument is that the interaction between an individual with a certain crime propensity and a setting with a certain criminogeneity triggers a perception-choice process that immediately governs action. Therewith SAT represents both a broad and a deep theory. It is broad in the sense that it successfully integrates person-oriented and environment-oriented explanations of criminal conduct. It is deep in the sense that it illuminates the mechanism that brings about criminal behaviour. A distinct feature is the theory's focus on the interactive interplay of the various factors and processes involved in crime causation. "It's all about interaction' (Wikstrom et al., 2012) excellently describes the theory's central credo. This implies a shift from the study of the unconditional effects of various influencing entities to their conditional effects, which runs through all articles included in the Special Issue of the European Journal of Criminology.