Co-offending as Social Exchange. Explaining Characteristics of Co-offending

Studies in the past have already revealed some interesting characteristics of co‐offending, but relatively little attention has been paid to explaining them. This paper is focused on the explanation of these characteristics. A comprehensive theory is proposed, based on the idea that co‐offending may be viewed as an event in which material and immaterial goods are exchanged. The basic concepts of such a social exchange theory are formulated in this article, and a causal model based on this theory is deduced. The paper also shows how the proposed theory may explain the well‐known characteristics of co‐offending.