Crime as a Mediated, Gated, and Path-Dependent System: A Theorem-Driven Structural Account of Crime Realization

This preprint develops a theorem-driven structural account of crime realization within an explicitly bounded analytical scope. It argues that crime should not be understood as a direct or mechanically continuous outcome of criminogenic exposure, but rather as a mediated, gated, and path-dependent system. The paper advances three core theorems. First, criminogenic exposure is not equivalent to realized crime: exposure must be distinguished analytically from behavioral realization. Second, social cohesion cannot be treated as a freely deployable intervention variable, since its production depends on governance capacity, temporal consistency, and perceived reciprocity. Third, realized crime may persist even after upstream conditions improve where rationalization capacity has become stabilized through repeated and socially reinforced norm violation. The article is theoretical rather than empirical. It does not estimate effects or test hypotheses using original data. Instead, it offers a scope-bound, theorem-driven framework intended to clarify the structural relations between exposure, mediation, realization, and persistence. Existing criminological literatures are engaged heuristically for orientation and positioning, but do not serve as premises for the formal claims advanced. The paper’s main contribution lies in theoretical ordering rather than variable addition. It specifies how explanatory domains that are often discussed separately in criminology — structural exposure, social mediation, normative justification, and temporal persistence — can be related within a single formally bounded structure. In doing so, it clarifies which intervention claims become structurally weak or inadmissible within the declared scope and identifies downstream implications for explanation, intervention logic, and future empirical inquiry. This work is intended as theoretical infrastructure for downstream use, critique, refinement, or empirical instantiation.