Explanations of Criminal Behavior

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Explanations of Criminal Behavior

• What is a theory?
• Why is theory useful to us as practitioners?

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Conditions of a Scientific Theory

• Data-based information
• Internally consistent
• No contradictions
• Stands up to professional scrutiny

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Types of Theories

• Macro
• Micro

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Sociology

• The study of human beings in society
• socio logos

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Social Structure Theories

• Social Structure/Social Problems
• Anomie/Strain

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Social Structure/Social Problems

• The Culture of Poverty
• Term coined by Oscar Lewis
• Chronic Unemployment
• Child Poverty
• Racial Disparity
• Race Economic Disparity

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Key Terms of Social Structure Theories

• Culture of Poverty
• Urban Underclass
• The Truly Disadvantaged

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Anomie/Strain Theory

• Emile Durkheims Concept of Anomie

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Emile Durkheims Concept of Anomie

• Normlessness
• Social emptiness
• Caused by rapidly shifting norms and values
• Caused by rapid social transformations

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Strain Theory

• Robert Mertons Americanization of Anomie
• Mertons Adaptations to Strain

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Mertons Adaptations

• Conformity
• Innovation
• Retreatism
• Ritualism
• Rebellion

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Relative Deprivation

• Conditions that exists when people of wealth and
  poverty live in close proximity to one another.
• Feelings of anger and hostility may produce
  criminal behavior.

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Strain Theory Pattern

• Poverty
• Maintenance of Conventional Rules Norms
• Strain
• Formation of Gangs Groups
• Crime Delinquency
• Criminal Careers

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Poverty

• Development of isolated underclass culture
• Lack of conventional social opportunities
• Racial and ethnic discrimination

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Strain Develops Because

• Poor actually remain loyal to conventional norms
  of middle-class society
• Lack of opportunity coupled with desire for
  success produce strain frustration

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Formation of Gangs

• As alternative means of achieving success

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Criminal Careers

• Theft, violence, and substance abuse become a
  mechanism for dealing with strain

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Agnews General Strain Theory

• Sources of strain ?
• Failure to achieve positively valued goals
• The removal of positively valued stimuli from the
  individual ?
• Presentation of negative stimuli ?

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According to General Strain Theory

• Negative affective states - especially anger -
  are a trigger of anti-social behavior ?
• How do we cope with strain? Cognitive and
  behavioral therapeutic interventions Is that
  enough?

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Social Process Theories

• Not all sociologists agree that merely living in
  an impoverished, deteriorated, lower-class area
  is a determinant of a delinquent career.
• Root cause of delinquency may be traced to
  learning delinquent attitudes.

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Social Process Theories

• Examine the relationship between socialization
  and delinquent behavior
• Delinquency is related to the quality of a
  youths socialization (regardless of
  socio-economic status)

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Socialization

• The process of guiding people into acceptable
  behavior patterns through information, approval,
  rewards, and punishments.
• Learning techniques needed to function in
  society.
• A developmental process influenced by family,
  peers, neighbors, teachers and other authority
  figures.

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Theories of Socialization

• Learning Theories
• Differential Association Theory
• by Edwin Sutherland

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What is differential association?

• Over the course of a day what kind of
  associations do you have?
• What are the social class, gender, race,
  ethnicity of the people with whom you have
  contact?

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What do you value?

• What influenced/influences your value choices?

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Differential Association

• Learning Theory
• Norms and values are transferred to youths
  through learning experiences.
• Significant others, such as parents and peers,
  may hold values that condone criminal and
  delinquent behavior

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Differential Association

• Criminal behavior is learned.
• Learning involves all of the mechanisms and
  techniques of any other learning.
• Crime is learned in interaction with others, in a
  process of communication.

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Differential Association

• Learning includes the techniques, motives,
  drives, rationalizations, and attitudes that
  support behavior.
• The frequency, duration and intensity of contacts
  determines which values are held and acted on.

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Differential Association

• Kids engage in crime because of an excess of
  definitions favorable to law violation over
  definitions unfavorable to it.
• Differential association may vary in frequency,
  duration, priority and intensity.
• Definitions from parents may have higher priority
  if repeated often enough.

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A few premises of differential association

• Crime is a politically defined construct
• Culture conflict is inevitable in a modern,
  complex society
• People vary in their attachment to criminal and
  non-criminal definitions

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Neutralization Theory or Drift Theory

• By Gresham Sykes and David Matza
• Delinquents hold attitudes values similar to
  those of law-abiding citizens
• But they learn techniques that enable them to
  neutralize those values and attitudes and drift
  back and forth between legitimate and delinquent
  behavior

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Learning Techniques that Rationalize their
Behavior

• Denial of Responsibility
• Denial of Injury
• Denial of Victim
• Cendemnation of the Condemnors
• Appeal to Higher Loyalties

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Denial of Responsibility

• Denying that the unlawful acts were their fault.
  
• They were due to forces beyond their control or
  were an accident.

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Denial of Injury

• Denying the wrongfulness of an act.
• Stealing is viewed as borrowing and vandalism
  is considered mischief that got out of hand.
• Society often agrees that the behavior was a prank

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Denial of Victim

• He had it coming
• Ignoring the rights of an absent or unknown
  victims
• Its morally acceptable to commit crimes when
  victims cant be sympathized with or respected
  because of absence

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Condemnation of the Condemnors

• They view the world as corrupt with a dog-eat-dog
  moral code.
• Police and judges are on the take, teachers show
  favoritism, parents take out their frustrations
  on their children.
• Shifting the blame to others

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Appeal to Higher Loyalties

• The needs of the group take precedence over the
  rules of society

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Social Control Theory
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Social Control Theories ask

• Why dont people commit crime?
• What controls are present in the lives of those
  who dont commit crime?

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The Social Bond

• What are the elements of the social bond that
  keeps people from committing crime?

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The Key Elements of the Social Bond

• Attachment
• Commitment
• Involvement
• Belief

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Attachment

• Psychological and emotional closeness to others
• Reciprocal love relationships
• Affection for and sensitivity to others
• Basic element needed for internalizing values and
  norms

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Commitment

• A stake in conformity
• Investment in conventional society
• The time, energy and effort we expend in
  conventional activities
• Lack of commitment may mean risk-taking behavior
  because you have nothing to lose

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Involvement

• Time spent in conventional activities
• Idle hands are the devils workshop

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Belief

• Acceptance of conventional morality.
• The more people believe that they should obey
  societys rules, the more likely they will.

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Attachment

• Family
• Friends
• Community

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Commitment

• Family
• Career
• Success
• Future plans

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Involvement

• School activities
• Sports teams
• Community organizations - scouts
• Religious groups
• Social clubs

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Belief

• Honesty
• Morality
• Fairness
• Patriotism
• Responsibility

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The Elements of the Social Bond are
Inter-related

• Someone weak on one is likely to be weak on
  another.
• The weaker the elements of the bond, the lower
  the social control.

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Most Important Findings

• Youths strongly attached to their parents were
  less likely to commit criminal acts.
• Commitment to conventional values such as
  striving to get a good education and refusing to
  drink and cruise around was also related to
  conventional behavior.

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Findings of Hirschis Study

• Delinquent youths maintained weak and distant
  relationships with people.

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How did Hirschi measure the elements?

• Using a self-report survey of 4000 youth

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Attachment

• Would you like to be the kind of person your
  father is?
• When you come across things you dont understand,
  does your mother (father) help you with them?
• Do you care what teachers think of you?
• Would you like to be the kind of person your best
  friends are?

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Commitment

• Frequency of drinking, smoking?
• Level of educational aspiration
• Level of vocational expctation (blue-collar,
  white-collar, professional)

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Involvement

• Time spent on homework and conventional
  activities
• Involvement in unconventional activities

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More findings

• The gang rarely recruits good boys or
  influences them to turn bad
• Boys who maintain middle-class values are
  relatively unaffected by the delinquency behavior
  of their friends, but having delinquent friends
  was generally related to criminality

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More findings

• The idea that delinquents have warm, intimate
  relationships with one another is a myth.
• The child with little stake in conformity is
  susceptible to pro-delinquent influences in his
  environment.

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More findings

• The child with a large stake in conformity is
  relatively immune to these influences.
• The child with a large stake in conformity was
  less likely to maintain delinquent companions.

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Recent Evaluations of Hirschis Control Theory

• Delinquents may maintain close peer group ties
• Drug abusers may maintain even more intimate
  relations with peers than non-abusers
• Attachment to delinquent peers may motivate kids
  to commit crime

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Labeling Theory

• Applying Labels
• The way labels are applied and the nature of the
  labels themselves are likely to have important
  future consequences for the delinquent.

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Who Defines Deviance?

• Deviance is not an absolute concept, but relative
  to time and place.
• Howard Becker says deviance is not a quality of
  the act but a consequence of the application by
  others of rules and sanctions to an offender

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What Effect does Labeling Have on Youth?

• Negative labels create a self-fulfilling prophecy
• Amplification of offending

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What is the Difference between Primary and
Secondary Deviance?

• Primary Deviants are not recognized by others as
  deviant nor do they recognize themselves as
  deviant.
• Secondary Deviant has internalized the view of
  others that he is deviant. This is self-labeling
  as well as labeling by others.

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Significance of Labeling Theory

• Is there Discrimination in the Labeling Process?
• Is Labeling Theory Useful? True?