CRIM 2303: Crime and Society

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CRIM 2303 Crime and Society
Weeks 23 Theories of Crime and Society
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Weeks 23 Theories of Crime

• Define Etiological
• Identify broad etiological theories of crime
• Examine sociological theories
• Examine what puts children and youth at risk of
  developing delinquent and criminal behaviour
• Group Discussion

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Etiological Theories of Crime
Aetiology / n. / (US etiology) 1. the assignment
of cause or reason to help explain a certain
phenomenon. 2. the philosophy of causation 3.
med. The science of the causes of disease.
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Etiological Theories of Crime

• Attempt to understand the causal factors that
  contribute to criminal behaviour
• Why does crime exist?
• What are the root causes of criminal behaviour?
• Why do certain individuals turn to crime, while
  other individuals, under similar circumstances,
  do not?
• What is the relationship between crime and
  society?

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Etiological Theories of Crime

• Etiological theories of crime can be grouped into
  three broad categories
• Biological Theories
• Psychological Theories
• Sociological Theories

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Biological Theories of Crime

• Some theories attribute criminality to innate
  biological factors.
• Cesare Lombroso (18351909) Serious or
  persistent criminality associated with atavism
  people in a primitive stage of human development.
  
• Biological theories also serve as a foundation
  for racial determinants of criminal behaviour
• Biological theories are not supported by research

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Psychological Theories of Crime
Certain neurosis may drive anti-social behaviour,
including criminality

• Abnormal psychology the causes of criminal
  behavior originate in the personality
• Freud
• Traumatic experiences in early childhood leave
  their mark on the individual
• Unfettered instinctual drives for gratification
  help drive crime inhibit self-control
• Severe depression may lead to violence
• Mental illness is the cause of only a small
  proportion of crimes (most are self-inflicted)
• Infanticide punishable by five years max
  caused by post-partum psychosis

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Sociological Theories of Crime

• Locates the causes of deviance and crime in the
  relationship between society offenders
• Criminal behaviour as an outcome of or adaptation
  to an offender's social environment.
• Strain and culture conflict
• Social Learning theory
• Differential association
• Social disorganization
• Subcultures
• Control theory
• Developmental Criminology

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Sociological Theories of Crime

• Strain (Anomie) and Culture Conflict
• Society, through conflicts and contradictions
  between its goals and the means to attain them,
  exerts a pressure on some people to turn to
  crime.
• Strain results when people are confronted by the
  contradiction between goals and the opportunities
  to reach those goals.
• These individuals become estranged from a society
  that promises them in principle what they are
  deprived of in reality they turn to crime when
  aspirations are blocked.

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Sociological Theories of Crime

• Strain (Anomie) and Culture Conflict
• .

Louisville Flood Victims (1937) Photo by
Margaret Bourke White
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Sociological Theories of Crime

• Differential Association
• Individuals are also at risk of becoming
  delinquent and/or criminal if their socialization
  emphasizes contempt for societal norms.
• The leap from strain to criminal activity is
  bolstered when individuals (esp. youth) live in
  an environment where criminal behaviour can be
  learned emulated - through associations with
  those involved in crime

Edwin Sutherland
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Sociological Theories of Crime

• Differential Association
• Criminal behaviour is learned, and therefore not
  innate
• An intimate group (e.g., family) is a major
  influence on learning and emulating types of
  behaviour
• Individuals learn either positive or negative
  motives about the law
• Differential associations depend on specific
  variables frequency, duration, priority and
  intensity

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Sociological Theories of Crime

• Social Learning Theory
• Aggression violence is influenced by social
  environment family members, the peer groups, the
  media, etc.
• Aggression is learned through behaviour
  modeling children are trained to act
  aggressively and use violence by modeling their
  behaviour upon that of adults
• Children are apt to use the same aggressive
  tactics their parents use especially if it
  appears to solve a problem (positive
  reinforcement)

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Sociological Theories of Crime

• Control Theory
• Concerned with why people do not commit crime
  Answer lies in social control (both formal and
  informal).
• People vary in self-control, which, internalized
  early in life, determines an individual's ability
  to resist criminal tendencies
• Low self-control, anti-social behaviour,
  delinquency, criminality arises from defective
  socialization, especially at a young age.
• Supporting strengthening institutions of early
  socialization become fundamental aspects of crime
  prevention.

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Sociological Theories of Crime

• Social Disorganization
• Differential association low self-control are
  more likely to be nurtured in environments
  characterized by social disorganization, where
  familial and communal controls are ineffective in
  exerting a positive influence.
• In disadvantaged neighbourhoods, young people
  stand a greater chance of being exposed to
  anti-social, deviant, criminal norms
  (differential association).
• http//www.statcan.ca/Daily/English/040916/d040916
  c.htm

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Sociological Theories of Crime
Social Disorganization The Chicago School

• Research in Chicago in 1920-40s delinquents
  lived in zones of transition where poverty,
  physical deterioration, rapid population
  turnover undermined conditions necessary for
  positive socialization
• Result of this social pathology children were
  negatively socialized.

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Sociological Theories of Crime

• Subcultures
• People who share a common bond and who reject
  central tenets and norms of the prevailing
  culture
• They organize their behaviour according to the
  norms of the group to which they belong or
  identify
• Albert Cohen
• delinquents are motivated by status frustration
  whereby they feel they are looked down upon by
  society
• they then develop a distinct set of values or
  subculture, providing them with an alternate
  means of gaining status
• which may lead them into delinquency and/or crime
  
• Some criminal subcultures view themselves as
  superior to mainstream society

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Sociological Theories of Crime

• Subcultures
• Criminal subculture are epitomized by biker
  gangs, which initially cultivated strong
  anti-establishment attitudes.
• OMGs purposively cut themselves off from the
  majority culture (and other motorcycle
  enthusiasts)
• OMGs proudly were symbols of their subcultural
  tendencies through their colours and patches

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Sociological Theories of Crime

• At-Risk Children/Youth
• Offending is part of larger syndrome of
  antisocial behaviour that emerges in childhood
• This behaviour is the result of many risk
  factors within the individual and his/her
  environment (learning disabilities, family
  upbringing, education, community, job market).
• Early intervention must reduce risk factors
  increase protection factors.

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IDENTIFYING AND REDUCING RISK FACTORS

• Identify the characteristics that differentiate
  offenders from non-offenders.
• Individuals who are involved in chronic
  offending tend to be disadvantaged in several
  areas of their lives.
• Identify factors (individual environmental)
  that are common among chronic offenders.
• Identify children and youth who are at-risk

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IDENTIFYING AND REDUCING RISK FACTORS

• Risk factors can be grouped into two broad
  categories
• Individual psychological and physiological
  factors that are intrinsic to the individual
• Environment risk factors produced by the social
  environment that surrounds an individual or a
  group
• Criminality is not due to individual pathology,
  but the interaction between high risk individual
  characteristics and high risk social
  environmental characteristics

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CRIMIOGENIC RISK FACTORS

• Individual personality behavioural factors
  hyperactive behaviour, learning disabilities,
  impulsiveness, restlessness, prenatal and
  perinatal factors (e.g., fetal alcohol syndrome,
  low birth-weight), addictive personality, low
  self-control
• Family influences social class, family size,
  poverty, lone-parenting, inadequate parenting
  skills, neglect, inconsistent disciplining,
  physical abuse, parental conflict, separation and
  divorce, parents involved in criminality or
  substance abuse

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IDENTIFYING AND REDUCING RISK FACTORS

• School influences trouble in school, poor
  schooling, bullying, poor educational
  achievements, failures, truancy, and exclusion
  from school
• Community influences kids who live in poor,
  inner-city neighbourhoods, concentrated poverty,
  poor housing, exposure to bad examples in their
  neighbourhoods, community disintegration,
  community disorganization

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IDENTIFYING AND REDUCING RISK FACTORS

• Peer group pressure young offenders tend to
  have friends also involved in delinquent
  activities lacking in suitable friends
• Other high risk factors - Employment
  opportunities (lack of jobs, training, or
  employment opportunities) member of immigrant
  group, member of an aboriginal group, substance
  abuse

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Etiological Theories Summary

• Strain alone is not sufficient to explain
  criminality
• It is aggravated by differential association,
  which is found in neighbourhoods with a high
  level of social disorganization, which gives rise
  to deviant subcultures.
• Children youth most at risk are those who are
  under-socialized in the norms of civil society
  over-socialized in the norms and values of a
  deviant subculture
• Crime is rooted in social environment it arises
  from disruptions and malfunctioning of the social
  system and the socialization process.

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Sociological Theories of Crime

• Case Study Henry Hill