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Explanations of Criminal Behavior

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Title: Explanations of Criminal Behavior


1
Explanations of Criminal Behavior
  • What is a theory?
  • Why is theory useful to us as practitioners?

2
Conditions of a Scientific Theory
  • Data-based information
  • Internally consistent
  • No contradictions
  • Stands up to professional scrutiny

3
Types of Theories
  • Macro
  • Micro

4
Sociology
  • The study of human beings in society
  • socio logos

5
Social Structure Theories
  • Social Structure/Social Problems
  • Anomie/Strain

6
Social Structure/Social Problems
  • The Culture of Poverty
  • Term coined by Oscar Lewis
  • Chronic Unemployment
  • Child Poverty
  • Racial Disparity
  • Race Economic Disparity

7
Key Terms of Social Structure Theories
  • Culture of Poverty
  • Urban Underclass
  • The Truly Disadvantaged

8
Anomie/Strain Theory
  • Emile Durkheims Concept of Anomie

9
Emile Durkheims Concept of Anomie
  • Normlessness
  • Social emptiness
  • Caused by rapidly shifting norms and values
  • Caused by rapid social transformations

10
Strain Theory
  • Robert Mertons Americanization of Anomie
  • Mertons Adaptations to Strain

11
Mertons Adaptations
  • Conformity
  • Innovation
  • Retreatism
  • Ritualism
  • Rebellion

12
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.

13
Strain Theory Pattern
  • Poverty
  • Maintenance of Conventional Rules Norms
  • Strain
  • Formation of Gangs Groups
  • Crime Delinquency
  • Criminal Careers

14
Poverty
  • Development of isolated underclass culture
  • Lack of conventional social opportunities
  • Racial and ethnic discrimination

15
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

16
Formation of Gangs
  • As alternative means of achieving success

17
Criminal Careers
  • Theft, violence, and substance abuse become a
    mechanism for dealing with strain

18
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 ?

19
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?

20
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.

21
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)

22
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.

23
Theories of Socialization
  • Learning Theories
  • Differential Association Theory
  • by Edwin Sutherland

24
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?

25
What do you value?
  • What influenced/influences your value choices?

26
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

27
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.

28
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.

29
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.

30
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

31
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

32
Learning Techniques that Rationalize their
Behavior
  • Denial of Responsibility
  • Denial of Injury
  • Denial of Victim
  • Cendemnation of the Condemnors
  • Appeal to Higher Loyalties

33
Denial of Responsibility
  • Denying that the unlawful acts were their fault.
  • They were due to forces beyond their control or
    were an accident.

34
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

35
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

36
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

37
Appeal to Higher Loyalties
  • The needs of the group take precedence over the
    rules of society

38
Social Control Theory
39
Social Control Theories ask
  • Why dont people commit crime?
  • What controls are present in the lives of those
    who dont commit crime?

40
The Social Bond
  • What are the elements of the social bond that
    keeps people from committing crime?

41
The Key Elements of the Social Bond
  • Attachment
  • Commitment
  • Involvement
  • Belief

42
Attachment
  • Psychological and emotional closeness to others
  • Reciprocal love relationships
  • Affection for and sensitivity to others
  • Basic element needed for internalizing values and
    norms

43
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

44
Involvement
  • Time spent in conventional activities
  • Idle hands are the devils workshop

45
Belief
  • Acceptance of conventional morality.
  • The more people believe that they should obey
    societys rules, the more likely they will.

46
Attachment
  • Family
  • Friends
  • Community

47
Commitment
  • Family
  • Career
  • Success
  • Future plans

48
Involvement
  • School activities
  • Sports teams
  • Community organizations - scouts
  • Religious groups
  • Social clubs

49
Belief
  • Honesty
  • Morality
  • Fairness
  • Patriotism
  • Responsibility

50
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.

51
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.

52
Findings of Hirschis Study
  • Delinquent youths maintained weak and distant
    relationships with people.

53
How did Hirschi measure the elements?
  • Using a self-report survey of 4000 youth

54
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?

55
Commitment
  • Frequency of drinking, smoking?
  • Level of educational aspiration
  • Level of vocational expctation (blue-collar,
    white-collar, professional)

56
Involvement
  • Time spent on homework and conventional
    activities
  • Involvement in unconventional activities

57
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

58
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.

59
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.

60
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

61
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.

62
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

63
What Effect does Labeling Have on Youth?
  • Negative labels create a self-fulfilling prophecy
  • Amplification of offending

64
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.

65
Significance of Labeling Theory
  • Is there Discrimination in the Labeling Process?
  • Is Labeling Theory Useful? True?
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