Crime theories and their explanatory validity

Sociology - Crime Theories

MAKING SENSE OUT of CRIME

Several hundred years of social theorizing have produced numerous different explanations for the evolution of criminal conduct in human societies. Initially, criminal behavior was considered to be mainly a function of rational choices made by individuals for whom crime presented greater opportunities than conventional, socially acceptable avenues of providing income and tangible conveniences. Alternative, biologically-based explanations conceived of crime as behavior determined by inherent biological inclination, going so far as to try to predict criminal conduct by dubious disciplines like phrenology.

Sociologists suggested various theories of social deviance, including those that pertained to the relationship between the individual and society, as well as those that described the perceived struggles between and among different social classes and subcultures. Contemporary theorists no longer attribute criminal conduct exclusively to any specific origin, although they do acknowledge the general relevance and validity of many different concepts of criminal behavior that incorporate elements of traditional views about the causes of crime in society.

Considering Various Explanations for Crime:

According to the rational choice perspective of crime, individuals engaging in criminal behavior do so purely by volitional choices rather than because of more complex reasons or external influences on their behavior. This point-of-view accounted for the harsh treatment of convicted criminals in the United States prior to the first experimental approaches to prison reform and the introduction of the concept of rehabilitation in the 19th century (Adler, Mueller & Laufer, 2008).

Also during the 19th century, Emile Durkheim introduced the Anomie theory of crime, proposing that increasing crime in modern society was the result of decreased emphasis on social norms and standards of behavior in society, partially attributable to the relaxation of religious (and other) traditional social values. Contemporaries of Durkheim like Merton further developed that concept of crime to include social strain theories, according to which crime was a function of the growing disparity between the rich and poor and the comparative unavailability of social opportunity to less advantaged individuals. According to Merton, the psychological strain resulting from unachievable social goals produced a form of modern social disillusionment that contributed to deviant behavior and crime as an alternate means of achieving some of the benefits of modern industrialization in the absence of socially acceptable methods of their attainment (Adler, Mueller & Laufer, 2008).

Similar theories focused less on the social discord of individuals in relation to society and emphasized the purported class struggle that produced conflict between different segments of society in the general form of antipathy and antagonism on the part of the disadvantaged classes for the more privileged classes. Likewise, the view of 19th century radical criminology suggested that crime is largely a function of deliberate attempts of the underclass to usurp some of the benefits of the higher social classes by force.

In the 20th century, social theorists and criminologists began examining the evolution of criminal behavior and other forms of social and cultural deviance as a function of social learning among the many deviant subcultures and high rates of juvenile delinquency that seemed to correspond to social learning within the many criminal and quasi-criminal subcultures prevalent in underprivileged communities (Adler, Mueller & Laufer, 2008). In that regard, Walter Miller proposed a specific mechanism prevalent within underprivileged communities, linking high rates of delinquency, criminal behavior, and violent subcultures to the high incidence of single-parent homes in which mothers provided the only parental authority because of the phenomenon of absent fathers in those communities. According to Miller, entire generations of youths without appropriate father figures received their only male guidance from role models in the street. In this view, the fact that underprivileged subcultures already promoted a different set of social values emphasizing "street smarts" and toughness instead of socially productive attributes and goals combined with the substitution of deviant role models for father figures is a significant source of criminal conduct, particularly in poor communities (Adler, Mueller & Laufer, 2008).

Other modern sociological perspectives began reconsidering crime and other forms of socially deviant behavior as primarily a function of individual psychology.

However, whereas earlier theories of individual responsibility focused on the role of rational choice, the modern approach viewed crime much more as a function of the cumulative psychological effects on the individual of the consequences of social labeling.

Furthermore, it has been suggested that much of the difference in crime rates in underprivileged communities also relates directly to the different types of characterizations and institutional responses to different types of crime in American society. Typically, many of the types of so-called "street crimes" that occur in poor communities involve violence and result in more intensive police response than the types of crimes that typically occur in middle and upper class communities. Even though so- called "white collar" crime such as those perpetrated by Bernard Madoff generally involve much larger financial losses, violent crime is usually associated with more intense police response. Even where violence is involved, incidents of middle class delinquency often results in much more lenient enforcement, mainly by virtue of the identity and social class of the perpetrators (Adler, Mueller & Laufer, 2008).

Finally, 20th century criminologists have also offered specific reasons that certain individuals become involved in crime out of perceived necessity, such as radical feminism and delinquent female subcultures attributable to the long-term responses to the underprivileged status of females in the post-Industrial Revolution era, and to early abuse and physical, psychological, and sexual trauma experienced by many females in underprivileged segments of contemporary society (Adler, Mueller & Laufer, 2008).