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1. looking ahead at your Final Capstone Project in Week Five, provide an outline highlighting the major points of your project(Sex Trafficking of Minors) for review and discussion among your classmates and instructor. In your outline, include at least five major ideas your Final Capstone Project will address, with brief (one to two sentence) explanations for each. At the end of this week, reflect back on the feedback your classmates and instructor have provided.
Your outline content should be entered directly into the body of the discussion. Do not attach a Word document.
As with all well-researched and organized writing, your topic (first) sentences of your paragraphs contain the major ideas of your paper. Therefore, this outline can be used in the construction of the body of your Final Capstone Project in Week Five
2. Examine the laws discussed in Chapter 9, which protect individual freedoms and the implementation of criminal justice policies. Provide at least three examples of how the U.S. criminal justice system simultaneously advances notions of social justice, while also protecting the rights of the accused. Can the criminal justice system be more effective in advancing notions of social justice? How? Your initial post should be at least 250 words in length. Support your claims with examples from the required material(s) and/or other scholarly resources, and properly cite any references.
3. Drawing upon course readings, your prior course work, and your personal experiences, which theory of criminal justice from
Criminal theory summaries (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.
,
Theories of crime and delinquency (chapters 6-7) (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.
, and
Chronological theory on the web (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.
, do you believe best reflects how the U.S. criminal justice system functions? Point out the strengths and weakness of this theory and provide recommendations to improve the current system to “fit” the theory in its purest form. Start with a substantial initial post of 250 words.
4. Explain which of the landmark federal criminal justice cases below is the most significant for promoting social justice in our present day. You may use historical examples of “wrongs righted” to supplement your positions. Be sure to explain the basis of your position and why you find the opinion or case to be most significant. Reference the Landmark Supreme Court Cases website for summaries of each case.
- Mapp v. Ohio (1961)
- Gideon v. Wainwright (1963)
- Miranda v. Arizona (1966)
- Terry v. Ohio (1968)
- Texas v. Johnson (1989)
Your initial post should be 250 words in length.
Criminological Theory Summaries
Theory Main Points Theorists/Researchers
Classical Crime occurs when the benefits outweigh the
costs—when people pursue self-interest in the
absence of effective punishments. Crime is a free-
willed choice. See also deterrence, rational
choice.
Beccaria
Positivist Crime is caused or determined. Lombroso placed
more emphasis on biological deficiencies, whereas
later scholars would emphasize psychological and
sociological factors. Use science to determine the
factors associated with crime.
Lombroso
Guerry
Quetelet
Individual Trait Criminals differ from noncriminals on a number
of biological and psychological traits. These traits
cause crime in interaction with the social
environment.
Glueck & Glueck
Mednick
Caspi
Moffitt
Social Disorganization Disorganized communities cause crime because
informal social controls break down and criminal
cultures emerge. They lack collective efficacy to
fight crime and disorder.
Shaw & McKay
Sampson
Bursik & Grasmick
Differential Association
Social Learning
Subcultural
Crime is learned through associations with
criminal definitions. These definitions might be
generally approving of criminal conduct or be
neutralizations that justify crime only under
certain circumstances. Interacting with antisocial
peers is a major cause of crime. Criminal
behavior will be repeated and become chronic if
reinforced. When criminal subcultures exist, then
many individuals can learn to commit crime in one
location and crime rates—including violence—
may become very high.
Sutherland & Cressey
Sykes & Matza
Akers
Wolfgang & Ferracuti
Anderson
Anomie
Institutional-Anomie
The gap between the American Dream’s goal of
economic success and the opportunity to obtain
this goal creates structural strain. Norms weaken
and ‘anomie’ ensues, thus creating high crime
rates. When other social institutions (such as the
family) are weak to begin with or also weakened
by the American Dream, the economic institution
is dominant. When such an institutional
imbalance exists—as in the United States—then
crime rates are very high.
Merton
Messner & Rosenfeld
Strain
General Strain
When individuals cannot obtain success goals
(money, status in school), they experience strain
or pressure. Under certain conditions, they are
likely to respond to this strain through crime. The
strains leading to crime, however, may not only be
linked to goal blockage (or deprivation of valued
stimuli) but also to the presentation of noxious
stimuli and the taking away of valued stimuli.
Crime is a more likely response to strain when it
results in negative affect (anger and frustration).
Cohen
Cloward & Ohlin
Agnew
Control
General Theory of Crime
Control Balance
Power Control
Asks the question, “Why don’t people commit
crime?” They assume that criminal motivation is
widespread. They key factor in crime causation is
thus the presence or absence of control. These
controls or containment might be rooted in
relationships (e.g., social bonds) or be internal
(e.g., self-control). Exposure to control also might
differ by social location and by the historical
period, such as the changing level and type of
control given to males and females.
Hirschi
Reckless
Gottfredson
Hagan
Rational Choice
Deterrence
Building on classical theory, crime is seen as a
choice that is influenced by its costs and
benefits—that is, by its “rationality.” Crime will
be more likely to be deterred if its costs are raised
(e.g., more effort required, more punishment
applied), especially if the costs are certain and
immediate. Information about the costs and
benefits of crime can be obtained by direct
experiences with punishment and punishment
avoidance, and indirectly by observing whether
others who offend are punished or avoid
punishment.
Stafford & Warr
Patternoster
Cornish & Clarke
Matsueda
Routine Activities Crime occurs when there is an intersection in time
and space of a motivated offender, an attractive
target, and a lack of capable guardianship.
People’s daily routine activities affect the
likelihood they will be an attractive target who
encounters an offender in a situation where no
effective guardianship is present. Changes in
routine activities in society (e.g., women working)
can affect crime rates.
Cohen & Felson
Labeling
Reintegrative Shaming
People become stabilized in criminal roles when
they are labeled as criminal, are stigmatized,
develop criminal identities, are sent to prison, and
are excluded from conventional roles.
Reintegrative responses are less likely to create
defiance and a commitment to crime.
Lemert
Matsueda
Braithwaite
Sherman
Critical Inequality in power and material well-being create
conditions that lead to street crime and corporate
crime. Capitalism and its market economy are
especially criminogenic because they create vast
inequality that impoverishes many and provides
opportunities for exploitation for the powerful.
Bonger
Quinney
Greenberg
Currie
Colvin
Peacemaking Crime is caused by suffering, which is linked to
injustice rooted in inequality and daily personal
acts of harm. Making “war on crime” will not
work. Making peace is the solution to crime.
Quinney
Feminism Crime cannot be understood without considering
gender. Crime is shaped by the different social
experiences of and power is exercised by men and
women. Patriarchy is a broad structure that shapes
gender-related experiences and power. Men may
use crime to exert control over women and to
demonstrate masculinity—that is, to show that
they are “men” in a way consistent with societal
ideals of masculinity.
Adler
Daly
Chesney-Lind
Messerschmidt
Developmental
Life Course
Crime causation is a developmental process that
starts before birth and continues throughout the
life course. Individual factors interact with social
factors to determine the onset, length, and end of
criminal careers. They key theoretical issues
involve continuity and change in crime. Some
theories predict continuity across the life course;
others predict continuity for some offenders and
change for other offenders; and some predict
continuity and change for the same offenders.
Moffitt
Sampson & Laub
Integrated These theories use components from other
theories—usually strain, control, and social
learning—to create a new theory that explains
crime. They often are life-course theories, arguing
that causes of crime occur in a sequence across
time.
Elliott
Thornberry
Tittle
Cullen
Adapted from: Cullen & Agnew (2002). Criminological Theory: Past to Present (Essential Readings). Los Angeles, CA: Roxbury.
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Theories of Crime and Delinquency (chapters 6-7)
Two Major Types of Theories of Crime
• Kinds of people theories
– “What makes a person turn to crime” or “why did Billy kill his mother”
– Involves motives, situational factors, subjective feelings, etc.
• Kinds of environment theories
– “Why is crime higher in the inner cities?” or “Why does the US have a much higher rate of crime
than other nations?” or “Why is the highest rate of violence in the Southern states?”
– Explaining rates more often takes into consideration factors external to the individual actor
• These two types focus, in other words, on the question of individual motivation and crime rates,
respectively
• The key point here is that we develop theories in order to explain something; we are not excusing it
Classical School of Criminology
• The classical school of thought about crime and criminal justice emerged during the late eighteenth century
with the work of an Italian named Cesare Beccaria and an Englishman named Jeremy Bentham.
• Classical thinking derives its core ideas from a period known as the Enlightenment, first emerging in
France during the early eighteenth century.
Underlying Principles of the Classical School
• humans have free will and are hedonistic
– They try to maximize pleasure and minimize pain.
• The main instrument of the control of human behavior is fear, especially fear of pain.
– Punishment, as a principal method of operating to create fear, is seen as necessary to influence
human will and thus to control behavior.
• Some code of criminal law, or some system of punishment is necessary to respond to crime
• The main purpose of the criminal justice system is to prevent crime through deterrence.
– A potential criminal will decide against committing a crime because the punishment would be too
costly.
Classical School Summary
• six principles underlie the Classical approach to crime:
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– all people are by their nature self-seeking and therefore liable to commit crime;
– in order to live in harmony and avoid a “war of all against all” people agree to give up certain
freedoms in order to be protected by a strong central state;
– punishment is necessary to deter crime and the state has the prerogative to administer it;
– punishment should fit the crime and not be used to rehabilitate the offender;
– use of the law should be limited and due process rights should be observed;
– each individual is responsible for his or her actions and thus mitigating circumstances or excuses
are inadmissible
Cesare Beccaria (1738-1794) & Utilitarianism
• On Crimes and Punishment (1764) had a profound influence as many countries (including the US) modeled
their systems after his work.
• the major principle that should govern legislation was “the greatest happiness for the greatest numbers”
– This philosophical doctrine is known as utilitarianism, the idea that punishment ought to be based
on its usefulness or utility or practicality.
• “For a punishment to attain its end, the evil which it inflicts has only to exceed the advantages derivable
from the crime.”
– In other words, punishment should fit the crime.
Beccaria’s Basic Thesis
• “In order for punishment not to be, in every instance, an act of violence of one or of many against a private
citizen, it must be essentially public, prompt, necessary, the least possible in the given circumstances, proportionate
to the crimes, dictated by the laws.”
• Punishment should be “swift and certain“
• The purpose of the criminal justice system is to prevent crime through deterrence.
– According to this line of thinking, a potential criminal will decide against committing a crime
because the punishment would be too costly.
Rational Choice Theory
• routine activities theory
– Criminals plan very carefully by selecting specific targets based on such things as vulnerability
(e.g., elderly citizens, unguarded premises, lack of police presence) and commit their crimes
accordingly.
– Thus people who engage in certain “routine activities” during the course of their daily lives place
themselves at risk of being victimized
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One flaw in this view is that there is an assumption that people should stay home more often to avoid being
a victim when in fact certain groups (especially women and children) seem to be much more vulnerable at
home than anywhere else
See comment by Klein on p. 187 about “Operation Hammer” that illustrates some problems with deterrence
Availability of alternative choices
A good analogy is that of a “menu” at a restaurant.
Some have better “menus” than others
Cause & Effect
• Free will – does such a thing exist?
• Everything has a cause – the world would not exist without causes
• People often fail to examine causes when it comes to crime
– Police seek causes of a homicide all the time
– See discussion of “Dr Laura” on p. 188
The Crime Control and Due Process Models
• The classical school of thought has generally led to two contrasting models of the criminal justice system
• Roughly the equivalent of two differing political ideologies, namely, conservatism and liberalism.
Crime control model – conservative
• It is better to emphasize protecting citizens from crime than protecting the civil liberties of citizens.
• Repressing crime (often by any means necessary) should be the goal of the cj system
• The CJ system should be like an “assembly line” where cases are expedited rapidly – no release of
offenders on “technicalities”
• The concern should be more over “public safety” than individual rights.
Due process model – liberal
• The CJ system should be an “obstacle course“ rather than an “assembly line.”
• Better to let several criminals go free than to falsely imprison an innocent person.
• Based upon the assumption that the criminal justice process is plagued by human error throughout.
• At each stage of the criminal process individual rights should be safeguarded.
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Problems with the Classical Approach
• People do not always act rationally and not all people are hedonists and self-serving
• Incorrectly assumes that people are equal in terms of life chances – but you cannot have equal justice in an
unequal society
– Famous quote from the French philosopher Anatole France who praised the “majestic equality of
the law” in that it “forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets and to
steal bread.”
• The classical school does little to address the causes of crime
– Almost like saying that a person for no apparent reason “chooses” to commit a crime, with no
consideration of why this happened.
– One critic noted that under this view justice is “an exact scale of punishments for equal acts
without reference to the nature of the individual involved and with no attention to the question of
special circumstances under which the act came about”
– It is based upon an “atomistic” view of humans which sees human behavior disconnected with any
sort of social context – I call this “de-contextualization”
– From the atomistic point of view, deterrence means that when the state punishes person X, other
persons are unaffected by that punishment in every way except in calculations of the desirability of
engaging in crime.
An illustration of Classical School Logic
It assumes that fear of consequences will deter, meaning fear of losing something you have (respect, status,
etc.)
What if you don’t have anything, that you are “down and out” and have “nothing to lose”?
Listen to Bob Dylan’s classic song, rated the no. 1 rock and roll record of all time by Rolling Stone
Magazine:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qeErkbkavrg&feature=related – here are the words:
Once upon a time you dressed so fine
You threw the bums a dime in your prime, didn’t you?
People’d call, say, “Beware doll, you’re bound to fall”
You thought they were all kiddin’ you
You used to laugh about
Everybody that was hangin’ out
Now you don’t talk so loud
Now you don’t seem so proud
About having to be scrounging for your next meal.
How does it feel
How does it feel
To be without a home
Like a complete unknown
Like a rolling stone?
You’ve gone to the finest school all right, Miss Lonely
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qeErkbkavrg&feature=related
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But you know you only used to get juiced in it
Nobody has ever taught you how to live out on the street
And now you’re gonna have to get used to it
You said you’d never compromise
With the mystery tramp, but now you realize
He’s not selling any alibis
As you stare into the vacuum of his eyes
And say do you want to make a deal?
How does it feel
How does it feel
To be on your own
With no direction home
A complete unknown
Like a rolling stone?
You never turned around to see the frowns on the jugglers and the clowns
When they all did tricks for you
You never understood that it ain’t no good
You shouldn’t let other people get your kicks for you
You used to ride on the chrome horse with your diplomat
Who carried on his shoulder a Siamese cat
Ain’t it hard when you discover that
He really wasn’t where it’s at
After he took from you everything he could steal.
How does it feel
How does it feel
To be on your own
With no direction home
Like a complete unknown
Like a rolling stone?
Princess on the steeple and all the pretty people
They’re all drinkin’, thinkin’ that they got it made
Exchanging all precious gifts
But you’d better take your diamond ring, you’d better pawn it babe
You used to be so amused
At Napoleon in rags and the language that he used
Go to him now, he calls you, you can’t refuse
When you ain’t got nothing, you got nothing to lose
You’re invisible now, you got no secrets to conceal.
How does it feel
How does it feel
To be on your own
With no direction home
Like a complete unknown
Like a rolling stone?
The Positivist School of Criminology
• Positivism – a method of inquiry that attempts to answers questions through the scientific method.
– The researcher examines the “real world” of “empirical facts” through the testing of “hypotheses”
with the main goal of arriving at the ultimate “truth” and deriving “laws” (e.g., the law of falling
bodies, the law of relativity).
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• This school of thought argues that humans do not have free will, that their behavior is determined by
various biological, psychological and sociological factors.
– Thus, responsibility for one’s actions is diminished
• Need to address the various factors that are thought to be the most likely causes of why crime occurs in the
first place (e.g., poverty, mental illness).
• Make the punishment fit the offender, rather than fit the crime, as the classical school proposes.
– The CJ system should try to rehabilitate the offender
Quételet & Guerry
• Adolfe Quételet (a Belgium mathematician) and Andre-Michel Guerry (a French statistician) in Europe
during the 1830s and 1840s were the first to do detailed statistical studies of crime.
• Quételet found strong correlations between rates of crime and such factors as illiteracy, poverty, and
similar variables
• He also noted that these same variables remained the same as the highest crime rates continued to occur in
the same parts of the city through several decades
• Some called this school of thought the “Cartographic School” since it used maps to plot crimes within a
certain geographic area.
• Interestingly, this idea was to take hold in the early 20th century with the “Chicago School” and the
“concentric zone” theory (more about this later)
Cesare Lombroso
• Italian doctor who stressed the biological roots of crime and argued that there was such as thing as a “born
criminal”
– Such a person was a sort of an “atavistic” throwback with various stigmata or characteristics that
are throwbacks to more primitive people.
– Criminals, said Lombroso, are essentially biologically inferior.
– Like the Neanderthal Man
• Can you identify a “criminal”?
• There continue to be stereotypes of what criminals “look like” within American society (with the media
playing a major role in this).
• Unfortunately many of these stereotypes center on race (mostly African-American and Hispanic) and class
(mostly lower class or the “underclass”).
• “Cops” on Fox is a good representation of many stereotypes.
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– For instance, it seems as if just about everyone they arrest is a black man who is seen spread-
eagled on the ground or against the hood of a police car, and not wearing a shirt.
Variations of Positivistic Criminology
• Today there are three major versions of positivist criminology: biological (which began with Lombroso),
psychological, and sociological.
– Biological positivism locates the causes of crime within the individual’s physical makeup;
– psychological positivism suggests the causes are in faulty personality development;
– sociological positivism stresses certain social factors within one’s environment or surrounding
culture and social structure
• Some of these variations will be explored here, especially the sociological views.
Body Types
• Humans can be divided into three basic body types or somatotypes.
• These body types in turn are said to correspond to certain innate temperaments.
• Endomorph – excessive body weight and
– Described as being “soft” and having an extroverted personality (the stereotype of the “jolly fat
man” comes to mind).
• Mesomorph – athletically built and muscular.
– Described as being active and behaving aggressively.
– Said to be most likely to be involved in serious criminal activity and to join gangs.
• Ectomorph – thin and delicate and having an introverted personality (they are also said to be loners and
hence not likely to engage in crime).
Criminality as an Inherited Trait
• Pretty much discredited within scientific circles, but some still claim there is a “criminal gene”
– Alive and well today – see section called “Gene Warfare”
• Mostly explained by social and cultural factors
• No such thing as a “born criminal”
• Likewise with the so-called XYY chromosome abnormality (see text)
– One variation is PMS to explain female crime
Psychological Theories
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• Feeblemindedness and Crime – closely related to genetic theories, claiming that low IQ causes crime
– This can easily be dismissed when considering white collar and corporate crime
• Psychoanalytic Theories – based largely upon Freud’s theories (id, ego, superego)
• Mental illness and crime
– Although it has never been proven that various kinds of mental illnesses “cause” crime, it is
nevertheless true that a large proportion of inmates (as many as 1/3) have suffered from one or
more symptoms of various mental diseases.
The Psychopathic Personality
• This is a variation of the “personality trait” perspective noted in the text (but a topic I only mentioned in
passing)
• What is interesting is that a researcher came to the conclusion that the characteristics associated with this
personality type fit the modern American corporation!
Institutional Characteristics of Corporations & Psychopathic Traits
• Irresponsible – in an attempt to satisfy the corporate goal (profits) everybody else is put at risk
• Manipulative – they try to manipulate everything, including public opinion, not to mention politicians
• Grandiose – we’re no. 1 or the best
• Lack of empathy and asocial tendencies – no concern with victims
• Refuse to accept responsibility and unable to feel remorse – when corporations get caught breaking the
law they pay big fines and then continue doing what they were doing before
• Relates to others superficially – present themselves to the public as doing good, when in fact they may not
• psychopaths use charm to hide what they are really all about
Key Sociological Theories
Social Disorganization/Social Ecology
• Crime stems from certain community or neighborhood characteristics, such as poverty, dilapidated
housing, high density, high mobility, and high rates of unemployment.
– Concentric zone theory is a variation that argues that crime increases toward the inner city area.
Social Ecology
• One of the key ideas of the social ecology of crime is the fact that high rates of crime and other problems
persist within the same neighborhoods over long periods of time regardless of who lives there.
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– Thus there must be something about the places themselves, perhaps something about the
neighborhoods, rather than the people per se that produces and perpetuates high crime rates
• One explanation is the Concentric zone theory which argues that crime increases toward the inner city
area
• Studies of the rates of crime and delinquency, especially by sociologists Henry Shaw and David McKay
in Chicago, demonstrated that over an extended period of time, the highest rates were found within the first
three zones no matter who lived there. These high rates were strongly correlated with such social problems
as mental illness, unemployment, poverty, infant mortality, and many others
Illustrations of Concentric Zones
For examples go to this web site: http://images.google.com/images?
q=concentric+zone+model&hl=en&rls=RNWN,RNWN:2006-42,RNWN:en&um=1&ie=UTF-
8&sa=X&oi=images&ct=title
Why is Crime So High the nearer you get into the inner-city?
• According to the Concentric Zone view, this is caused by a breakdown of institutional, community-based
controls, which in turn is caused by three general factors: industrialization, urbanization, and immigration.
• People living within these areas often lack a sense of community because the local institutions (e.g.,
schools, families, and churches) are not strong enough to provide nurturing and guidance for the area’s
children.
• It is important to note that there are important political and economic forces at work here.
• The concentration of human and social problems within these zones is not the inevitable “natural” result of
some abstract laws of nature but rather the actions of some of the most powerful groups in a city (urban
planners, politicians, wealthy business leaders, and so on).
Thrasher’s Theory of Gangs
• Frederic Thrasher did the first detailed study of gangs in Chicago in the 1920s
• He concluded that the control mechanisms of local institutions is revealed by:
– the disintegration of family life
– inefficiency of schools
– formalism and externality of religion
– corruption and indifference in local politics
– low wages and monotony in occupational activities
– Unemployment
– Lack of opportunity for wholesome recreation.
http://images.google.com/images?q=concentric+zone+model&hl=en&rls=RNWN,RNWN:2006-42,RNWN:en&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=X&oi=images&ct=title
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• All these factors enter into the picture of the moral and economic frontier
• Coupled with deterioration in the housing, sanitation, and other conditions of life in the slum, gives the
impression of general disorganization and decay.
• The gang functions with reference to these conditions in two ways
– It offers a substitute for what society fails to give
– It provides a relief from suppression and distasteful behavior. It fills a gap and affords an escape
Strain/Anomie Theory
• Cultural norms of “success” emphasize such goals as money, status, and power, while the means to obtain
such success are not equally distributed
– As a result of blocked opportunities many among the disadvantaged resort to illegal means, which
are more readily available.
• The concept of anomie refers to inconsistencies between societal conditions and opportunities for growth,
fulfillment, and productivity within a society
– The term anomia has been used to refer to those who experience personal frustration and
alienation as a result of anomie within a society).
• It also involves the weakening of the normative order of society- that is, norms (rules, laws, and so on)
lose their impact on people.
• Anomie was first used by 19th Century sociologist Emile Durkheim who described it as follows:
– Under capitalism there is a more or less chronic state of “deregulation” and that industrialization
had removed traditional social controls on aspirations.
– The capitalist culture produces in humans a constant dissatisfaction resulting in a never-ending
longing for more and more.
– And there is never enough – whether this be money, material things, or power.
– There is a morality under capitalism that dictates “anything goes,” especially when it comes to
making money (it certainly applies to the modern corporation).
• The basic thesis of strain theory is this: Crime stems from the lack of articulation or “fit” between two of
the most basic components of society: culture and social structure
• Culture consists of
– the main value and goal orientations or “ends” and
– the institutionalized or legitimate means for attaining these goals.
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• Social structure, as used here, consists of the basic social institutions of society, especially the economy,
but also such institutions as the family, education, and politics, all of which are responsible for distributing
access to the legitimate means for obtaining goals.
• This “lack of fit” creates strain within individuals, who respond with various forms of deviance.
• Thus people who find themselves at a disadvantage relative to legitimate economic activities are motivated
to engage in illegitimate activities (perhaps because of unavailability of jobs, lack of job skills, education,
and other factors).
• Within a capitalist society like United States, the main emphasis is on the “success” goals, while less
emphasis is on the legitimate means to achieve these goals.
• Moreover, these goals have become institutionalized in that they are deeply embedded into the psyches of
everyone via a very powerful system of corporate propaganda.
• At the same time, the legitimate means are not as well defined or as strongly ingrained. In other words,
there is a lot of discretion and a lot of tolerance for deviance from the means but not the goals. One result
of such a system is high levels of crime.
• Another important point made by strain theory is that our culture contributes to crime because the
opportunities to achieve success goals are not equally distributed.
• We have a strong class structure and incredible inequality within our society, which means that some have
extreme disadvantages over others.
• Another way of saying the same thing is that culture promises what the social structure cannot deliver, that
being equal access to opportunities to achieve success. People faced with this contradiction (one of many
under capitalism) face pressures, or “strains,” to seek alternatives.
Crime and the American Dream
• The pursuit of the “American dream” creates a high rate of crime
• Core values of the Dream
– Achievement
– Individualism
– Universalism
– Fetishism of Money
• There is a “dark side” to the American Dream, which stems from a contradiction in American capitalism
– the same forces that promote “progress” and “ambition” also produce a lot of crime since there is
such an incredible pressure to succeed “at any cost.”
An example of the importance of money is taken from an early rock and roll song called “Money” by
Barrett Strong with words included here:
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5sZTcdrt0g0
The best things in life are free
But you can keep ’em for the birds and bees;
Now give me money, (that’s what I want) that’s what I want,
(That’s what I want) That’s what I want (That’s what I want) yeah,
That’s what I want.
Your lovin’ give me such a thrill,
But your lovin’ don’t pay my bills;
[refrain]
Money don’t get everything it’s true,
What it don’t get I can’t use;
[refrain]
Well, now give me money, (That’s what I want)
A lotta money, (That’s what I want)
Oh yeah, I wanna be free, (That’s what I want)
Oh, lotta money, (That’s what I want)
That’s what I want (That’s what I want) yeah,
That’s what I want.
Well, now give me money, (That’s what I want)
A lotta money, (That’s what I want)
Wo, yeah, You need money (That’s what I want)
Gimme money, (That’s what I want)
That’s what I want (That’s what I want)
That’s what I want.
Delinquency and Opportunity
• Blocked opportunity aspirations cause poor self‑concepts and feelings of frustration and
• These frustrations lead to delinquency, especially within a gang context.
• A key concept here is differential opportunity structure, which is an uneven distribution of legal and illegal
means of achieving economic success, especially as they are unequally available according to class and
race.
Social Embeddedness
• For disadvantaged youths, involvement in crime begins well before they can legally be involved in the
labor market.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5sZTcdrt0g0
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• just as one can become socially embedded in the world of regular job contacts and the world of work, so
too can one become embedded in a network of crime and deviance.
• In most of the high‑crime, inner‑city neighborhoods, the odd jobs of middle‑class youths noted above do
not exist in large number (for example, in the projects there are no lawns to be mowed).
Cultural Deviance Theories
• criminal values and traditions emerge within communities most affected by social disorganization
• Cohen’s “culture of the gang” perspective
– a high proportion of lower‑class youths (especially males) do poorly in school;
– poor school performance relates to delinquency;
– poor school performance stems from a conflict between dominant middle‑class values of the school
system and values of lower‑class youths; and
– most lower‑class male delinquency is committed in a gang context, partly as a means of meeting
some basic human needs, such as self‑esteem and belonging.
Lower Class Focal Concerns
• Basic thesis:
– there are concerns (norms and values) within the lower‑class culture and
– female‑dominated households are an important feature within the lower class and are a major
reason for the emergence of street‑corner male adolescent groups in these neighborhoods
• Two key concepts here are
– (1) focal concerns, which include trouble, toughness, smartness, excitement, fate, and autonomy;
and
– (2) one‑sex peer units that serve as alternative sources of companionship and male role model
development outside the home
Focal Concerns of lower class culture
• Trouble
• Toughness
• Smartness
• Excitement
• Fate
• Autonomy
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One‑sex peer group
• Very important because:
– Gangs provide male members opportunities to prove their own masculinity in the absence of an
adequate male role model within their family of origin.
– The principal unit in lower‑class society is an age‑graded, one‑sex peer group constituting the
major psychic focus and reference group for young people.
– The adolescent street‑corner group is one variant of the lower‑class structure, and the gang is a
subtype distinguished by law‑violating activities
Belonging and status
• two central concerns of the adolescent street‑corner group are belonging and status
– One achieves belonging by adhering to the group’s standards and values and continues to achieve
belonging by demonstrating such characteristics as toughness, smartness, and autonomy.
– When there is conflict with other norms (for example, middle‑class norms), the norms of the group
are far more compelling because failure to conform means expulsion from the group.
– Status is achieved by demonstrating qualities adolescents value (for example, smartness, toughness,
and others, as defined by lower‑class culture).
Control/ social bond theory
• Instead of asking “Why do they do it?” this theory asks “Why don’t they do it?”
• What prevents people from crime is that we are “bonded” to society, especially the norms of society that
we have internalized.
• There are four major elements of this bond:
– Attachment
– Involvement
– Commitment
– Belief
Social Learning Theory
• Simply put, criminal behavior is learned, just like anything else
• Sutherland’s “differential association” is the most famous variation
– The key point is that one becomes a delinquent/criminal because of an excess of definitions
favorable to violation of law over definitions unfavorable to violation of law
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– Over time, the duration and intensity of association with others involved in crime further reinforces
one’s own values and behavior.
Techniques of Neutralization
• Rationalizations
– He deserved it
– Appeal to higher loyalties (e.g., peer group, doing it for the hood)
– Everyone else does it
– No one was harmed
Labeling Perspective
• three key parts:
– (1) how and why certain behaviors are defined as criminal or deviant;
– (2) the response to crime or deviance on the part of authorities (for example, the official processing
of cases from arrest through sentencing); and
– (3) the effects of such definitions and official reactions on the person or persons so labeled.
• This view does not concern itself with why people violate the law in the first place, but rather the effects of
how society reacts to law breaking
Primary and secondary deviance
• Primary deviance includes acts that the perpetrator and/or others believe are not indicative of one’s true
identity or character.
– Commonly expressed by others as “this is not like you.”
• Secondary deviance refers to a process whereby the deviance takes on self-identifying features
– that is, deviant acts begin to be considered as indicative of one’s true self, the way one “really” is
• Guilt v. shame
– Guilt – you did something bad (primary)
– Shame – you are a bad person (secondary)
Social reality of crime
• Based upon the view that “crime” is a matter of definition resulting from a social process
• A key term is “power” which helps shape legislation, as law often reflects the interests of the most
powerful groups
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• Six propositions offered in the text describe how the “reality of crime” is created and perpetuated.
• Based upon the view of society as “segmented” into different class, racial, gender and other divisions,
each with their own interests.
Critical/Marxist Perspectives
• capitalism produces a number of problems including crime
• material conditions is key term
– Class, gender and racial inequalities
– Big economic changes (downsizing, etc.) produce problems including crime
• Surplus population or underclass is created
• crime control industry is another result – crime is functional for capitalism
Introduction
Dynamics of Crime Theory
Early Schools of Thought
The
Classical School
The
Positive School
The
Chicago School
Classical and Rational Theories:
Crime as Choice
Cohen & Felson’s Routine Activities
Hindelang, Gottfredson, & Garofalo’s Lifestyle Theory
Walters & White’s Cognitive Theory
Biological & Physiological Theories:
Born Criminals
Lombroso’s Criminal Born Man and Woman
Sheldon’s Somatotyping
XYZ Chromosome
Sociobiology
Eysenck’s Differential Conditionality
Psychological & Psychiatric Theories:
The Criminal Mind
Social Learning Theories
Bandura’s Modeling/Imitation
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Sutherland’s Differential Association
Glaser’s Differential Identification
Jeffery’s & Akers’ Differential Reinforcement
Akers’ Social Learning Theory
Psychoanalytic Theories
Freud’s Pscychoanalytic Theory
Warren & Hindelang’s Psychoanalytic Theory
Moral Development Theories
Kohlberg’s Moral Development
Yochelson & Samenow’s Criminal Personality Theory
Sociological Theories I:
Crime and Social Structure
Social Strain Theories
Social Disorganization
Durkheim’s Anomie Theory
Merton’s Strain Theory
Agnew’s General Strain Theory
Subculture Theories
Overview of Subculture Theories
Sellin’s Culture Conflict Theory
Cohen’s Subculture of Delinquency
Cloward & Ohlin’s Differential Opportunity
Miller’s Lower-Class Focal Concerns
Shaw & McKay’s High Delinquency Areas
Wolfgang & Ferracuti’s Subculture of Violence
Sociological Theories II:
Crime and Social Process
Labeling Theories
Overview of Labeling Theories
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Tannenbaum’s Concept of Tagging
Lemert’s Primary & Secondary Deviance
Becker’s Developmental Career Model
Schur’s Radical Non-Intervention
Social Control Theories
Overview of Social Control Theories
Reckless’ Containment Theory
Hirschi’s Social Bond Theory
Sykes & Matza’s Techniques of Neutralization
Gottfredson & Hirschi’s Low Self-Control Theory
Peacemaking Criminology Theories:
Overview of Peacemaking Theories
Braithwaite’s Reintegrative Shaming
Radical, Feminist, & Conflict Theories:
Crime, Sex, Inequality & Power
Overview of Radical, Feminist, Conflict and Marxist Theories
Marxism and Crime
Quinney & The Social Reality of Crime
Turk’s Conflict Theory
Greenberg’s Adolescent Frustration
Adler’s Liberation Theory
Simon’s Opportunity Theory
Hagan’s Power-Control Theory
Schwendinger’s Instrumental Theory
Feminism & Crime
This page is designed and maintained by Diane M. DeMelo.
Questions or comments are encouraged. Also, please read the disclaimer.
dianedemelo@mediaone.net
Last revised on November 14, 1999
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This page continues to be a work in progress and will be under construction
until all theories are made available. Be sure to check for updates and changes.
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Introduction to Criminological Theory
Defining Criminology
Criminology, according to Edwin H. Sutherland, one of the modern founding scholars of American
criminology, is the body of knowledge which regards crime as a social phenomenon. It includes the
processes of making laws, breaking laws, and the reacting toward the breaking of laws. Together, these
three processes form a unifed sequence of events.
Criminologists have adopted methods of study from varying social and behavioral sciences. Like other
scientists, criminologists measure and assess crime over time and place. They also measure the
characteristics of criminals, crimes, and victims using various methods.
Certain acts, regarded as “undesireable” by political society are defined as such. Society reacts by
punishment, treatment, or prevention. These sequences of events come together to comprise the object
matter of criminology.
Studying Theory
While many people are intimidated at their very first encounter with theory, it is used almost on a daily
basis. You may be one who believes that theory is abstract and has no fundamental basis in the real
world. However, whether you realize it or not, you use theory almost all the time. We all make
assumptions and generalizations about certain things we are in contact with daily; thus we theorize.
Theories are logical constructions that explain natural phenomena. They are not in themselves always
directly observable, but can be supported or refuted by empirical findings. Theory and empirical research
are connected by means of hypotheses, which are testable propositions that are logically derived from
theories. The testable part is very important because scientific hypotheses must be capable of being
accepted or rejected.
Understanding Theory
Theories can be simple or complex, it depends on how relationships are made in formulating them.
Theory can be fun, depending on how it is applied. If you spend the day in a shopping mall you can see
how much fun theory can be. So why study theory? The truth of the matter is, we need theory in order to
function, in order to better understand the world around us. Life would be pretty dull if we couldn’t
generalize or make assumptions about people and things. Most of our daily theories tend to be illogical
and are a product of our own selective observation. Often we perceive what we want to perceive. Human
behavior tends to be very complex, almost abstract. Theories on crime causation are complex, too. Most
theories introduced here are from research, both past and present, on criminal behavior which reflects
both systematic observation and very careful logic. Theories not only provide a framework for us to
interpret the meanings of observed patterns but they help us to determine when these patterns are
meaningful and when they are not.
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I’ve decided to include an interdisciplinary approach toward studying criminological theory because we
need to gather as much as possible from other theoretical interpretations in our overall understanding of
crime. While my interest is mainly sociological, I’ve decided to include many biological and
psychologial based interpretations. While many such theories are not in and of themselves specific to
crime causation many of them focus on specific types of behavior which may be important to our overall
understanding and application of general knowledge of crime.
All theories featured here are equal in importance in our study on crime. While it is true that some of
these theories do not answer the questions we want them to answer, they are still important to our
understanding of such phenomena.
Let us remember one thing. Some theories define a certain type of criminal behavior, whether it explains
juvenile deliquency (such as the many control and subculture theories) or other criminality, it will be
indicated what the theory set out to explain. While crime in and of itself is often regarded as a deviant
activity, not all deviant activities are defined as crime. For example, people who suffer from mental
disorders may be labeled or viewed as “deviant” but mental illness in and of itself is not criminal.
I have always been intrigued by social behavior, especially that which is defined as deviant or criminal. It
is my hope that you enjoy theory as much as I do and seek to better understand it in your own everyday
interaction.
Diane M. DeMelo
crimtheory@hotmail.com
Criminological Theory
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Classical School
Classical criminology grew out of a reaction against the barbaric system of law, justice and punishment
that was in existence before 1789. It sought an emphasis on free will and human rationality. The
Classical School was not interested in studying criminals, but rather law-making and legal processing.
Crime, they believed, was activity engaged in out of total free will and that individuals weighed the
consequences of their actions. Punishment is made in order to deter people from committing crime and it
should be greater than the pleasure of criminal gains. Classical theory emphasized a legal definition of
crime rather than what defined criminal behavior. The Declaration of Independence and the US
Constitution reflect the Classical movement, thus the law of today is classical in nature.
Two famous writers during this classical period were Cesare Beccaria (1738-1794) and Jeremy
Bentham (1748-1832), both led the movement to human rights and free will. Becceria thought that crime
could be traced to bad laws, not to bad people. A new modern criminal justice system would be needed
to guarantee equal treatment of all people before the law. His famous book, On Crimes and
Punishment presented a new design for the criminal justice system that served all people. His book
dubbed him the “father of modern criminology.”
Bentham’s concern was upon utilitarianism which assumed the greatest happiness for the greatest
number. He believed that individuals weigh the probabilities of present and future pleasures against those
of present and future pain. Thus people acted as human calculators, he believed, and that they put all
factors into a sort of mathematical equation to decide whether or not to commit an illegal act. He
believed then that punishment should be just a bit in excess of the pleasures derived from an act and not
any higher than that. The law exists to create happiness for all, thus since punishment creates
unhappiness it can be justified if it prevents greater evil than it produces.
Classical School Positive School Chicago School Criminological Theory
Classical School
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Positive School
Positivists, unlike the classical reformers, sought to explain the world around them. They saw behavior as
determined by biological, psychological, and social traits. They focused on a deterministic view of the
world, on criminal behavior instead of legal issues, and the prevention of crime through the treatment (or
reformation) of offenders.
The use of scientific techniques was important to the positivists. Data was collected in order to explain
different types of individuals and social phenomena. Naturalists and anthropologists formed the theory of
evolution which was a very critical component to the study of human criminal behavior by the
positivists. Humans were responsible for their own destinies.
The focus on positivism then is on systematic observations and the accumulation of evidence and
objective fact within a deductive frame work, thus moving from a general statement to a more specific
one.
Cesare Lombroso (1835-1909) replaced the notion of free will and rationality with the notion of
determinism. Together with his followers, Enrico Ferri and Raffaele Garofalo, he developed the positivist
school of criminology which sought explanations for criminal behavior through scientific research and
experimentation. Lombroso believed in the “criminal born” man and woman. He believed they had
physical features of ape like creatures that were not fully developed as humans were. Lombroso
measured thousands of live and dead prisoners to prove his theory. He noted that criminals lacked moral
sense, had an absence of remorse and used much slang. Lombroso later added social and economic
factors to his list of crime causation but said they were second in nature to biological, predetermined
factors. His theory however has been kept alive, not by agreement but by much criticism.
Classical School Positive School Chicago School Criminological Theory
Positive School
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Chicago School
The theme of the Chicago school focused upon human behavior as determined by social and physical
environmental factors, rather than genetic, personal characteristics. The school believed the community
to be a major factor on human behavior and that the city functioned as a microcosm.
Researchers from this school developed empirical sociology, that is, studying humans in their natural
environment rather than an armchair look at the social environment. Chicago theorists combined data,
such as individual cases with population statistics which constructed an important foundation that has
since been the basis for many criminological theories of today.
Members of this school focused upon the city of Chicago (hence the name) as a source for many answers
to its probing questions. Many scholars of this time believed that urbanization and mobility into the city
was a cause for many of the problems experienced at the time.
Crime was fostered mainly in the slums. Many unemployed people, male, female, young and old, became
transients. A plethora of social problems emerged, ranging from poor sanitation, inadequate housing,
juvenile gangs, vice, to name a few. People were no longer closely-knit, nor were communities familiar.
Many had no one to turn to during these troubled times. Crime was mainly fostered in the slum areas,
where many of the immigrants lived. People began to form their own support groups and gangs, which
emphasized deviant values. All of this served as a laboratory for the new sociologists at the University of
Chicago.
The school contributed two methods of study. The first was the usage of official data, such as census
reports, housing/welfare records and crime figures. High areas of crime, truancy and poverty were
applied to different geographical areas of the city. The second method was the life history, as first
studied by early Chicago school theorist, W.I. Thomas. This contributed a shift away from theoretical
abstracts to more concrete approaches of the real world and real world related phenomena. The process
of becoming deviant or criminal was explained by psycho-social phenomena. They wanted to present
human behavior in its natural environment, and this is why the Chicago School is often referred to as the
Ecological School.
Further observations by researchers provided a clear analysis that the city was a place where life is
superficial, where people are anonymous, where relationships are transitory and friendship and family
bonds are weak. They saw the weakening of primary social relationships as leading to a process of social
disorganization.
Chicago criminologists clearly saw pathology in the city which led to criminality. Much of the research
conducted by Shaw and McKay illustrated this point. The Chicago School clearly stressed humans as
social creatures and their behavior as a product of their social environment. The social environment
provides values and definitions that govern behavior. Urbanization and industrialization break down
older and more cohesive patterns of values, thus creating communities with competing norms and value
systems. The breakdown of urban life results in basic institutions such as the family, friendships and
other social groups to become so impersonal, almost anonymous. As values became fragmented,
opposing definitions about proper behavior arise and come into conflict with other behavior.
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Disorganization is more prevalent in the center of the urbanized city, and decreases with distance. Thus,
crime developed through frequent contact with criminal traditions, goals and values that have developed
over a period of time in disorganized areas of the city.
Classical School Positive School Chicago School Criminological Theory
Chicago School
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Cohen & Felson’s Routine Activities
Larry Cohen and Marcus Felson proposed their Routine Activities theory in 1979. It remained very
popular in the 1980s. Their theory is closely linked with the Rational Choice perspective in that it focuses
on the characteristics of crime rather than on the characteristics of the offender. Cohen and Felson argue
that there will always be a vast supply of crime motivation and that such motivation and supply of
offenders remains constant. They state that three crucial components are necessary for a predatory
criminal act, that is, violent crimes against the person and crimes which an offender attempts to stael a
direct object. These three elements include motivated offenders, suitable targets, (something worth
taking), and the absence of capable guardians, in order to prevent would be criminal acts. If one such
component is missing, crime is not likely to occur. If all three elements are present, then the chances for
crime increase.
Cohen and Felson argue that the rate in which crime rises is equal to the number of suitable targets and
the absence of individuals to protect those targets. The routine patterns of work, play, and leisure affect
the convergence in time and place of the would be offenders, suitable targets, and absence of guardians,
they argue. The number of caretakers, acting as guardians, who are at home during the day has decreased
because of an increase participation of women into the work force. Homes are often left unguarded while
both parents are at work and children are either in day care or at school. Also, the growth of suburban
living and the decling rate of traditional neighborhoods has decreased the number of familiar guardians,
such as family, neighbors, or friends. Finally, the baby boom generation coming of age during the years
1960 to 1980 resulted in an excess number of motivated offenders.
Routine Activities states that criminal offenses are related to the nature of everyday patterns of social
interaction. Cohen and Felson used their approach to explain the rise in crime between the years 1960 to
1980. They were concerned with the changes occuring in society, which they believed led to social
disorganization, which further led to crime opportunity. Their perspective shows that crime is not soley
related to biological and psychological characteristics, nor to social or economic conditions, but that it is
just as important to concentrate on situational factors which give rise to criminal opportunity. Routine
Activities approach is important to crime prevention and to the changing of conditions and circumstances
in which crime is committed.
One measure of situational crime prevention is target hardening. Target hardening makes it more difficult
for offenders to carry out crimes on specific targets. The use of locked doors, windows, alarm systems,
watch dogs, and community crime watch programs are all examples of target hardening–making it
harder to become a victim of crime.
Criminological Theory Main Page.
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Social Disorganization
The growth of cultural relativity, that is, the view that cultures are not better or worse than one another,
but simply different, in sociology led to a questioning of the existence of a universal set of values. The
pronounced social changes following World War I and the Great Depression, included immigration,
urbanization, and industrialization into the U.S. The crowding of large cities and the cultural diversity
within them led to a huge urban development, which was conducive to deviance. An explanation was
needed to sort out and understand this new phenomena. The concept of Social Disorganization is largely
associated with the “Chicago School” of sociology and was based on the work of W.I. Thomas and
Florian Znaniecki as well as Clifford Shaw and Henry McKay, to name a few. Thus, the term social
disorganization refers to both an explanation of deviance and a state of society that produces it. It was the
result of intellectual development that had taken place since 1910 in Sociology. It rooted its explanation
of deviance in social norms and community activities.
Crime was seen as a product of uneven development in society, with change and conflict which affects
the behavior of those within it. This theory emphasized that society was organized when people are
presumed to have developed agreement about fundamental values and norms, with behavioral regularity.
Social organization, or social order, exists when there is a high degree of internal bonding to individuals
and institutions in a conventional society. This cohesion consists largely of agreement about goals that
are worth striving for and how to behave and how to not behave. Simply put, social disorganization is
social disorder.
It was believed that social organization involved an integration of customs, teamwork, high morale, and
bonding. This led to harmonious social relationships. Such a group showed solidarity and homogeneous
and traditional behavior. Social disorganization theorists believe social disorganization existed in much
of city life. They made such a relationship almost unmistakable. They used the city as their laboratory in
which they studied deviance and crime. They concentrated their research on disorganized local areas,
slums or inner-city areas of high crime, prostitution, suicide and other deviant forms of behavior. Thus,
in their theoretical framework, social patterns of the urban environment produced social disorganization,
which led to crime and deviance.
Thomas and Znaniecki compared the conditions immigrants had left in Poland with those they found in
Chicago. They also studied the assimilation of Polish immigrants. They found that older immigrants were
not very much affected by the move, due to managing to continue living as peasants, even in the urban
slums. The younger generation did not grow up on these Polish farms and thus were city dwellers. They
had very little traditions of the Old World and were not assimilated into the new ones. The rates of crime
and delinquency started to rise and Thomas and Znaniecki attributed this to social disorganization, which
they defined as the breakdown of effective social bonds, family and neighborhood associations, as well
as social controls in the community. Their study influenced others to come.
Robert Park and Ernest Burgess introduced an ecological analysis of crime causation. Ecology is the
study of animals and plants and how they relate to one another in their natural habitat. Park and Burgess
then examined area characteristics instead of criminals for their explanations of high crime. They
developed the idea of natural urban areas, which consisted of concentric zones which extended out from
downtown central business district to the commuter zone at the fringes of the city. Each zone had its own
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structure and organization, characteristics and unique inhabitants. This had been known Burgess’
Concentric Zone Theory.
Clifford Shaw and Henry McKay were researchers at the Chicago’s Institute for Juvenile Research and
maintained a close relationship with Chicago’s Sociology department. They were interested in Park and
Burgess’s conception of the “natural urban area” of Chicago and used this model to investigate the
relationship between crime rates–mainly delinquency–and the various zones of Chicago. They found
that the crime rate was distributed throughout the city, delinquency occurred in the areas nearest to the
business district, that some areas suffered from high consistent delinquency rates no matter the makeup
of the population, that high delinquency areas were characterized by a high percentage of immigrants,
non-whites, lower income famines, and finally, and that high-delinquency areas had an acceptance of
nonconventional norms, which competed with conventional ones. They collected their data from over
56,000 juvenile court records with covered a period of time from 1900-1933.
However, there were problems with the concept of social disorganization and these problems are what
contributed to its decline. First, it confused cause and effect. That is, it described community factors
related to crime and deviance, but it must be able to distinguish the consequences of crime from
disorganization itself; it didn’t. Many early social disorganization theorists were not careful in clarifying
the concept of disorganization. Second, social disorganization was rather subjective and judgmental, all
the while pretending to be objective. Observers failed to free themselves from biases and placed their
own value judgments on behaviors. Third, it tried to explain crime as an almost entirely lower-class
phenomena, and in no way included middle and upper-class deviance and crime rates. Thus, it was
biased, in that it favored middle-class standards. Those in the lower strata were assumed to have higher
levels of crime rates because their members lived in the most socially disorganized areas of the city.
Fourth, social change was often confused with social disorganization, and little attention was paid to
explain why some social changes were disorganized and why others were organized. Finally, what is
disorganized? At some times, things may seem like disorganization but at other times, they may be
highly organized systems of competing norms and values. The concept produces a bit of ambiguity.
Criminological Theory Main Page.
Social Disorganization
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Durkheim’s Anomie
Emile Durkheim, a French sociologist, introduced the concept of anomie in his book The Division of
Labor in Society, published in 1893. He used anomie to describe a condition of deregulation that was
occuring in society. This meant that rules on how people ought to behave with each other were breaking
down and thus people did not know what to expect from one another. Anomie, simply defined, is a state
where norms (expectations on behaviors) are confused, unclear or not present. It is normlessness,
Durkheim felt, that led to deviant behavior. In 1897, Durkheim used the term again in his study on
Suicide, referring to a morally deregulated condition. Durkheim was preoccupied with the effects of
social change. He best illustrated his concept of anomie not in a discussion of crime but of suicide.
In The Division of Labor in Society, Durkheim proposed two concepts. First, that societies evolved from
a simple, nonspecialized form, called mechanical, toward a highly complex, specialized form, called
organic. In the former society people behave and think alike and more or less perfom the same work
tasks and have the same group-oriented goals. When societies become more complex, or organic, work
also becomes more complex. In this society, people are no longer tied to one another and social bonds are
impersonal.
Anomie thus refers to a breakdown of social norms and it a condition where norms no longer control the
activities of members in society. Individuals cannot find their place in society without clear rules to help
guide them. Changing conditions as well as adjustment of life leads to dissatisfaction, conflict, and
deviance. He observed that social periods of disruption (economic depression, for instance) brought
about greater anomie and higher rates of crime, suicide, and deviance.
Durkheim felt that sudden change caused a state of anomie. The system breaks down, either during a
great prosperity or a great depression, anomie is the same result.
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Merton’s Strain Theory
Robert K. Merton, an American sociologist, borrowed Durkheim’s concept of anomie to form his own
theory, called Strain Theory. It differs somewhat from Durkheim’s in that Merton argued that the real
problem is not created by a sudden social change, as Durkheim proposed, but rather by a social structure
that holds out the same goals to all its members without giving them equal means to achieve them. It is
this lack of integration between what the culture calls for and what the structure permits that causes
deviant behavior. Deviance then is a symptom of the social structure. Merton borrowed Durkheim’s
notion of anomie to describe the breakdown of the normative system.
Merton’s theory does not focus upon crime persay, but rather upon various acts of deviance, which may
be understood to lead to criminal behavior. Merton notes that there are certain goals which are strongly
emphasized by society. Society emphasizes certain means to reach those goals (such as education, hard
work, etc.,) However, not everyone has the equal access to the legitimate means to attain those goals. The
stage then is set for anomie/strain.
Merton presents five modes of adapting to strain caused by the restricted access to socially approved
goals and means. He did not mean that everyone who was denied access to society’s goals became
deviant. Rather the response, or modes of adaptation, depend on the individual’s attitudes toward cultural
goals and the institutional means to attain them. The conformist is the most common mode of adaptation.
Such individuals accept both the goals as well as the prescribed means for achieving the goal.
Conformists will accept, though not always achieve, the goals of society and the means approved for
achieving them. Innovators accept societal goals but have few legitimate means to achieve those goals,
thus they innovate (design) their own means to get ahead. The means to get ahead may be through
robbery, embezzlement or other such criminal acts. Ritualists, the third adaptation, abandon the goals
they once believed to be within their reach and thus dedicate themselves to their current lifestyle. They
play by the rules and have a daily, safe routine. Retreatists, the fourth fifth adaptation is given to those
who give up not only the goals but also the means. They often retreat into the world of alcoholism and
drug addiction. These individuals escape into a nonproductive, nonstriving lifestyle. The final adaptation,
that of rebel, occurs when the cultural goals and the legitimate means are rejected. Individuals create
their own goals and their own means, by protest or revolutionary activity.
Adaptation Means — Goal
Conformist Accepts — Accepts
Innovator Rejects — Accepts
Ritualist Accepts — Rejects
Retreatist Rejects — Rejects
Rebel Revolts/Creates New
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Agnew’s General Strain Theory
In the mid 70s, strain theory came under heavy attack after having dominated deviance research in the
decade of the 60s, prompting that it become abandoned. However, since that time, strain theory has
survived such attacks, but has left behind a diminished influence. In 1992, Robert Agnew proposed a
general strain theory that focuses on at least three measures of strain. He argues that actual or anticipated
failure to achieve postively valued goals, actual or anticipated removel of positively valued stimuli, and
actual or anticipated presentation of negative stimuli all result in strain.
Agnew’s strain theory focuses primarily on negative relationships with others, in that a person is not
treated in a way that he or she expects or wants to be treated. He argues that people are pressured into
criminal or deviant acts by negative affective states, such as anger, which results in negative
relationships. Such a negative affect leads to pressure which then leads to illegitimate ways to attain a
goal. Other strain theories explain strain in a way that relationships with others prevent one from
reaching positively valued goals. They focus primarily on goal blockage, that which is often experienced
by the middle or lower classes.
Agnew argues that strain theory is central in explaining crime and deviance, but that it needs more
revision to play such a central role in sociology. His theory is written at a social-psychological level so
that it focuses on an individual’s immediate social environment. Much of the theory is focused toward
adolescent criminality–delinquency, because so much of the data available for testing involves surveys
of adolescents. He argues that his theory is capable of overcoming empirical and theoretical criticisms
associated with previous versions of strain theory.
Agnew suggests that criminologists pay special attention to the magnitude, recency, duration, and
clustering of such strainful events. He spells out that several cognitive, emotional, and behavioral
adaptions to strain receive little or not attention. He proposes a series of factors that determine whether a
person will cope with strain in a criminal or conforming manner, including temperament, intelligence,
interpersonal skills, self-efficacy, association with criminal peers, and conventional social support.
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Overview of Subculture Theories
In criminology, subcultures theories emerged as a way to account for delinquency rates among
lower-class males, of these the infamous teenage gang. Subculture theories believe that the delinquent
subcultures emerged in response to the special problems that the members of mainstream society do not
face.
The strain theorists explained crime as a result of frustrations suffered by lower-class individuals
deprived of legitimate means to reach their goals. Cultural deviance theories assumed that people became
deviant by learning the criminal values of the group to which they belonged to. This laid down the
foundation for subculture theories during the 1950s.
A subculture is defined as a subdivision within the dominant culture that has its own norms, values and
belief system. These subcultures emerge when individuals in similar circumstances find themselves
virtually isolated or neglected by mainstream society. Thus they group together for mutual support.
Subcultures exist within the larger society, not apart from it. The members of the subculture are different
from the dominant culture.
The subculture theories we will look at are extensions of strain, social disorganization and differential
association theories. Subculture theories help to explain why subcultures emerge (extension of strain),
why they take a particular shape (extension of social disorganization), and why they continue from one
generation to another (extension of differential association).
For instance, Marvin Wolfgang and Franco Ferracuti’s Subculture of Violence thesis argues that the
value system of some subcultures not only demands but also expects violence in certain social situations.
It is this norm which affects daily behavior that is in conflict with the conventional society. Here we will
explain the subculture theories proposed by Albert Cohen, (Subculture of Delinquency), Richard
Cloward & Lloyd Ohlin (Differential Opportunity), Walter Miller (Lower-Class Focal Concerns) and
Marvin Wolfgang & Franco Ferracuti (Subculture of Violence).
To better understand and appreciate subculture theories one must first probe into the historical time
period of the 1950s. The values of the middle class were dominant and anything else was not considered
normal.
Peaking urbanization produced more and more deteriorated cities in America. The suburbs of the middle
class were emerging. Delinquency was mainly perceived as a problem of the lower class. The middle
class “we-they” separation led to seeing itself as the far superior class.
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Overview of Subculture Theories
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Cohen’s Subculture of Delinquency
Theory
In 1955 Albert K. Cohen wrote Delinquent Boys. He attempted to look at how such a subculture began.
Cohen found that delinquency among youths was more prevalent among lower class males and the most
common form of this was the juvenile gang. Cohen, a student of Sutherland and Merton, learned from
Sutherland that differential association and cultural transmission of criminal norms led to criminal
behavior, while Merton taught him about structurally induced strain.
Delinquent subcultures, according to Cohen, have values that are in opposition to those of the dominant
culture. These subcultures emerge in the slums of some of the nation’s largest cities. Often, they are
rooted in class differentials, parental aspirations and school standards. Cohen notes that the position of
one’s family in the social structure determines the problems the child will later face in life. Thus, they
will experience status frustration and strain and adapt into either a corner boy, college boy, or a
delinquent boy.
Corner boys lead a conventional lifestyle, making the best of a bad situation. They spend most of their
time with peers and receive peer support in group activities. These boys are far and few between. Their
chances for success are limited. Cohen argues that their academic and social handicaps prevent them
from living up to middle-class standards.
Delinquent boys, on the other hand, band together to define status. Their delinquent acts serve no real
purpose. They often discard or destroy what they have stolen. Their acts are random and are directed at
people and property. They are a short-run hedonistic subculture with no planning. They often act on
impulse, often without consideration for the future. Members are loyal to one another and allow no one
to restrain their behavior.
Stealing, in the delinquent gang, serves as a form of achieving peer status within the group, with no other
motive. Cohen declared that all children seek social status, but not everyone can compete for it in the
same way. Reaction-formation, a Freudian defense mechanism, serves to overcome anxiety, as a hostile
overreaction to middle class values can occur. A delinquent subculture is created to resolve problems of
lower-class status.
Much of Cohen’s work has been both praised and criticized. It helps to answer questions that remain
unresolved by strain and cultural deviance theories. His notion of status deprivation and the middle-class
measuring rod has been very useful to researchers. His theory, however, fails to explain why some
delinquent subcultures eventually become law-abiding, even when this social class position is fixed.
Later, he expanded his theory to include not only lower-class delinquents but also variants of
middle-class delinquents and female delinquent subcultures. Cohen’s theory stimulated later formations
of new theories.
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Cohen’s Subculture of Delinquency Theory
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Cloward & Ohlin’s
Differential Opportunity Theory
In 1959, Richard Cloward noted that Merton’s anomie theory specified only one structure of opportunity.
He, however, argued for two and not one. He thus proposed that there are also illegitimate avenues of
structure, in addition to legitimate ones. In 1960 he and Lloyd Ohlin worked together and proposed a
theory of delinquent gngs known as Differential Opportunity Theory. This theory, like Cohen’s theory,
combines the strain, differential association as well as the social disorganization perspectives.
Delinquent subcultures, according to Cloward and Ohlin, flourish in the lower-classes and take particular
forms so that the means for illegitimate success are no more equally distributed than the means for
legitimate success.
They argue that the types of criminal subcultures that flourish depend on the area in which they develop.
They propose three types of delinquent gangs. The first, the criminal gang, emerge in areas where
conventional as well as non conventional values of behavior are integrated by a close connection of
illegitimate and legitimate businesses. This type of gang is stable than the ones to follow. Older criminals
serve as role models and they teach necessary criminal skills to the youngsters. The second type, the
conflict or violent gang, is non stable and non integrated, where there is an absence of criminal
organization resulting in instability. This gang aims to find a reputation for toughness and destructive
violence. The third and final type, the retreatist gang, is equally unsuccessful in legitimate as well as
illegitimate means. They are known as double failures, thus retreating into a world of sex, drugs, and
alcohol. Cloward and Ohlin further state that the varying form of delinquent subcultures depended upon
the degree of integration that was present in the community.
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Cloward & Ohlin’s Differential Opportunity Theory
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Miller’s Lower-Class Focal Concerns
Walter Miller didn’t see juvenile delinquency as being rooted in the rejection of the middle-class value
system, as did other subculture theorists, but in the value system of the lower class. It is this value system
that generates delinquent acts. This value system emerged as a response to living in the slums.
Miller was an anthropologist who was familiar with enthnography. Having closely studied the lower
class areas in Boston, in 1955, he came up with his own conclusions, and thus his Lower-Class Focal
Concerns theory. He saw society as composed of different social groups. Each group had its own
subculture. He used the concept of focal concerns, and not value, to further describe things that were
important to the subculture. These “focal concerns” are important aspects in the subculture and require
constant attention and care.
Miller identified six focal concerns to which the lower class give attention to. The concern over trouble is
a major feature of the lower class. Getting into trobule and staying out of trouble are very important daily
preoccupations. Trouble can either mean prestige or landing in jail. Toughness, another concern, further
represents a commitment to law-violation and being a problem to others. Machismo and being daring is
stressed. The third focal concern is that of smartness. It is the ability to gain something by outsmarting or
conning another. Prestige is often the reward for those demonstrating such skills. Another focal concern
is excitement. Living on the edge for thrills and doing dangerous things as well as taking risks is a crucial
concern. Another focal concern is that of fate. It is a crucial concern to the lower class. many believe that
their lives are subject to forces outside of their control. The last focal concern focuses upon automony.
This signifies being independant, not relying on others and rejecting authority.
Miller further observed that an absence of a father in a young boy’s life posed a problem for learning
appropriate male behavior. This served as a device for gangs to accomodate the problem faced by young
males who had no presence of a father figure. Miller’s theory has however received mixed reviews. Many
say that he disregarded the fact that many lower class people actually do conform to societal norms.
Criminological Theory Main Page.
Miller’s Lower-Class Focal Concerns
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Overview of Labeling Theories
A group of labeling theorists began exploring how and why certain acts were defined as criminal or
deviant and why other such acts were not. They questioned how and why certain people thus became
defined as criminal or deviant. Such theorists viewed crimnals not as evil persons who engaged in wrong
acts but as individuals who had a criminal status placed upon them by both the criminal justice system
and the community at large. From this point of view, criminal acts thus themselves are not significant, it
is the social reaction to them that are. Deviance and its control then involves a process of social
definition which involves the response from others to an individual’s behavior which is key to how an
individual views himself. To make this point, let’s briefly examine a crucial point made by sociologist
Howard S. Becker, in 1963.
“Deviance is not a quality of the act the person commits, but rather a consequence
of the application by others of rules and sanctions to an offender. The deviant is
one to whom that label has successfully been applied; deviant behavior is behavior
that people so label.”
Labeling theory focuses on the reaction of other people and the subsequent effects of those reactions
which create deviance. When it becomes known that a person has engaged in deviant acts, she or he is
then segregated from society and thus labeled, “whore,” theif,” “abuser,” “junkie,” and the like. Becker
noted that this process of segregation creates “outsiders”, who are outcast from society, and then begin to
associate with other individuals who have also been cast out. When more and more people begin to think
of these individuals as deviants, they respond to them as such; thus the deviant reacts to such a response
by continuing to engage in the behavior society now expects from them.
Criminological Theory Main Page.
Overview of Labeling Theories
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Howard Becker’s Developmental Career
Model
Howard Becker’s developmental career model is a social-process approach. Becker argues that deviance
exists in the eye of the beholder, much like beauty. He stresses that no act is intrinsically deviant, but
must be defined as such. Becker’s notion of a developmental process is that it precedes the attainment of
a deviant identity or career. He uses the process of becoming a marijuana user as an unfolding sequence
of steps that lead one to a commitment and participation in a deviant career. He argues that such an
identity occurs over time, having both a historical and longitudinal course. In his example, for instance,
the person must have access to the drug; must experiment with the drug; the person must continue to use
the drug. Each of these steps involves some subtle changes in the person’s attitude and perspective, as
well as their behavior, he argues. “The circumstances that determine movement along a particular path
includes properties of both the person and of the situation,” he states.
Criminological Theory Main Page.
Howard Becker’s Developmental Career Model
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Overview of Social Control Theories
Theories of social control focus on the strategies and techniques which help regulate human behavior and
thus lead to conformity and compliance of the rules of society, including the influences of family, school,
morals, values, beliefs, etc.,
Does existence of rules guarantee peaceful existence of the group? Who is to ensure compliance with
such rules? Social control theorists are out to study such questions. They are interested in learning why
people conform to norms, they ask why people conform in the face of so much temptation, peer pressure,
and inducement. Juveniles and adults conform to the law in response to certain controlling forces which
are present in their lives. Thus, they are likely to become criminal when the controlling forces in their
lives are defective or absent.
Social control theorists argue that the more involved and committed a person is to conventional activities,
the greater the attachment to others (such as family and friends), the less likely that a person is to violate
the rules of society.
Social control has its roots in the early part of this century in the work of sociologist E.A. Ross. Ross
believed that belief systems, not specific laws, guide what individuals do and this serves to control
behavior, no matter the forms that beliefs may take.
Social control is often seen as all-encompassing, practically representing any phenomenon leading to
conformity, which leads to norms. Others see social control as a broad representation of regulated
mechanisms placed upon society’s members. In other words, social control regards what is to be
considered deviant, violations of the law, right or wrong. Social control mechanisms can be adopted as
laws, norms, mores, ethics, etiquette, and customs, which all control and thus define behavior.
Social control theory is viewed from two perspectives. The macrosocial perspective explores formal
control systems for the control of groups, including the legal system such as laws, law enforcement,
powerful groups in society (who can help influence laws and norms) and economic and social directives
of government or private organizations. Such controls can serve to be either positive or negative.
On the other hand, the microsocial perspective focuses on informal control systems, which help to
explain why individuals conform. It also considers the source of control to be external, that is, outside of
the person.
We will focus on microsocial views of social control while examining the theories of Travis Hirshi
(Social Bonds) and Gresham Sykes and David Matza’s Techniques of Neutralization (Drift Theory).
Walter Reckless’ Containment Theory is also included here are a theory of social control, although we
can also consider it a self-concept approach.
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Overview of Social Control Theories
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Walter Reckless’ Containment Theory
In 1961 sociologist Walter C. Reckless proposed Containment Theory, which explains delinquency as
the interplay between two forms of control known as inner (internal) and outer (external) containments.
Containment theory assumes that for every individual a containing external structure as well as a
protective internal structure exist. Both buffer, protect, and insulate an individual against delinquency.
Reckless wanted his theory to explain not only delinquency, but also conformity.
Containment theory shows that society produces a series of pulls and pushes toward the phenomenon of
delinquency. It suggests that these inner and outer containments help to buffer against one’s potential
deviation from legal and social norms and work to insulate a youth from the pressures, pulls, and pushes
of deviant influences.
Of the two, Reckless suggested that inner containments are more important. It is these inner
containments, he argued, that form one’s support system. The stronger one’s inner containments, the least
likely one would commit crime; the weaker one’s inner containments, the more prone to crime one would
become.
Inner containments, simply put, are “self” components. They are the inner strength of one’s personality.
These include a good self-concept, strong ego, well developed conscience, high sense of responsibility,
and high frustration tolerance. Outer containments refer to one’s social environment. These are normative
constraints in which society and groups use to control its members. Outer containments include
belonging (identification with the group), effective supervision, cohesion among group members
(togetherness), opportunities for achievement, reasonable limits and responsibilities, alternative ways and
means of satisfaction (if one more more ways are closed), reinforcement of goals, norms values, and
discipline.
Internal pushes are personal factors which include restlessness, discontent, rebellion, anxiety, and
hostility. External pulls include deviant peers, membership in a deviant/criminal gang, and pornography.
Finally, external pressures refer to the adverse living conditions which give rise to crime. These include
relative deprivation, poverty, unemployment, insecurity, and inequality.
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Travis Hirschi’s Social Bond Theory
Travis Hirschi took his theory to a different approach. He didn’t attempt to explain why individuals
engage in criminal acts, but rather why individuals choose to conform to conventional norms. It is, in a
strict sense, not a theory of crime causation, but rather a theory of prosocial behavior used so often by
sociologists and criminologists to better explain deviance and criminality.
In 1969 Travis Hirschi presented four social bonds which promote socialization and conformity. These
include attachment, commitment, involvement and belief. He claimed that the stronger these four bonds,
the least likely one would become delinquent. Hirschi first assumes that everyone has potential to
become delinquent and criminal and it is social controls, not moral values, that maintain law and order.
Without controls, he argues, one is free to commit criminal acts.
Hirschi further assumes that a consistent value system exists and all of society is thus exposed to such a
system. Moral codes are then defied by delinquents because their attachment to society is weak. While
Sykes and Matza believe that delinquents share the same values and attitudes as non delinquents, Hirschi
views delinquents as rejecting such social norms and beliefs.
The first bond, attachment, refers to one’s interest in others. One’s acceptance of social norms and the
development of social conscious depend on attachment for other human beings. Hirschi views parents,
schools, and peers as important social institutions for a person. Attachment takes three forms–attachment
to parents, to school, and to peers. While examining attachment to parents Hirschi found that juveniles
refrain from delinquency due to the consequences that the act would most likely produce, therefore
putting such a relationship between parent and child in jeopardy. In some respect, can argue that this acts
as a primary deterrent to engaging in delinquency. Strength, however, in such a deterrent would largely
depend on the depth and quality of the parent-child interaction. The amount of time child and parent
spend together are equally important, including intimacy in conversation and identification that may exist
between parent and child. While examining the bond with school, Hirschi found that an inability to do
well in school is linked with delinquency, through a series of chain events. He argued that academic
incompetence leads to poor school performance, which leads to a dislike of school, which leads to
rejection of teachers and authority, which results in acts of delinquency. He argued that one’s attachment
to school depends on how one appreciates the institution and how he/she is received by fellow peers and
teachers. Hirschi also noted that he found that one’s attachment to parents and school overshadows the
bond formed with one’s peers.
The second bond is that of commitment and it involves time, energy, and effort placed on conventional
lines of action. In other words, the support of and equal partaking in social activities tie an individual to
the moral and ethical code of society. Hirschi’s control theory holds that people who build an investment
in life, property, and reputation are less likely to engage in criminal acts which will jeopardize their
social position. A lack of commitment to such conventional values will cause an individual to partake in
delinquent or criminal acts.
The third bond is involvement. This addresses a preoccupation in activites which stress the conventional
interests of society. Hirschi argues that an individual’s heavy involvement in conventional activities
doesn’t leave time to engage in delinquent or criminal acts. He believes that involvement in school,
Travis Hirschi’s Social Bond Theory
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family, recreation, etc., insulates a juvenile from potential delinquent behavior that may be a result of
idleness.
The final bond is that of belief and it deals with assents to society’s value system–which entails respect
for laws, and the people and institutions which enforce such laws. Hirschi argued that people who live in
common social settings share similar human values. If such beliefs are weakened, or absent, one is more
likely to engage in antisocial acts. Also, if people believe that laws are unfair, this bond to society
weakens and the likelihood of committing delinquent acts rises.
Even with its weaknesses, Hirschi’s theory held a position of importance in criminology for several
decades. More than anything, social control theorists want to explain delinquency, not adult crime
persay. However, since the characteristics of the theory are found present in adolsecents, they are also
present in postadolescent behavior, argues one critic. Hirschi’s theory remains silent on this analysis.
Many other critics have faulted Hirschi’s work because he used too few questionnaire items to measure
social bonds. He failed to describe the chain of events that result in inadequate social bonds. There was
also a creation of an artifical division of socialized verses unsocialized youths. Finally, Hirschi’s theory
explains no more than 50 percent of delinquent behavior and only a 1-2 percent difference in future
delinquency, while it is supposed to explain why delinquency occurs.
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Sykes and Matza’s
Techniques of Neutralization
In the 1960s David Matza, and his associate Gresham Sykes, developed a different perspective on social
control which explains why some delinquents drift in and out of delinquency. Neutralization Theory, or
Drift theory as it is often called, proposed that juveniles sense a moral obligation to be bound by the law.
Such a bind between a person and the law remains in place most of the time, they argue. When it is not in
place, delinquents will drift.
According to Sykes and Matza, delinquents hold values, beliefs, and attitudes very similar to those of
law-abiding citizens. In fact, they feel obligated to be bound by law. Then, if bound by law, how can they
justify their delinquent activities? The answer is that they learn “techniques” which enable them to
“neutralize” such values and attitudes temporarily and thus drift back and forth between legitimate and
illegitimate behaviors. They maintain that at times delinquents participate in conventional activities and
shun such activity while engaging in criminal acts. Such a theory proposes that delinquents disregard
controlling influences of rules and values and use these techniques of neutralization to “weaken” the hold
society places over them. In other words, these techniques act as defense mechanisms that release the
delinquent from the constraints associated with moral order.
In Delinquency and Drift (1964), David Matza suggested that people live their lives on a continuum
somewhere between total freedom and total restraint. The process by which a person moves from one
extreme of behavior to another extreme is called drift, and this is the very foundation of his theory.
Along with Sykes, Matza rejected the notion that subcultures of delinquency maintain an independent set
of values than the dominant culture. They hold that delinquents actually do appreciate culturally held
goals and expectations of the middle-class, but feel that engaging in such behavior would be frowned
upon by their peers. Such beliefs remain almost unconscious, or subterranean, because delinquents fear
expressing such beliefs to peers.
Techniques of Neutralization suggest that delinquents develop a special set of justifications for their
behavior when such behavior violates social norms. Such techniques allow delinquents to neutralize and
temporarily suspend their commitment to societal values, providing them with the freedom to commit
delinquent acts.
Sykes and Matza’s theoretical model is based on the following four observations.
1. Delinquents express guilt over their illegal acts.
2. Delinquents frequently respect and admire honest, law-abiding individuals.
3. A line is drawn between those whom they can victimize and those they cannot.
4. Delinquents are not immune to the demands of conformity.
Thus, Sykes and Matza propose the five Techniques of Neutralization.
Denial of responsibility. Delinquent will propose that he/she is a victim of circumstance and that
he/she is pushed or pulled into situations beyond his/her control. (“It wasn’t my fault!”)
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Denial of injury. Delinquent supposes that his/her acts really do not cause any harm, or that the
victim can afford the loss or damage. (“Why is everyone making a big deal about it; they have money!”)
Denial of the victim. Delinquent views the act as not being wrong, that the victim deserves the
injury, or that there is no real victim. (“They had it coming to them!”)
Condemnation of the condemners. Condemners are seen as hypocrites, or are reacting out of
personal spite, thus they shift the blame to others, being able to repress the feeling that their acts are
wrong. (“They probably did worse things in their day!”)
Appeal to higher loyalties. The rules of society often take a back seat to the demands and loyalty to
important others. (“My friends depended on me, what was I going to do?!”)
Sykes and Matza further argued that these neutralizations are available not just to delinquents but they
can be found throughout society.
Attempts have been made over the years to verify the assumptions made by Neutralization Theory, and
the results have, thus far, been inconclusive. Studies have indicated that delinquents approve of social
values, while others do not. Other studies indicate that delinquents approve of criminal behavior, while
others seem to oppose it. Neutralization Theory, however, remains an important contribution to the field
of crime and delinquency. Social bond theorist, Travis Hirschi, asked an important question: do
delinquents neutralize law-violating behavior before or after they commit an act? Neutralization theory
loses its credibility as a theory which explains the cause of delinquency if juveniles use techniques of
neutralization before the commission of a delinquent deed and therefore becomes a theory which simply
describes reactions that juveniles incur due to their misdeeds. The theory does fail on the account that it
doesn’t clearly distinguish why some youths drift into delinquency and others do not. The theory remains
too abstract and vauge to be of any practical use unless we understand why drift occurs, critics have
argued.
Criminological Theory Main Page.
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Criminological Theory on the Web
Introduction to Criminological Theory
Classical School
Positive School
Chicago School
Cohen & Felson’s Routine Activities
Social Disorganization
Durkheim’s Anomie
Merton’s Strain Theory
Agnew’s General Strain Theory
Overview of Subculture Theories
Cohen’s Subculture of Delinquency Theory
Cloward & Ohlin’s Differential Opportunity Theory
Miller’s Lower-Class Focal Concerns
Overview of Labeling Theories
Howard Becker’s Developmental Career Model
Overview of Social Control Theories
Walter Reckless’ Containment Theory
Travis Hirschi’s Social Bond Theory
Sykes and Matza’s Techniques of Neutralization (Drift Theory)
