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Criminological Theory

Seventh Edition

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Criminological Theory Context and Consequences

Seventh Edition

J. Robert Lilly Northern Kentucky University

Francis T. Cullen University of Cincinnati

Richard A. Ball Pennsylvania State University, Fayette

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Lilly, J. Robert, author. | Cullen, Francis T., author. | Ball, Richard A., 1936- author.

Title: Criminological theory : context and consequences / J. Robert Lilly, Northern Kentucky University, Francis T. Cullen, University of Cincinnati, Richard A. Ball, Pennsylvania State University, Fayette.

Description: Seventh edition. | Thousand Oaks, California : SAGE, [2019] | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2018025575 | ISBN 9781506387307 (pbk. : alk. paper)

Subjects: LCSH: Criminology. | Crime—United States. | Criminal behavior—United States.

Classification: LCC HV6018 .L55 2019 | DDC 364.973—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018025575

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Brief Contents

1. Preface 2. Acknowledgments 3. • CHAPTER 1 The Context and Consequences of Theory 4. • CHAPTER 2 The Search for the “Criminal Man” 5. • CHAPTER 3 Rejecting Individualism: The Chicago School 6. • CHAPTER 4 Crime in American Society: Anomie and Strain Theories 7. • CHAPTER 5 Society as Insulation: The Origins of Control Theory 8. • CHAPTER 6 The Complexity of Control: Hirschi’s Two Theories and Beyond 9. • CHAPTER 7 The Irony of State Intervention: Labeling Theory

10. • CHAPTER 8 Social Power and the Construction of Crime:Conflict Theory 11. • CHAPTER 9 The Variety of Critical Theory 12. • CHAPTER 10 The Gendering of Criminology: Feminist Theory 13. • CHAPTER 11 Crimes of the Powerful: Theories of White-Collar Crime 14. • CHAPTER 12 Bringing Punishment Back In: Conservative Criminology 15. • CHAPTER 13 Choosing Crime in Everyday Life: Routine Activity and Rational Choice Theories 16. • CHAPTER 14 The Search for the “Criminal Man” Revisited:Biosocial Theories 17. • CHAPTER 15 New Directions in Biosocial Theory: Perspectives and Policies 18. • CHAPTER 16 The Development of Criminals: Life-Course Theories 19. References 20. Author Index 21. Subject Index 22. About the Authors

Detailed Contents

Preface Acknowledgments • CHAPTER 1 The Context and Consequences of Theory

Theory in Social Context Theory and Policy: Ideas Have Consequences Context, Theory, and Policy: Plan of the Book

Inventing Criminology: Mainstream Theories Social Turmoil and the Rise of Critical Theories Criminological Theory in the Conservative Era Criminological Theory in the 21st Century

Conclusion Further Readings

• CHAPTER 2 The Search for the “Criminal Man” Spiritualism The Classical School: Criminal as Calculator The Positivist School: Criminal as Determined

The Birth of the Positivist School: Lombroso’s Theory of the Criminal Man Lombroso’s Legacy: The Italian Criminological Tradition The Continuing Search for the Individual Roots of Crime

The Consequence of Theory: Policy Implications The Positivist School and the Control of the Biological Criminal The Positivist School and Criminal Justice Reform

Conclusion Further Readings

• CHAPTER 3 Rejecting Individualism: The Chicago School The Chicago School of Criminology: Theory in Context Shaw and McKay’s Theory of Juvenile Delinquency

Burgess’s Concentric Zone Theory Disorganization and Delinquency Transmission of Criminal Values The Empirical Status of Social Disorganization Theory Summary

Sutherland’s Theory of Differential Association Differential Social Organization Differential Association Theoretical Applications

The Chicago School’s Criminological Legacy

Control and Culture in the Community Collective Efficacy Theory Cultural Attenuation Theory Cultural Deviance Theory Anderson’s Code of the Street

Akers’s Social Learning Theory Becoming a Learning Theorist Extending Sutherland: Akers’s Theory Assessing Social Learning Theory

The Consequences of Theory: Policy Implications Change the Individual Change the Community

Conclusion Further Readings

• CHAPTER 4 Crime in American Society: Anomie and Strain Theories Merton’s Strain Theory

America as a Criminogenic Society Strain Theory in Context

Status Discontent and Delinquency Delinquent Boys Delinquency and Opportunity

The Criminological Legacy of “Classic” Strain Theory Agnew’s General Strain Theory

Becoming a Strain Theorist Three Types of Strain Coping With Strain Assessing General Strain Theory Two Theoretical Extensions

A Theory of African American Offending Crime and the American Dream: Institutional-Anomie Theory

Inventing Institutional-Anomie Theory The American Dream and Anomie Institutional Balance of Power Assessing Institutional-Anomie Theory

The Market Economy and Crime The Future of Strain Theory The Consequences of Theory: Policy Implications

Expand Opportunities Taming the American Dream

Conclusion

Further Readings • CHAPTER 5 Society as Insulation: The Origins of Control Theory

Forerunners of Control Theory Durkheim’s Anomie Theory The Influence of the Chicago School

Early Control Theories Reiss’s Theory of Personal and Social Controls Nye’s Family-Focused Theory of Social Controls

Reckless’s Containment Theory The Social Psychology of the Self Pushes and Pulls Factors in Outer Containment Factors in Inner Containment Summary

Sykes and Matza: Neutralization and Drift Theory Techniques of Neutralization Subterranean Values Drift Theory

Control Theory in Context The Context of the 1950s The Context of the 1960s

Further Readings • CHAPTER 6 The Complexity of Control: Hirschi’s Two Theories and Beyond

Hirschi’s First Theory: Social Bonds and Delinquency Hirschi’s Forerunners Hirschi’s Sociological Perspective Why Social Control Matters The Four Social Bonds Assessing Social Bond Theory

Hirschi’s Second Theory: Self-Control and Crime Self-Control and Crime Assessing Self-Control Theory Self-Control and Social Bonds Hirschi’s Revised Social Control Theory Self-Control and Vulnerability to Victimization

The Complexity of Control Hagan’s Power-Control Theory Tittle’s Control Balance Theory Colvin’s Differential Coercion Theory Beyond Control: Cullen’s Social Support Theory

The Consequences of Theory: Policy Implications Conclusion Further Readings

• CHAPTER 7 The Irony of State Intervention: Labeling Theory The Social Construction of Crime Labeling as Criminogenic: Creating Career Criminals

Early Statements of Labeling Theory Labeling as a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy Assessing Labeling Theory Labeling Theory in Context

The Consequences of Theory: Policy Implications Decriminalization Diversion Due Process Deinstitutionalization

Extending Labeling Theory Braithwaite’s Theory of Shaming and Crime Sherman’s Defiance Theory Tyler’s Procedural Justice Theory Rose and Clear’s Coerced Mobility Theory Policy Implications: Restorative Justice and Prisoner Reentry

Conclusion Further Readings

• CHAPTER 8 Social Power and the Construction of Crime:Conflict Theory Forerunners of Conflict Theory

Marx and Engels: Capitalism and Crime Simmel: Forms of Conflict Bonger: Capitalism and Crime Sutherland and Sellin: Culture Conflict and Crime Vold: Conflict and Crime

Theory in Context: The Turmoil of the 1960s Advancing Conflict Theory: Turk, Chambliss, and Quinney

Turk: The Criminalization Process Chambliss: Crime, Power, and Legal Process Quinney: Social Reality, Capitalism, and Crime

Conflict Theory and the Causes of Crime Consequences of Conflict Theory

Marxist Approach Peacemaking Criminology

Conclusion

Further Readings • CHAPTER 9 The Variety of Critical Theory

Looking Back at Early British and European Influences Background: The New Criminology Theoretical Arguments Critique of the New Criminology

Early Left Realism The Theory Consequences of New Criminology/Left Realism

The New Criminology Revisited: A Shift in Context Left Realism Today

Taking Stock Late Modernity and Globalization: Major Historical Changes

Changing Social Context: 2015–2018 Early Cultural Criminology

The Beginning Consequences of Early Cultural Criminology

Cultural Criminology Today Green/Cultural Criminology

Background and Emergence of Green Criminology Environmental Justice Ecological Justice Animal Rights

Convict/Cultural Criminology Background: Primarily an American Contribution Consequences of the “New School of Convict Criminology”

New Directions in Criminological Theory: Death and the Birth of New Ideas Background and Transition Hall’s New Perspective: 2012–2018 Ultra-Realism Today The Importance of Other Voices: Jock Young

European Criminology Contributions and Content: Background Policy Update Abolitionism Consequences of Abolitionism

Conclusion Further Readings

• CHAPTER 10 The Gendering of Criminology: Feminist Theory Background

Prefeminist Pioneers and Themes Cesare Lombroso W. I. Thomas Sigmund Freud Otto Pollak

The Emergence of New Questions: Bringing Women In The Second Wave: From Women’s Emancipation to Patriarchy

Women’s Emancipation and Crime Patriarchy and Crime

Varieties of Feminist Thought Early Feminist Perspectives Contemporary Feminist Perspectives

The Intersection of Race, Class, and Gender Masculinities and Crime

Doing Gender Male Peer Support Theory

Gendering Criminology Gendered Pathways to Lawbreaking Gendered Crime Gendered Lives A Gendered Theory of Offending The Gender Gap: Further Comments

Postmodernist Feminism and the Third Wave Revisited Consequences of Feminist Theory: Policy Implications

Consequences of the Diversity of Feminist Perspectives Consequences of Feminist Criminology for Corrections Consequences of Feminist Criminology: Background and New Directions

Conclusion Further Readings

• CHAPTER 11 Crimes of the Powerful: Theories of White-Collar Crime The Discovery of White-Collar Crime: Edwin H. Sutherland

The Philadelphia Address Becoming the Father of White-Collar Crime Defining White-Collar Crime Explaining White-Collar Crime

Organizational Culture Unethical Cultures Oppositional Cultures The Normalization of Deviance

Organizational Strain and Opportunity

Strain and Anomie Criminogenic Opportunities

Deciding to Offend Denying the Guilty Mind White-Collar Crime as a Rational Choice White-Collar Offenders as Bad Apples

State-Corporate Crime Consequences of White-Collar Crime Theory: Policy Implications Conclusion Further Readings

• CHAPTER 12 Bringing Punishment Back In: Conservative Criminology Context: The United States of the 1980s and Early 1990s

The Economic Decline of the United States The Persistence of Inequality in the United States The Rhetoric of Stability The Legacy of the Conservative Political Agenda

A New Context in Four Parts: 2008 to 2019 The New Conservatism, Shock Doctrine, and Dark Money The War on Terror and the Rise of Hate Crimes The Precariousness of the Rule of Law Big Data and Surveillance

Other Recent Changes in Context The Great Recession Inequality Expands in the United States The Rhetoric of Hope and Change The Rhetoric of “Make America Great Again” Law and Order Issues Under Trump

Varieties of Conservative Theory Crime and Human Nature: Wilson and Herrnstein

The Theory Assessing Crime and Human Nature

Crime and The Bell Curve: Herrnstein and Murray The Criminal Mind Choosing to Be Criminal: Crime Pays Crime and Moral Poverty Broken Windows: The Tolerance of Public Disorganization Consequences of Conservative Theory: Policy Implications

The Embrace of Mass Imprisonment Incapacitating the Wicked “Get Tough” Alternatives

Conclusion Further Readings

• CHAPTER 13 Choosing Crime in Everyday Life: Routine Activity and Rational Choice Theories Routine Activity Theory: Opportunities and Crime

The Chemistry for Crime: Offenders, Targets, and Guardians View of Offenders Policy Implications: Reducing Opportunities for Crime

Rational Choice Theory Rational Choice and Crime Policy Implications Are Offenders’ Choices Rational?

Perceptual Deterrence Theory The Theory Assessing Perceptual Deterrence Theory Policy Implications: Certainty, Not Severity

Situational Action Theory Conclusion Further Readings

• CHAPTER 14 The Search for the “Criminal Man” Revisited: Biosocial Theories Evolutionary Psychology: Darwin Revisited

Theoretical Diversity Assessment

Social Concern Theory: Evolutionary Psychology Revisited Neuroscience: Neurological and Biochemical Theories

Neurological Theories Biochemical Theories Assessment

Genetics Behavior Genetics Molecular Genetics Epigenetics Assessment

Conclusion Further Readings

• CHAPTER 15 New Directions in Biosocial Theory: Perspectives and Policies Biosocial Risk and Protective Factors

Risk Factors Protective Factors

Environmental Toxins The Consequences of Theory: Policy Implications

An Agenda for Research and Policy Implications for Prevention and Treatment Problems of Definition and the Social Construction of Crime Challenges Ahead

Conclusion Further Readings

• CHAPTER 16 The Development of Criminals: Life-Course Theories Integrated Theories of Crime

Integrated Theorizing Elliott and Colleagues’ Integrated Strain-Control Paradigm Thornberry’s Interactional Theory Hawkins and Catalano’s Social Development Model Farrington’s ICAP Theory Policy Implications

Life-Course Criminology: Continuity and Change Criminology in Crisis: Gottfredson and Hirschi Revisited Patterson’s Social-Interactional Developmental Model

Early-Onset Delinquency Late-Onset Delinquency Intervening With Families

Moffitt’s Life-Course-Persistent/Adolescence-Limited Theory Life-Course-Persistent Antisocial Behavior Adolescence-Limited Antisocial Behavior Assessing Moffitt’s Theory

Sampson and Laub: Social Bond Theory Revisited An Age-Graded Theory of Informal Social Control Assessing Sampson and Laub’s Life-Course Theory Revising the Age-Graded Theory of Crime

Rethinking Crime: Cognitive Theories of Desistance Maruna’s Theory of Redemption Scripts Giordano et al.’s Theory of Cognitive Transformation Paternoster and Bushway’s Theory of the Feared Self

The Consequences of Theory: Policy Implications Conclusion Further Readings

References Author Index Subject Index About the Authors

Preface

The idea for this book was birthed during the mid-1970s when the United States and criminology on both sides of the Atlantic were experiencing immense changes. Between that time and the appearance of the first edition of the book in 1989, much of our individual energies were devoted to establishing and maintaining our careers and to our changing family responsibilities. At times, it seemed as though the circumstances needed to sustain the type of collective effort required for Criminological Theory were so elusive as to prevent the book from ever being written. Yet, the idea of a book that went beyond explaining criminological theory—one that used a sociology of knowledge perspective to explain the origins, developments, and consequences of criminological theory—remained very much alive. We were certain that few works like it in criminology had been written before. Then and now, we were committed to demonstrating that ideas about the causes of crime have consequences.

Criminological Theory, which has been an ongoing project for most of our careers, is now in its seventh edition and is celebrating its 30th anniversary! During this time, the book has more than doubled in size—a fact that reflects both the increasing richness of theorizing about crime and our efforts to add substantive value as we authored each new edition. Thus, the second edition in 1995 included empirical updates, substantial rewriting, and a new chapter devoted to fresh directions in critical thinking about crime. The emphasis on a sociology of knowledge perspective remained the same. The third edition, which appeared in 2002, attempted to capture novel theoretical developments that had occurred within both mainstream and critical theoretical paradigms. The fourth edition, published in 2006, expanded the book from 9 to 14 chapters and identified new theoretical trends in the United States and in Europe. The fifth edition, set forth in 2011, contained a new chapter on white-collar crime—a theoretical domain that is often ignored. Published in 2015, the sixth addition expanded coverage of biosocial theory to two chapters, reflecting the growth of this perspective, and added coverage of emerging frameworks, such as green criminology, male peer support theory, and social concern and social support theories.

Collectively, the three of us have spent more than 140 years as professors studying criminological theory. We were fortunate to have embarked on our scholarly careers when criminology was emerging as a vital discipline on both sides of the Atlantic. During this time, theory has remained central to the criminological enterprise. As our careers progressed, we witnessed foundational theories—such as the Chicago school, Merton’s social structure and anomie paradigm, and control theory—exert enduring influence. But reflecting a changing social context and the growing diversity of the field, we heard new, more critical voices that offered alternative visions of the sources of and cures for crime. Across all editions of the book, our goal has been to chronicle each chapter of this unfolding and fascinating story, giving coverage to all influential perspectives and treating each with an appropriate level of critical analysis and ultimately respect.

Over the past decade or so, criminology has lost a number of prominent scholars—including, among others, William Chambliss, Gilbert Geis, Travis Hirschi, Rolf Loeber, F. Ivan Nye, Raymond Paternoster, Rita Simon, and Austin Turk in the United States and Stanley Cohen, Barbara Hudson, Terence Morris, Geoffrey

Pearson, and Jock Young in the United Kingdom. Their passing—and that of others before them—has

reminded us of how fortunate we have been in our careers to have experienced the inordinate contributions of remarkable criminologists. In fact, we not only have read their writings but also have known personally many of these wonderful people who shaped thinking within criminology. At the same time, their passing also made clear that criminology as a discipline is a dynamic, ever-changing field—burdened by the losses of great minds but also benefited by the creation of new knowledge that improves our understanding both of the origins of criminal behavior and of what does and does not work to control crime.

In this context, we are privileged to have the continuing opportunity to chronicle the major advances within criminological theory, ranging from biosocial to critical criminology. As with each previous revision, we updated materials and sought to make the book more informative, interesting, and accessible. Here are the most important changes that we have included in the seventh edition:

Discussion of important changes in the contemporary social context in the United States and in Europe, as nations have moved into an era marked by the election of Donald Trump and Brexit. Updated statistics and information about significant changes in crime, imprisonment, and policy. Expanded coverage of important perspectives, including subterranean values and delinquency, low self- control as an explanation of victimization, procedural justice theory, personality traits and white-collar offending, place management theory, the social development model, and the feared self theory of desistance. Expanded coverage of new directions in and the policy consequences of critical and feminist theory. The inclusion of more than 400 new sources that assess developments within, and the empirical status of, the major theories. Examination of the implication of biosocial criminology, especially neuroscience, for offender treatment and juvenile justice policy.

Because criminology is an evolving field of study, we are convinced that the contents of the shifting contexts of the social world from which criminology comes will continue to influence its theoretical explanations for crime and the policy responses to it. It is our hope, however, that criminology never will be a mere reflection of the world around it.

There are far too many people to whom we owe debts for the success of Criminological Theory to be properly thanked here. For this reason, we mention only three. First, the late James A. Inciardi, who gave us the opportunity to write for SAGE Publications, deserves our gratitude for his faith in our efforts and patience when it seemed as though the first edition never would see the light of day. Second, Jerry Westby, our past and long-standing SAGE editor, showed unwavering confidence in our project across multiple editions, always providing just the right dollop of support and wise advice to enable us to bring our work to fruition. Third, Jessica Miller, our current SAGE editor and protégé of Jerry, has displayed remarkable enthusiasm for this project, making possible a wonderful working relationship. We look forward to collaborating with Jessica on the book’s eighth edition and beyond!

Finally, we want to express our appreciation to the many criminologists—and their students—who have

embraced our efforts to tell the story of the development of criminological theory. Without your continued support, Criminological Theory would not be in its seventh edition. It has been a privilege to share our ideas with you.

J. Robert Lilly

Francis T. Cullen

Richard A. Ball

Acknowledgments

SAGE Publishing gratefully acknowledges the contributions of the following individuals:

Michele P. Bratina West Chester University of Pennsylvania Susan S. Hodge University of North Carolina at Charlotte John A. Humphrey Saint Anselm College Amanda Matravers California State University, East Bay Adam J. McKee University of Arkansas at Monticello Mirlinda Ndrecka University of New Haven Scott A. Pray Muskingum University Elicka Peterson Sparks Appalachian State University

Chapter One The Context and Consequences of Theory

The Thinker by Auguste Rodin 1840–1917 French artist and sculptor

Crime is a complex phenomenon, and it is a demanding, if intriguing, challenge to explain its many sides. Many commentators—some public officials come to mind—often suggest that using good common sense is enough to explain why citizens shoot or rob one another and, in turn, to inform us as to what to do about such lawlessness. Our experience—and, we trust, this book as well—teaches that the search for answers to the crime problem is not so easy. It requires that we reconsider our biases, learn from the insights and mistakes of our predecessors who have risked theorizing about the causes of crime, and consider clearly the implications of what we propose.

But the task—or, as we see it, the adventure—of explaining crime is an important undertaking. To be sure, crime commentary frequently succumbs to the temptation to exaggerate and sensationalize, to suggest that crimes that are exceptionally lurid and injurious compose the bulk of America’s lawlessness, or perhaps to suggest that most citizens spend their lives huddled behind barricaded doors and paralyzed by the fear that local thugs will victimize them. There is, of course, an element of truth to these observations, and that is why they have an intuitive appeal. Yet most Americans, particularly those living in more affluent communities, do not have their lives ripped apart by brutal assaults or tragic murders. And although many citizens lock their doors at night, install burglar alarms, and perhaps buy weapons for protection, they typically say that they feel safe in and close to their homes (Cullen, Clark, & Wozniak, 1985; Scheingold, 1984).

But these cautionary remarks do not detract from the reality that crime is a serious matter that, we believe, deserves study and understanding. Most Americans escape the type of victimization that takes their lives or destroys their peace of mind, but too many others do not share this good fortune. Thus, media reports of Americans killing Americans are sufficiently ubiquitous that many of us have become so desensitized to the violence in our communities that we give these accounts scarcely more attention than the scores from the day’s sporting events. And it is likely that most of us have friends, or friends of friends, who have been seriously assaulted or perhaps even murdered.

Statistical data paint an equally bleak picture. Each year, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) publishes

the Uniform Crime Reports in which it lists the numbers of various crimes that have become known (mostly through reports by citizens) to the nation’s police departments. According to these statistics, across the past decade, an average of 15,484 U.S. residents were murdered annually. Although there has been an important decline in crime (Latzer, 2016; Tonry, 2014; Zimring, 2007), each year there still are about 1.2 million Americans robbed, raped, or seriously assaulted and nearly 8 million whose houses are burglarized or whose property is damaged or stolen (Federal Bureau of Investigation [FBI], 2018).

It is disturbing that these statistics capture only part of the nation’s crime problem. Many citizens, about one in every two serious violent crime victims and two in every three property crime victims, do not report crimes against them to the police (Morgan & Kena, 2017). Thus, these acts do not appear in the Uniform Crime Reports. For example, the National Crime Victimization Survey, a study in which citizens are asked whether they have been victimized, estimates that residents over 12 years of age experienced approximately 22.6 million crimes in 2016, about one fourth of which were violent victimizations (Morgan & Kena, 2017).

Furthermore, these FBI statistics do not include drug-related offenses, which are commonplace. Between 1999 and 2016, the rate of drug overdoses increased threefold, taking 63,600 lives in 2016—a toll more than three and a half times higher than the number of murder victims in America (Hedegaard, Warner, & Miniño, 2017). FBI statistics also measure mainly serious street crimes. Yet we know that minor crimes—petty thefts, simple assaults, and so on—are even more widespread. “Self-report” surveys, in which the respondents (typically juveniles) are asked to report how many offenses they have committed, consistently indicate that the vast majority of people have engaged in some degree of illegality. But more important, other realms of criminality—not only quite prevalent but also quite serious—traditionally have not come to the attention of police because they are not committed on the streets. Domestic violence—child abuse, spousal assault, and so on (i.e., the violence that occurs “behind closed doors”)—is one of these areas (Straus, Gelles, & Steinmetz, 1980), as are sexual assaults that occur on dates and against people who know one another (Fisher, Daigle, & Cullen, 2010). The #Me Too movement has brought to light incidents of sexual harassment and assault, exposing malfeasance by powerful members of the nation’s corporate, entertainment, and political elites. Another such area is white-collar crime, that is, the crimes committed by professional people in the course of their occupations (Sutherland, 1949). As repeated revelations suggest (recall the massive frauds at Enron and Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme), corruption in the business and political communities takes place regularly and has disquieting consequences (Benson & Simpson, 2018; Cullen, Maakestad, & Cavender, 1987; Simon & Eitzen, 1986).

These statistics and observations make the point that crime is a prominent feature of our society. But is the United States more criminogenic than other nations? For most forms of crime (e.g., property, assault), Americans’ involvement is similar to that of other industrialized Western societies. But for lethal violence, “the United Sates is a clear outlier among highly developed nations” (Messner & Rosenfeld, 2013, p. 21; see also Currie, 1985, 2009; Lynch & Pridemore, 2011; Zimring & Hawkins, 1997). Making cross-cultural comparisons is difficult; for example, nations differ in what they consider to be illegal and in their methods of collecting crime data. Even so, Currie’s (1985) review of available statistical information revealed that, as of the late 1970s, “about ten American men died by criminal violence for every Japanese, Austrian, West

German, or Swedish man; about fifteen American men died for every Swiss or Englishman; and over twenty [American men died] for every Dane” (p. 25). Similar differences remain today (Currie, 1998b; Rosenfeld, 2009). Thus, in a comparison of homicide rates across 16 Western nations, Messner and Rosenfeld (2013) note that the U.S. rate doubles that of the next closest nation (Finland) and “is more than five times the average rate of the other nations” (p. 21). Currie states the issue in more human terms, observing that “in most other affluent industrial societies, the deliberate killing of one person by another is an extremely rare event. . . . Their neighborhoods are not torn by drive-by shootings or by the routine sound of police helicopters in the night. There are no candles at shrines for homicide victims” (p. 3). And as we are all aware, only in the United States do its citizens brandish high-capacity assault weapons and commit mass murder on a regular basis. Names such as Columbine, Virginia Tech, Sandy Hook, Parkland, Las Vegas, and many more are now etched in the nation’s consciousness as constant reminders of the carnage perpetrated in what should be safe places devoted to learning and entertainment (Jonson, 2017).

Another important reality is that crime is not evenly distributed within the United States. One report, for example, analyzed 2014 FBI homicide data for cities with a population of more than 250,000 (Johnson, 2015). The murder rate per 100,000 was nearly 50 for St. Louis, over 40 for Detroit, and over 30 for Baltimore, Newark, and New Orleans. By contrast, it was 6.66 for Los Angeles and only 3.93 for New York, a city that has experienced a dramatic decline in crime (Zimring, 2012). As another example, we calculated the distribution of murders across Ohio’s 367 cities for 2016 (Federal Bureau of Investigation, 2018, Table 6). Notably, 298 cities (81.2%) had zero homicides in the year. Six cities accounted for more than 70% of the offenses, and only three cities (Cincinnati, Cleveland, and Columbus) accounted for more than half of the state’s homicides. Striking differences in criminality also are found across communities within urban areas (Sampson, 2012) and even across blocks within the same neighborhood (Weisburd, Groff, & Yang, 2012).

But why is crime so prevalent in the United States? Why is it so prevalent in some of our communities but not others? Why do some people break the law, whereas others are law abiding? Why do the affluent, and not just the disadvantaged, commit illegal acts? How can these various phenomena be explained?

Over the years, theorists have endeavored to address one or more of these questions. In this book, we attempt to give an account of their thinking about crime—to examine its context, its content, and its consequences. Before embarking on this story of criminological theorizing, however, it is necessary to discuss the framework that informs our analysis. This approach argues that theories about why crime occurs are not simply invented by isolated scholars sitting in an armchair but are shaped by the social context in which they live. As society changes, it is inevitable that images about crime change (see also Wilcox, Cullen, & Feldmeyer, 2018). This approach also argues that theories matter because they promote or justify the use of some crime-control policies but not others. Note that this book’s subtitle—Context and Consequences—was chosen as a way of emphasizing the importance of these points.

Theory in Social Context

Most Americans have little difficulty in identifying the circumstances they believe cause people to engage in wayward conduct. When surveyors ask citizens about the causes of crime, only a small percentage of respondents say that they “have no opinion.” The remainder of those polled usually remark that crime is caused by factors such as unemployment, bad family life, and lenient courts (Flanagan, 1987; see also Roberts & Stalans, 2000; Unnever, Cochran, Cullen, & Applegate, 2010).

Most people, then, have developed views on why crime occurs; that is, they have their “theories” of criminal behavior. But where do such views, or such theories, come from? One possibility is that citizens have taken the time to read extensively on crime, have sifted through existing research studies, and have arrived at informed assessments of why laws are disregarded. But only exceptional citizens develop their views on crime —or on any other social issue—in this way (Kinder & Kalmoe, 2017). Apart from criminologists who study crime for a living, most people have neither the time nor the inclination to investigate the crime problem carefully. Let us give but one example. Over the past decade or so, the nation’s rate of serious street crime has trended downward. During this time, however, a majority of Americans—in some years more than 70% of the respondents—have told Gallup pollsters that “there is more crime in the United States than a year ago” (McCarthy, 2015).

This observation might not seem particularly insightful, but it is important in illuminating that most people’s opinions about crime are drawn less from sustained thought and more from the implicit understandings— what Haidt (2012, p. 54) calls “intuitions”—that they have come to embrace during their lives. Attitudes about crime, as well as about other social issues, can come from a variety of sources—parents, church sermons, how crime is depicted on television, socially significant events (e.g., a mass school shooting), whether one has had family members or friends who have turned to crime, whether one has experimented with criminal activity oneself or perhaps been victimized, and so on. In short, social experiences shape the ways in which people come to think about crime.

This conclusion allows us to offer three additional points. First, members of the general public are not the only ones whose crime theories are influenced by their life experiences. Academic criminologists and government officials who formulate crime policy have a professional obligation to set aside their personal biases, read the existing research, and endorse the theory that the evidence most supports. To an extent, criminologists and policy makers let the data direct their thinking, but it is equally clear that they do not do so fully. Like the general public, they too live in society and are shaped by it. Before ever entering academia or public service, their personal experiences have provided them with certain assumptions about human nature and about the ways in which the world operates; thus, some will see themselves as liberals and others as conservatives. After studying crime, they often will revise some of their views. Nonetheless, few ever convert to a totally different way of thinking about crime; how they explain crime remains conditioned, if only in part, by their experiences.

Second, if social experiences influence attitudes about criminality, then as society changes—as people come to

have different experiences—views about crime will change as well. We illustrate this point throughout this book, but a few brief examples might help to clarify matters for our immediate purposes.

It will not surprise many readers to learn that Americans’ views on crime have changed markedly since the settlers first landed on the nation’s shores. Indeed, at different times in U.S. history, Americans have attributed the origins of crime to spiritual demons and the inherent sinfulness of humans, to the defective biological constitution of inferior people in our midst, to the denial of equal opportunity, and to the ability of the coldly rational to calculate that crime pays. As we will see, each of these theories of crime, and others as well, became popular only when a particular set of circumstances coalesced to provide people with the experiences that made such reasoning seem logical or believable.

Thus, for colonists living in a confining and highly religious society, it “made sense” for them to attribute crime to the power of demons to control the will of those who fell prey to the temptations of sin. For those of the late 1800s who witnessed the influx of foreigners of all sorts and learned from the social Darwinists that natural selection determined where each individual fell in the social hierarchy, it made sense that people became poor and criminal because they were of inferior stock. For those of the 1960s who were informed that systematic barriers had prevented minorities from sharing in the American dream, it made sense that people became criminal because they were poor—because they were denied equal opportunity. During more recent times, as society has taken a turn in a conservative direction and it has become fashionable to blame social ills on a permissive society, it has made sense to more and more Americans that people commit crimes because they know that they risk only a “slap on the wrist” if they are caught.

In short, social context plays a critical role in nourishing certain ways of theorizing about crime. If the prevailing social context changes and people begin to experience life differently, then there will be a corresponding shift in the way in which they see their world and the people in it. Previous theories of crime will lose their appeal, and other perspectives will increasingly make sense to larger numbers of people. Note that all of this can take place—and, indeed, usually does take place—without systematic analysis of whether the old theory actually was wrong or whether the new theory represents an improvement.

But does any of this relate to you, the reader? Our third point in this section is that your (and our) thinking about crime undoubtedly has been conditioned by your social experiences. When most of us look to the past, we wonder with a certain smugness how our predecessors could have held such strange and silly views about crime or other things. In making this type of remark, however, we not only fail to appreciate how their thoughts and actions were constrained by the world in which they lived but also implicitly assume that our thoughts and actions are unconstrained by our world. Our arrogance causes us to accept our interpretations— our theories—as “obviously” correct. We forget that future generations will have the luxury of looking at us and assessing where we have been strange and silly.

This discussion suggests the wisdom of pausing to contemplate the basis of your beliefs. How have your social experiences shaped the way in which you explain crime? Asking and seeking answers to this question, we believe, opens the possibility of lifting the blinders that past experiences often strap firmly around one’s eyes. It creates, in short, the exciting opportunity to think differently about crime.

Theory and Policy: Ideas Have Consequences

Theory often is dismissed as mere empty ruminations—fun, perhaps, but not something for which practical men and women have time. But this is a shortsighted view, for as Thomas Szasz (1987) cautioned, ideas have consequences (see also Weaver, 1948). Theory matters.

When it comes to making criminal justice policy, there is ample evidence of this maxim (Sherman & Hawkins, 1981). Lawlessness is a costly problem; people lose their property and sometimes their lives. The search for the sources of crime, then, is not done within a vacuum. Even if a theorist wishes only to ruminate about the causes of theft or violence, others will be ready to use these insights to direct efforts to do something about the crime problem. Understanding why crime occurs, then, is a prelude to developing strategies to control the behavior. Stephen Pfohl (1985) captured nicely the inherent relationship between theory and policy:

Theoretical perspectives provide us with an image of what something is and how we might best act toward it. They name something this type of thing and not that. They provide us with the sense of being in a world of relatively fixed forms and content. Theoretical perspectives transform a mass of raw sensory data into understanding, explanations, and recipes for appropriate action. (pp. 9–10)

This discussion also leads to the realization that different theories suggest different ways of reducing crime. Depending on what is proposed as the cause of illegal behavior, certain criminal justice policies and practices will seem reasonable; others will seem irrational and perhaps dangerously irresponsible. Thus, if offenders are viewed as genetically deranged and untrainable—much like wild animals—then caging them would seem to be the only option available. But if offenders are thought to be mentally ill, then the solution to the problem would be to treat them with psychotherapy. Or if one believes that people are moved to crime by the strains of economic deprivation, then providing job training and access to employment opportunities would seem to hold the promise of diminishing their waywardness.

This is not to assert that the relationship between theory and policy is uncomplicated. Sometimes theories emerge, and then the demand to change policy occurs. Sometimes policies are implemented, and then attempts are made to justify the policies by popularizing theories supportive of these reforms. Often, the process is interactive, with the theory and policy legitimating each other. In any case, the important point is that support for criminal justice policies eventually will collapse if the theory on which they are based no longer makes sense.

An important observation follows from this discussion: As theories of crime change, so do criminal justice policies. At the turn of the 20th century, many Americans believed that criminals were “atavistic reversions” to less civilized evolutionary forms or, at the least, feebleminded. The call to sterilize offenders so that they could not pass criminogenic genes on to their offspring was widely accepted as prudent social action. Within two decades, however, citizens were more convinced that the causes of crime lay not within offenders themselves

but rather in the pathology of their environments. The time was ripe to hear suggestions that efforts be made to “save” slum youths by setting up neighborhood delinquency prevention programs or, when necessary, by removing juveniles to reformatories, where they could obtain the supervision and treatment that they desperately needed. In more recent decades, numerous politicians have jumped onto the bandwagon claiming that crime is caused by the permissiveness that has crept into the nation’s families, schools, and correctional system. Not surprisingly, they have urged that efforts be made to “get tough” with offenders—to teach them that crime does not pay by sending them to prison for lengthier stays and in record numbers.

But we must remember not to decontextualize criminological theory. The very changes in theory that undergird changes in policy are themselves a product of transformations in society. As noted earlier, explanations of crime are linked intimately to social context—to the experiences people have that make a given theory seem silly or sensible. Thus, it is only when shifts in societal opinion occur that theoretical models gain or lose credence and, in turn, gain or lose the ability to justify a range of criminal justice policies.

We also hope that you will find the discussion in this book of some personal relevance. We have suggested that thought be given to how your own context may have shaped your thinking. Now we suggest that similar thought be given to how your thinking may have shaped what you have thought should be done about crime. The challenge we are offering is for you to reconsider the basis and consistency of your views on crime and its control—to reconsider which theory you should embrace and the consequences that this idea should have. We hope that this book will aid you as you embark on this adventure.

Context, Theory, and Policy: Plan of the Book

“Perhaps the clearest lesson to be learned from historical research on crime and deviance,” Timothy Flanagan (1987) reminded us, “is that the approach to crime control that characterizes any given era in history is inexorably linked to contemporaneous notions about crime causation” (p. 232). This remark is instructive because it captures the central theme of this book—the interconnection among social context, criminological theory, and criminal justice policy making. As we progress through subsequent chapters, this theme forms the framework for our analysis. We discuss not only the content of theoretical perspectives but also their contexts and consequences.

But the scope of the enterprise should be clarified. Our purpose here is to provide a primer in criminological theory—a basic introduction to the social history of attempts, largely by academic scholars, to explain crime. In endeavoring to furnish an accessible and relatively brief guide to such theorizing, we have been forced to leave out historical detail and to omit discussions of the many theoretical variations that each perspective on crime typically has fostered. As a result, this book should be viewed as a first step to understanding the long search for the answer to the riddle of crime. We hope that our account encourages you to take further steps in the time ahead.

Our story of criminological theory commences, as most stories do, at the beginning, with the founding of criminology and early efforts, to use Rennie’s (1978) words, “to search for the criminal man.” Our story has 15 chapters to come and traces the development of criminological theory up to the present time. These chapters are thus arranged largely in chronological order. Because some theories arose at approximately the same time, the chapters should not be seen as following one another in a rigid, lockstep fashion. Further, inside each chapter, the ideas within a theoretical tradition are often traced from past to present—from the originators of the school of thought to its current advocates. Still, the book is designed to allow readers to take an excursion across time and historical context to see how thinking about crime has evolved.

Table 1.1 provides a handy guide that tells how Criminological Theory: Context and Consequences is arranged. This guide, much like a roadmap, is intended to be clear and simple. As readers travel through our volume, they may wish to consult Table 1.1 as a way of knowing where they are. When it comes to theory, the field of criminology has an embarrassment of riches—diverse theories competing to explain crime. The very complexity of human conduct and society perhaps requires numerous theoretical perspectives, with each capturing a part of reality ignored by competing approaches. Regardless, readers have the challenge of keeping all the theories straight in their minds as the story of criminological theory unfolds in the pages ahead. Table 1.1 should help in this important task.

Table 1.1 Criminological Theory in Context Table 1.1 Criminological Theory in Context

Social Context Criminological Theory

Chapters in This

Book

Enlightenment—mid-1700s to late 1700s

Classical school 2

Rise of social Darwinism, science, and medicine—mid-1800s into 1900s

Early positivist school—biological positivism 2

Mass immigration, the Great Depression, and post–World War II stability—1900 to the early 1960s

Chicago school, anomie-strain, control— mainstream criminology

3, 4, 5, and 6

Social turmoil—1965 to late 1970s Labeling, conflict, Marxist, feminist, white-collar— critical criminology

7, 8, 9, 10, and 11

Conservative era—1980 to the early 1990s, and beyond

Deterrence, rational choice, broken windows, moral poverty, routine activity, environmental—rejecting mainstream and critical criminology

12 and 13

Peacemaking, left realism, ultra-realism; cultural, convict, green, abolitionism—rejecting conservative theory and policy

9 and 10

The current century—2000 to today Biosocial, life-course/developmental—becoming a criminal

14, 15, and 16

Before commencing with our criminological storytelling, let us preview in some detail what the chapters cover. Table 1.1 presents the outline of how different social contexts are related to the emergence of different theories. The chapters in which these theories are contained also are listed.

Inventing Criminology: Mainstream Theories

Chapter 2 reviews the two theoretical perspectives generally considered to be the foundation of modern criminology. The classical school arose in the Enlightenment era. It emphasized the rejection of spiritual or religious explanations of crime in favor of the view that offenders use their reason—the assessment of costs and benefits—in deciding whether a potential criminal act pays and should be pursued. The classical school argued that the criminal law could be reformed so that it would be fair (everyone treated equally) and just punitive enough to dissuade people from breaking the law (the crime would not be profitable). This approach is the forerunner of more contemporary theories of rational choice and deterrence.

Chapter 2 is mainly devoted, however, to the positivist school, which emphasized the scientific study of criminals. Led by Cesare Lombroso, positivism flourished in Italy in the late 1800s and into the 1900s. These ideas also were popular in the United States, where a similar tradition arose. These scholars assumed that there was something different about those who offended that distinguished them from those who did not offend. In medicine, we ask what makes someone sick; similarly, they thought we should ask what makes someone criminal. As in medicine, they felt that the key to unlocking this puzzle was to study offenders scientifically—to probe their bodies and their brains for evidence of individual differences. Influenced by Darwinism and medicine, they largely concluded that the criminally wayward possessed biological traits that determined their behavior. Crime was not due to a sinful soul or chosen freely but rather was predetermined by a person’s constitutional makeup.

Starting in the 1930s, however, American criminology embarked on an alternative path. The positivist school’s advocacy of using science to study crime continued to be embraced. But scholars increasingly suggested that the answers to crime were to be found not within people but rather in the social circumstances in which people must live. The United States was making its transition to a modern, industrial, urban nation. As waves of immigrants came to our shores and settled in our cities, scholars wondered whether their subsequent experiences might prove criminogenic. The Chicago school of criminology rose to prominence by pioneering the study of urban areas and crime (see Chapter 3).

When scholars peered into impoverished inner-city neighborhoods—buffeted by the misery inflicted by the Great Depression—they saw the breakdown of personal and social controls, the rise of criminal traditions, and barriers to the American dream for success that all were taught to pursue. Scholars of this generation thus developed three core ways of explaining crime: control theory, which explored how crime occurs when controls weaken; differential association theory, which explored how crime occurs when individuals learn cultural definitions supportive of illegal conduct; and anomie-strain theory, which explored how crime occurs when people endure the strain of being thwarted in their efforts to achieve success. The first two of these theories had their origins in the Chicago school of criminology; the third had its origins in the writings of Robert K. Merton. These perspectives are reviewed in Chapters 3, 4, 5, and 6.

Taken together, these three theories are sometimes called mainstream criminology. For more than 80 years, they have occupied the center of American criminology. In the aftermath of World War II, they were

particularly dominant. During this period, the youth population began to expand and youth culture rose in prominence—developments that triggered concerns about juvenile delinquency. These perspectives were used to explain why some youngsters committed crime and others did not and why gangs were found in some neighborhoods and not others. Often, control, differential association, and anomie-strain theories were tested against one another in self-report studies conducted with high school students (see, e.g., Hirschi, 1969). Even today, these early works and their contemporary extensions remain at the core of the discipline (e.g., self- control theory, social learning theory, general strain theory).

The centrality and enduring influence of control, differential association, and anomie-strain theory is one reason why these perspectives are said to constitute mainstream criminology. But the term “mainstream” is used in another sense as well. Developed in a period when the United States was becoming a dominant world power and flourishing in the relative stability of post–World War II America, these perspectives remained in the political mainstream: They did not fundamentally challenge the organization of the social order. To be sure, these three theories identified problems in American society and were used to suggest policies that might address them. But for the most part, they stopped short of criticizing the United States as being rotten at its core—of being a society in which inequalities in power, rooted in a crass capitalism, created crimes of the poor that were harshly punished and crimes of the rich that were ignored. In short, control, differential association, and anomie-strain theories were mainstream because they tended to favor reform of the status quo in America rather than its radical transformation.

Social Turmoil and the Rise of Critical Theories

Starting in the mid-1960s, however, scholars increasingly sought to identify how conflict and power were inextricably involved in the production of crime and in the inequities found in the criminal justice system. They were influenced by the changing context of American society. During the 1960s and into the 1970s, the United States experienced contentious movements to achieve civil rights and women’s rights. Americans witnessed riots in the street, major political figures assassinated, widespread protests over the Vietnam War culminating with students shot down at Kent State University, and political corruption highlighted most poignantly by the Watergate scandal. These events sensitized a generation of criminologists to social and criminal injustices that compromised the American dream’s promise of equality for all and led to the abuse of state power. Given this jaundiced view of American society, the new brand of theorizing that they developed was called critical criminology.

Although not yet fully developed, the seeds of critical criminology can be traced in part to labeling theory, which is discussed in Chapter 7. Scholars in this perspective offered the bold argument that the main cause of stable involvement in crime is not society per se but rather the very attempts that are made to reduce crime by stigmatizing offenders and processing them through the criminal justice system. The roots of critical criminology are discussed more deeply in Chapter 8, which reviews theorists called conflict or radical scholars. These theorists illuminated how power shapes what is considered to be a crime and who is subjected to arrest and imprisonment. They went so far as to suggest that the embrace of capitalism is what induces high rates of lawlessness among both the rich and the poor.

Chapter 10 explores another line of inquiry encouraged by critical criminology: the development of feminist theory. This perspective has led to the “gendering of criminology” in North America and Britain. In light of the changing social context surrounding gender, we trace how understandings of female criminality shifted from theories highlighting the individual defects of women to explanations illuminating how gender roles shape men’s and women’s illegal conduct. An attempt is made to capture the rich diversity of feminist thinking as we examine how scholars have linked crime to such factors as patriarchy; masculinities; male peer support; and the intersection of race, class, and gender.

Finally, in Chapter 11, theories of white-collar crime are examined. Although not all of these perspectives are critical in content, the very inquiry into this topic was spurred by critical criminology’s concern with inequality and injustice. Thus, theories of white-collar crime illuminate and explain the crimes of the powerful. They are built on the very premise that, although the poor might monopolize prisons, they do not monopolize crime. In fact, scholars have shown the immense cost of white-collar criminality—especially that committed by corporations—and have explored why this injurious conduct occurs.

Criminological Theory in the Conservative Era

Although many criminological theories emerged in response to the social context of the 1960s and 1970s, especially the concern with prevailing inequities in money and power, America turned to the political right during the Reagan and Bush years of the 1980s and beyond. During this time, new criminologies emerged claiming that crime was due not to the faults in society but rather to the faults of individuals. To at least some degree, these explanations may be seen as attempts to revitalize—dressed in new language and with more sophisticated evidence—the models of crime that were popular a century ago. These theories vary in their scientific merit, but they are consistent in suggesting that the answer to crime rests largely in harsher sanctions —especially the expanded use of imprisonment—against offenders. In this sense, these theories are best considered conservative explanations of crime. They are reviewed in Chapter 12.

Other theories of this era were not conservative in content or temperament. They did not depict offenders as wicked super-predators who required imprisonment or as crass calculators who required harsh deterrence. However, they were also skeptical both of critical criminology for its utopian and impractical policies (they doubted a socialist revolution was on the horizon) and of mainstream criminology for its exclusive focus on offenders (rather than on the opportunities needed for a crime to take place). They claimed we needed an approach that understood the elements of crime and how to manipulate them to prevent such acts from occurring. For them, practical thinking that led to effective crime prevention was the only way to stem the conservative call for mass imprisonment.

Thus, Chapter 13 investigates routine activity theory or environmental criminology, which argues that crime is best understood as an “event” that involves not only a motivated offender but also the “opportunity” to break the law (the presence of a suitable target to victimize and the absence of guardianship to prevent the victimization). Although mainstream criminological theory historically has focused on what motivates people to commit crime, it has not systematically assessed how variations in the opportunity to offend affect the amount and distribution of criminality in American society. Furthermore, this perspective maintains that crime will best be diminished not by efforts to change offenders but rather by making the social and physical environment less hospitable to offending (e.g., installing a burglar alarm in a house, hiring a security guard in a bank, placing a camera to watch a parking lot). This is often called situational crime prevention because the focus is on reducing opportunities for crime within a particular situation.

Chapter 13 also explores perspectives that investigate the thinking and decision making of offenders, including rational choice theory (an approach that is compatible with the opportunity paradigm and calls for situational crime prevention) and perceptual deterrence theory. Given that these perspectives see crime as a choice shaped by objective or perceived costs and benefits, they have elements compatible with conservative theory. However, depending on how they are set forth, they do not necessarily justify harsh criminal justice penalties.

During the 1980s, most criminologists—both in the United States and abroad—opposed conservative criminology and its preference for mass imprisonment as the key weapon in the war on crime (Currie, 1985).

They were dismayed as the daily count of Americans behind bars grew from around 200,000 in the early 1970s to more than 2.3 million in 2008 before declining slightly to just under 2.2 million today (Cullen & Jonson, 2017; Kaeble & Glaze, 2016). Although not as dramatic, similar trends occurred in some European nations. Over this 40-year period, the rejection of conservative criminology was voiced perhaps most loudly and consistently by critical criminologists. Critical views have their roots in the 1960s and 1970s, but they were nourished by the need to deconstruct conservative crime ideology and to unmask the harm caused by “get tough” policies. A variety of theories have emerged, including recently, in response to societal developments that scholars see as embracing nationalism, inequality, and racial, ethnic, and religious privilege.

These perspectives are presented in Chapter 9, which builds on the discussions of conflict theory in Chapter 8. The focus here is on new directions in critical theory. These contributions, which include the insights of British and other European scholars, enrich our understanding of crime by challenging traditional interpretations of social reality and especially the efficacy and justice of repressive state policies favored by conservatives. This section thus examines the early development and the extension of Britain’s new criminology into what is now known as left realism. Also discussed are the new European criminology, cultural criminology, green criminology, convict criminology, abolitionism, and ultra-realism.

Criminological Theory in the 21st Century

Contemporary criminological theory is a mixture of old and new ways of thinking. Powerful theoretical traditions may age, but they tend not to die. Once they emerge, these paradigms may fluctuate in the allegiance they inspire, but they often remain integral to the criminological enterprise. Further, their core ideas are at times elaborated into more sophisticated and empirically defensible perspectives (e.g., Sutherland’s differential association theory transformed into Akers’s social learning theory). When this occurs, seemingly dormant perspectives can be revitalized and generate renewed attention (e.g., anomie-strain theory revitalized by Agnew and by Messner and Rosenfeld). Still, ways of thinking emerge that are innovative, rival older ways of thinking, and offer the possibility of renovating how criminological theory and research are undertaken.

In this regard, the final three chapters of the book explore theoretical models that are shaping thinking about crime during the 21st century in important ways. To a degree, these theories lack a clear ideological or political slant, and in this sense they might be considered new mainstream criminological perspectives. They reflect a social context in which grand solutions to crime and other social problems are being relinquished in favor of more middle-range or practical efforts to improve the crime problem. These preferences are also reflected in the growing popularity of environmental criminology and its focus on situational crime prevention, a perspective mentioned above.

Thus, Chapters 14 and 15 discuss the resurgence of biological theorizing or, as it is more often called today, the biosocial perspective. Although still controversial to a degree, the prevalence of research on brains, genetics, and other biological factors is bringing biological thinking back toward the center of criminology. There is now a renewed search for the “criminal man”—that is, a search for the biological traits that differentiate offenders from nonoffenders. This research often is nuanced and involves explorations of how biological factors interact with social factors to shape behavior. Its policy implications are potentially complex, since they might justify efforts to incapacitate or cure those whose criminality is rooted in their bodies.

Finally, Chapter 16 discusses a paradigm that is increasingly dominating American criminology: life-course or developmental criminology. This approach focuses its attention on how the roots of crime can be traced to childhood. This perspective also argues that the key to understanding crime is in studying how people develop into offenders and how they escape from their lives of crime. These theories are potentially important in suggesting a progressive policy agenda because they show the complex factors that place youngsters at risk for crime and call for policies aimed not at punishment but at early intervention.

Conclusion

With this prelude shared, it is now time to embark on an exploration of criminological theory. We are, in a way, the guides in this intellectual tour across criminology. The core challenge is to reveal the diverse attempts scholars have made to explain the mystery of why crime occurs. We will show that scholars have probed how the causes of criminal conduct might reside in our bodies, minds, and social relationships. And we will illuminate where scholars agree and where they disagree. At the journey’s end, we trust that we will have provided an enriched knowledge of crime’s origins.

Again, the subtitle of Criminological Theory was carefully chosen: Context and Consequences. As we hope to convey, theory construction is a human enterprise. It reflects not only the detached scientific appraisal of ideas and evidence but also a scholar’s unique biography situated within a unique historical period. Accordingly, understanding the evolution of criminological theory requires us to consider the social context in which ideas are formulated, published, and accepted as viable. Further, theories matter; ideas have consequences. Every effort to control crime is pregnant with an underlying theory. Our explanations of crime thus provide the impetus and justification for the crime control policies that we pursue.

Further Readings

Note: To provide additional insights on key theoretical topics, each chapter is followed by a section called Further Readings. These readings are from the following source: F. T. Cullen, & P. Wilcox (Eds.). (2010). Encyclopedia of Criminological Theory. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. In this chapter, one reading—listed below— is provided online at www.study.sagepub.com/lilly7e. In all subsequent chapters, four supplementary readings are available.

1. Criminological Time Line: The Top 25 Theoretical Contributions

http://www.study.sagepub.com/lilly7e

Chapter Two The Search for the “Criminal Man”

Cesare Lombroso 1836–1909 University of Pavia University of Turin, Italy Often called “the father of modern criminology”

Before we examine the content of this chapter, it is important to remember a few of the cautionary comments offered in Chapter 1. By keeping these ideas in mind, we more than likely will be successful in accomplishing the goal of introducing you to the context and consequences of criminological theory.

We want you to remember that the search for explanations of criminal behavior is not easy because we constantly must guard against our biases, mistaken perceptions, and prejudices. Unless we maintain our intellectual guard against these problems, our learning will be severely limited. This will become obvious as we study the following chapters and learn that many theories of crime that have experienced popularity with the public and professional criminologists also have been criticized for having serious blind spots. Unfortunately, the blind spots often have contributed to the creation and implementation of official policies that have produced results as undesirable as crime itself. Although it is impossible to develop perfect policies, we must keep in mind the fact that theories do influence the policies and practices found in criminal justice systems.

It is important to remember that the explanations of crime, whether they are created by the public or by professional criminologists, are influenced by the social context from which they come. This means that the social context will consist of perceptions and interpretations of the past as well as the present. It might also mean that the explanations of crime include some thoughts about what crime and society will look like in the not-too-distant future. This is illustrated by what Georgette Bennett said in 1987 about what crime might look like during the next 20 to 50 years. Now, nearly three decades since her predictions, we can assess what she wrote, but first a brief examination of the social context that influenced her writing of Crimewarps will emphasize what we mean by the importance of social context. As you will see, the context includes general sociological factors such as time and place. It also includes the author’s career experiences and opportunities.

By the time Bennett began to work on Crimewarps, she had completed a doctorate in sociology and was an accomplished scholar, researcher, teacher, and journalist with more than 20 years of work on the topic of crime. In addition, she was an associate of the Center for Policy Research and of the Center for Investigative Reporting. She also had worked as a network correspondent for NBC News, and she had been a talk show host for PBS television. In other words, we can say that Bennett was experienced and, therefore, prepared to study major trends. In fact, her book was an outgrowth of having been asked by the Insurance Information Institute to be a consultant and media spokesperson on the topic of “the state of crime in the future” (Bennett, 1987, p. vii).

Bennett’s experiences and the consulting work for the Insurance Information Institute occurred within a shifting social context that she connected to crime by using the term crimewarps. She used this term to refer to “the bends in today’s trends that will affect the way we live tomorrow” (p. xiii). Essentially, her thesis was that much of what we have come to regard as basic demographic features of our society’s population and crime trends are changing dramatically. She referred to these crimewarps as representing a “set of major social transformations” (p. viii). Altogether, she identified six “warps.” For example, she labeled one warp “the new criminal.” This refers to the fact that today’s “traditional” criminal is a poor, undereducated, young male. By relying on demographic information and dramatic news accounts of current crimes, Bennett argued that traditional criminals will be displaced by older, more upscale offenders. These offenders would include, among other trends, more women involved in white-collar crime and domestic violence. In addition, she argued that teenagers would commit fewer crimes, and senior citizens “will enter the crime scene as geriatric delinquents” (p. xiv).

A reexamination of Bennett’s predictions demonstrates how difficult it is to make long-term crime-trend predictions. At best, her view of the future of crime was a mixed bag. Today, what she called a “traditional criminal” has not been replaced by older, upscale offenders. There is also no evidence that women are more involved with white-collar crime than in 1987. The Federal Bureau of Investigation does report that across the United States, about 6% of all known bank robbers have been women in recent years. The change is a slight uptick from 5% recorded in 2002 (Morse, 2010). Nor is it at all clear that teenagers are committing less crime today than in 1987; in fact, juvenile homicide jumped up in the late 1980s and into the 1990s before returning to its previous level (Zimring, 2013). Neither is there evidence that senior citizens have become “geriatric delinquents.” Whereas some indicators of some forms of domestic violence have declined, such as the number of wives who murdered their husbands between 1976 and 2000, other patterns of domestic violence have remained unchanged. Domestic homicide for African Americans of both genders remains well above the White rate (Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2007; Rennison, 2003).

In the aftermath of the banking crisis and the serious recession it triggered starting in 2008, certain crime rates were surprisingly low. Although some commentators expected violent crime to increase due to the hard times, it did not. According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (2014), between 2007 and 2012, the rate of serious violent crime per 100,000 inhabitants fell from 471.8 to 386.5. Robberies dropped by more than 90,000 incidents, and homicide declined from 17,126 to 14,827. Property offenses also trended downward. It remains to be seen if crime in the United States will continue on a downward trend or perhaps suddenly spike

upward (see Pinker, 2018). For example, between 2014 and 2016, rates of violent crime reversed course and rose, whereas property crime continued to fall (Federal Bureau of Investigation, 2018, Table 1). Regardless, it is clear that no single lens—such as Bennett’s use of demographics—is adequate for explaining crime trends. Crime trends are very hard to predict accurately (Zimring, 2012, 2013).

The importance of this example does not lie in the accuracy of Bennett’s claims, her career experiences, or the fact that she was invited by the Insurance Information Institute to work on the future of crime at a time when our society was experiencing dramatic demographic transformations. Rather, the lesson to keep in mind is that all of these factors coalesced in such a manner as to allow Bennett to write a book on crime that makes sense because it is timely in view of what we know about society today and what we think it might look like in the future. Remember that writers, like ideas, are captives of the time and place in which they live. For this reason alone, it is impossible to understand criminological theory outside of its social context (Rennie, 1978). It remains to be seen how Bennett’s book will be evaluated in the coming decades and whether the “criminal man” of the future will fit Bennett’s predictions.

One more cautionary comment needs to be made. Just as the social context of the late 1980s made a book like Bennett’s possible, the context of previous historical eras made different kinds of theories about crime possible. Such perspectives have sought to identify why it is that some people, but not others, break the law. Are offenders just like “the rest of us”? Or are they different in some way? And if they are different, what is that distinguishing condition? Is something wrong with their biology, with the way they think, or perhaps with the social circumstances in which they are enmeshed? When possible explanations are raised, why are some believed but not others? Again, this is the subject matter of this book.

Notably, early theories of crime tended to locate the cause of crime not in demographic shifts (as did Bennett) but rather within individuals—in their souls (spiritualism/demonology), their wills (classical school), or their bodily constitutions (positivist school). We examine each of these theories in this chapter. We are now ready to begin our search for the “criminal man.” Note that in later chapters, we return to some of the foundational ideas about crime articulated by the theories here—though they will reappear in different form and within a very different context (see, in particular, Chapters 13, 14, and 15). Right now, we start with the earliest explanation of crime—spiritualism.

Spiritualism

As an explanation of criminal behavior, spiritualism provides a sharp contrast to the scholarly explanations used today. Unlike today’s theories, spiritualism stressed the conflict between absolute good and absolute evil (Tannenbaum, 1938). People who committed crimes were thought to be possessed by evil spirits, often referred to as sinful demons.

Although the genesis of this perspective is lost in antiquity, there is ample archaeological, anthropological, and historical evidence that this explanation has been around for many centuries. We know, for example, that primitive people explained natural disasters such as floods and famines as punishments by spirits for wrongdoings. This type of view also was used by the ancient Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans. Much later, during the Middle Ages in Europe, spiritualistic explanations had become well organized and connected to the political and social structure of feudalism. One important reason for this particular development is that, originally, crime was a private matter between the victim (or the family of the victim) and the offender(s). Unfortunately, this means of responding to offenses tended to create long blood feuds that could destroy entire families. There also was the problem of justice: A guilty offender with a strong family might never be punished.

To avoid some of these problems, other methods were constructed for dealing with those accused of committing crimes. Trial by battle, for example, permitted the victim or some member of his or her family to fight the offender or some member of the offender’s family (Vold & Bernard, 1986). It was believed that victory would go to the innocent if he or she believed in and trusted God. Unfortunately, this arrangement permitted great warriors to continue engaging in criminal behavior, buttressed by the belief that they always would be found “innocent.” Trial by ordeal determined guilt or innocence by subjecting the accused to life- threatening and/or painful situations. For example, people might have huge stones piled on them. It was believed that if they were innocent, then God would keep them from being crushed to death; if they were guilty, then a painful death would occur. People also were tied up and thrown into rivers or ponds. It was believed that if they were innocent, then God would allow them to float; if they were guilty, then they would drown (Vold & Bernard, 1986).

Compurgation represented another means of determining innocence or guilt based on spiritualism. Unlike trial by battle or ordeal that involved physical pain and/or the threat of death, compurgation allowed the accused to have reputable people swear an oath that he or she was innocent. The logic was based on the belief that no one would lie under oath for fear of God’s punishment (Vold & Bernard, 1986).

The same fear of God’s punishment formed the explanation of crime and deviance for what Erikson (1966) called the “wayward Puritans”—citizens in the early American Massachusetts Bay colony. And later when our penitentiaries were constructed, they were thought of as places for “penitents who were sorry for their sins” (Vold & Bernard, 1986, p. 8). During the last three decades, we have had many groups and individuals who believe that crimes and other wrongs can be explained by the devil. For example, in 1987, when “prime-time preacher” Jim Bakker of the famed PTL Club (Praise the Lord and People That Love) confessed to an

adulterous one-night stand with a former church secretary, some of his followers said that it was the result of the devil’s work (“God and Money,” 1987). And on one occasion when Internal Revenue Service auditors revealed that several millions of dollars were unaccounted for by the PTL organization, Bakker’s then-wife Tammy Faye Bakker said that the devil must have gotten into the computer (“T.V. Evangelist Resigns,” 1987). Others who have been caught for criminal acts have turned to God for cures for their behavior. Charles Colson of Watergate fame, for example, took the Christian message to prisoners as a solution to their problems.

More recently, three evangelical Christians from the United States traveled to Uganda and taught that there was a dark and hidden gay agenda that posed a threat to Bible-based values and the traditional African family (Gettleman, 2010). High-profile televangelist Pat Robertson and host of the 700 Club announced just days after the January 2010 earthquake in Haiti that it occurred because the Haitians had sworn a pact with the devil to get rid of those who had colonized and enslaved them. “But ever since they have been cursed by one thing after another” (Shea, 2010, p. 1; see also Miller, 2010, p. 14). After 20 children and six adults at the Sandy Hook school in Newtown, Connecticut, were massacred in December 2012, Bryan Fischer, spokesperson for the American Family Association, said God did not protect the children because of the Supreme Court’s decisions banning prayer and Bible reading in public schools: “God is not going to go where he is not wanted” (Worthen, 2012).

It is important to remember that even though people might criticize the argument that “the devil made me do it” as quaint or odd, it nevertheless makes sense for some people who try to understand and explain crime. In fact, until recently it was argued that the public’s interest in this type of explanation grew at the same rate as our population growth. In the late 1980s, according to the National Council of Churches, church membership expanded gradually at approximately the same rate as the nation’s population. At that time, nearly 70% of the nation’s people reported that they were involved with churches, a figure that had remained steady during recent years (“U.S. Churches,” 1987, p. A13).

By early 2009, however, this trend had changed, perhaps in conjunction with the decline in the “cultural wars” over such things as “family values” and the reassertion of science-driven policies over faith-based strategies (Rich, 2009). According to the American Religious Identification (ARI) Survey in 2009 (see Grossman, 2009), almost all religious denominations had lost ground since the first ARI research in 1990. “The percentage of people who call themselves in some way Christian has dropped more than 11% in a generation” (Grossman, 2009, p. 1). Whereas the percentage of people who in 1990 had selected “no religion” was an estimated 8.2% of the population, this figure had jumped to 15% in 2008. As Grossman (2009) observed at that time, this “category now outranks every other major U.S. religious group except for Catholics and Baptists” (p. 1). By late December 2012, this number had grown still further, to 20%, perhaps because, according to some observers, the Christian conservatives who had for two decades been a pivotal force in American politics were seeing their influence repudiated with the reelection of President Obama and the rapid acceptance of gay marriage (Goodstein, 2012a, 2012b).

In any event, the major problem with spiritualistic explanations is that they cannot be tested scientifically.

Because the cause of crime, according to this theory, is otherworldly, it cannot be verified empirically. It is primarily for this reason that modern theories of crime and social order rely on explanations that are based on the physical world. These theories are called natural explanations.

Naturalistic theories and spiritualistic explanations have in common their origin in the ancient world. Despite this common origin, the two perspectives are very different. Thus, by focusing on the physical world of facts, naturalistic theories seek explanations that are more specific and detailed than spiritualistic theories. This approach to thinking and explanation was very much part of the Greeks, who early in their search for knowledge philosophically divided the world into a dualistic reality of mind and matter. This form of thinking still is prevalent in the Western world, as evidenced by reasoning that restricts explanations of human behavior to either passion or reason.

An early example of a naturalistic explanation is found in “Hippocrates’ (460 bc) dictum that the brain is the organ of the mind” (Vold, 1958, p. 7). Additional evidence of efforts to explain phenomena by naturalistic reasoning was present approximately 350 years later in the first century bc in Roman thought, which attempted to explain the idea of “progress” with little reliance on demons or spirits (p. 7). The existence of this reasoning, however, does not mean that demonic and spiritualistic explanations had begun to wane by the time of the Roman Empire. In fact, these explanations reigned high well into the Middle Ages.

On the other hand, naturalistic explanations persisted despite the spiritualistic perspective’s dominance, and by the 16th and 17th centuries several scholars were studying and explaining humans in terms known to them (Vold, 1958). Their efforts are identified collectively as the classical school of criminology. Later in this chapter, we consider a second influential naturalistic theory, the positivist school of criminology.

The Classical School: Criminal as Calculator

The most important feature of the classical school of thought is its emphasis on the individual criminal as a person capable of calculating what he or she wants to do. This idea was supported by a philosophy that held that humans had free will and that behavior was guided by hedonism. In other words, individuals were guided by a pain-and-pleasure principle by which they calculated the risks and rewards involved in their actions. Accordingly, punishment should be suited to the offense, not to the social or physical characteristics of the criminal.

If this sounds familiar, then you should not be surprised. One of the basic tenets of the United States’ legal heritage is that people should be given equal treatment before the law. People should not be punished or rewarded just because they happen to have the right names or be from powerful families. Equality is one of the powerful ideas endorsed widely by the 18th- and 19th-century Enlightenment writers who influenced our Founding Fathers. Of particular interest here is the scholar most often identified as the leader of the classical school of criminology, Cesare Bonesana Marchese di Beccaria (1738–1794), an Italian mathematician and economist. It is Beccaria who pulled together many of the most powerful 18th-century ideas of democratic liberalism and connected them to issues of criminal justice.

Although it is true that Beccaria was born into an aristocratic family and had the benefit of a solid education in the liberal arts, there is little (if any) evidence in his background that would have predicted that his one small book on penal reform, On Crimes and Punishments, eventually would be acknowledged to have had “more practical effect than any other treatise ever written in the long campaign against barbarism in criminal law and procedure” (Paolucci, 1764/1963, p. ix; see also Beccaria, 1764/1963). Indeed, one biographical overview of Beccaria indicates that his education failed to produce a modicum of enthusiasm for scholarship except for some attraction to mathematics (Monachesi, 1973). This interest soon passed, however, and what seems to have emerged is a discontented young man with strong arguments against much of the status quo, including his father’s objections to his marriage in 1761 (Paolucci, 1764/1963, p. xii). To understand Beccaria’s great contribution, we must examine the social context of his life.

Unlike the United States’ concern for protecting its citizens through equal protection, due process, and trial by their peers, the criminal justice system of Beccaria’s Europe, especially the ancient regime in France, was “planned to ruin citizens” (Radzinowicz, 1966, p. 1), a characterization that applied to the police, criminal procedures, and punishment. The police of Paris, for example, were “the most ruthless and efficient police marching in the world” (p. 2). They were allowed by the French monarchy to deal not only with criminal matters but also with the morals and political opinions of French citizens. They relied heavily on spies, extensive covert letter opening, and the state-approved capacity not only to arrest people without warrants but also to pass judgment and hold people in custody indefinitely on unspecified charges.

Once arrested, the accused had few legal protections. He or she was cut off from legal assistance, subjected to torture, and hidden from family and friends. Witnesses against the accused testified in secret. Once guilt was determined, punishments were severe, “ranging from burning alive or breaking on the wheel to the galleys and

many forms of mutilation, whipping, branding, and the pillory” (Radzinowicz, 1966, p. 3). Death by execution in early 18th-century London took place every 6 weeks, with 5 to 15 condemned hanged on each occasion (Lofland, 1973, p. 35).

Beccaria became familiar with these conditions through the association and friendship of Alessandro Verri, who held the office of protector of prisoners in Milan, Italy, where Beccaria lived. Outraged by these conditions and recently having become familiar with the writings of scholars such as Montesquieu, Helvetius, Voltaire, Bacon, Rousseau, Diderot, and Hume, Beccaria was encouraged by a small group of intellectuals to take up his pen on behalf of humanity. He was not eager to write, however, because he did not enjoy writing and because he worried about political reprisals for expressing his views. He so feared persecution from the monarchy for his views that he chose to publish his book anonymously (Monachesi, 1973). It took 11 months to write, but once published, the volume excited all of Europe as if a nerve had been exposed. By 1767, when the book was first translated into English, it already had been through several French and Italian editions. But what did it say? What caused all of the excitement?

Beccaria’s tightly reasoned argument can be summarized in relatively simple terms (Radzinowicz, 1966; Vold, 1958). First, to escape war and chaos, individuals gave up some of their liberty and established a contractual society. This established the sovereignty of a nation and the ability of the nation to create criminal law and punish offenders. Second, because criminal laws placed restrictions on individual freedoms, they should be restricted in scope. They should not be employed to enforce moral virtue. To prohibit human behavior unnecessarily was to increase rather than decrease crime. Third, the presumption of innocence should be the guiding principle in the administration of justice, and at all stages of the justice process the rights of all parties involved should be protected. Fourth, the complete criminal law code should be written and should define all offenses and punishments in advance. This would allow the public to judge whether and how their liberties were being preserved. Fifth, punishment should be based on retributive reasoning because the guilty had attacked another individual’s rights. Sixth, the severity of the punishment should be limited and should not go beyond what is necessary for crime prevention and deterrence. Seventh, criminal punishment should correspond with the seriousness of the crime; the punishment should fit the crime, not the criminal. For example, fines would be appropriate for simple thefts, whereas the harsher sanctions of corporal punishment and labor would be acceptable for violent crimes. Eighth, punishment must be a certainty and should be inflicted quickly. Ninth, punishment should not be administered to set an example and should not be concerned with reforming the offender. Tenth, the offender should be viewed as an independent and reasonable person who weighed the consequences of the crime. The offender should be assumed to have the same power of resistance as nonoffenders. Eleventh, for Beccaria, the aim of every good system of legislation was the prevention of crime. He reasoned that it was better to prevent crimes than to punish those who commit them.

Beccaria was not, however, the only scholar of his time to consider these issues. Jeremy Bentham (1748– 1832), an English jurist and philosopher, also argued that punishment should be a deterrent, and he too explained behavior as a result of free will and “hedonistic calculus” (Bentham, 1948). John Howard (1726– 1790), also English and a contemporary of Beccaria and Bentham, studied prisons and advocated prison

reform (Howard, 1792/1973). His work often is credited with having influenced the passage of England’s Penitentiary Act of 1779, which addressed prison reform.

The influence of these writers went far beyond the passage of specific laws. Their ideas inspired revolutions and the creation of entirely new legal codes. The French Revolution of 1789 and its famous Code of 1791 and the U.S. Constitution each was influenced by the classical school. But by the 1820s, crime still was flourishing, and the argument that bad laws made bad people was being questioned seriously (Rothman, 1971). Also, the argument that all criminal behavior could be explained by hedonism was weakening as the importance of aggravating and mitigating circumstances increased. Nor did the new laws provide for the separate treatment of children. Nevertheless, the classical school did make significant and lasting contributions. The calls for laws to be impartial and specific and for punishment to be for crimes instead of criminals, as well as the belief that all citizens should be treated fairly and equally, now have become accepted ideas. But what caused crime remained a troubling question unanswered by the Enlightenment’s “rather uncomplicated view of the rational man” (Sykes, 1978, p. 11), a view based primarily on armchair thinking. The result was a new search for the “criminal man,” with emphasis given to action being determined instead of being the result of free will. The advocates of this new way of thinking created what came to be known as the positivist school of criminology.

The Positivist School: Criminal as Determined

The most significant difference between the classical school and the positivist school is the latter’s search for empirical facts to confirm the idea that crime was determined by multiple factors. This is a clear shift away from the reasoning of Beccaria and Bentham, who thought that crime resulted from the free will and hedonism of the individual criminal. As will become apparent, the 19th century’s first positivists wanted scientific proof that crime was caused by features within the individual. They primarily emphasized the mind and the body of the criminal, to some extent neglecting social factors external to the individual. (These factors later became the focus of sociological explanations of crime. This type of explanation is discussed in more detail later.)

But the search for causes of crime, in fact, did not begin with the 19th-century positivists. Early examples in literature, for example, connected the body through the ideas of beauty and ugliness to good and evil behavior. Shakespeare’s The Tempest portrayed a deformed servant’s morality as offensive as his appearance, and Homer’s Iliad depicted a despised defamer as one of the ugliest of the Greeks. This form of thinking still is present today, as evidenced by contemporary female beauty contests in which contestants vie with one another not only by publicly displaying their scantily clothed bodies but also through rendering artistic performances of some sort. A beautiful woman is expected to do good things. Although an example of sexist thinking, the connection between physical features and behavior is less than scientific.

The Birth of the Positivist School: Lombroso’s Theory of the Criminal Man

The modern search for multiple-factor explanations of crime usually is attributed to Cesare Lombroso (1835– 1909), an Italian who often is called the “father of modern criminology” (Wolfgang, 1973, p. 232). A clue to his work and the social context of his life is gleaned from his self-description as “a slave to facts,” a comment that could not have been made by writers of the classical school. During the century that separated Beccaria’s graduation from the University of Pavia (in 1758) and Lombroso’s graduation from the same institution (in 1858) with a degree in medicine, secular rational-scientific thinking and experimentation had become increasingly more acceptable ways of analyzing reality.

An essential clue to understanding Lombroso’s work is to recognize that, during the last half of the 19th century, the answer to the age-old question, “What sort of creatures are humans?” had begun to depart from theological answers to answers provided by the objective sciences, particularly biology. It was here that humans’ origins as creatures were connected to the rest of the animal world through evolution (Vold, 1958). No other 19th-century name is associated with this connection more often than Charles Darwin (1809– 1882), the English naturalist who argued that humans evolved from animals. His major works—Origin of Species (Darwin, 1859/1981), The Descent of Man (Darwin, 1871), and The Expressions of the Emotions in Man and Animals (Darwin, 1872)—all predated Lombroso’s. For Lombroso, the objective search for explaining human behavior meant disagreement with free will philosophy. He became interested in psychiatry, “sustained by close study of the anatomy and physiology of the brain” (Wolfgang, 1973, p. 234).

Lombroso’s interest in biological explanations of criminal behavior developed between 1859 and 1863 when he was serving as an army physician on various military posts. During this time, he developed the idea that diseases, especially cretinism and pellagra, contributed to mental and physical deficiencies “which may result in violence and homicide” (Wolfgang, 1973, p. 236). He also used his position as a military physician to systematically measure approximately 3,000 soldiers so as to document the physical differences among inhabitants from various regions of Italy. From this study, Lombroso made “observations on tattooing, particularly the more obscene designs which he felt distinguished infractious soldiers” (p. 235). Later, Lombroso used the practice of tattooing as a distinguishing characteristic of criminals. He started to publish his research on the idea that biology—especially brain pathologies—could explain criminal behavior in a series of papers that first started to appear in 1861. By 1876 when he published his findings in On Criminal Man (Lombroso, 1876), his work contained not only a biological focus but an evolutionary one as well. This book went through several Italian editions and foreign language translations.

The central tenet of Lombroso’s early books on crime is that criminals represent a peculiar physical type distinctively different from that of noncriminals. In general terms, he claimed that criminals represent a form of degeneracy that was manifested in physical characteristics reflective of earlier forms of evolution. He described criminals as atavistic, throwbacks to an earlier form of evolutionary life. For example, he thought that ears of unusual size, sloping foreheads, excessively long arms, receding chins, and twisted noses were indicative of physical characteristics found among criminals.

Lombroso classified criminals into four major categories: (1) born criminals or people with atavistic characteristics; (2) insane criminals including idiots, imbeciles, and paranoiacs as well as epileptics and alcoholics; (3) occasional criminals or criminaloids, whose crimes are explained primarily by opportunity, although they too have innate traits that predispose them to criminality; and (4) criminals of passion, who commit crimes because of anger, love, or honor and are characterized by being propelled to crime by an “irresistible force” (Wolfgang, 1973, pp. 252–253).

To Lombroso’s credit, he modified his theory throughout five editions of On Criminal Man, with each new edition giving attention to more and more environmental explanations including climate, rainfall, sex, marriage customs, laws, the structure of government, church organization, and the effects of other factors (DeLisi, 2013). Still, he never completely gave up the idea of the existence of a born criminal type.

Although Lombroso most often is thought of as the person who connected biological explanations to criminal behavior, he was not the first person to do so. This idea was developed, for example, during the 1760s by the Swiss scholar Johann Kaspar Lavater (1741–1801), who claimed a relationship between facial features and behavior. Later, Franz Joseph Gall (1758–1828), an eminent European anatomist, expanded the idea and argued that the shape of an individual’s head could explain his or her personal characteristics. This explanation was called phrenology, and by the 1820s it was stimulating much interest in the United States. One book on the subject, for example, went through nine editions between 1837 and 1840 (Vold, 1958). It is instructive to note that as phrenology increased in popularity, its explanatory powers were expanded; more and more forms of human conduct, it was claimed, could be explained by the shape of the head. The importance of phrenology for us is that it indicates the popularity of biological explanations of behavior nearly 50 years before Lombroso received his degree in medicine in 1858 and long before he ever was called the father of modern criminology. In fact, Havelock Ellis (1913) identified nearly two dozen European scholars who had pointed to the relationship between criminals’ physical and mental characteristics and their behavior before Lombroso. These included Henry Mayhew and John Binny, investigative reporters from London; Scottish prison physician J. Bruce Thomson; and Henry Maudsley, a fashionable London psychiatrist (Rafter, 2008). So, why should Lombroso be studied and remembered?

Although his biological explanation of crime is considered simple and naïve today, Lombroso made significant contributions that continue to have an impact on criminology. Most noteworthy here is the attention that he gave to a multiple-factor explanation of crime that included not only heredity but also social, cultural, and economic variables. The multiple-factor explanation is common in today’s study of crime. Lombroso also is credited with pushing the study of crime away from abstract metaphysical, legal, and juristic explanations as the basis of penology “to a scientific study of the criminal and the conditions under which he commits crime” (Wolfgang, 1973, p. 286). We also are indebted to Lombroso for the lessons he taught regarding methods of research. He demonstrated the importance of examining clinical and historical records, and he emphasized that no detail should be overlooked when searching for explanations of criminal behavior.

He also left a legacy of ideas and penological plans for how new late-19th-century nations could deal with the disruptive populations—criminals, the insane, and other deviants—that were associated with industrialization,

immigration, urbanization, and war. These contributions were influenced in large measure by the fact that whereas northern and southern Italy had been geographically united in 1870, the country was “nonetheless characterized by political and radical disunity, a country more in name than in fact, with subjects who identified with their hometowns rather than with a new national government” (Rafter, 2008, p. 85). With his home country long fragmented by religion and politics, Lombroso anticipated the problems that would ensue, and he was deeply interested in creating clear and rational plans to deal with the disorderly. He also had another, perhaps his most significant, contribution as a criminologist. According to Rafter, he was the only criminologist of his time who can qualify as a “paradigm shifter” (2008, p. 85). He took the topic of the causes of crime away from sin and placed it in the realm of science, where it remains today.

Lombroso’s Legacy: The Italian Criminological Tradition

Enrico Ferri.

Lombroso’s legacy of positivism was continued and expanded by the brilliant career and life of a fellow Italian, Enrico Ferri (1856–1929). Born into the family of a poor salt-and-tobacco shopkeeper, Ferri came to be one of the most influential figures in the history of criminology (Sellin, 1973). In the words of Thorsten Sellin, one of the world’s most eminent criminologists, who as a young man in November 1925 heard Ferri lecture at 70 years of age, “Ferri the man is as fascinating as Ferri the scholar” (Sellin, 1973, p. 362). Ferri was a scholar with brilliant ideas and strong passions who believed that life without an ideal, whatever it might be, was not worth living. By 16 years of age, Ferri was developing his lifelong commitment to the “scientific orientation,” having come under the influence of a great teacher who himself was of strong convictions. Ferri gave up the clerical robe for the study of philosophy.

Ferri was just 21 years old when he published his first major work, The Theory of Imputability and the Denial of Free Will (Vold, 1958, pp. 32–33). It was an attack on free will arguments and contained a theoretical perspective that was to characterize much of Ferri’s later work on criminality as well as his political activism. Unlike Lombroso, who gave more attention to biological factors than to social ones, Ferri gave more emphasis to the interrelatedness of social, economic, and political factors that contribute to crime (Vold, 1958). He argued, for example, that criminality could be explained by studying the interactive effects among physical factors (e.g., race, geography, temperature), individual factors (e.g., age, gender, psychological variables), and social factors (e.g., population, religion, culture). He also argued that crime could be controlled by social changes, many of which were directed toward the benefit of the working class. He advocated subsidized housing, birth control, freedom of marriage, divorce, and public recreation facilities, each reflective of his socialist belief that the state is responsible for creating better living and working conditions. It is not surprising that Ferri also was a political activist.

He was elected to public office after a much-publicized lawsuit in which he successfully defended a group of peasants accused of “incitement to civil war” after a dispute with wealthy landowners (Sellin, 1973, p. 377). He was reelected 11 times by the Socialist Party and stayed in office until 1924. Throughout his career, Ferri attempted to integrate his positivist approach to crime with political changes. For example, he tried unsuccessfully to have the new Italian Penal Code of 1889 reflect a positivist philosophy instead of classical reasoning. And after Mussolini came to power during the early 1920s, Ferri was invited to write a new penal code for Italy (Vold, 1958). It reflected his positivist and socialist orientation, but it too was rejected for being too much of a departure from classical legal reasoning. After nearly 50 years as a socialist liberal, Ferri changed his philosophy and endorsed fascism as a practical approach to reform. According to Sellin (1973), fascism appealed to Ferri because it offered a reaffirmation of the state’s authority over excessive individualism, which he had criticized often.

Although it is puzzling to try to understand Ferri’s shift from socialism to fascism, some insight is provided by considering that he was living during a time of great social change and that Ferri, as a person with humble

origins, wanted the changes to produce a better society. He believed that, to accomplish this reform, individuals must be legally responsible for their actions instead of being only morally responsible to God. This approach to responsibility represented a radical departure from tradition because it was offered within a theoretical framework that called for “scientific experts” not only to explain crime but also to write laws and administer punishment. In essence, it was a call for the state to act “scientifically” in matters of social policy.

Ferri’s call for legal responsibility was offered when Italy was experiencing much unrest caused mostly by industrialization during the late 1800s and later by the social disorder stemming from World War I. Evidence of Ferri’s response to the changing conditions in Italy is found in the fact that in the first four editions of Sociologia Criminale, he listed only five classes of criminals: (1) the born or instinctive criminal whom Lombroso had identified as the atavist, (2) the insane criminal who was clinically identified as mentally ill, (3) the passion criminal who committed crime as a result of either prolonged and chronic mental problems or an emotional state, (4) the occasional criminal who was more the product of family and social conditions than of abnormal personal physical or mental problems, and (5) the habitual criminal who acquired the habit from the social environment. For the fifth edition of Sociologia Criminale, Ferri (1929–1930) added a new explanation of crime—the involuntary criminal. Ferri explained this phenomenon as “becoming more and more numerous in our mechanical age in the vertiginous speed of modern life” (Sellin, 1973, p. 370).

We also must understand that Ferri’s interest in fascism did not occur in a social void absent of public support. It took only 5 years from the time when Mussolini formed the Fasci di Combattimento in 1919 until the first elections in Italy under the fascists in 1924, when Mussolini received 65% of the vote. When Mussolini asked Ferri to rewrite the Italian code, Ferri’s response was consistent with the mood of the times.

Raffaele Garofalo.

Along with Lombroso and Ferri, Raffaele Garofalo (1852–1934) was the last major contributor to the positivist or Italian school of criminology. Unlike Lombroso’s emphasis on criminals as abnormal types with distinguishable anatomic, psychological, and social features, and unlike Ferri’s emphasis on socialist reforms and social defenses against crime, Garofalo is remembered for his pursuit of practical solutions to concrete problems located in the legal institutions of his day and for his doctrine of “natural crimes.”

In many ways, Garofalo’s work represents the currents of interests in late 19th-century Europe more clearly than does either Lombroso’s or Ferri’s. This is the result of three different but interconnected phenomena. First, Garofalo was born only 6 years before Lombroso received his degree in medicine. Thus, by the time Garofalo was an adult, enough time had passed since the publication of Lombroso’s major works to permit some degree of reactive evaluation. Second, Garofalo was both an academician and a practicing lawyer, prosecutor, and magistrate who faced the practical problems of the criminal justice system daily. Accordingly, he was in an excellent position to be familiar with the great attention that Lombroso’s and Ferri’s work had received in both academic and penal circles and with the practical policy implications of their writings. Third, at the time when Garofalo (1885) published the first edition of Criminology at 33 years of age, the social Darwinian era was at the peak of its existence, with numerous suggestions from biology, psychology, and the social sciences on how society could guarantee the survival of the fittest through criminal law and penal

practice (Hawkins, 1931).

Garofalo’s theoretical arguments on the nature of crime and on the nature of criminals were consistent with social Darwinism. For example, he argued that because society is a “natural body,” crimes are offenses “against the law of nature.” Therefore, criminal action was a crime against nature. Accordingly, the “rules of nature” were the rules of right conduct revealed to humans through their reasoning. It is obvious here that Garofalo’s thinking also included some influence from the classical school and its emphasis on reasoning. For Garofalo, the proper rules of conduct came from thinking about what such rules should allow or prohibit. He nevertheless identified acts that no society could refuse to recognize as criminal and to repress by punishment —natural crimes. These offenses, according to Garofalo, violated two basic human sentiments found among people of all ages: the sentiments of probity and pity (Allen, 1973, p. 321; Vold, 1958, p. 37). Pity is the sentiment of revulsion against the voluntary infliction of suffering on others. Probity refers to the respect for the property rights of others.

The social Darwinian influence on Garofalo’s thinking also is apparent in his explanation of where the sentiments of probity and pity could be found. They were basic moral sensibilities that appear in more or less “advanced form in all civilized societies” (Allen, 1973, p. 321), meaning that some societies had not evolved to the point of advanced moral reasoning. Similarly, the Darwinian influence is present in Garofalo’s argument that some members of society might have a higher-than-average sense of morality because they are “superior members of the group” (p. 321).

Garofalo’s notion of the characteristics of the criminal also revealed a Darwinian influence, but less so than when he addressed the issue of punishment and penal policies. In developing this portion of his theoretical arguments, he first reconsidered the Lombrosian idea of crime being associated with certain anatomical and physical characteristics and concluded that although the idea had merit, it had not been proved. Sometimes physical abnormalities were present, and sometimes they were not. He argued instead for the idea that true criminals lacked properly developed altruistic sentiments (Allen, 1973). In other words, true criminals had psychic or moral anomalies that could be transmitted through heredity. But the transmission of moral deficiencies through heredity was a matter of degree. This conclusion led Garofalo to identify four criminal classes, each one distinct from the others because of deficiencies in the basic sentiments of pity and probity.

Murderers were totally lacking in both pity and probity, and they would kill or steal when given the opportunity. Lesser criminals, Garofalo acknowledged, were more difficult to identify. He divided this category based on whether criminals lacked sentiments of either pity or of probity. Violent criminals lacked pity, which could be influenced very much by environmental factors such as alcohol and the fact that criminality was endemic to the population. Thieves, on the other hand, suffered from a lack of probity, a condition that “may be more the product of social factors than the criminals in other classes” (Allen, 1973, p. 323). His last category contained cynics or sexual criminals, some of whom would be classified among the violent criminals because they lacked pity. Other lascivious criminals required a separate category because their actions stemmed from a “low level of moral energy” rather than from a lack of pity (p. 329).

Nowhere is Garofalo’s reliance on Darwinian reasoning more obvious than when he considered appropriate

measures for the social defense against crime. Here he again used the analogy of society as a natural body that must either adapt to the environment or be eliminated. He reasoned that because true criminals’ actions reveal an inability to live by the basic human sentiments necessary for society to survive, they should be eliminated. Their deaths would contribute to the survival of society (Barnes, 1930). For lesser criminals, he proposed that elimination take the form of life imprisonment or overseas transportation (Allen, 1973).

It is clear that deterrence and rehabilitation were secondary considerations for Garofalo. But he favored “enforced reparation” and indeterminate sentences, indicating that Garofalo’s social defenses against crime were modeled to some extent on the psychic characteristics of the offender. In this regard, his position on punishment is more in line with the free will reasoning of the classical scholars than Garofalo might admit. One conclusion about Garofalo is clear, however, and that is his position on the importance of society over the individual. To him, the individual represents but a cell of the social body that could be exterminated without much (if any) great loss to society (Allen, 1973). By giving society or the group supremacy over the individual, Garofalo and Ferri were willing to sacrifice individual rights to the opinions of “scientific experts,” whose decisions might not include the opinions of those they were evaluating and judging or the opinions of the public. Not surprisingly, their work was accepted by Mussolini’s regime in Italy because it lent the mantle of scientific credence to the ideas of racial purity, national strength, and authoritarian leadership (Vold, 1958).

The work of the Italian positivists also suffered from serious methodological research problems. For example, their work was not statistically sophisticated. As a result, their conclusions about real or significant differences between criminals and noncriminals were, in fact, highly speculative.

This problem was addressed by Goring’s (1913) study of 3,000 English convicts and a control group of nonconvict males. Unlike Lombroso, Ferri, and Garofalo, Goring employed an expert statistician to make computations about the physical differences between criminals and noncriminals. After 8 years of research on 96 different physical features, Goring concluded that there were no significant differences between criminals and noncriminals except for stature and body weight. Criminals were found to be slightly smaller. Goring interpreted this finding as confirmation of his hypothesis that criminals were biologically inferior, but he did not find a physical criminal type.

The Continuing Search for the Individual Roots of Crime

Body Types and Crime.

The search for a constitutionally determined criminal man did not stop with Goring’s (1913) conclusions. Kretschmer (1925) took up the theme as the result of his study of 260 insane people in Swabia, a southwestern German town. He was impressed with the fact that his subjects had definite types of body builds that he thought were associated with certain types of psychic dispositions. First published in German in 1922 and translated into English in 1925, Kretschmer’s study identified four body types: asthenic, athletic, pyknic, and some mixed unclassifiable types. He found asthenics to be lean and narrowly built, with a deficiency of thickness in their overall bodies. These men were so flat-chested and skinny that their ribs could be counted easily. The athletic build had broad shoulders, excellent musculature, a deep chest, a flat stomach, and powerful legs. These men were the 1920s’ counterpart of the modern “hunks” of media fame. The pyknics were of medium build with a propensity to be rotund, sort of soft appearing with rounded shoulders, broad faces, and short stubby hands. Kretschmer argued that the asthenic and athletic builds were associated with schizophrenic personalities, whereas the pyknics were manic-depressives.

Four years after the English translation appeared in the United States, Mohr and Gundlach (1929–1930) published a report based on 254 native-born White male inmates in the state penitentiary at Joliet, Illinois. They found that pyknics were more likely than asthenics or athletics to have been convicted of fraud, violence, or sex offenses. Asthenics and athletics, on the other hand, were more likely to have been convicted of burglary, robbery, or larceny. But Mohr and Gundlach were unable to demonstrate any connection among body build, crime, and psychic disposition.

Ten years later, the search for physical types that caused crime was taken up by Earnest A. Hooton, a Harvard University anthropologist. He began with an extensive critique of Goring’s research methods and proceeded to a detailed analysis of the measurements of more than 17,000 criminals and noncriminals from eight states (Hooton, 1939b). In his three-volume study, Hooton (1939b) argued that “criminals are inferior to civilians in nearly all of their bodily measurements” (Vol. 1, p. 329). He also reported that low foreheads indicated inferiority and that “a depressed physical and social environment determines Negro and Negroid delinquency to a much greater extent than it does in the case of Whites” (p. 388).

These and similar conclusions generated severe criticism of Hooton’s work, especially the racist overtones and his failure to recognize that the prisoners he studied did not represent criminal offenders who had not been caught or offenders who had been guilty but not convicted. His control group also was criticized for not being representative of any known population of people. This group consisted of Nashville firefighters and members of the militia, each of whom could be expected to have passed rigorous physical examinations that would distinguish them from average males. He also included in his control group beachgoers, mental patients, and college students. He offered no explanation as to why these disparate categories of people represented normal physical types. Hooton also was criticized for treating some small differences in measurement as greatly significant and for ignoring other differences that were found.

It is important to notice that despite the stinging criticism received by Hooton and by others who were searching for biological explanations, the search continued and expanded into the 1940s and 1950s. The work by William H. Sheldon, for example, shifted attention away from adults to delinquent male youths. Sheldon (1949) studied 200 males between 15 and 21 years of age in an effort to link physiques to temperament, intelligence, and delinquency. By relying on intense physical and psychological examinations, Sheldon produced an Index to Delinquency used to give a quick and easy profile of each male’s problems. A total score of 10 meant that a boy’s case was severe enough to require total institutionalization, a score of 7 meant that the case was borderline, and a score of 6 was interpreted as favoring adjustment and independent living outside of an institution.

Sheldon (1949) classified the boys’ physiques by measuring the degree to which they possessed a combination of three different body types: endomorphy, mesomorphy, and ectomorphy. Each could dominate a physique. Endomorphs tended to be soft, fat people; mesomorphs had muscular and athletic builds; and ectomorphs had skinny, flat, and fragile physiques. Sheldon also rated each of the 200 youths’ physiques by assigning a score of 1 to 7 for each type. For example, the average physique score for the 200 males was 3.5–4.6–2.7, representing a rather husky male (p. 727). Overall, Sheldon concluded that because youths came from parents who were delinquent in very much the same way that the boys were delinquent, the factors that produce delinquency were inherited.

William Sheldon’s findings were given considerable support by Sheldon Glueck and Eleanor Glueck’s comparative study of male delinquents and nondelinquents (Glueck & Glueck, 1950). As a group, the delinquents were found to have narrower faces, wider chests, larger and broader waists, and bigger forearms and upper arms than the nondelinquents. An examination of the overall ratings of the boys indicated that approximately 60% of the delinquents and 31% of the nondelinquents were predominantly mesomorphic. The authors included this finding in their list of outstanding factors associated with male delinquency. As with each of the previous scholars who attempted to explain criminal behavior by relying primarily on biological factors, their findings neglected the importance of sociological phenomena. It is unclear, for example, whether the Gluecks’ mesomorphs were delinquents because of their builds and dispositions or because their physiques and dispositions are conceived socially as being associated with delinquency. This, in turn, could create expectations about illegal activities that males might feel pressured to perform.

Efforts to connect body shape and behavior were not limited to crime alone. In 1995, it was revealed that between the 1940s and the 1960s, Hooton and Sheldon had been involved with a eugenics experiment that took “posture photos” of freshmen as they entered some of the nation’s most prestigious Ivy League schools, including Harvard University, Yale University, and Wellesley College. They were pursuing the now discredited idea that body shape and intelligence are somehow connected. Some of “America’s Establishment” photographed for the experiment included first lady and presidential nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton, president George H. W. Bush, New York governor George Pataki, University of Oklahoma president David Boren, and television journalist Diane Sawyer. Although some of the photographs had been destroyed since the experiment was ended during the late 1960s, in 1995 the Smithsonian museum in Washington, DC, still had as many as 20,000 photographs of men and 7,000 photographs of women. Since then, the photographs

have been destroyed (“Naked Truth Returns,” 1995; “Naked Truth Revealed,” 1995; “Smithsonian Destroys,” 1995).

Psychogenic Causes of Crime.

At this point, we turn our attention to another form of positivism, one that places no emphasis on types of physiques as causes of crime. Here the search for the causes of crime is directed to the mind. These theories often are referred to as the “psychogenic school” because they seek to explain crime by focusing attention on the personality and how it was produced. In this way, the analysis is “dynamic” rather than “constitutional,” as was the emphasis in biological positivism. This school of thought developed along two distinct lines: one stressing psychoanalysis and the other stressing personality traits.

We begin with Sigmund Freud (1859–1939) and the psychoanalytical approach. Freud, a physician, did not directly address the question of what caused criminal behavior. He was interested in explaining all behavior, including crime. He reasoned that if an explanation could be found for normal behavior, then surely it also could explain crime.

At the core of the theories of Freud and his colleagues is the argument that all behavior is motivated and purposive. But not all desires and behavior are socially acceptable, so they must be repressed into the unconsciousness of the mind for the sake of morality and social order. The result is that tensions exist between the unconscious id, which is a great reservoir of aggressive biological and psychological urges, and the conscious ego, which controls and molds the individual. The superego, according to Freud (1920, 1927, 1930), is the force of self-criticism that reflects the basic behavioral requirements of a particular culture. Therefore, crime is a symbolic expression of inner tensions that each person has but fails to control. It is an “acted out” expression of having learned self-control improperly.

Franz Alexander, a psychoanalyst, and William Healy, a physician, both applied Freud’s principles in their study of criminal behavior (Alexander & Healy, 1935). For example, they explained one male criminal’s behavior as the result of four unconscious needs: (1) overcompensation for a sense of inferiority, (2) the attempt to relieve a sense of guilt, (3) spite reactions toward his mother, and (4) gratification of his dependent tendencies by living a carefree existence in prison.

Freud’s colleague, August Aichhorn, wrote that many children continued to act infantile because they failed to develop an ego and superego that would permit them to conform to the expectations of childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. Aichhorn (1936) contended that such children continued to operate on the “pleasure principle,” having failed to adapt to the “reality principle” of adulthood. Kate Friedlander, a student of Freud and Aichhorn, also focused on the behavior of children and argued that some children develop antisocial behavior or faulty character that makes them prone to delinquency (Friedlander, 1949). Redl and Wineman (1951) advanced a similar argument, stating that some children develop a delinquent ego. The result is a hostile attitude toward adults and aggression toward authority because the children have not developed a good ego and superego.

The search for personality traits, the second tradition of investigation that attempted to locate the cause of crime within the mind, was started by attempting to explain mental faculties biologically. Feeblemindedness, insanity, stupidity, and dull-wittedness were thought to be inherited. This view was part of the efforts during the late 19th century to explain crime constitutionally. It became a popular explanation in the United States after The Jukes was published (Dugdale, 1877). The Jukes described a family as being involved in crime because its members suffered from “degeneracy and innate depravity.”

Interest in explaining family-based mental deficiencies by heredity continued through the end of the 19th century and well into the first quarter of the 20th century. Goddard, for example, published The Kallikak Family in 1912, and a follow-up study on the Jukes by Estrabrook (1916) appeared 4 years later. Unfortunately, these studies were very general and avoided advanced and comparative statistics.

More exacting studies of the mind came from European research on the measurement of intelligence. French psychologist Alfred Binet (1857–1911), for example, first pursued intelligence testing in laboratory settings and later applied his findings in an effort to solve the problem of retardation in Paris’s schools. Aided by his assistant, Theodore Simon, Binet revised his IQ tests in 1905, 1908, and 1911, and when the scale appeared in the United States, it was revised once again. Common to each revision was the idea that an individual should have a mental age that could be identified with an intelligence quotient or IQ score.

Goddard (1914, 1921) usually is credited as the first person to test the IQs of prison inmates. He concluded that most inmates were feebleminded and that the percentage of feeblemindedness ranged from 29% to 89%. His research was plagued, however, by the difficult issue of determining what score(s) should be used to define feeblemindedness.

The legitimacy and practical value of IQ testing were given great support when the U.S. Army Psychological Corps decided to use this method to determine who was fit for military service in World War I (Goddard, 1927). The result was that, at one point, nearly a third of the draft army was thought to be feebleminded. This conclusion was modified later, but faith in IQ testing as a means of explaining crime continued well past World War I and into the 1920s and 1930s. Eventually, the increasing use of sophisticated research methods began to produce results indicating that when inmates were compared to the general population, only slight differences in feeblemindedness were found. Today, very little (if any) research tries to explain crime as the result of feeblemindedness, although recent scholars have argued that low IQ is a central cause of criminal behavior (Herrnstein & Murray, 1994).

The Consequence of Theory: Policy Implications

The Positivist School and the Control of the Biological Criminal

The most obvious orientation displayed by positivists of the mid-19th century through the first quarter of the 20th century was their placement of the causes of crime primarily within individual offenders. This is not at all surprising once we recognize that the early positivists—especially Lombroso, Ferri, and Garofalo in Italy; Freud, Aichhorn, and Kretschmer in Austria and Germany; and Alexander and Healy in the United States— were all educated in medicine, in law, or in both fields. Each of these disciplines places great emphasis on individuals as the explanation of behavior. It is this flavor of emphasis that sheds much light on the policy consequences of their explanations of crime. But the disciplinary perspectives alone are inadequate for the purposes of fully understanding these consequences because each discipline was influenced by the general temper of the times. For the positivists considered in this chapter, the temper of the times was Darwinism strongly flavored by Victorianism.

The magnitude of the impact of the Darwinian argument is difficult to describe in a few paragraphs or pages and, indeed, even in a score of books. Nevertheless, an effort must be attempted before we proceed. In the simplest of terms, Darwin’s evolutionary thesis represents one of the most profound theories of all times. It not only offered revolutionary new knowledge for the sciences but also helped to shatter many philosophies and practices in other areas. It commanded so much attention and prestige that the entire literate community felt “obliged to bring his world outlook into harmony with their findings” (Hofstadter, 1955b, p. 3). According to Hofstadter (1955b), Darwin’s impact is comparable in its magnitude to the work of Nicolaus Copernicus (1473–1543), the European astronomer; Isaac Newton (1642–1727), the English mathematician and physicist; and Freud, the Austrian psychoanalyst. In effect, all of the Western world had to come to grips with Darwin’s evolutionary scheme.

Although there was much discussion and controversy about the social meaning of Darwin’s theory of the “struggle for survival” and the “survival of the fittest,” social Darwinists generally agreed that the theory’s policy implications were politically conservative. It was argued that any policies that advocated government- sponsored social change would, if executed, actually be an interference with nature. The best approach was minimal involvement. “Let nature take its course” became a frequent refrain uttered by social Darwinists. It carried the clear message that accelerated social change was undesirable. Policies designed to accomplish “equal treatment,” for example, were opposed strongly. Social welfare programs, it was argued, would perpetuate the survival of people who were negligent, shiftless, silly, or immoral while, at the same time, retard individual and national economic development. Hard work, saving, and moral constraint were called on as the solutions to individual and collective social and economic good fortune.

It is important to note an irony regarding the social Darwinists. Although many of the nation’s leaders during the late 19th and early 20th centuries were opposed to programs of social change because they feared that these programs would threaten the nation’s survival, they often were the same people who were changing our economy radically and plundering our natural resources through speculation, innovation, and daring. They also were the same leaders who were introducing “new economic forms, new types of organization, [and] new techniques” (Hofstadter, 1955b, p. 9). Changes that benefited their interests were acceptable; changes for the

less fortunate were not. The stage was set for “scientifically justified” forms of control that would contain or eliminate crime. This control came in the form of the genetics movement with the blessings of the Victorian concern for morality and purity (Pivar, 1973). Unfortunately, the stage also was set for scientifically justified policies that, in fact, resulted in selective abuse and neglect.

When social Darwinism was used to formulate crime control policies, major themes appeared. On the one hand, the “born criminal” legacy from Lombroso and his students, and especially Garofalo’s policy of “elimination” for certain criminal offenders, produced a penal philosophy that stressed incapacitation. Clearly, the emphasis was on removing criminals from the community to prevent them from committing any additional biologically determined harm. Therefore, it was inappropriate to attempt to reform or rehabilitate criminal offenders. Warehousing convicted offenders was considered a sufficient socially responsible response to the problem of what to do with lawbreakers.

On the other hand, the second means of controlling crime allowed for a type of rehabilitation. It was based on medical reasoning that viewed individuals as biological objects that needed treatment and allowed some of the most repressive state policies in the history of American penology. The worst of these policies were justified by the study of genetics and what has been called the eugenics movement (Beckwith, 1985).

As a science during the early 1900s, the study of eugenics—a term coined by Francis Galton (1822–1911), statistician, progressive, polymath, eugenicist, and half cousin to Darwin—claimed that inheritance could explain the presence of simple and complex human behavioral characteristics. Thus, it reinforced the ideas of biological determinism and contributed greatly to the argument that many of the social problems of the late 19th century, such as the conflicts over wages and working conditions, could be traced to the genetic inferiority of foreigners working in the United States. The 1886 Haymarket bombings and riots in Chicago, for example, were thought to be caused by “inferior foreigners.” This theme was advanced by industrialists and by newspapers such as the New York Times, which described labor demonstrations as “always composed of foreign scum, beer-smelling Germans, ignorant Bohemians, uncouth Poles, and wild-eyed Russians” (Beckwith, 1985, p. 317).

With the support of leading industrialists such as the Carnegies and politicians including President Theodore Roosevelt, and of leading education institutions such as Harvard, centers for the study of eugenics soon were established, and efforts were undertaken to study the nation’s “stock.” Accordingly, many states passed laws designed to permit the application of the eugenicists’ arguments. The first eugenics law, which was passed by Connecticut in 1895 at the beginning of the Progressive Era (1890s–1920s), was aimed at preventing certain kinds of people thought to be unfit for reproduction through marriage. Acknowledging that people would reproduce outside of marriage, the next idea was to institutionalize women deemed unfit to reproduce until they were past their reproductive years. This policy was soon recognized as economically unfeasible for the 15 million who Harry L. Laughlin—one of the major American leaders of the eugenicists’ movement—argued needed to be prevented from reproducing. The next solution was sterilization (Goodheart, 2004).

Between 1907 and 1930, more than 30 states (Indiana was the first) established laws requiring sterilization for behavioral traits thought to be determined genetically (Beckwith, 1985, p. 318; Cohen, 2016). The laws

targeted behavior such as criminality, alcoholism, sodomy, bestiality, feeblemindedness, and the tendency to commit rape. The result was the sterilization of at least 64,000 and perhaps as many as 70,000 people. Many of the same states also passed laws permitting psychosurgeries including the now infamous frontal lobotomy. The total number of these types of operations performed is unknown.

The laws passed under the influence of the eugenics movement were not restricted to sterilization and psychosurgery, although these were the two most brutal and repressive measures sponsored. The miscegenation laws endorsed in 34 states made it illegal for African Americans and Whites to marry each other; some states also forbade marriage between Whites and Asians (Provine, 1973). These laws also called vigorously for the passage of immigration laws to be based on a quota system calculated on the proportion of people living in the United States from a specific country in 1890. And in 1924, the U.S. Congress, after hearing leading eugenicists testify that our stock was being weakened by the influx of people from southern and eastern European countries, passed the Immigration Restriction Act of 1924. It was directed explicitly to a population of people who were thought to be biologically inferior and mentally deficient.

Three years later—on May 2, 1927—in a Virginia test case, Buck v. Bell, the United States Supreme Court handed down an 8–1 ruling that has been characterized as so disturbing, ignorant, and cruel that it stands as one of the greatest injustices in American history. It allowed the state to sterilize 17-year-old Carrie Buck— White, poor, raped, and impregnated by the nephew of the foster family she worked for; wrongly thought to be “feebleminded”; and shipped out to the Colony for Epileptics and Feeble-Minded (Cohen, 2016). The majority opinion, only five paragraphs long, was written by 86-year-old Judge Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., who had been raised in the self-righteous Boston Brahmin era. The decision is known for its inaccurate and notorious argument justifying Buck’s sterilization: “Three generations of imbeciles are enough” (quoted in Cohen, 2016, p. 270).

The law is still on the books. As such, it was a racist law and a forerunner of the 1930s and 1940s eugenic policies adopted by Nazi Germany (see, more generally, Bruinius, 2006; Cohen, 2016; Cornwell, 2003). It was also an excellent example of some of the ugly unintended underbelly of the Progressive Era from people in government and academia who “combined extravagant faith in science and the state with an outsized confidence in their own expertise, even necessary, guide to the public good” (Leonard, 2016, p. xi). As Cohen (2016, p. 280) notes, the decision was so uncontroversial that “the New York Times reported in on page 19, alongside a story on Harvard’s decision to build a new dining hall.” The front page included stories, which “the editors considered more significant,” on a 227-year-old tree being cut down in New Haven to widen a street and the start of London’s social season (Cohen, 2016, pp. 280–281).

When discussed academically, it is easy to lose sight of the human cost these policies exacted. Buck’s sterilization was undertaken within half a year of the Court’s decision on October 19, 1927, by Dr. John Bell, “who had conducted Carrie’s physical examination on her arrival at the colony, and had given his name to the Supreme Court case” (Cohen, 2016, p. 283). Cohen (2016, pp. 283–284) describes the procedure:

Carrie was anesthetized, and the operation began. Dr. Bell, working with another surgeon, removed

an inch from each of Carrie’s fallopian tubes. Her tubes were ligated, or brought together, and the ends cauterized using carbolic acid followed by alcohol. The surgeons then sutured her abdominal wound. An hour after it began, the procedure was over.

A little-known historical fact is that just a bit more than three months following Carrie Buck’s procedure, her 16-year-old half sister, Doris, also was sterilized—and not informed the operation would prevent her from having children (Cohen, 2016). Five decades later, Buck reflected on her involuntary sterilization, noting that she was sad because she wanted to have a small family. But she was also angry, commenting, “They done me wrong. They done us all wrong” (quoted in Cohen, 2016, p. 298).

Despite the clear implications of eugenic policies for repressing a targeted population, the practice of sterilization and psychosurgery continued in the United States until well into the 1970s. Between 1927 and 1972 in Virginia alone, more than 8,000 individuals were sterilized because they were identified as feebleminded (Katz & Abel, 1984, p. 232), and more than 20,000 people were sterilized in California. But as Katz and Abel (1984) pointed out, the real reason for sterilization was not feeblemindedness but rather class: “The one characteristic that did have to be demonstrated was indigency. . . . Commitment papers had to certify that the individual was both without means of support and without any acquaintance who would give bond” (p. 233). To allow the poor to propagate, it was claimed, would increase the numbers of feebleminded offspring, the poor, alcoholics, criminals, and prostitutes.

The Positivist School and Criminal Justice Reform

In pointing out the worst effects of biologically oriented theories, we are not unmindful that the positivist school also helped to usher in an approach to policy that was reformative rather than punitive in impulse. To be sure, the opinion that offenders are characterized by unchangeable bodily or psychological characteristics leads to the conclusion that offenders should be either eliminated, caged indefinitely (incapacitated), or altered physically through intrusive measures. And “crime prevention,” as we have seen, becomes a matter of not allowing the “defectives” to multiply. But if one assumes that the causes determining crime are changeable—for example, unemployment or the emotional turmoil from family conflict—then the policy implications are much more optimistic. The challenge becomes one of diagnosing the forces that moved a person to break the law and then developing a strategy—perhaps job training or family counseling—to help the person overcome these criminogenic factors. In short, the challenge is to rehabilitate offenders so that they might rejoin society as “normal” citizens.

Lombroso was aware and supportive of this logic. In addition to his efforts to apply scientific principles to explaining the causes of crime, he also dreamed of “revamping the criminal justice system so that it would incorporate his criminology and react to offenders according to their degree of innate dangerousness” (Rafter, 2008, p. 83). For instance, he argued for “probation, juvenile reformatories, and other intermediate punishments that would keep offenders who were not particularly dangerous out of ordinary prisons” (Rafter, 2008, p. 83).

Notably, as America pushed into the 20th century, the appeal of biologically oriented theories eventually began to diminish. In their place, more optimistic positivist theories emerged that drew their images of offenders from psychology and especially from sociology. These newer approaches argued that the troubles of criminals could be rectified through counseling or by fixing the social environments in which they lived.

This new way of thinking about crime had a large effect on policy. Indeed, during the first two decades of the 20th century, this thinking helped to shape a campaign that renovated the criminal justice system. Reformers, called Progressives, argued that the system should be arranged not to punish offenders but rather to rehabilitate them. Across the nation, state after state established a separate juvenile court to “save” children from lives of crime (Platt, 1969). Similarly, efforts were undertaken to make release from prison based on the extent to which a person had been rehabilitated, not on the nature of the crime (as the classical school would mandate). Accordingly, states passed laws that made sentencing more indeterminate (e.g., offenders were given sentences that might range from 1 to 5 years) and created parole boards to decide which offenders had been “cured” and should be returned to the community. Probation, a practice through which offenders were to be both supervised and helped by officers of the court, also was implemented widely. More generally, criminal justice officials were given great discretion to effect the individualized treatment of offenders (Rothman, 1980).

We return to these themes in Chapter 3 and later in the book. Even so, we need to emphasize two points here. First, controversy still exists today on whether the policies instituted in the name of rehabilitation made

criminal justice systems more humane or more repressive. Some criminologists believe that the discretion given to criminal justice officials allowed offenders to be abused (e.g., Rothman, 1980), whereas other criminologists insist that rehabilitation has helped to humanize a system that is punitive by nature (e.g., Cullen & Gilbert, 1982, 2013; Cullen & Jonson, 2017). Second, although the ideas of the early positivist theorists declined in popularity—but certainly did not disappear, as the Virginia sterilization example shows— we now are seeing a renewed interest in the idea that the origins of crime lie in unchangeable characteristics of individuals. As Chapter 11 discusses, the 1980s brought a revitalization of the view that criminals are wicked by nature, a view that has had questionable, if not disquieting, policy implications.

Although not (yet?) a part of the argument that criminals are wicked by nature, DNA as a powerful crime- solving and preventing tool was born during the 1980s (Wambaugh, 1989). Since then, it has created heated ethical and legal policy debates that again demonstrate the need to be cautious when implementing innovative biology-based policies. The most recent international debate surrounding the use of DNA originated in 2001 in England and Wales where it was then a matter of policy to gather and store fingerprints and the genetic footprint on all criminal suspects, including those who were found innocent. At that time, Britain’s DNA Database contained profiles on more than 4.6 million people, some 860,000 of whom did not have criminal records. In late 2008, the European Court of Human Rights ruled unanimously that Britain’s policy was a violation of the human right to privacy (Lyall, 2008, p. A19; see also Donovan & Klahm, 2009; Lynch, Cole, McNally, & Jordan, 2008). Some people think that the United States should have a national DNA database that houses DNA on everyone—including the innocent and those guilty of crimes (Seringhaus, 2010). In 2013, however, DNA scientists announced that the variation in genomes in a person was too great to ignore any longer. In fact, some people have genomes that came from other people. This information raised questions about how forensic scientists should use DNA evidence to identify people (Zimmer, 2013). DNA is more fully discussed in Chapter 14.

Conclusion

It should be clear that to understand the policies created to address the problems of crime, we must realize that they are influenced greatly by the theories that guide them. We also must remember to examine the social context in which theories and policies are constructed. This lesson is important because it points out that theories are neither value-free nor free from the times in which they are advocated. Theories also have an impact on people. Sometimes the scientifically justified policies are allowed to do great harm because the social context in which they are advocated and implemented is ignored.

Closely related to this point is the claim made by some critical criminologists (see Chapter 9) that, although the work of the classical and positivist schools has a history of advancing the humanitarian ideas developed by the contributors to the Enlightenment, this is actually just one interpretation, albeit widely accepted. According to critical criminologists, one problem with this historical assessment is that it overlooks the Enlightenment’s dark underbelly. “In the long-run,” observes Lynch (2000), “Enlightenment perspectives can be seen as mechanisms that justify and legitimize capitalist social relationships, and it is no accident of history that Enlightenment scholarship arose along with capitalist systems of production” (p. 148; see also Gaukroger, 2006). What this means is that although much of Enlightenment writing was about human freedoms, individualism, and human dignity, some of it can be interpreted as being based instead on the assumption that the “nature of man” was deterministic, not volitional. There are important implications that flow from this view of the Enlightenment and the early development of criminology.

For one thing, a deterministic view of humankind meant that scientific knowledge could be employed to control workers as well as criminals in order for society to be stable and for capitalism to be efficient and productive. According to some critical criminologists, the nascent “sciences of man”—especially Lombroso’s work—were not humanitarian but were in fact tools to facilitate exploitation and oppression. To tell the story of the history of the Enlightenment and early criminology without this contextualization lends credence to another objection voiced by some critical criminologists.

The issue here—and the lesson to be learned—is that to rely too heavily on telling the story of criminology chronologically can give the appearance of it being a value-free objective science when in fact it is not. Rethinking the work of Lombroso and other positivists is illustrative of this point. On the surface, the positivists’ contributions had the appearance of reflecting rigorous science with its emphasis on cataloging and measuring. In fact, more than this was likely involved. As Morrison (2004) observes, the positivists’ approach was more akin to artwork that relied on “a cultural practice of presenting and representing which implied that the abnormal and the dangerous could be recognized and mapped in physical space and evolutionary time” (p. 68, emphasis added). What Lombroso and others actually did, it is argued, was to attribute or project their own perceptions about the meaning of physical characteristics, including tattoos, onto criminals. So, instead of actually identifying criminals, the “scientific method” that Lombroso and his followers used generated classed- based projections that described the physical features of members of the dangerous classes that threatened capitalism and bourgeois sensibilities. Criminology is thus part of the “apparatus of the ‘science of oppression’ established by Enlightenment philosophy” (Lynch, 2000, p. 147). In this way, critical scholars argue, the

scientific method with its emphasis on measurement—coupled with the use of the camera to objectify native people and advance imperialism—produced pictures of the criminal as the “other” (Morrison, 2006; see also Gaukroger, 2006).

We are keenly aware that despite its many advantages in advancing criminological knowledge, misusing the scientific method to identify, objectify, and oppress remains part of modern social life. The need for contemporary science to avoid defining sexual and racial minorities as “the other” is illustrative of this potential risk (see Henry & Tator, 2002; Mohr, 2008–2009; Tucker, 1994). One of the most important tasks for criminologists is to expose, critique, and condemn such usage wherever it is found.

Further Readings

Note: As discussed at the end of Chapter 1, to provide additional insights on key theoretical topics, each chapter is followed by a section called Further Readings. These readings are from the following source: F. T. Cullen, & P. Wilcox (Eds.). (2010). Encyclopedia of Criminological Theory. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

In this chapter, four supplementary readings—listed below—are made available online at www.study.sagepub.com/lilly7e. As should be apparent, the entries focus on four key theorists from the classical and positivist schools. In the chapter to follow, the Further Readings have similarly been chosen to furnish added information about four central theorists (or theoretical issues) in the criminological tradition being examined.

1. Beccaria, Cesare: Classical School 2. Bentham, Jeremy: Classical School 3. Garofalo, Raffaele: Positivist School 4. Lombroso, Cesare: The Criminal Man

http://www.study.sagepub.com/lilly7e

Chapter Three Rejecting Individualism The Chicago School

Clifford R. Shaw 1895–1957 Chicago Area Project Author of Social Disorganization Theory

Chicago Area Project

Although exceptions exist, most early theories located the sources of crime within the individual. These theories differed markedly on where precisely the source of waywardness lay. Was it in the soul? The mind? The body’s very biological makeup? Even so, these theories shared the assumption that little insight on crime’s origins could be gained by studying the social environment or context external to individuals. In one form or another, these early theories blamed individual offenders—not society—for the crime problem.

But as the United States entered the 20th century, a competing and powerful vision of crime emerged—a vision suggesting that crime, like other behavior, was a social product. The earlier theories did not vanish immediately or completely; indeed, in important ways, they continue to inform current-day thinking. But they did suffer a stiff intellectual challenge that greatly thinned the ranks of their supporters. This major theoretical shift, one that rejected individualist explanations of crime in favor of social explanations, might have been expected. Society was undergoing significant changes, and people’s experiences were changing as well. The time was ripe for a new understanding of why some citizens break the law.

By the end of the 1930s, two major criminological traditions had been articulated that sought, in David Matza’s (1969) words, to “relocate pathology; it was moved from the personal to the social plane” (p. 47). The first of these traditions, the Chicago school of criminology, argued that one aspect of American society, the city, contained potent criminogenic forces. The other tradition, Robert K. Merton’s (1938) strain theory, contended that the pathology lay not in one ecological location (e.g., the city) but rather in the broader cultural and structural arrangements that constitute America’s social fabric. Although they differed in how

they believed that society created lawbreakers, these theories agreed that the key to unlocking the mystery of crime was in understanding its social roots. Taken together, they offered a strong counterpoint to explanations that blamed individuals for their criminality.

The effects of these two schools of thought have been long-lasting. Even today, more than seven decades after their initial formulation, the Chicago school and strain theories continue to be of interest to criminologists and to shape correctional policies. They deserve careful consideration. Accordingly, in Chapter 4 to follow, we consider the origins and enduring influence on criminological theory of strain theory. First, however, we explore here in Chapter 3 how a group of scholars located in the Chicago area sought to understand the concentration of crime in certain neighborhoods. As we will see, their investigations would result in a major school of criminology and lay the groundwork for important contemporary theories of crime.

The chapter starts with a discussion of the Chicago school, focusing first on its explanation of why crime is concentrated in certain communities (Shaw and McKay’s social disorganization theory) and then on why certain people are more likely to go into crime (Sutherland’s differential association theory). The latter parts of the chapter examine how contemporary scholars have built on social disorganization theory to develop competing visions of how communities affect crime, some emphasizing the ineffectiveness of control (collective efficacy and cultural attenuation theories) and some the transmission of criminal values (cultural deviance and code of the street theory). The chapter also reviews Ronald Akers’s social learning theory, the major extension of Sutherland’s differential association theory. Finally, the two main policy implications of the Chicago school are explored—changing individuals and changing the community.

The Chicago School of Criminology: Theory in Context

What made it seem reasonable—why did it make sense—to blame the city for the nation’s crime problem? Why would such a vision become popular in the 1920s and 1930s and, moreover, find special attention in Chicago?

The answers to these questions can be found in part in the enormous changes that transformed the face of the United States and made the city—and not the “little house on the prairie”—the nation’s focal point. During the latter half of the 1800s, cities grew at a rapid pace and became, as Palen (1981) observed, “a controlling factor in national life” (p. 63). Between 1790 and 1890, for example, the urban population grew 139-fold; by 1900, 50 cities had populations in excess of 100,000 (p. 63).

But Chicago’s growth was particularly remarkable. When the city incorporated in 1833, it had 4,100 residents; by 1890, its population had risen to 1 million; and by 1910, the count surpassed 2 million (Palen, 1981, p. 63). But such rapid expansion had a bleaker side. Many of those settling in Chicago (and in other urban areas) carried little with them; there were waves of immigrants, displaced farmworkers, and African Americans fleeing the rural South. For most newcomers, the city—originally a source of much hope—brought little economic relief. They faced a harsh reality—pitiful wages; working 12-hour days, 6 days a week, in factories that jeopardized their health and safety; living in tenements that “slumlords built jaw-to-jaw . . . on every available space” (p. 64). Writing on the meatpacking industry in Chicago, Upton Sinclair (1906) gave this environment a disquieting label: “the jungle.”

Like other citizens, criminologists during the 1920s and 1930s witnessed—indeed, lived through and experienced—these changes that created bulging populations and teeming slum areas. It was only a short leap for them to believe that growing up in the city, particularly in the slums, made a difference in people’s lives. In this context, crime could not be seen simply as an individual pathology; it made more sense when viewed as a social problem.

This conclusion, moreover, was reinforced by a broad liberal reform movement that arose early during the 1900s—the Progressive movement. Although they believed in the essential goodness of America and so rejected calls for radical change, Progressives were critical of the human costs wrought by America’s unbridled industrial growth. They were troubled particularly by the plight of the urban poor, a mushrooming population of the system’s casualties who had few prospects of stable or rewarding lives. They worried, as Rothman (1980) wrote, that the “promise” of the American system “did not extend evenly to all segments of the society; it did not penetrate the ghetto or the slum. Thus, an understanding of the etiology of crime demanded a very close scrutiny of the conditions in these special enclaves” (p. 51).

Criminologists in the Chicago school would echo this conclusion. The Progressives rejected the social Darwinists’ logic that the poor, and the criminals among them, were biologically inferior and had fallen to society’s bottom rung because they were of lesser stock. The Progressives preferred a more optimistic interpretation: The poor were pushed by their environment—not born—into lives of crime. Accordingly,

hope existed that changing the context that nurtures offenders would reverse the slums’ negative effects and transform these individuals into law-abiding citizens. The goal was to save the poor, especially their children, by providing social services—schools, clinics, recreational facilities, settlement houses, foster homes, and reformatories (if necessary)—that would lessen the pains of poverty and teach the benefits of middle-class culture (Platt, 1969; Rothman, 1980).

But the moral imperative was to act on this belief—and the Progressives did, creating what came to be known as the “age of reform” (Hofstadter, 1955a, 1963). The linchpin of their agenda was the assumption that the government could be trusted to create and administer agencies that would effect needed social reform. The Progressives campaigned to have the state guide the nation toward the common good by controlling the greed of industry and by providing the assistance that the poor needed to reach the middle class. In the area of criminal justice, their efforts led to the creation of policies and practices intended to allow the state to treat the individual needs and problems of offenders—the juvenile court, community supervision through probation and parole, and indeterminate sentences (Rothman, 1980).

Thus, during the first decades of the 1900s, the city became a dominant feature of American life, and a pervasive movement arose warning that the social fabric of urban slums bred crime. Still, the question remains as to why Chicago became a hotbed of criminological research. As suggested, part of the answer can be found in this city’s status as an emerging economic and population center. But the other piece of the puzzle lies in the existence, at the University of Chicago, of the nation’s oldest sociology program, established in 1892 (Bulmer, 1984).

By the 1920s, “surrounded . . . with ever-present reminders of the massive changes that were occurring within American society,” the sociology department’s faculty and students had embarked on efforts to systematically study all aspects of the urban laboratory that lay before them (Pfohl, 1985, p. 143). Robert E. Park, a newspaper reporter–turned-sociologist, was particularly influential in shaping the direction of this work. He commented, “I expect that I have actually covered more ground, tramping about in cities in different parts of the world, than any other living man” (cited in Madge, 1962, p. 89). These journeys led Park to two important insights.

First, Park concluded that the city’s development and organization, like any ecological system, were not random or idiosyncratic but rather patterned and, therefore, could be understood in terms of basic social processes such as invasion, conflict, accommodation, and assimilation. Second, he observed that the nature of these social processes and their impact on human behavior, such as crime, could be ascertained only through careful study of city life. Accordingly, he urged students and colleagues to venture into Chicago and to observe firsthand its neighborhoods and diverse conglomeration of peoples (Madge, 1962). Several scholars, most notably Clifford R. Shaw and Henry D. McKay, embraced Park’s agenda and explored how urban life fundamentally shaped the nature of criminal activity. In so doing, they laid the foundation for the Chicago school of criminology.

Shaw and McKay’s Theory of Juvenile Delinquency

Shaw and McKay were not faculty members at the University of Chicago; rather, they were employed as researchers for a state-supported child guidance clinic. Even so, they enjoyed close relationships with the sociology department—they had been students there but did not finish their doctorates—and were influenced profoundly by its theorizing (Snodgrass, 1976). In particular, they were persuaded that a model of the city formulated by Ernest Burgess, Park’s colleague and collaborator, provided a framework for understanding the social roots of crime. Indeed, it was Burgess’s model that led them to the conclusion that neighborhood organization was instrumental in preventing or permitting delinquent careers (Gibbons, 1979; Pfohl, 1985). We review this general model of urban growth and then consider how it guided Shaw and McKay’s approach to studying delinquency in Chicago.

Burgess’s Concentric Zone Theory

As cities expand in size, how do they grow? One answer is that the growth is haphazard—not according to any set pattern. But Burgess, like Park, rejected this view in favor of the hypothesis that urban development is patterned socially. He contended that cities “grow radially in a series of concentric zones or rings” (Palen, 1981, p. 107).

As Figure 3.1 shows, Burgess (1967/1925) delineated five zones. Competition determined how people were distributed spatially among these zones. Thus, commercial enterprises were situated in the “loop” or central business district, a location that afforded access to valuable transportation resources (e.g., railroads, waterways). By contrast, most high-priced residential areas were in the outer zones, away from the bustle of the downtown, away from the pollution of factories, and away from the residences of the poor.

Figure 3.1 Urban Areas

Source: Burgess, E. W. (1967). The growth of the city: An introduction to a research project. In R. E. Park, E. W. Burgess, & R. D. McKenzie (Eds.), The city (p. 55). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. (Original work published 1925). All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission.

But the zone in transition was a particular cause for concern and study. This zone contained rows of deteriorating tenements, often built in the shadow of aging factories. The push outward of the business district, moreover, led to the constant displacement of residents. As the least desirable living area, the zone

had to weather the influx of waves of immigrants and other migrants who were too poor to reside elsewhere.

Burgess observed that these social patterns were not without consequences. They weakened the family and communal ties that bound people together and resulted in social disorganization. Burgess and the other Chicago sociologists believed that this disorganization was the source of a range of social pathologies, including crime.

Disorganization and Delinquency

Burgess’s model was parsimonious and persuasive, but did it really offer a fruitful approach to the study of crime? Would it stand up to empirical testing?

Shaw and McKay took it on themselves to answer these questions. As a first step, they sought to determine whether crime rates would conform to the predictions suggested by Burgess’s model—highest rates in the zone in transition, with this rate declining progressively as one moved outward to the more affluent communities. Through painstaking research, they used juvenile court statistics to map the spatial distribution of delinquency throughout Chicago.

Shaw and McKay’s data analysis confirmed the hypothesis that delinquency flourished in the zone in transition and was inversely related to the zone’s affluence and corresponding distance from the central business district. By studying several decades of Chicago’s court records, they also were able to show that crime was highest in slum neighborhoods regardless of which racial or ethnic group resided there. Further, they were able to show that as groups moved to other zones, their crime rates decreased commensurately. This observation led to the inescapable conclusion that it was the nature of the neighborhood—not the nature of the individuals within the neighborhood—that regulated involvement in crime.

But what social process could account for this persistent spatial distribution of delinquency? Borrowing heavily from Burgess and the other Chicago sociologists, Shaw and McKay emphasized the importance of neighborhood organization in preventing or permitting juvenile waywardness. In more affluent communities, families fulfilled youths’ needs and parents carefully supervised their offspring. But in the zone in transition, families and other conventional institutions (e.g., schools, churches, voluntary associations) were strained, if not broken apart, by rapid and concentrated urban growth, people moving in and out (transiency), the mixture of different ethnic and racial groups (heterogeneity), and poverty; social disorganization prevailed. As a consequence, juveniles received neither the support nor the supervision required for wholesome development. Left to their own devices, slum youths were freed from the type of social controls operative in more affluent areas; no guiding force existed to stop them from seeking excitement and friends—perhaps the wrong kind of friends—in the streets of the city.

This view of delinquency causation, it should be noted, likely resonated with the personal experiences of Shaw and McKay. As Snodgrass (1976) observes, they were

two farm boys who . . . were both born and brought up in rural mid-western areas of the United States, both received Christian upbringings, and both attended small, denominational country colleges. Shaw was from an Indiana crossroads that barely constituted a town, and McKay was from the vast prairie regions of South Dakota. (p. 2)

As a result, they were raised in communities where people were alike (homogeneity), shared the same Christian values, lived most of their lives (stability), knew one another well if not intimately, and made sure

that youngsters were good kids lest their parents be told of any misconduct. In short, their childhood communities were organized and marked by social control. It thus “made sense” that the absence of the routines, social intimacy, and virtues of small-town life in the slums of Chicago—the disorganization that prevailed—would be implicated in the causation of delinquency (Snodgrass, 1976).

Importantly, Shaw and McKay’s focus on how weakening controls make possible a delinquent career allowed them to anticipate a criminological school that eventually would become known as control or social bond theory (see Chapters 5 and 6). As Kornhauser (1978) observed, however, they believed that another social circumstance also helped to make slum neighborhoods especially criminogenic. We turn next to this aspect of their thinking.

Transmission of Criminal Values

Shaw and McKay did not confine their research to the epidemiology of delinquency. Following Park’s admonition, they too “tramped” about Chicago. As we will see, they were activists involved in efforts to prevent delinquency. They also attempted to learn more about why youths become deviant by interviewing delinquents and compiling their autobiographies in a format called life histories. These efforts led to the publication of titles such as The Jack-Roller: A Delinquent Boy’s Own Story (Shaw, 1930), The Natural History of a Delinquent Career (Shaw, 1931), and Brothers in Crime (Shaw, 1938; see also Shaw & McKay, 1972).

These life histories contained an important revelation: Juveniles often were drawn into crime through their association with older siblings or gang members. This observation led Shaw and McKay (1972) to the more general conclusion that disorganized neighborhoods helped to produce and sustain “criminal traditions” that competed with conventional values and could be “transmitted down through successive generations of boys, much the same way that language and other social forms are transmitted” (p. 174). Thus, slum youths grew up in neighborhoods characterized by “the existence of a coherent system of values supporting delinquent acts” (p. 173) and could learn these values readily in their daily interactions with older juveniles. By contrast, youths in organized neighborhoods, where the dominance of conventional institutions precluded the development of criminal traditions, remained insulated from deviant values and peers. Accordingly, for them, delinquent careers were an unlikely option.

The Empirical Status of Social Disorganization Theory

As noted previously, Shaw and McKay were able to collect data showing that crime was distributed across neighborhoods in a pattern consistent with social disorganization theory. Still, this theory now is decades old, and criminologists today have more sophisticated multivariate techniques to assess whether the factors identified by Shaw and McKay are able to explain why some geographical areas have higher rates of offending than others. In contemporary times, does Shaw and McKay’s work have anything meaningful to tell us about communities and crime?

Pratt and Cullen (2005; see also Pratt, 2001) completed a comprehensive meta-analytic review of the existing research on social disorganization theory. As Pratt and Cullen noted, a difficulty in assessing this theory is that most research has examined the structural causes of social disorganization—poverty, racial and ethnic heterogeneity, residential mobility, urbanism/structural density, family disruption, and so on—but not social disorganization itself directly. With this qualification, Pratt and Cullen’s analysis reveals that the variables specified by Shaw and McKay generally are related to crime rates in the predicted direction.

But perhaps the strongest support for Shaw and McKay’s theory comes from the now classic study of Sampson and Groves (1989), which measured not only structural variables but also social disorganization. Sampson and Groves tested the theory using data drawn from the 1982 British Crime Survey that covered 238 localities in England and Wales and included more than 10,000 respondents. Their empirical model included measures of low socioeconomic status, heterogeneity, mobility, family disruption, and urbanism. It also included three measures of whether a locality was socially organized or disorganized: the strength of local friendship networks, residents’ participation in community organizations, and the extent to which the neighborhood had unsupervised teenage peer groups. Consistent with Shaw and McKay’s theory, Sampson and Groves found that structural factors increased social disorganization and that, in turn, disorganized areas had higher levels of crime than organized areas. Notably, their analysis was replicated using a later version of the British Crime Survey (Lowenkamp, Cullen, & Pratt, 2003; but see also Veysey & Messner, 1999). Taken together, these findings lend support to Shaw and McKay’s social disorganization theory.

Summary

Shaw and McKay believed that juvenile delinquency could be understood only by considering the social context in which youths lived—a context that itself was a product of major societal transformations wrought by rapid urbanization, unbridled industrialization, and massive population shifts. Youths with the misfortune of residing in the socially disorganized zone in transition were especially vulnerable to the temptations of crime. As conventional institutions disintegrated around them, they were given little supervision and were free to roam the streets, where they likely would become the next generation of carriers for the neighborhood’s criminal tradition. In short, when growing up in a disorganized area, it is this combination of (1) a breakdown of control and (2) exposure to a criminal culture that lures individual youngsters into crime and that, across all juveniles, creates high rates of delinquency. Later in this chapter, we will see how this vision of crime led Shaw and McKay to assert that delinquency prevention programs must be directed at reforming communities, not simply reforming individuals.

Because Shaw and McKay attributed crime to the combination of weak controls and learning criminal cultural values, their theory has been called a “mixed model” (Kornhauser, 1978, p. 26; see also Empey, 1982; Finestone, 1976). Today, we would label this an “integrated theory” because it merges different causal conditions into a single explanation (see Chapter 16). As noted below, subsequent scholars would abandon this mixed-model approach. Instead, they split apart these two components into two distinct rival theories called control theory and cultural deviance theory (see, e.g., Hirschi, 1969; Kornhauser, 1978). The most famous of the so-called cultural deviance perspectives—which emphasize how crime is due to the learning of criminal values—is Edwin H. Sutherland’s classic theory of differential association.

Sutherland’s Theory of Differential Association

In 1906, Sutherland departed his native Nebraska and traveled to the University of Chicago, where he enrolled in several courses in the divinity school. He was also persuaded to register for Charles R. Henderson’s course, “Social Treatment of Crime.” Henderson took an interest in his new student—an interest that proved mutual. It was not long before Sutherland decided to enter the sociology program. He went on to devote the remainder of his career to exploring the social roots of criminal behavior (Geis & Goff, 1983, 1986; Schuessler, 1973).

After receiving his doctorate in 1913, Sutherland held a series of academic positions at Midwestern institutions, including the University of Illinois and the University of Minnesota. In 1930, he was offered and accepted a professorship at the University of Chicago. His stay in Chicago proved short-lived. Apparently disenchanted with his position—he cited “certain distractions” as the reason for his departure—Sutherland left 5 years later to join the sociology department at Indiana University, a post he held until his death in 1950. Even so, he maintained contact with his friends in Chicago, including McKay (Geis & Goff, 1983, p. xxviii; Schuessler, 1973, pp. xi–xii).

Although Sutherland spent most of his career away from the city and its university, the Chicago brand of sociology intimately shaped his thinking about crime. Indeed, as we will see next, much of his theorizing represented an attempt to extend and formalize the insights found in the writings of Shaw and McKay as well as other Chicago school scholars. One of these was Frederic Thrasher (1927/1963), who conducted a path- breaking study of 1,313 gangs in Chicago. He mapped the location of gangs, explored their origins, and detailed their role in transmitting criminal values from older to younger youths.

Differential Social Organization

Similar to most Chicago criminologists, Sutherland (1939) rejected individualist explanations of crime. “The neo-Lombrosian theory that crime is an expression of psychopathology,” he claimed, “is no more justified than was the Lombrosian theory that criminals constitute a distinct physical type” (p. 116). Instead, he was convinced that social organization—the context in which individuals are embedded—regulates criminal involvement.

Shaw and McKay had used the term social disorganization to describe neighborhoods in which controls had weakened and criminal traditions rivaled conventional institutions. At the suggestion of Albert Cohen, however, Sutherland substituted for social disorganization the concept of differential social organization, a term that he believed was less value laden and captured the nature of criminal areas more accurately. Thus, Sutherland (1942/1973) contended that social groups are arranged differently; some are organized in support of criminal activity, whereas others are organized against such behavior. In turn, he followed Shaw and McKay’s logic in proposing that lawlessness would be more prevalent in those areas where criminal organization had taken hold and where people’s values and actions were shaped daily.

Differential Association

Although Sutherland incorporated into his thinking the thesis that community or group organization regulates rates of crime, he built more systematically on Shaw and McKay’s observation that delinquent values are transmitted from one generation to the next. For Sutherland, to say that the preference for crime is “culturally transmitted” was, in effect, to say that criminal behavior is learned through social interactions.

To describe this learning process, Sutherland coined the concept of differential association. Much like other Chicago school scholars, he noted that, especially in the inner-city areas, there was culture conflict. Two different cultures—one criminal, one conventional—vied for the allegiance of the residents; the key was which culture, which set of definitions, an individual most closely associated with. Thus, Sutherland contended that any person would inevitably come into contact with “definitions favorable to violation of law” and with “definitions unfavorable to violation of law.” The ratio of these definitions or views of crime—whether criminal or conventional influences are stronger in a person’s life—determines whether the person embraces crime as an acceptable way of life.

Sutherland held that the concepts of differential association and differential social organization were compatible and allowed for a complete explanation of criminal activity. As a social-psychological theory, differential association explained why any given individual was drawn into crime. As a structural theory, differential social organization explained why rates of crime were higher in certain sectors of American society: Where groups are organized for crime (e.g., in slums), definitions favoring legal violations flourish; therefore, more individuals are likely to learn—to differentially associate with—criminal values.

Sutherland’s theory of differential association went through various stages of development, but by 1947 he was able to articulate in final form a set of nine propositions. These propositions compose one of the most influential statements in criminological history on the causes of crime (Bruinsma, 2014). The theory presented a powerful sociological understanding of crime, and, unlike other perspectives, it was stated in a set of core propositions that could be easily understood and eventually tested. As noted, although nine propositions were developed, a central idea informs Sutherland’s framework: that crime is learned through the process of differential association. The theory of differential association is as follows:

1. Criminal behavior is learned. 2. Criminal behavior is learned in interaction with other persons in a process of communication. 3. The principal part of the learning of criminal behavior occurs within intimate personal groups. 4. When criminal behavior is learned, the learning includes (a) techniques of committing the crime, which

sometimes are very complicated, sometimes are very simple; [and] (b) the specific direction of motives, drives, rationalizations, and attitudes.

5. The specific direction of motives and drives is learned from definitions of legal codes as favorable and unfavorable.

6. A person becomes delinquent because of an excess of definitions favorable to violation of law over definitions unfavorable to violation of law. This is the principle of differential association.

7. Differential associations may vary in frequency, duration, priority, and intensity. 8. The process of learning criminal behavior by association with criminal and anti-criminal patterns

involves all the mechanisms that are involved in any other learning. 9. While criminal behavior is an expression of general needs and values, it is not explained by those general

needs and values since noncriminal behavior is an expression of the same needs and values. (Sutherland & Cressey, 1970, pp. 75–76)

Theoretical Applications

Taken together, these propositions convey an image of offenders that departs radically from the idea that criminals are pathological creatures driven to waywardness by demons, feeble minds, deep-seated psychopathology, and/or faulty constitutions. Instead, Sutherland was suggesting that the distinction between lawbreakers and law-abiding people lies not in their personal fiber but rather in the content of what they have learned. Those with the good fortune of growing up in conventional neighborhoods will learn to play baseball and attend church services; those with the misfortune of growing up in slums will learn to rob drunks and roam the streets looking to do mischief.

But could the theory of differential association account for all forms of crime? Sutherland believed that he had formulated a general explanation that could be applied to very divergent types of illegal activity. Unlike Shaw and McKay, he did not confine his investigations to the delinquency of slum youths. For example, he compiled his famous life history of Chic Conwell, a “professional thief” (Sutherland, 1937). This study showed convincingly that differential association with thieves was the critical factor in determining whether a person could become a pickpocket, a shoplifter of high-priced items, or a confidence man or woman. Such contact was essential because it provided aspiring professional thieves with the tutelage, values, and colleagues needed to learn and perform sophisticated criminal roles.

But more provocative was Sutherland’s (1949) claim that differential association could account for the offenses “committed by a person of respectability and high social status in the course of his [or her] occupation” (p. 9) —illegal acts for which Sutherland (1940) coined the term “white-collar crimes.” His investigations revealed that lawlessness is widespread in the worlds of business, politics, and the professions. As Sutherland (1949/1983) put it, “Persons in the upper socioeconomic class engage in much criminal behavior” (p. 7). Indeed, his own research into the illegal acts by large American corporations revealed that they violated legal standards frequently and that most could be termed “habitual criminals” (Sutherland, 1949).

This empirical reality, Sutherland (1940) observed, presented special problems for most theories of his day, which assumed that “criminal behavior in general is due either to poverty or to the psychopathic and sociopathic conditions associated with poverty.” After all, most “white-collar criminals . . . are not in poverty, were not reared in slums or badly deteriorated families, and are not feebleminded or psychopathic” (pp. 9–10). By contrast, the principle of differential association can explain the criminality of the affluent.

Thus, in many occupations, illegal practices are widely accepted as a way of doing business. White-collar workers, Sutherland (1940) noted, might “start their careers in good neighborhoods and good homes [and then] graduate from colleges with some idealism.” At that point, however, they enter “particular business situations in which criminality is practically a folkway and are inducted into that system of behavior just as into any other folkway” (p. 11). Similar to slum youths and offenders who become professional thieves, their association with definitions favorable to violation of law eventually shapes their orientations and transforms them from white-collar workers into white-collar criminals. In effect, a criminal tradition has been transmitted. We revisit Sutherland’s insights on these topics in Chapter 11, where we consider theories of

white-collar crime.

The Chicago School’s Criminological Legacy

The Chicago school has not escaped the critical eye of subsequent scholars. One limitation critics often note, for example, is that the Chicago criminologists emphasized the causal importance of the transmission of a “criminal culture” but offered much less detail on the precise origins of this culture. Similarly, although deploring the negative consequences of urban growth, such as crime and delinquency, the Chicago theorists tended to see the spatial distribution of groups in the city as a “natural” social process. This perspective diverted their attention from the role that power and class domination can play in creating and perpetuating slums and the enormous economic inequality that pervades urban areas.

Scholars also have questioned whether the Chicago school can adequately account for all forms of crime. The theory seems best able to explain involvement in stable criminal roles and in group-based delinquency but is less persuasive in providing insights on the cause of “crimes of passion” or other impulsive offenses by people who have had little contact with deviant values. Sutherland’s theory of differential association, moreover, has received special criticism. The formulation is plausible and perhaps correct, but can it be tested scientifically? Would it ever be possible to accurately measure whether, over the course of a lifetime, a person’s association with criminal definitions outweighed his or her association with conventional definitions (Empey, 1982; Pfohl, 1985; Vold & Bernard, 1986)?

Despite these limitations, few scholars would dispute that the Chicago school has had a profound influence on criminology. At the broadest level, the Chicago criminologists leveled a powerful challenge—backed by a wealth of statistics—to explanations that saw crime as evidence of individual pathology. They captured the truth that where people grow up and with whom they associate cannot be overlooked in the search for the origins of crime.

The Chicago school also laid the groundwork for the development of two perspectives that remain vital to this day. On the one hand, as indicated previously, Shaw and McKay’s premise that weakening social controls permit delinquency to take place was an early version of what since has become known as control or social bond theory (see Chapters 5 and 6). On the other hand, the Chicago criminologists’ thesis that criminal behavior occurs as a consequence of cultural transmission or differential association gave rise to cultural deviance theory, a perspective that assumes that people become criminal by learning deviant values in the course of social interactions (Empey, 1982). This debate between control and cultural deviance (or learning) theories remains prominent to this day (see, e.g., Britt & Costello, 2015; Costello, 2013; Matsueda, 2015).

Control and Culture in the Community

In this context, this section—and the one to follow—explore in more detail the theoretical legacy of the Chicago school. Building more directly on Shaw and McKay, one line of inquiry has examined the role of community context in crime. Within this work, the debate between control theory and cultural deviance theory has flourished. As discussed below, the control perspective derived from Shaw and McKay is seen in the theories of collective efficacy and cultural attenuation. By contrast, there have been a variety of writings that link crime to criminal cultural traditions in communities, with one of the more prominent versions articulated by Elijah Anderson (1999) in his classic Code of the Street.

In short, theories have continued to explore why some communities have higher rates of crime than others. But there has also been a second line of inquiry, which builds directly on Edwin Sutherland’s work. This perspective examines why some individuals are more likely to be involved in crime than others. Akers’s social learning theory is the exemplar of this approach, and it is discussed in the next section.

Collective Efficacy Theory

Robert Sampson has perhaps done the most to revitalize Shaw and McKay’s view that the degree of informal control exercised by residents will affect the extent of a community’s crime problem (see, e.g., Sampson, 1986a; Sampson & Groves, 1989). While a graduate student at the University at Albany in the late 1970s, he enrolled in a seminar with Travis Hirschi. As will be seen in Chapter 6, Hirschi was an advocate of control theory, arguing at this time that weakened bonds to parents, schools, and other aspects of conventional society permitted delinquency. This view was a rejection of that side of the Chicago school that linked crime to the transmission or learning of cultural values (Sampson, 2011).

Sampson was persuaded by his professor’s logic. However, he was not interested in why one individual rather than another engaged in crime, which was Hirschi’s concern. This is sometimes called a micro-level question, because the focus is on individual differences in criminal conduct. Rather, Sampson was more fascinated by the core macro-level question that had preoccupied scholars like Shaw and McKay: why one neighborhood or area (called a macro-level unit) rather than another had higher crime rates.

Importantly, in Hirschi’s seminar, Sampson was introduced to a brilliant, newly published book by Ruth Kornhauser (1978). In Social Sources of Delinquency, Kornhauser shared Hirschi’s critique of cultural theories of crime—likely one reason why Hirschi assigned the book in his class! But unlike Hirschi, she mainly focused on the macro-level control side of social disorganization theory as an alternative explanation. Kornhauser’s distinctive focus led Sampson to the works of Shaw and McKay and of other scholars within the Chicago school. Sampson (2011) thus made the career choice to focus on macro-level control theory. As Sampson notes, he divides his academic life as

before I read Kornhauser and after I read Kornhauser. . . . I can still feel the intellectual jolt. The occasion was a graduate seminar with Travis Hirschi on theories of deviance. It was in that seminar that a light bulb turned on. The switch was our close reading of Ruth Kornhauser’s Social Sources of Delinquency. . . . She went on in devastating fashion to critique criminological theories in what she called cultural deviance and strain traditions. . . . More than Kornhauser’s critique inspired me, however. She also articulated a positive theoretical framework that drew on the classic Chicago School. . . . As I saw it, her argument was closely aligned with a form of Hirschi’s control theory pitched at the macro level. (2011, pp. 64, 67–68)

As just seen, Sampson contributed a classic test of Shaw and McKay’s work (Sampson & Groves, 1989). Following this study, he continued to explore these issues. Much as Kornhauser (1978) had recommended, he was part of a group of scholars that illuminated how informal social control at the community level explains variation in crime rates across neighborhoods. This approach came to be known as the systemic theory. The perspective argues that neighborhoods are characterized by a system of social networks and ties. Dense social networks and strong social ties create the capacity of residents to come together to exert informal social control. Thus, if neighbors know, interact with, and care about one another, they are likely to watch one

another’s houses and tell rowdy teens in the neighborhood to “quiet down or I’ll tell your parents.” But if they lack close relationships, they are likely to “mind their own business” and not expect that others will rescue them when they are in danger (see also Warner & Clubb, 2013).

Robert Bursik and Harold Grasmick (1993, pp. 16–17) supplied the most sophisticated version of the systemic model. Applying the work of Albert Hunter to the study of crime, they articulated three levels of community control: (1) the “private,” which involves intimate relationships among family members and friends; (2) the “parochial,” which involves those met through daily routines (e.g., going to the same stores) and participation in voluntary organizations (e.g., church, school); and (3) the “public,” which involves relationships with external groups (e.g., the police, social service agencies) that provide resources integral to maintaining order. In organized communities, these three levels of control operate in concert to bolster the controls over residents. But in neighborhoods marked by poverty, residential instability, and racial/ethnic heterogeneity—the factors Shaw and McKay linked to social disorganization—networks are weak and the ability to exercise control across all three levels is frayed. A high crime rate is the result (for a diagram of this model, see Bursik and Grasmick, 1993, p. 39).

Although a persuasive perspective, one conundrum confronted the systemic model: In high-crime, inner-city communities, the neighbors often know one another and may have strong private ties. By contrast, in more affluent low-crime areas, neighbors may give one another an obligatory wave but, after a long day at work, drive into their garages and retreat to the privacy of their residences. These realities of life in modern urban America seem to suggest that the presence of strong ties is not sufficient to prevent crime, and the absence of strong ties does not necessarily cause crime. Always a keen observer, Sampson argued that social control no longer is rooted exclusively in social ties marked by intimacy and friendship. As he noted, “In contemporary cities the idyllic ‘urban village’ endures largely as a myth. Even given ample time or energy, I suspect most people do not want to be close friends with their neighbors. They desire trust with them, not necessarily to eat dinner with them” (2012, p. 151). As such, the key issue is not whether residents are best friends but whether they see one another as the kind of good neighbors who will act with them when trouble is brewing.

With Stephen Raudenbush and Felton Earls, Sampson addressed these concerns in a now-famous article published in Science in 1997. Sampson and his colleagues reconceptualized the social disorganization framework through their collective efficacy theory—a perspective that continues to shape criminological thinking and research today (see also Sampson, 2006, 2012). In contrast to social disorganization theory and the systemic model, Sampson and his colleagues did not argue that community-level control emerged naturally from close personal friendships among neighbors. In the traditional social disorganization/systemic approach, informal social control was envisioned as embedded in networks and as something that exists day in and day out. By contrast, Sampson and his colleagues (1997) did not see control as a state of being but rather as a capacity that could be activated when a problem arose and a situation called for it.

Sampson et al. (1997) observed that neighborhoods vary in their ability to “activate informal social control.” Informal social control involves residents’ behaving proactively—not passively—when they see wayward behavior, such as by calling police authorities when a fight breaks out, coming to the rescue of someone in

trouble, or telling unruly teenagers to quiet down and behave. The likelihood that residents will take such steps, however, is contingent on whether there is “mutual trust and solidarity among neighbors” (p. 919). As a result, in neighborhoods where such cohesiveness prevails, residents can depend on one another to enforce rules of civility and good behavior. Such places have “collective efficacy, defined as social cohesion among neighbors combined with their willingness to intervene on behalf of the common good” (p. 918).

With his colleagues, Sampson (2011) carefully selected the words “collective” and “efficacy” to make up the construct of collective efficacy. These terms were meant to capture culture and social action. Thus, collective was meant to suggest that the residents in an area had a shared expectation for control—that is, they could count on neighbors to agree that certain situations—for example, teens hassling passersby or pushers selling drugs on a corner—were inappropriate and deserving of a reaction. In turn, efficacy was meant to suggest that the residents could count on their neighbors to exert human agency and actually to do something to solve the problem (e.g., go out on the street and tell the youths to quiet down; demand that the police close down a drug market). Put another way, neighbors with collective efficacy define problems similarly and are capable of jointly taking action to solve them.

Sampson et al. (1997) also argued that collective efficacy is not evenly distributed across neighborhoods. Rather, in communities marked by a concentration of new immigrants, residential instability, and the grinding economic deprivation of “concentrated disadvantage,” collective efficacy is weak (see also Sampson, Morenoff, & Earls, 1999). Sampson et al. (1997) predicted that these communities would not have the social capital to assert informal social controls and to keep the streets safe. By contrast, collective efficacy is high in more affluent communities marked by long-term residential stability. Again, Sampson and his colleagues argued that people in these areas do not have to be best friends—only that they believe that their neighbors share their view of when control should be exercised. For social control to be exercised, observes Sampson (2012, pp. 152–153), the context does not necessarily have to be “characterized by dense, intimate, and strong neighborhood ties (e.g., through friends or kin). . . . Put differently, a person can perceive trust and infer shared expectations about public behavior without having to know their neighbors in the ‘urban villagers’ sense of cohesion.”

Importantly, Sampson et al. (1997) provided data to back up these theoretical claims. In 1995, their research team interviewed 8,762 people who lived in 343 Chicago neighborhoods. Controlling for the personal characteristics of the respondents (sometimes called “composition effects”), the authors found that collective efficacy was a “robust” predictor of levels of violence across neighborhoods. Their analysis also revealed that collective efficacy “mediated” much of the relationship between crime and the neighborhood characteristics of residential stability and concentrated disadvantage, a finding that “is consistent with a major theme in neighborhood theories of social organization” (p. 923).

The theory of collective efficacy, therefore, appears to be a promising explanation of why urban neighborhoods differ in their levels of criminal behavior, earning empirical support (see Chouhy, 2016; Hipp & Wo, 2015; Pratt & Cullen, 2005; Sampson, 2006, 2012). A remaining issue, however, is whether the concept of collective efficacy illuminates a truly novel community process or whether it is really just the

“opposite side” of social disorganization. A distinctive feature of the concept appears to be its focus not merely on the degree of neighborhood organization but also on the willingness of residents to activate social control. In other words, the concept of “efficacy” implies not merely a state of being socially organized but rather a state of being ready for social action. The future of this theory is likely to hinge on whether Sampson et al. continue to clarify the concept of collective efficacy and demarcate its components.

Cultural Attenuation Theory

Cultural Disorganization and Crime.

At the core of the Chicago school was the idea that inner-city neighborhoods in the “zone in transition” are marked by cultural conflict. In these communities, two cultures compete for the minds, so to speak, of youngsters as they grow up: conventional and criminal. Conventional culture supports conformity, whereas criminal culture supports crime. According to Sutherland’s theory, it is the differential association with and learning of these two cultures that determines whether an individual will engage in criminal conduct. Conformity and crime thus involve what has been called “positive” learning; definitions favorable to conformity or favorable to crime have to be internalized to create the motivation to behave in one way or the other.

As will be seen in Chapter 6, control theorists such as Travis Hirschi (1969) reject this view (see also Kornhauser, 1978). They deny that any part of society, including the inner city, is marked by culture conflict. Instead, they assert that a single, dominant conventional culture envelopes the entire social order. Everyone is exposed to this culture, and everyone knows right from wrong. There is value consensus. Offenders thus do not break the law because they differentially associate with a criminal culture—because they somehow learn to value crime in a positive way. Rather, they break the law despite knowing that their actions are wrong. How can this be?

Control theorists unravel this perplexing issue by arguing that the key cause of crime is not exposure to a criminal culture but rather variation in the extent to which people believe in and thus are tied to the conventional culture. When Hirschi’s control theory is presented in Chapter 6, we will see that “belief” is one of his four core social bonds. Individuals who respect the law and see its mandates as legitimate are controlled by this belief. Even when tempted to steal an unguarded item or to hit someone who has insulted them, they will resist because they view such actions as immoral. Other individuals, however, may realize that stealing and assaulting are wrong and can get them into trouble, but they have little allegiance to the law. Their belief in or ties to conventional culture are attenuated. Because they are agnostic about the law and moral standards, their behavior is not controlled by such conventional beliefs. For instance, when they are tempted to pilfer or retaliate, they do not “care” what the law says and hence are free to gratify their immediate needs through crime. Another example might be when college students illegally download music or computer software. Although they know such conduct is against the law, their belief in the legitimacy of these legal standards is weak—it is attenuated—and thus they pursue their self-interest. By contrast, because they are more invested in laws against theft of physical property, they would see stealing a friend’s computer as wrong and thus would be controlled by such beliefs from doing so.

Importantly, Kornhauser (1978) proposed that Shaw and McKay’s theory could be interpreted as making this kind of argument on the macro level (see also Warner, 2003). Thus, whereas Hirschi (1969) focused on cultural attenuation for individuals, she examined cultural attenuation for neighborhoods. Rejecting the idea of a criminal culture (or delinquent subculture), Kornhauser contended that social disorganization theory

nonetheless included a role for culture in explaining community differences in crime rates; she termed the key mechanism cultural disorganization. In her view, neighborhood conditions affect allegiance to conventional values. It is difficult to create “common ground” and “shared understandings,” observed Kornhauser (1978, p. 77), when there is transiency (people move in and out of an area), when there is heterogeneity (people are from different racial and ethnic groups), when new problems exist that traditional values do not address effectively (people find values imported from the “old country” are obsolescent in modern society), and when following conventional mandates seems irrelevant to the achievement of goals (people who obey the rules do not seem to get ahead). According to Kornhauser (1978), Shaw and McKay understood that this circumstance was criminogenic: “Following [W. I.] Thomas, they state that an attenuated communal value system cannot serve as the basis for effective community control. The community cannot organize itself to combat delinquency unless united by common values” (p. 78).

In 2003, Warner advanced this perspective by articulating cultural attenuation theory more clearly and testing this model on a sample of 66 neighborhoods in two southern cities. According to Warner, factors such as concentrated disadvantage and residential mobility decrease allegiance to conventional values. Part of the reason is that, as the systemic model argues, these conditions weaken social ties, which are a basis for shared expectations. But another consideration is that values will be used only if they seem relevant to residents’ goals and daily challenges.

Consistent with Kornhauser (1978), Warner (2003, p. 75) asserts that, in inner-city neighborhoods, conventional values are not rejected but rather fall into “disuse.” For example, advising youngsters to stay in school and go to college loses its salience if these youths rarely encounter any neighbors who have gained success through this avenue. Thus, when residents do see those values manifested in the kinds of behavior they encounter daily, they come to doubt that their neighbors actually share these values. According to Warner (2003, p. 76), when the “community social structure limits the extent to which residents are able to live out conventional values within the community, those values are not reinforced in the community through their visible presence. A culture is strong when similar values are not only widely shared by community members, but are also visibly present in everyday life, and regularly articulated in social relationships.”

In her empirical analysis, Warner provided beginning support for her model. She discovered that an aggregate measure of cultural strength (i.e., the perception that neighbors agree with conventional values) was a predictor of likelihood of residents exercising informal control (e.g., intervening to stop someone painting graffiti on a wall or breaking into a house). In a subsequent analysis of the data, Warner and Burchfield (2011) sought to unpack sources of attenuated culture further. They found that the willingness to assert informal control was lower in communities where residents misperceived neighbors’ support for conventional values—a situation more likely to occur in areas marked by disadvantage and mobility. Although these results are promising, further research is needed to show that attenuated conventional culture is a stronger source of community crime rates than the presence of a vibrant criminal culture (cf. Berg & Stewart, 2013).

Legal Cynicism Theory.

In a middle-class suburban neighborhood, criminal acts, especially violent offenses such as robbery and

shootings, are not daily events; in fact, they are so rare that when they transpire, they tend to be front-page news. If a crime occurs—or even if a burglar alarm sounds for some unknown reason—residents assume that the police will come quickly when called. When officers arrive on the scene, it is anticipated that they will be concerned and courteous, especially to any victims. They will try to help as best they can. Taken together, the lack of crime and the responsiveness of the police are clear evidence to citizens that the legal system “works” on their behalf. These middle-class residents thus are likely to manifest belief or faith in the law; they see it as “just, legitimate, and responsive” (Kirk & Papachristos, 2011, p. 1197).

The experience of residents in high-crime inner-city neighborhoods is often different. Serious offenses seem to be commonplace and to make walking about the neighborhood risky. Whether completely true or not, the police are seen as either too absent (they do not care enough about the community to be present to fight crime) or too present (they stop and hassle people who have done nothing wrong). When a crime occurs or help is needed (e.g., a domestic dispute is in progress, someone is in need of medical assistance), officers are seen as unresponsive—arriving late on the scene, if at all. When police do arrive, they are perceived as treating people disrespectfully. For inner-city residents, then, the legal system is viewed as “not working” on their behalf. As a result, their belief or faith in the law weakens or attenuates. This form of cultural attenuation (or disorganization) has been termed legal cynicism.

Originally developed by Sampson and Bartusch (1998), legal cynicism theory thus is an attempt to explain why belief in conventional culture becomes attenuated in some neighborhoods but not in others—and then to explore its criminogenic consequences. Kirk and Matsuda (2011) define legal cynicism as a “cultural orientation in which the law and its agents are viewed as illegitimate, unresponsive, and ill equipped to ensure public safety” (p. 443). As noted, daily experiences with crime and the police affect levels of cynicism. But such negative views toward the law also are tied to neighborhood conditions. Concentrated disadvantage appears to be one important source. “Perhaps we should not be surprised,” observe Sampson and Bartusch (1998, p. 801), “that those most exposed to the numbing reality of pervasive segregation and economic subjugation become cynical about human nature and legal systems of justice.” Kirk and Papachristos (2015) argue persuasively that another salient source is the hyperincarceration of African American males (see also Clear, 2007; Wacquant, 2001). Inner-city communities experience a churning of many men into and out of prison. This constant contact with legal authorities often breeds cynicism about the system’s so-called commitment to justice—views that are shared with children, other family members, and acquaintances (Kirk, 2016).

Importantly, evidence exists that neighborhoods with higher levels of legal cynicism have high rates of crime, including of violence and homicide (see, e.g., Kirk & Matsuda, 2011; Kirk & Papachristos, 2011). Unlike cultural deviance theory (see the next section), legal cynicism theory does not argue that people commit crimes, including acts of violence, because they value or approve of such conduct. This is a very technical point, but it is the key issue that separates two distinct cultural approaches to crime: (1) the attenuation perspective that links crime to a weakening of conventional cultural standards (controls are loosened) and (2) the cultural deviance perspective that links crime to the internalization of criminal cultural standards that approve of crime (an issue we return to shortly). Thus, as Sampson and Bartusch (1998) argue, legal cynicism

in a neighborhood can be quite widespread even though residents “personally condemn acts of deviance and violence that make life more precarious” (p. 801).

Kirk and Papachristos (2015) explain that legal cynicism is best seen as a frame of reference that affects how people interpret their world and define what realistic choices are available to them. By constraining decisions, legal cynicism can create conditions conducive to crime (Kirk & Matsuda, 2011; Kirk & Papachristos, 2015). For example, if residents do not believe that the police will be responsive, they may be less likely to report a crime, which in turn decreases the likelihood that predators will be arrested. They also may be reluctant to intervene in a victimization incident if they fear that the police cannot protect them against retaliation from offenders. Further, it is difficult to create collective efficacy to deal with a local crime problem if nobody believes that the legal system will listen to citizens and act effectively (e.g., to close an open-air drug market). Finally, if individuals high on legal cynicism are being threatened physically or have had property pilfered, they may see contacting the police as a waste of time and believe that they must “take matters into their own hands.” This view can result in their using violent means to protect themselves or to exact justice—a response Donald Black (1983) refers to as “self-help.”

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Cultural Deviance Theory

Cultural deviance theory is rooted in the Chicago school’s idea that there is culture conflict between—to use Sutherland’s language—definitions favorable to violating the law and definitions unfavorable to violating the law. This perspective maintains that “antisocial attitudes” (as they are sometimes called) or criminal beliefs exist that define criminal actions as permissible or, even more positively, as required. For example, if an inner- city youth is “disrespected,” the use of retaliatory violence would be seen as normative (“of course you hit someone who disses you!”). In this framework, the content of culture matters. Community residents do not simply lose faith in conventional culture but are exposed to beliefs that are oppositional to that culture. Thus, in some neighborhoods, they might be exposed to views that approve of carrying illegal firearms, engaging in drive-by shootings, selling drugs on street corners to “junkies,” sexually victimizing vulnerable teenage girls who “want it,” and taking money and clothing (e.g., sneakers) from youths who are not strong enough to defend themselves (“suckers deserve what they get”). Again, this is not to say that these criminogenic definitions are dominant in such neighborhoods or are embraced by most residents. But it does suggest that such beliefs exist in the community and rival conventional culture for the minds of youngsters growing up in these areas.

Cultural deviance theory has evolved along a number of paths, but we can identify three particularly influential versions. First, some criminologists have asserted that lower-class culture as a whole—not subcultures within lower-class areas—is responsible for generating much criminality in urban areas. Walter Miller offered perhaps the clearest and most controversial of these theories. According to Miller (1958), urban gang delinquency is not a product of intergenerational poverty per se but rather is a product of a distinct lower-class culture whose “focal concerns” encourage deviance rather than conformity. If the focal concerns of middle- class culture are achievement, delayed gratification, and hard work, then the lower-class counterparts are trouble, smartness, toughness, fate, and autonomy. As a result, middle-class youths are oriented toward good grades, college, and career; lower-class youths are oriented toward physical prowess, freedom from any authority, and excitement on the streets. Miller contended that, not surprisingly, youths who adhere to such “cultural practices which comprise essential elements of the total life pattern of lower class culture automatically [violate] legal norms” (p. 18, emphasis in original).

Second, by contrast, a number of criminologists have explored how delinquent subcultures arise in particular sectors of society (urban lower-class areas). These subcultures are, in effect, relatively coherent sets of antisocial norms, values, and expectations that, when transmitted or learned, motivate criminal behavior (Cloward & Ohlin, 1960; Cohen, 1955). We return to this line of analysis later, in Chapter 4.

Third, other researchers have developed a similar theme in arguing for the existence of subcultures of violence. Wolfgang and Ferracuti (1982), for example, noted that in areas where such a subculture has taken hold (e.g., urban slums), people acquire “favorable attitudes toward . . . the use of violence” through a “process of differential learning, association, or identification.” As a result, “the use of violence . . . is not necessarily viewed as illicit conduct, and the users do not have to deal with feelings of guilt about their aggression” (p. 314). In this regard, there is considerable theoretical and empirical debate over whether high rates of violent

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crime and homicide in certain sectors of society, such as the inner cities and the South, can be attributed to a geographically based subculture of violence (Cao, Adams, & Jensen, 1997; Hawley & Messner, 1989).

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Anderson’s Code of the Street

An important application of the subculture of violence concept can be found in Elijah Anderson’s acclaimed book, Code of the Street. This work is based on Anderson’s (1999) 4 years of ethnographic research in Philadelphia in which he took up the problem of “why it is that so many inner-city young people are inclined to commit aggression and violence toward one another” (p. 9). In essence, he argued that the answer to this problem lies in the violent “code” that prevails in the inner city and governs the choices that adolescents make in their daily lives.

The Code.

According to Anderson (1999), minority youths in the inner city are culturally isolated—cut off from conventional society—and face daunting economic barriers. Most families struggle to be “decent” and to try to impart the values of hard work and civility to their children. Youths in other households, which Anderson calls “street families,” are less fortunate. They are born into families that are disrupted and dysfunctional. Most often, these families are headed by single mothers who at times might have drug problems. The children are neglected and, when disciplined, typically receive harsh, physical, and erratic punishment. With little prospect of participating meaningfully in mainstream society, they grow up alienated and embittered. Weakly bonded to conventional institutions, angry, and ineffectively parented, the youths of these families turn to the streets. There, they spend their days and, frequently, their nights.

With so little in life available to them, these youths’ major project is to “campaign for respect.” They seek to display their status on the streets through flamboyant dress, through a very masculine demeanor, and (most important) by developing reputations for “nerve”—as youths who are “not to be messed with” and who are “bad.” But self-respect based on reputation is precarious because it is open to challenge and can be taken from a youth in a zero-sum contest. If one teen “disrespects” another, then a failure to respond constitutes a failure to show “nerve” and thus a loss of status.

In such situations, a “code of the street” shapes how the “disrespected” party should react. Anderson (1999) defined this code as

a set of informal rules governing interpersonal public behavior, particularly violence. The rules prescribe both proper comportment and the proper way to respond if challenged. They regulate the use of violence and so supply a rationale allowing those inclined to aggression to precipitate violent encounters in an approved way. (p. 33)

In other sectors of society, inadvertent or slight affronts might be overlooked or might evoke verbal responses showing unhappiness. But the code of the street brooks no such affronts. As Anderson (1999) observed, “In street culture, respect is viewed as almost an external entity, one that is hard-won but easily lost—and so must constantly be guarded” (p. 33). Thus, the code demands that virtually any form of disrespect should be met

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with the immediate threat or application of physical violence, lest respect be forfeited. It also mandates that physical violence should be met with violence. In such contexts, violent encounters are an ongoing possibility, and when they occur, they are at risk of escalating into lethal exchanges.

Anderson (1999) cautioned that the code affects not only kids from street families but also those from decent families. The “decent” youths cannot be sheltered by their families forever; they eventually must venture into public spaces where youths from all families mix. Here, they must engage in “code-switching,” substituting compliance with the code of the street for their preference for decent or conventional values. If they disobey the code and fail to show the willingness to use violence (i.e., if they achieve no respect) when mixing with diverse peers in public settings, then they will be easy prey for other youths to victimize—to insult, take their possessions, and assault. Such decent kids thus must learn and obey the code to survive, showing enough willingness to use violence to deter the constant threat of victimization. The cost of embracing these street subcultural values, however, is that they risk being drawn into violent confrontations that are inconsistent with their decent way of life. Therefore, youths from all families—street and decent kids alike—are encapsulated by the code of the street and suffer its consequences.

Anderson (1999) argued that the code of the street, although firmly entrenched, is not intractable. Its strength and sway over inner-city youths are rooted in the structural conditions that expose these youngsters to hurtful deprivations and strip them of any meaningful way of gaining respect through conventional avenues. This situation is exacerbated by a lack of trust in the police and by the accompanying sense that problems, including criminal victimization, must be dealt with alone. In the end, the code of the street is a “cultural adaptation” to the conditions prevailing in destitute urban communities. If there is a ray of hope in this portrait, it is that different conditions might evoke different cultural adaptations. For Anderson, the most salient step is giving youths hope and a meaningful stake in conformity. He concluded, “Only by reestablishing a viable mainstream economy in the inner city, particularly one that provides access to jobs for young inner-city men and women, can we encourage a positive sense of the future” (p. 325).

Culture as Values or Culture as a Tool Kit.

Anderson’s distinction between street youths who embrace the code of the street and decent youths who use the code in public settings coincides with a debate within sociology generally and criminology in particular regarding the nature of culture. The traditional and still-dominant view in cultural theories of crime is that culture is a set of attitudes or beliefs that people internalize. Although not identical to an ingrained personality trait, culture functions in much the same way. It becomes part of who individuals are, shaping how they think across situations. Thus, the Chicago school and later learning theorists would argue that culture is something that is transmitted and learned. It continues to guide decisions unless offenders change their attitudes, such as through cognitive-behavioral therapy (see Bonta & Andrews, 2017).

In 1986, sociologist Ann Swidler developed a different view of culture, arguing that it functions as a “tool kit.” For Swidler, culture is not something that is internalized but a resource that is used to develop a “strategy of action” to reach a desired end. In this model, culture consists of “symbols, stories, rituals, and world views, which people may use in varying configurations to solve different kinds of problems” (1986, p. 273). For

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example, as explained in Chapter 5, Sykes and Matza (1957) introduced the concept of “techniques of neutralization,” which are beliefs that, when invoked, permit the choice of a delinquent act in a particular situation. Thus, a youth might use the technique of “appeal to a higher loyalty” to justify jumping into a bar fight to protect a friend. In this case, this technique is part of the youngster’s cultural tool kit.

These two images of culture—as values and as a tool kit—underlie the emerging debate between the Chicago school tradition and more contemporary perspectives that emphasize cultural attenuation and legal cynicism (see, e.g., Sampson & Bean, 2006; see also Wilcox, Cullen, & Feldmeyer, 2018). Again, in the Chicago school, inner cities are marked by conflict between two differentiated cultures—one that encourages crime and one that encourages conformity. Those transmitted a criminal culture, such as Stanley the jack-roller (Shaw, 1930), learn this culture or code early in life and embark on a life in crime. For more recent theories (as noted earlier), inner-city residents who turn to crime are not portrayed as internalizing strong pro-criminal attitudes but rather as losing a strong attachment to the conventional order (i.e., cultural attenuation). They know right from wrong and do not reject conventional normative standards. Culture thus becomes a set of beliefs that are accessed when crime becomes a strategy of action. For example, retaliating against someone who has harmed a family member becomes justified by invoking a belief in legal cynicism—the idea that because the police will not do anything about the victimization, the matter must be avenged personally by the individual. In this scenario, legal cynicism is part of the person’s cultural tool kit.

Importantly, these competing views of culture frame Anderson’s theory. Although not phrased in these terms, Anderson’s perspective seems to embrace both culture as values and culture as a tool kit. Thus, for the “street” youths, the code is a set of cultural values that are learned and, like informal commandments, followed. By contrast, as noted, Anderson (1999, p. 105) argues that kids from “decent” families engage in “code- switching,” guided by conventional values in private settings and then accessing the precepts of the code in public settings so as to cast an image of someone not to be messed with. In this sense, culture is a tool kit into which decent youngsters reach so as to construct strategies of action appropriate to the context in which they are operating.

Empirical Status.

Although now a classic two decades old, Anderson’s (1999) work has been subjected to relatively few empirical tests (Swartz, 2010). This dearth of research likely occurs because measuring the cultural landscape of inner-city areas would require extensive surveys of residents on the codes they do and do not embrace. Even so, existing studies in this area are supportive of Anderson’s contention that the code of the street has structural sources and contributes to involvement in violent delinquency (Brezina, Agnew, Cullen, & Wright, 2004; Stewart & Simons, 2006, 2010). Still, some areas of his theory might need to be reconsidered. For example, in a study of 720 African American youths from 259 neighborhoods, Stewart, Schreck, and Simons (2006) found no support for Anderson’s thesis that adopting the code, presumably to display a tough posture that masks vulnerability, increases safety. They discovered that embracing “the street code exacerbates the risk of victimization beyond what would be the case from living in a dangerous and disorganized neighborhood” (p. 427).

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Despite the daunting methodological challenges, Anderson’s depiction of inner-city culture is innovative and offers rich research opportunities. Given the acclaim it has received, his work should be replicated using both quantitative and qualitative methods (see also Berg & Stewart, 2013).

In this regard, scholars should examine whether Anderson’s analysis of crime in Philadelphia may be specific to a given historical era in which violence in U.S. cities reached high levels. Anderson (1999) spent four years researching Code of the Street in the 1990s when youth violence had emerged as a national problem, captured by DiIulio’s (1995) cautionary essay predicting an enduring epidemic of juvenile violence, “The Coming of the Super-Predators.” In his book Uneasy Peace, however, Patrick Sharkey (2018) documents the decline in violence in urban America, including in Philadelphia, where murders regularly exceeded 400 annually in the 1990s but fell as low as 246 in 2013 before ticking back up to 312 in 2017 (“Crime in Philadelphia,” 2018; Philadelphia Police Department, 2018; see also Zimring, 2013). Citing a more recent ethnography of Philadelphia by Alice Goffman conducted about 15 years after Code of the Street, Sharkey (2018) wonders whether the threat from code-bound youths has been supplanted, at least in part, by the threat from criminal justice officials (see also Hayes, 2017):

The young men whom Anderson studied spent their days avoiding rivals and negotiating public space in hopes of avoiding being victimized. . . . In Goffman’s Philadelphia, the hierarchy of threat had shifted. . . . But the threat posed by other groups of young men was sporadic, whereas the threat of a cop or a parole officer was constant. When they looked over their shoulders as they walked down the street, the young men . . . were more worried about an officer trailing them than a member of a rival crew. . . . This shift in focus, from threat of violent peers to the threat of abusive police, can be found in an array of recent studies of urban poverty. (pp. 28–29)

The broader point is that Anderson’s classic study should not be seen as documenting an unchanging social reality (Sharkey, 2018). To be sure, homicide in Philadelphia remains concentrated among young, Black, inner-city males (Philadelphia Police Department, 2018). Still, violence has declined in the city, which raises questions about whether the code of the street remains as powerful among kids raised in street families and as prominent in public spaces as to require code-switching among kids raised in decent families. Prevention efforts, including the deployment of police to so-called crime “hot spots,” may have changed the actual and perceived safety of citizens in public spaces (Groff et al., 2015; but see Ratcliffe, Groff, Sorg, & Haberman, 2015). The time may have come for a replication of Anderson’s study in Philadelphia.

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Akers’s Social Learning Theory

Ronald Akers set forth the most influential contemporary extension of Sutherland’s differential association perspective with his social learning theory (see, e.g., Akers, 1977, 1998; Akers, Krohn, Lanza-Kaduce, & Radosevich, 1979; Akers & Sellers, 2004; Burgess & Akers, 1966). As noted previously, the Chicago theorists emphasized that criminal values are learned through associations. Even so, these theorists had little to say about precisely how this acquisition of antisocial definitions occurs. Sutherland attempted to systematize these insights through his theory of differential association. In this tradition, Akers intended his social learning theory to build on Sutherland by specifying in more detail the mechanisms and processes through which criminal learning takes place.

Akers provided little systematic analysis of the structural origins of criminal values and learning except to observe that social location differentially exposes individuals to learning environments conducive to illegal conduct (Sampson, 1999; however, see Akers 1998; Akers & Jensen, 2010). Nonetheless, Akers made a major contribution in illuminating how people learn to become offenders.

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Becoming a Learning Theorist

Akers’s interest in this issue began in 1965 when he accepted his first faculty appointment at the University of Washington in Seattle. In graduate school at the University of Kentucky, he had undertaken a dissertation in the sociology of law under the guidance of Richard Quinney, a well-known conflict theorist (see Chapter 8). Despite this fact, Akers would be seen as a core scholar within mainstream criminology in that his work focused on the process by which people became offenders rather than illuminating, as have leftist scholars, how capitalism and class inequality are the root causes of crime. Interestingly, Travis Hirschi, the noted control theorist (see Chapter 6), was also an assistant professor at the University of Washington during this time. Akers, with his social learning theory, and Hirschi, with his control theory, would engage in a vigorous theoretical debate that would capture the attention of criminologists over the next decades. Although arch criminological enemies, they have remained personally cordial throughout the course of their careers:

I almost immediately saw great similarity and compatibility between social bonding and social learning theory. But Hirschi (1969), and later he and Gottfredson, saw social learning theory (and virtually all other criminological theories) as being wholly incompatible with control theory. His view is that social learning is among those theories concerned only with “positive” causes of crime, explaining why people do commit crime and delinquency, while control theory is concentrated on “negative” causes, explaining why people do not. Our basic disagreement on this and other theoretical issues has continued to today.

In fact, he and Gottfredson are the chief critics of social learning theory. I have probably been the chief critic of self-control and bonding theories and have taken every opportunity to make strenuous objections to Hirschi’s and Gottfredson’s views on social learning theory. I would like to reiterate that none of this intellectual disagreement has affected in the least the collegial and friendly relationship and mutual respect we have maintained over the years. (Akers, 2011, pp. 360–361)

Upon arriving at the University of Washington, Akers was fortunate to encounter another new professor, Robert Burgess—an association that would reshape the trajectory of his academic career. Burgess was interested in applying the principles of behavioral psychology to sociological topics. Given Akers’s background in criminology, they soon agreed that one possible target for Burgess’s project might be Sutherland’s differential association theory, which saw learning as the basis of criminal behavior:

Burgess and I agreed that Sutherland’s theory was the most fruitful place to explore the ramifications of behavioral psychology for sociology. . . . Sutherland’s was self-consciously a “learning” theory and operant conditioning was self-consciously a “learning” theory. They both were theories of behavioral acquisition, maintenance, performance, and change. Sutherland provided the social interaction context of the learning and Skinner provided the mechanisms of learning. (Akers, 2011, p. 357)

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Akers’s collaboration with Burgess resulted in a reformulation of Sutherland’s theory titled “A Differential- Reinforcement Theory of Criminal Behavior” (Burgess & Akers, 1966). This essay received considerable attention but eventually receded in significance. Its enduring importance, however, was in enticing Akers into the study of crime, with a special focus on extending Sutherland’s work by illuminating the mechanisms through which criminal learning occurs. Eventually, this led Akers to formulate his social learning theory.

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Extending Sutherland: Akers’s Theory

Akers’s social learning incorporates four central concepts: (1) differential association, (2) imitation, (3) definitions, and, (4) most importantly, differential social reinforcement (see Table 3.1). As the title of his theory indicates, Akers sees crime as learned behavior through social interaction with others. He admitted that “acts in violation of the law can occur in the absence of any thought given,” but “differential association with conforming and non-conforming others typically precedes the individual’s committing the acts” (Akers & Sellers, 2004, p. 89). In particular—and similar to Sutherland—Akers noted the importance of differential association in shaping the “definitions” that can prompt wayward behavior. Unlike Sutherland, he distinguishes two dimensions of differential association: interactional and normative. Differential association that is interactional involves either the direct association with other people (e.g., friends who are seen daily) or the indirect identification with more distant reference groups (e.g., fans of a rock star, extremist political groups). The Internet, in fact, might begin to blur these distinctions. The normative dimension is the “different patterns of norms and values to which an individual is exposed through this association” (Akers & Sellers, 2004, p. 85).

Table 3.1 Akers’s Social Learning Theory: Key Concepts Table 3.1 Akers’s Social Learning Theory: Key Concepts

Key Concepts Definitions of Concepts

1. Differential Association

The process through which individuals are exposed to definitions favorable and unfavorable to illegal or law-abiding behavior.

A. Interactional dimension

The direct association and interactions with others who engage in certain kinds of behavior, as well as the indirect association and identification with more distant reference groups.

B. Normative dimension

The different patterns of norms and values to which an individual is exposed through this association.

2. Definitions

A person’s own attitudes or meanings that are attached to a given behavior. That is, definitions are orientations, rationalizations, definitions of the situation, and other evaluative and moral attitudes that define the commission of an act as right or wrong, good or bad, desirable or undesirable, justified or unjustified. The more a person’s definitions approve of an act, the greater the chances are that the act will be committed.

General definitions are broad attitudes that approve of conventional behavior and

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A. General vs. specific

disapprove of criminal behavior (e.g., moral beliefs from religion). Specific definitions define certain acts as wrong (e.g., killing a person) and other acts as permissible (e.g., stealing a person’s computer).

B. Negative, positive, and neutralizing

Negative definitions disapprove of a behavior. Positive definitions define the behavior as desirable or wholly permissible. Neutralizing definitions define an act as wrong but justify and thus permit the behavior “given the situation.”

3. Imitation Modeling—a person engages in behavior after observing similar behavior in others.

4. Differential Reinforcement

The balance of anticipated or actual rewards and punishments that follow or are the consequence of behavior. Most reinforcements leading to crime are social.

Source: Adapted from Akers and Sellers (2004, pp. 85–88).

Again, for social learning theory, definitions are the key factor in motivating criminal behavior. People are not a bunch of impulses and driven mindlessly to pursue gratification through any means available. Rather, people act in large part based on their cognitions—how they define situations and what action they believe is either called for or, in the least, permitted under certain circumstances. In short:

Definitions are one’s own attitudes or meanings that one attaches to given behavior. That is, they are orientations, rationalizations, definitions of the situation, and other evaluative and moral attitudes that define the commission of an act as right or wrong, good or bad, desirable or undesirable, justified or unjustified. (Akers & Sellers, 2004, p. 86)

Akers also moved beyond Sutherland in elucidating the dimensions of these definitions. According to Akers, some definitions are “general,” such as religious values on right and wrong, and prohibit committing any criminal acts. Other definitions, however, are “specific” and pertain to the commission of a certain crime. Thus, although a person might believe it is wrong to kill someone, holding a specific definition might lead the person to think that it is “okay” to shoplift or perhaps to retaliate when insulted publicly. Some definitions are “negative” and some are “positive” toward criminal behaviors; still others are “neutralizing” in the sense that they encourage offending by “justifying or excusing it” (Akers & Sellers, 2004, p. 86). As will be seen in Chapter 5, Sykes and Matza (1957) developed a theory of “techniques of neutralization.” Akers borrowed the insight that otherwise law-abiding people may engage in a criminal act by invoking definitions that justify this act in a particular circumstance (e.g., “I cheated on my taxes because the government is unfair”; “I got into a fight to protect my friend”).

On a more technical point, Akers raised the issue of neutralizing definitions in part to deflect a criticism voiced by control theory scholars such as Ruth Kornhauser (1978) and Travis Hirschi (1969) that “cultural deviance” theory (see above) argued—erroneously in their view—that people were so enveloped by criminal cultures that their normative beliefs required them to break the law. But for Akers, except in extreme cases

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(e.g., ideologies held by terrorists), definitions were not so intense as to mandate that the law be broken (Akers & Sellers, 2004, p. 87). Rather, definitions varied in their strength or intensity and in their content (from positive to neutralizing, general to specific). People are not automatons driven mindlessly into crime by their criminal cognitions. They hold, instead, a range of definitions that create varying levels of motivation to break the law in specific circumstances—sometimes making it very likely (e.g., retaliating if disrespected in public) and sometimes making it possible (e.g., deciding whether to steal a computer left unguarded in a backpack) (see also Matsueda, 1988, 2015).

In the Sutherland tradition, even those individuals living in high-crime areas are exposed to (i.e., differentially associated with) a mixture of conventional and criminal definitions. For both Akers and Sutherland, the key issue is that this exposure matters: The more individuals differentially associate with positive and neutralizing definitions, the more likely it is that they will engage in criminal behavior. If someone never has any contact with criminal definitions—if they have learned only conventional definitions—why would they break the law? It is this contention that control theorists have disputed by offering an alternative explanation of criminal motivation: People are by their human nature motivated to seek immediate gratification, which criminal acts can provide; as such, any criminal definitions individuals hold play no role in motivating crime (Hirschi, 1969; see Chapter 6).

Now, Sutherland’s theory also implies that definitions, once internalized, continue to regulate people’s decisions. Akers, however, elaborated this model. First, he noted that, in addition to definitions, people can become involved in crime through imitation—that is, by modeling criminal conduct. Second, and most significant, Akers contended that definitions and imitation are most instrumental in determining initial forays into crime. At this juncture, another theoretical issue arises: Why do people continue to commit illegal acts and become stabilized in a criminal way of life?

Borrowing from operant psychology, he proposed that social reinforcements—rewards and punishments— determine whether any behavior is repeated. The continued involvement in crime, therefore, depends on exposure to social reinforcements that reward this activity. The stronger and more persistent these reinforcements (i.e., the more positive the consequences), the greater the likelihood that criminal behavior will persist. Akers called this differential social reinforcement. He defined this concept as “the balance of anticipated or actual rewards and punishments that follow or are consequences of behavior” (Akers & Sellers, 2004, p. 87). Akers noted that rewards and punishments could be nonsocial, such as the physical reactions when taking drugs. But most differential reinforcement is social:

However, the theory proposes that most of the learning in criminal and deviant behavior is the result of social exchange in which the words, responses, presence, and behavior of other persons directly reinforce behavior, provide the setting for reinforcement (discriminative stimuli), or serve as the conduit through which other social rewards and punishers are delivered or made available. (Akers & Seller, 2004, p. 88)

Thus, for Akers, individuals enter into crime—or learn to conform—because of the social contexts in which

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they are enmeshed—a situation affected by their location in the social structure (e.g., inner city vs. a suburban neighborhood). As social creatures, humans are affected by those with whom they interact. Akers remained firmly in the Sutherland tradition in proposing a thoroughly sociological theory of crime:

The groups with which one is in differential association provide the major social contexts in which all the mechanism of social learning operate. They not only expose one to definitions, but they also present one with models to imitate and with differential reinforcement (source, schedule, value, and amount) for criminal or conforming behavior. The most important of these groups are the primary ones of family and friends, though they may also be secondary and reference groups. Neighbors, churches, school teachers, physicians, the law and authority figures, and other individuals and groups in the community (as well as mass media and other more remote sources of attitudes and models) have varying degrees of effect on the individual’s propensity to commit criminal and delinquent behavior. (Akers & Sellers, 2004, pp. 85–86)

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Assessing Social Learning Theory

Akers’s social learning theory has been subjected to extensive empirical testing, mostly in studies where measures of social learning are used to account for self-reported delinquency. Akers et al. (1979) conducted the most comprehensive test of social learning theory, systematically measuring 16 components of the theory in a study of 3,065 adolescents in Grades 7 to 12. This study revealed that social learning variables explained 54.5% of the variation in alcohol use and 68.3% of the variation in marijuana use—a far greater level of explanatory power than found in typical self-report delinquency studies (see Weisburd & Piquero, 2008). This finding suggests that when social learning theory is fully operationalized, its capacity to explain criminal involvement is substantially increased.

Overall, the research is supportive of the perspective, including studies in which social learning theory was tested against competing explanations of crime such as control theories (Akers, 1998; Akers & Jensen, 2003, 2006, 2010; Akers & Sellers, 2004; see also Cao, 2004; Kubrin, Stucky, & Krohn, 2009). Thus, a 2000 meta- analysis by Pratt and Cullen reported that in terms of predicting crime or analogous behaviors (e.g., drug use), the social learning variables of differential association and delinquent definitions had effect sizes that rivaled the effect size for self-control. A subsequent meta-analysis of 133 studies also revealed support for the theory. The effects were consistently significant for differential association and definitions measures, although they were weaker for modeling/imitation and differential reinforcement (Pratt et al., 2010). Another comprehensive meta-analysis, this one of predictors of criminal recidivism, also found that, in line with social learning theory, antisocial values and peer associations are strong predictors of reoffending (Andrews & Bonta, 2010).

The theory has been shown to account for variation in crime among felony offenders of both genders (Alarid, Burton, & Cullen, 2000), variation in offending among impoverished youths in the justice system in Uruguay (Chouhy, Cullen, & Unnever, 2016), and even variation in violation of NCAA rules by college student- athletes (Cullen, Latessa, & Jonson, 2012). Further, evaluations of correctional rehabilitation programs conclude—again consistent with social learning theory—that programs that target and change antisocial values and peers (typically “cognitive-behavioral” interventions) are effective in lowering recidivism (Andrews & Bonta, 2010; Cullen & Gendreau, 2000; Cullen, Wright, Gendreau, & Andrews, 2003; see also Andrews, 1980; Salisbury, 2013).

In the existing research, the strongest predictor of criminal involvement typically is differential association as measured by the “number of delinquent friends” reported by a survey respondent. Critics of social learning theory assert that the close association between delinquent friends and crime is spurious. They argue that, rather than delinquent friends causing wayward behavior, this really is a case of “birds of a feather flocking together”—of delinquent kids hanging around with one another because they share the common trait of being delinquent. Research indicates that such self-selection into peer groups does occur. But studies also suggest that even with self-selection, the continued association with other antisocial peers can amplify delinquent involvement (see, e.g., Warr, 2002; Wright & Cullen, 2000; see also Akers, 1998). As Akers (1999) reminds us, whereas birds of a feather may flock together, it also is the case that “if you lie down with dogs, you get up

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with fleas” (p. 480).

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The Consequences of Theory: Policy Implications

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Change the Individual

As we will see shortly, the logic of Shaw and McKay’s social disorganization theory led to the conclusion that the most effective way to reduce crime was to reorganize communities. However, the Chicago school’s emphasis on cultural learning suggests that crime can be countered by treatment programs that attempt to reverse offenders’ criminal learning (Andrews & Bonta, 2010). This emphasis on altering an offender’s social learning is particularly consistent with Akers’s theory (Akers & Sellers, 2004, pp. 101–108). Note that although there is a focus on the individual offender, the focus is not on altering some inherent or underlying pathology but on changing the values and ways of thinking that the offender has acquired in prior social interactions with parents, siblings, peers, and other actors in society.

In this regard, an intervention based on differential association and social learning theory often attempts to remove offenders from settings and people that encourage crime and to locate them in settings where they will receive prosocial reinforcement. This might involve, for example, placing youths in a program that uses positive peer counseling or in a residential facility that uses a “token economy” in which conformist behavior earns juveniles points that allow them to purchase privileges (e.g., home visits, ice cream, late curfew). Furthermore, there is now growing evidence that cognitive-behavioral programs are among the most effective treatment interventions in reducing a range of waywardness, including crime (Lipsey, Chapman, & Landenberger, 2001; MacKenzie, 2006; Wilson, Bouffard, & MacKenzie, 2005; see also Spiegler & Guevremont, 1998). These programs assume that “cognitions” (what Sutherland might call “definitions”) lead to behavior. The key is to change those cognitions, such as antisocial values, that are criminogenic. Finally, there is evidence from the family literature that harsh and erratic child-rearing techniques can lead parents to reinforce aggression and other problematic responses and to ignore prosocial conduct. Programs that teach parents better management skills that involve the reinforcement of “good” rather than “bad” behavior have proven to reduce antisocial behavior (Farrington & Welsh, 2007; Piquero, Farrington, Welsh, Tremblay, & Jennings, 2009; Reid, Patterson, & Snyder, 2002).

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Change the Community

As we have noted, the early Chicago criminologists rejected prevailing individualist biological and psychiatric explanations in favor of elucidating crime’s social roots. Consistent with this theoretical perspective, they offered the “first systematic challenge to the dominance of psychology and psychiatry in public and private programs for the prevention and treatment of juvenile delinquency” (Schlossman, Zellman, & Shavelson, 1984, p. 2). The solution to youthful waywardness, they contended, was not to eradicate the pathologies that lie within individuals but rather to eradicate the pathologies that lie within the very fabric of disorganized communities.

Beginning in 1934, Shaw thus embarked on efforts to put his theory into practice, establishing one of the most famous interventions in the history of American criminology: the Chicago Area Project (CAP). Shaw’s strategy was for CAP to serve as a catalyst for the creation of neighborhood committees in Chicago’s disorganized slum areas. Committee leaders and the project’s staff would be recruited not from the ranks of professional social workers but rather from the local community. The intention was to allow local residents the autonomy to organize against crime. Shaw believed that unless the program developed from the “bottom up,” it would neither win the community’s support nor have realistic prospects for successful implementation (Kobrin, 1959; Schlossman et al., 1984).

CAP took several approaches to delinquency prevention. First, a strong emphasis was placed on the creation of recreational programs that would attract youths into a prosocial environment. Second, efforts were made to have residents take pride in their community by improving the neighborhood’s physical appearance. Third, CAP staff would attempt to mediate on behalf of juveniles in trouble. This might involve having discussions with school officials on how they might reduce a youth’s truancy or appealing to court officials to divert a youth into a CAP program. Fourth, CAP used staff indigenous to the area to provide “curbside counseling.” In informal conversations, as opposed to formal treatment sessions, these streetwise workers would attempt to persuade youths that education and a conventional lifestyle were in their best interest. As Schlossman et al. (1984) observed, “They served as both model and translator of conventional social values with which youths . . . had had little previous contact” (p. 15).

Was Shaw’s project effective? Unfortunately, the lack of a careful evaluation using a randomized control group precludes a definitive answer. Even so, in 1984, Schlossman et al. provided a “fifty-year assessment of the Chicago Area Project.” They concluded that the different kinds of evidence they amassed, “while hardly foolproof, justify a strong hypothesis that CAP has long been effective in reducing rates of reported juvenile delinquency” (p. 46; see also Kobrin, 1959, p. 28). CAP reminds us that “despite never-ending hard times and political powerlessness, some lower-class, minority neighborhoods still retain a remarkable capacity for pride, civility, and the exercise of a modicum of self-governance” (Schlossman et al., 1984, p. 47).

Notably, CAP and Shaw’s legacy have endured into the 21st century. The Chicago Area Project continues to exist today, emphasizing advocacy for youths, the provision of direct services, and community organizing to improve the quality of life in disadvantaged urban neighborhoods (Chicago Area Project, 2014). It

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coordinates more than 40 projects and “affiliates” (i.e., community organizations that embrace the CAP mission). Thus, “projects and affiliates are mandated to positively impact areas in the Chicago vicinity with high rates of juvenile delinquency or other symptoms of social disorganization” (Chicago Area Project, 2014).

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Conclusion

The Chicago school of criminology had a defining influence on the development of American criminology. The school’s theorists elevated to prominence sociological over individual-trait explanations of crime. With rapidly changing Chicago as their laboratory, they situated offenders within the broad context of the transformation of the United States from an agrarian to an urban, industrial society. In their view, individuals were born into neighborhoods that differed in their organization. Youngsters raised in outlying city areas were encapsulated by strong institutions that exerted control over their behavior and exposed them predominantly to conventional beliefs. For most, a life in crime—whether in jack-rolling or in professional thievery—was inconceivable. But those born into inner-city areas faced the special challenges of social disorganization. Weakened social institutions, including the family, were unable to control their conduct or to prevent criminal traditions, rackets, and groups (e.g., gangs) from taking root in the neighborhood. Youths thus experienced two competing ways of life—the conventional and the criminal. They could—and many did—“differentially associate” and learn to prefer crime over conformity.

The Chicago school also made important methodological advances. Quantitatively, they showed the value of mapping crime by geographic area. Anticipating by decades what would later be called “hot spots” of crime, they showed that criminal acts were not randomly distributed but highly concentrated. For them, place mattered. What was it about places with a lot of crime that differentiated them from places without much crime? However, they also valued qualitative methods. The members of the Chicago school were not armchair criminologists but rather walked inner-city streets and interviewed offenders about their personal histories. These revelations allowed their statistics to come to life. Each spot on their maps was not simply a data point but a delinquent with his or her own story. They did not lose touch with the humanity of those they studied, which is perhaps one reason why they sought solutions to crime in social reform rather than in prison construction.

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Further Readings

Source: F. T. Cullen, & P. Wilcox. (Eds.). (2010). Encyclopedia of Criminological Theory. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Readings are available online at www.study.sagepub.com/lilly7e.

1. Akers, Ronald L.: Social Learning Theory 2. Sampson, Robert J.: Collective Efficacy Theory 3. Shaw, Clifford R., and Henry D. McKay: Social Disorganization Theory 4. Sutherland, Edwin H.: Differential Association Theory and Differential Social Organization

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http://www.study.sagepub.com/lilly7e

Chapter Four Crime in American Society Anomie and Strain Theories

Robert K. Merton 1910–2003 Columbia University Author of Anomie-Strain Theory

Courtesy of Columbia University Archives

In a 1940 article published in the American Anthropologist, Robert K. Merton joined with M. F. Ashley- Montagu to offer a stinging rebuttal to Earnest Hooton’s (1939a) biological theory of crime. As might be recalled from Chapter 2, where we previously reviewed his criminology, Hooton proposed that comparisons between prisoners and noncriminals (e.g., Nashville firefighters) showed that offenders possessed a distinct set of bodily features. Taken together, these characteristics were held to be evidence of their supposed biological inferiority, which in turn was the source of their criminality. Hooton was not reticent about the policy implications of his conclusions, proposing that crime prevention required that society rid itself of the “organically inferior.” “It follows that the elimination of crime,” observed Hooton (1939a, p. 309), “can be effected only by the extirpation of the physically, mentally, and morally unfit, or by their complete segregation in a socially aseptic environment” (quoted in Merton & Ashley-Montagu, 1940, p. 391). In another context, Hooton referred to the need for “biological housecleaning” (Bruinius, 2006, p. 239).

Fearing that Hooton’s writings would “occupy as conspicuous a place in the history of criminology as the works of his predecessors in the field, Lombroso and Goring” (p. 384), Merton and Ashley-Montagu (1940) used biting wit and the hard reanalysis of the study’s data to reveal the unsteady foundation on which

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Hooton’s theorizing rested. As it turned out, the appeal of Hooton’s criminology was short-lived as American criminology moved away from a vision of offenders as biologically inferior. In fact, Merton and Ashley- Montagu’s critical article was a prominent reason why Harvard University Press subsequently declined to publish more of Hooton’s writings on the topic (Ashley-Montagu, 1984). Still, at the time, it was clear that Merton and Ashley-Montagu felt that the troubling view that offenders were not only different but also trapped in inferior bodies—bodies that made them candidates for extirpation—was sufficiently popular at this time in history to demand a systematic rejoinder.

Merton and Ashley-Montagu were at their best, perhaps, when they revisited Hooton’s data that provided bodily measurements such as the breadth and depth of the chest, weight, head length and circumference, and nose height. To assess inferiority, they categorized these bodily features in terms of how closely they matched the characteristics of apes—our supposedly inferior ancestors on the evolutionary tree. Much to their amusement, we suspect, they showed that in many ways certain types of offenders had fewer ape-like bodily features and thus arguably were more organically advanced than civilians! More to the point, although not dismissing the possibility that biology played a role in offending, Merton and Ashley-Montagu (1940) suggested that the sources of criminal behavior were decidedly cultural and social. This entertaining comparison of angels to criminals illuminates their sociocultural theoretical preference:

Actually, what we wish to do here is to suggest that the differences between the angels and the criminals are only skin deep; that the criminal may not have sprouted wings as the angels have done, not because it was not in them to do so, but because their wings were clipped before they were ready to try them. (Merton & Ashley-Montagu, 1940, p. 385)

But what was it precisely that “clipped the wings” of individuals and thus transformed them, regardless of bodily constitution, into criminals? Merton might have embraced the most prominent sociological theory of the day—that of the Chicago school. He was familiar with their writings—familiar enough, in fact, to ask Edwin Sutherland to comment on a prepublication version of the essay he authored with Ashley-Montagu (Merton, 1984). Merton, however, would not seek to embrace or to elaborate the insights of the Chicago school. It is not so much that he rejected the theorizing of Shaw and McKay and of Sutherland but that he thought that other factors—conditions fundamental to American society in general and not peculiar to the slums —were at the core of the nation’s crime and deviance. For Merton the key ingredient to crime was not neighborhood disorganization but the “American Dream”—a message sent to all citizens that they should strive for social ascent as manifested by economic well-being. The inability of many Americans to achieve this goal—after all, there must be some losers in the race for success—had dire consequences for the society.

As might be recalled, the main theorists in the Chicago school hailed from small rural towns. In comparison to their stable communities of origin, the city struck them as disorganized; it was a short step to trace crime to this social disruption. Ironically, Merton grew up in a city slum but was not drawn to disorganization theory. Born in 1910, his experiences taught him that poor neighborhoods were diverse, complex social spaces. Although impoverishment, gangs, and wayward behavior were present, there also were libraries, good people,

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and the possibility of upward mobility—as his own biography demonstrated (Cullen & Messner, 2007). He would later comment that if “sociologists did more probing,” they “would get away from the generic notion that a slum environment is wholly and solely conducive to delinquency in life” (quoted in Cullen & Messner, 2007, p. 16).

In this chapter, we begin by reviewing Merton’s theory, showing how he identified two sources of crime and deviance: anomie and strain. We then review how his perspective was applied by Albert Cohen and by Richard Cloward and Lloyd Ohlin in the explanation of gang delinquency. Their books shaped the development of early American criminology and remain standard reading for criminologists today.

Because these writings laid the foundation for the anomie-strain paradigm, they are often grouped under the umbrella of classic strain theory. This label distinguishes these perspectives from more contemporary approaches. As we discuss, classic strain theory’s popularity waned after the 1960s. However, the two strands of Merton’s theory were revitalized in the influential writings of (1) Robert Agnew, who set forth general strain theory, and (2) Steven Messner and Richard Rosenfeld, who set forth institutional-anomie theory. These perspectives, and two related approaches—one on African American offending and one on the market economy and crime—are presented. As in other chapters, we end with a discussion of the policy implications of this major school of criminological thought.

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Merton’s Strain Theory

In 1938, Robert K. Merton published “Social Structure and Anomie.” The original article extended only 10 pages—other elaborations by Merton (1957, 1964, 1968, 1995) followed—but it succeeded in defining an approach that captured the imagination of criminologists. As we will see, Merton’s paradigm became particularly influential during the 1960s, shaping both theory and policy in important ways. Even today, his theorizing occupies a prominent place in criminological writings (Adler & Laufer, 1995; Bernard, 1984; Cullen, 1984; Messner, 1988; Passas & Agnew, 1997). Thus, we begin by reviewing Merton’s main theoretical assertions and then follow this discussion by considering the context that shaped strain theory over the years.

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America as a Criminogenic Society

The Chicago school believed that the roots of crime were embedded predominantly in one area of American society—city slums—and that people became criminal by learning deviant cultural values. Although Merton never rejected this formulation, he outlined a very different social process—one involving conformity to conventional cultural values—that he believed produced high rates of crime and deviance.

Structurally Induced Strain.

The United States, in Merton’s eyes, is an unusual society, not simply because American culture places an extraordinary emphasis on economic success but also because this goal is universal—held up for all to want and achieve. Poor people are not taught to be satisfied with their lot but rather are instructed to pursue the “American dream.” Through hard work, it is said, even the lowliest among us can rise from rags to riches.

This widespread aspiration for success, however, has an ironic and unanticipated consequence. Merton (1968) cautioned that the “cardinal American virtue, ‘ambition,’” ultimately “promotes a cardinal American vice, ‘deviant behavior’” (p. 200). But why should the desire for social mobility lead to deviance? The problem, Merton observed, is that the social structure limits access to the goal of success through legitimate means (e.g., college education, corporate employment, family connections). Members of the lower class are particularly burdened because they start far behind in the race for success and must be exceptionally talented or fortunate to catch up. The disjunction between what the culture extols (universal striving for success) and what the social structure makes possible (limited legitimate opportunities), therefore, places large segments of the American population in the strain-engendering position of desiring a goal that they cannot reach through conventional means. This situation, Merton concluded, is not without important social consequences: It “produces intense pressure for deviation” (p. 199).

Typology of Adaptations.

Merton (1968) proposed that different ways existed for people to resolve the strains generated from the inability to attain success. To conceptualize these possible responses, he developed his classic typology that, as Table 4.1 shows, outlined five possible modes of adaptation.

Table 4.1 Merton’s Typology of Modes of Individual Adaptation Table 4.1 Merton’s Typology of Modes of Individual Adaptation

Mode of Adaptation Culture Goals Institutionalized Means

I. Conformity + +

II. Innovation + −

III. Ritualism − +

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IV. Retreatism − −

V. Rebellion ± ± Source: From Social Theory and Social Structure, Revised & Enlarged edition by Robert K. Merton. Copyright © 1967, 1968 by The Free Press; copyright renewed 1985 by Robert K. Merton. Reprinted with the permission of The Free Press, a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc. All rights reserved. Note: Plus sign (+) signifies acceptance; minus sign (−) signifies rejection; plus and minus sign (±) signifies rejection of prevailing values and substitution of new values.

Merton realized that most people, even if they found their social ascent limited, did not deviate. Instead, the modal response was for people to conform, to continue to ascribe to the cultural success goal, and to believe in the legitimacy of the conventional or institutionalized means through which success was to be attained. But for many others, the strain of their situation proved to be intolerable, making a conformity adaptation increasingly difficult. Because the disjunction between means and goal was the source of their problem, a requisite for alleviating strain was changing their cultural goal and/or withdrawing their allegiance to institutionalized means. In following either or both courses, however, they were deviating from norms prescribing what should be desired (success) or how this should be achieved (legitimate means such as education or employment).

Thus, Merton (1957, 1968) delineated four deviant modes of adaptation. He believed that much criminal behavior could be categorized as innovation because this adaptation encompasses those who continue to embrace pecuniary success as a worthy end but turn to illegitimate means when they find their legitimate prospects for economic gain blocked. The behavior of the robber barons, white-collar criminals, and scientists who report discoveries based on fraudulent research are examples of how the intense desire for success can produce innovation among the more affluent. Even so, this adaptation appears to be prevalent particularly in the lower strata. Faced with the “absence of realistic opportunities for advancement,” the disadvantaged are especially vulnerable to the “promises of power and high income from organized vice, rackets, and crime” (Merton, 1968, p. 199).

By contrast, ritualists maintain outward conformity to the norms governing institutionalized means. They mitigate their strain, however, by scaling down their aspirations to the point where these ends can be reached comfortably. Despite cultural mandates to pursue the goal of success, they are content to avoid taking risks and to live within the confines of their daily routines.

Retreatists make a more dramatic response. Strained by expectations of social ascent through conventional lifestyles, they relinquish allegiance to both the cultural success goal and the norms prescribing acceptable ways of climbing the economic ladder. These are people who “are in society but not of it,” and they escape society’s requirements through various deviant means—alcoholism, drug addiction, psychosis, vagrancy, and so on (Merton, 1968, p. 207). Suicide, of course, is the ultimate retreat.

Finally, Merton described as rebellious citizens who not only reject but also wish to change the existing system. Alienated from prevailing ends and normative standards, they propose to substitute a new set of goals and means. In American society, an example of a rebel might be a socialist who argues for group success rather

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than individual success and for norms mandating the distribution of wealth equally and according to need rather than unequally and according to the outcome of ruthless competition.

Anomie.

Because much of Merton’s analysis detailed the social sources of strains potent enough to generate high rates of nonconformity, scholars often have referred to his perspective as strain theory (Empey, 1982; Hirschi, 1969; Kornhauser, 1978; Vold & Bernard, 1986). But Merton did not simply identify why individuals might face strains that prompt them to seek a deviant adaptation, including crime. Indeed, we can recall that Merton (1938) titled his classic article “Social Structure and Anomie”—not “Social Structure and Strain.” What role does anomie play in the genesis of crime?

Merton borrowed the notion of anomie—normlessness or deregulation, as it usually is defined—from Émile Durkheim, the French sociologist. In his classic work, Suicide, Durkheim (1897/1951) used the concept to describe a social condition in which institutionalized norms lost their power to regulate human needs and action. He argued further that as Western society modernized, a great emphasis was placed on “achieving industrial prosperity” without corresponding attention to restraining people’s appetites for success. This development, he observed, had left the economic sphere in a “chronic state” of anomie. People now were free, if not encouraged, to seek seemingly limitless economic success. But disquieting consequences befell those who succumbed to those temptations. “Overweening ambition,” Durkheim warned, “always exceeds the results obtained, great as they may be, since there is no warning to pause here. Nothing gives satisfaction, and all this agitation is uninterruptedly maintained without appeasement” (p. 253). For many, suicide posed the only means of escape from the pain of “being thrown back.” We return to Durkheim’s theorizing in Chapter 5.

Merton did not buy Durkheim’s framework whole cloth, but he did borrow selectively from it (Cullen, 1984; Vold & Bernard, 1986). Most important, perhaps, he learned that institutionalized norms will weaken— anomie will take hold—in societies placing an intense value on economic success. When this occurs, the pursuit of success no longer is guided by normative standards of right and wrong; instead, “the sole significant question becomes: Which of the available procedures is most efficient in netting the culturally approved value?” (Merton, 1968, pp. 189, 211). The Wall Street insider-trading and banking scandals provide examples of how the widespread preoccupation with amassing fortunes results in a breakdown of institutionalized norms—anomie sets in—and fosters the unbridled pursuit of pecuniary rewards.

We also should add that innovative conduct becomes especially prevalent as anomie intensifies. In contrast to ritualism (or to conformity), this adaptation requires an ability to relinquish commitment to institutionalized means in favor of illegitimate means. Fluctuations in levels of anomie, whether over time or within certain sectors of society at any given time, can be expected to determine not only overall rates of deviance but also rates of particular kinds of deviance—including crime, the prototypical innovative response.

Anomie and deviance, moreover, are mutually reinforcing. The weakening of institutionalized norms initially allows a limited number of people to violate socially approved standards. But such deviance, once completed

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successfully and observed by others, poses a concrete challenge to the norms’ legitimacy. This process, Merton (1968) noted, “enlarges the extent of anomie within the system” (p. 234), and this in turn heightens the chance that waywardness will become more pervasive.

The escalating use of marijuana perhaps illustrates this phenomenon. As norms prohibiting its use lost strength during the 1960s—claims of “reefer madness” were ridiculed—increasing numbers of youths experimented with the substance, typically in social situations. This widely observed, if not flaunted, deviant behavior undermined the legitimacy of institutionalized norms, even to the point where in some locales police and courts refused to enforce existing laws and recreational use was decriminalized. Thus, anomie became pervasive, and restraints against “smoking pot” were vitiated greatly—a development that made marijuana use even more pervasive.

Rejecting Individualism.

In sum, Merton contended that the very nature of American society generates considerable crime and deviance. The disjunction between the cultural and social structures places many citizens, but particularly the disadvantaged, in the position of desiring unreachable goals. Tremendous strains are engendered that move many people to find deviant ways of resolving this situation. The cultural emphasis on success, moreover, diminishes the power of institutional norms to regulate behavior. As anomie becomes prevalent, people are free to pursue success goals with whatever means are available—legitimate or illegitimate. In this situation, innovation—an adaptation encompassing many forms of crime—becomes possible, if not likely.

Similar to the Chicago theorists, Merton located the roots of crime and deviance within the very fabric of American society. Again, the Chicago school stressed the criminogenic role of the city and of conformity to a criminal culture, whereas Merton stressed the criminogenic role of conformity to the universal and conventional cultural goal of pecuniary success. This difference aside, however, both perspectives rejected the notion that crime’s origins lay within individuals’ minds or bodies.

Indeed, Merton was especially vociferous in his attack on the individualist explanations that prevailed during the 1930s (Merton & Ashley-Montagu, 1940). Most of these theories, he explained, were based on the fallacious premise that the primary impulse for evil lay within human nature. By contrast, Merton (1968) argued for a perspective that “considers socially deviant behavior just as much a product of social structure as conformist behavior” and that “conceives of the social structure as active, as producing fresh motivations which cannot be predicted on the basis of knowledge about man’s native drives” (p. 175).

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Strain Theory in Context

Merton was 28 years old and teaching at Harvard University when “Social Structure and Anomie” was published in 1938. Eventually, he would become a professor at Columbia University (in 1941) and be elected as president of the American Sociological Association. As noted, however, his origins were more modest. He was born in the slums of South Philadelphia and attended college only by winning a scholarship to Temple University and then a graduate assistantship to Harvard (Hunt, 1961; Persell, 1984).

Linking personal biography to a scholar’s theorizing involves a degree of speculation. Still, Merton’s life seems to mirror the two core features of his paradigm: the significance of the cultural message for all to pursue the American dream and the differential opportunities people had to reach this universal goal.

Thus, Merton’s ascent from city slums to elite institutions—from South Philadelphia to Harvard and Columbia—meant that he had lived the American dream. In a very personal way, he also assimilated into the dominant culture. A little-known fact is that Merton, the son of eastern European Jewish immigrants, was born with the name Meyer R. Schkolnick. While a teenager doing a magic act at local events such as birthday parties, he followed the lead of other prominent entertainers in changing his name first to “Robert Merlin” and then, realizing the tackiness of this choice, to “Robert King Merton.” He became widely known among friends and at school as “Bob Merton” and chose to retain this Americanized name as he went off to college (Cullen & Messner, 2007).

In short, for Merton, the dominant reality was not ethnic and racial heterogeneity and culture conflict—ideas highlighted by the Chicago school theorists. For Merton, the defining reality of the United States was cultural homogeneity and universalism—the fact that Americans shared a dream and an identity. For Merton, there were powerful forces that pushed everyone to become an American and to embrace the national culture of social ascent.

At the same time, it seems reasonable to suggest that Merton’s boyhood social context also shaped the theoretical emphasis that he placed on the structural limitations to social mobility. As discussed previously, Merton did not believe that inner-city neighborhoods were fully disorganized and inherently criminogenic (Cullen & Messner, 2007). Still, he was not blind to the limits to mobility that inhered in lower-class origins. Upward mobility certainly was possible—as his own life attested. But as Pfohl (1985) notes, “Most of Merton’s slum neighbors did not fare so well,” and this was “a lesson of slum life which Merton never forgot” (p. 211). Merton also had experienced the Great Depression and witnessed the consequence of large numbers of people falling to the bottom rungs of society and being deprived of the opportunity to reach what they had been taught to desire.

In contrast to the Chicago school, then, Merton did not believe that life in a slum neighborhood inevitably was criminogenic. In his boyhood community, the families were not all disorganized and criminal traditions were not ever-present. Residents wanted to be Americans and to live the nation’s cultural dream. Thus, youngsters were led into crime not so much by life in the slum, as the Chicago school claimed, but the denial

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of the opportunity to leave the slum.

Regardless of how Merton came to formulate his paradigm, one point is clear: His article “Social Structure and Anomie” (Merton, 1938) is perhaps the most cited article not only in criminology but in sociology as a whole (Pfohl, 1985). Even so, the article did not receive widespread attention until nearly two decades after its 1938 publication (Pfohl, 1985; see also Cole, 1975). The sudden interest in his work during the late 1950s and early 1960s was prompted in part by the appearance of two important books on juvenile gangs that drew heavily from Merton’s theorizing: Cohen’s (1955) Delinquent Boys and Cloward and Ohlin’s (1960) Delinquency and Opportunity. We also can point to the effects of Merton’s (1957, 1959, 1964, 1968) own renewed interest in elaborating his earlier article.

These observations by themselves, however, do not offer a complete explanation of why, as the United States entered the 1960s, criminologists became so intensely fascinated by this particular way of thinking about crime as opposed to some other set of ideas. The social context of the time, we believe, must be considered as well.

As Charles Murray noted, prior to 1960 poverty was not viewed—in political circles at least—as a major social problem rooted in the very structure of American society (Murray, 1984). By the early part of the 1960s, however, a fundamental transformation in thinking had occurred. An increasing consensus had emerged, Murray (1984) argued, that poverty “was not the just deserts of people who didn’t try hard enough. It was produced by conditions that had nothing to do with individual virtue and effort. Poverty was not the fault of the individual but of the system” (p. 29, emphasis in original). The civil rights movement, moreover, provided a language for conceptualizing this issue: Minorities and other disadvantaged citizens were being denied “equal opportunity.”

This view of the world was embraced increasingly by government officials, journalists, and academics (Murray, 1984). Criminologists also were influenced profoundly by the legitimacy now given to the idea that large segments of the U.S. population were denied access to the American dream. In this context, it becomes understandable why Merton’s theory and offshoots, such as the delinquency books by Cohen (1955) and by Cloward and Ohlin (1960), suddenly gained attention. At the core of Merton’s paradigm was the lesson that the United States was a society in which all were expected to ascend economically but whose very structure denied equal opportunity to attain this cherished goal. To criminologists of the 1960s, this premise rang true. It made sense that crime and deviance would be a consequence of a system that was to blame for unfairly holding back many of its citizens.

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Status Discontent and Delinquency

As indicated previously, the writings of Albert Cohen and of Richard Cloward and Lloyd Ohlin represented important extensions of Merton’s deviance approach. Although these scholars offered different variants of strain theory, they shared common themes. First, they investigated how the theory could be applied to the study of juvenile gangs in urban areas. Second, they focused on the origins and effects of delinquent subcultural norms. Third, they drew not only from Merton’s structural tradition but also from the Chicago school.

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Delinquent Boys

While still an undergraduate at Harvard, Albert K. Cohen enrolled in a senior course instructed by a young professor, Robert K. Merton. Although a talented student and inspired to apply to graduate school, Cohen, who was Jewish, was rejected by more than a dozen universities due to the anti-Semitism that prevailed at that time. About to relinquish his pursuit of an academic career, he belatedly received a telegram from Edwin H. Sutherland offering him an assistantship at Indiana University. Cohen had lived his entire life in Boston, but he was off to Indiana University in 1939, where he took a seminar run by Edwin H. Sutherland. As might be expected, his fortuitous encounter with two influential and persuasive scholars—Merton and now Sutherland —prompted Cohen to ponder how notions of cultural transmission and structurally induced strain might be reconciled (Cullen, Chouhy, Butler, & Lee, 2019; Laub, 1983; Young, 2010).

Sutherland had convinced Cohen that differential association with a criminal culture would lead youths into legal trouble. Yet Cohen also believed that this thesis of cultural transmission begged more fundamental questions. Where did the criminal culture come from? Why did such subcultures have a specific social distribution, locating themselves in slum areas? Why did the subcultures have a particular normative content? And why did these values persist from generation to generation?

After serving in the military in World War II, Cohen was permitted to return to Harvard for his doctorate, where he addressed these questions in his dissertation. A much-revised version was published in 1955 carrying the title Delinquent Boys: The Culture of the Gang. He began by making several important observations: Delinquent gangs and the subcultural values they embrace are concentrated in urban slums. Moreover, the content of these subcultures not only is supportive of crime but also is “nonutilitarian, malicious, and negativistic” (p. 25). Because slum youths learn and act based on these values, they engage in delinquency that is contemptuous of authority and irrational to conventional citizens. Seemingly, the only guide for their conduct is that they do things for “the hell of it.”

To account for these patterns, Cohen (1955) proposed that delinquent subcultures, like all subcultures, arise in response to the special problems that people face. Following Merton’s insights, he noted that lower-class youths are disadvantaged in their efforts to be successful and achieve status in conventional institutions. Schools, which embody middle-class values, present a particular obstacle: Poor kids lack the early socialization and resources to compete successfully with their counterparts from more affluent families. Consequently, they are “denied status in the respectable society because they cannot meet the criteria of the respectable status system” (p. 121).

How can these status problems be solved? “The delinquent subculture,” Cohen contended, “deals with these problems by providing criteria of status which these children can meet” (p. 121). In a process approximating a reaction formation, lower-class youths reject the middle-class goals and norms that they have been taught to desire but by which they are judged inadequate. In place of middle-class standards, they substitute a set of oppositional values. If conventional society values ambition, responsibility, rationality, courtesy, control of physical aggression, and respect for authority, then these youths will place a premium on behavior that violates

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these principles. Accordingly, status will be accorded to compatriots who are truant, flout authority, fight, and vandalize property for “kicks.”

In short, Cohen (1955) suggested that the strains of class-based status discontent are conducive to the emergence of subcultural values supportive of delinquency. Lower-class youths, thrown together in high- density urban neighborhoods and saddled with a common problem, find a common solution in embracing values that provide both the chance to gain status and the psychic satisfaction of rejecting respectable values that lie beyond their reach. Because American society continues to present each new generation of urban youths with status problems, a structural basis exists for the persistence of these delinquent norms and the gang organization they nourish. Moreover, once in existence, the subculture assumes a reality of its own. As the Chicago theorists taught, this criminal culture can be transmitted to youths in the neighborhood. Cohen cautioned that even juveniles whose status discontent is insufficient in itself to motivate delinquency can be attracted by the lure of the gang and its offer of friendship, excitement, and protection.

One more observation merits consideration. It is important to recognize that like Merton, Cohen grew up in a northern city—Merton in Philadelphia and he in a working-class Jewish neighborhood in Boston (Laub, 1983; Young, 2010). The major form of social stratification was ethnicity and class. When Cohen returned to Harvard, he was influenced by William F. Whyte’s (1955) Street Corner Society, a study of an Italian slum in the North End of Boston originally published in 1943. Whyte had distinguished between “college boys” who were upwardly mobile and “corner boys” who would remain in the local community and be deprived of the American dream. Whyte’s insights shaped Cohen’s view of how most slum youths are ill-prepared to succeed in middle-class institutions, such as the school. Note that similar to other scholars of his day, Cohen paid little attention to race. In large part, this neglect was because the Great Migration of African Americans from the South to the North would mainly occur after 1940. In 1950, Blacks constituted only 5% of Boston’s population (Cullen et al., 2019).

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Delinquency and Opportunity

Like Cohen’s analysis, Richard Cloward and Lloyd Ohlin’s work brought together the traditions of the Chicago school and strain theory. As with Cohen, personal circumstance ostensibly played a role in making possible this attempt at a theoretical merger. Ohlin had studied under Sutherland and later received his doctorate from the University of Chicago. Cloward had been Merton’s student at Columbia. Eventually, they became colleagues on Columbia’s social work faculty (Laub, 1983) and entered into a collaboration that bore the important fruit of opportunity theory (Cloward & Ohlin, 1960; see also Cloward, 1959).

From Merton, Cloward and Ohlin learned that the social structure generates pressures for deviance, pressures experienced most intensely in the lower class. Similar to Cohen’s extension of Merton’s work, they argued that slum youths face the problem of lacking the legitimate means—the opportunity—to be successful and earn status. In American society, where success in school and careers is valued and rewarded so greatly, this failure presents a special problem: the strain of status discontentment. “The disparity between what lower-class youths are led to want and what is actually available to them,” as Cloward and Ohlin (1960) put it, “is the source of a major problem of adjustment.” It causes “intense frustrations,” and the “exploration of nonconformist alternatives may be the result” (p. 86).

But Cloward and Ohlin also drew an important lesson from the writings of the Chicago theorists. In reading works such as The Professional Thief (Sutherland, 1937) and The Jack-Roller (Shaw, 1930), which elucidated how criminal roles are learned through cultural transmission, they were led to the conclusion that people are not free to become any type of criminal or deviant they would like. To become a doctor or lawyer, one must, of course, have access to the requisite legitimate means (e.g., education, financial resources). This logic, they reasoned, could be extended to the criminal world: To become a professional thief or jack-roller, one must have access to the requisite illegitimate means (e.g., contact with thieves, residence in a slum neighborhood).

This lesson from the Chicago school helped to resolve a shortcoming of Merton’s paradigm. As discussed previously, Merton noted that strain could be adapted to through innovation, ritualism, retreatism, or rebellion. He provided only rudimentary insights, however, on the conditions under which a person would choose one adaptation rather than another. Cloward and Ohlin proposed that the Chicago school furnished an answer to this question of why individuals adapt to strain in one way and not others: The selection of adaptations is regulated by the availability throughout the social structure of illegitimate means. Thus, affluent people might have access to the financial positions needed to embezzle or to embark on insider-trading schemes. By contrast, although precluded from white-collar crime, lower-class residents might have access to friends who can help them to rob or who can teach them how to fence stolen goods.

Notably, Cloward and Ohlin believed that the concept of illegitimate means could illuminate why delinquent subcultures existed in slum areas and why they took a particular form. One relevant consideration was that lower-class youths experienced high levels of strain. But this factor in itself explains only why youths might be motivated to violate the law, not why subcultural responses of a particular type emerge. “To account for the development of pressures toward deviance,” Cloward and Ohlin cautioned, “does not sufficiently explain why

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these pressures result in one deviant solution rather than another” (p. 34).

Accordingly, Cloward and Ohlin (1960) proposed that delinquent subcultures could emerge and persist only in areas where enough youths were concentrated to band together and to support one another’s alienation from conventional values. They further observed, however, that the type of collective response that the youths could make would be shaped intimately by the neighborhood in which they resided. In organized slum areas, for example, criminal subcultures are possible because older offenders serve as role models for a stable criminal life and train youths in the performance of illegal enterprises (e.g., through fencing stolen merchandise).

In more disorganized neighborhoods, on the other hand, access to such organized criminal apprenticeships is absent. Lacking the opportunity to embark on more lucrative, utilitarian illegal careers, youths turn to violence as a way of establishing a “rep” or social status. Therefore, conditions are ripe for the emergence of a “conflict” or fighting-oriented subculture.

Cloward and Ohlin (1960) also identified a third subcultural form: the “retreatist” or drug-using subculture. These groupings arise when sufficient numbers of youths exist who have been “double failures”—people who have failed to achieve status through either legitimate or illegitimate means. These lower-class juveniles not only have been unsuccessful in conventional settings such as the school but also “have failed to find a place for themselves in criminal or conflict subcultures.” As a result, they look to “drugs as a solution” to their “status dilemma” (p. 183).

One final point warrants emphasis. Although Cloward and Ohlin focused their substantive analysis on delinquent subcultures, they believed that their opportunity theory—a consolidation of the cultural transmission and strain traditions—offered a general framework for studying crime and deviance (Cloward, 1959; Cloward & Piven, 1979). Again, they were persuaded that Merton had identified a major source of pressures for deviance—denial of legitimate opportunity—but that strain theory was incomplete without a systematic explanation of why people solve their status problems in one way and not another. The issue of the selection of adaptations, they believed, could be answered only by focusing on how the illegitimate opportunity structure regulated access to different forms of crime/deviance for people located at different points in society (Cullen, 1984). Thus, white-collar crime and mugging represent two possible innovative methods to acquire financial resources. Even so, participation in one of these offenses rather than the other is determined not by strain but by social class differentials in the availability of illegitimate opportunities.

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The Criminological Legacy of “Classic” Strain Theory

As strain theory emerged during the early 1960s as the most prominent criminological explanation, it won considerable attention not only from adherents but also from opponents (Cole, 1975). The perspective’s critics developed a variety of lines of attack (for summaries, see Empey, 1982; Pfohl, 1985; Vold & Bernard, 1986).

Some scholars, for example, have questioned whether in a society as diverse as the United States, all citizens ascribed to the goal of pecuniary success. At the very least, possible variations in the degree to which different groups were effectively socialized into the American dream would have to be investigated. Other scholars have disparaged strain theory for assuming that strain and deviance were more prevalent in the lower classes. This class-biased assumption is said to ignore white-collar crime and to convey the impression that lawlessness is exclusively a lower-class problem (but see Merton, 1957, 1968). Still other, more radical scholars have expressed concern over Merton’s failure to offer a broader, more penetrating analysis (Taylor, Walton, & Young, 1973). In this view, Merton succeeded in identifying a contradiction central to U.S. society—an open- class ideology and a restricted class structure—but stopped short of asking why this condition originated and persists unabated. The answer, according to Pfohl (1985), is that “the political-economic structure of capitalism must be seen as a basic source of the contradictions which produce high rates of deviance” (p. 234).

The attempts of Cohen (1955) and of Cloward and Ohlin (1960) to explain delinquent subcultures have been criticized as well. Commentators most frequently have questioned whether these theorists described the content of subcultures accurately. Cohen (1955) portrayed delinquents as embracing “nonutilitarian, malicious, and negativistic” values, but some youths’ criminality is consumption oriented and ostensibly utilitarian. Similarly, Cloward and Ohlin (1960) delineated three distinct subcultural forms—criminal, conflict, and retreatist—but delinquents appear to mix these activities. “Delinquent boys,” Empey (1982) observed, “drink, steal, burglarize, damage property, smoke pot, or even experiment with heroin and pills, but rarely do they limit themselves to any single one of these activities” (p. 250; see also Short & Strodtbeck, 1965).

Although these observations have merit, it is important to distinguish between the theorists’ substantive analysis of subcultures (which might be in need of revision) and the general framework that they suggest for the study of crime. Cohen (1955) and Cloward and Ohlin (1960) not only identified potentially important sources of youthful disaffiliation from conventional norms but also raised the critical theoretical question of why certain forms of crime (e.g., delinquent gangs, white-collar criminality) are distributed differentially throughout the social structure. Thus, even if these authors’ description of juvenile subcultures did not prove to be fully satisfactory, their challenge to criminologists to explain the emergence, persistence, and differential selection of criminal adaptations remains valid.

Finally, an empirical critique has been leveled against strain theory. Contrary to the perspective’s predictions that frustrated ambitions push people outside the law, some researchers have reported that high aspirations are associated with conformity and that low aspirations are associated with delinquent involvement (Hirschi, 1969; Kornhauser, 1978). Bernard’s (1984) assessment of available research studies, however, showed that

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empirical data exist that are supportive of strain theory (see also Burton & Cullen, 1992; Cole, 1975). Moreover, studies that claim to falsify the perspective’s premises often use questionable measures of key concepts and do not systematically assess all of the theory’s components (Bernard, 1984; Burton & Cullen, 1992; Messner, 1988). For example, most studies rarely assess whether individuals actually experience strain. In this regard, the findings of a community self-report study of adults conducted by Agnew, Cullen, Burton, Evans, and Dunaway (1996) are instructive. In a “new test of classical strain theory,” these authors reported that people who express dissatisfaction with how much money they make are, as strain theory would predict, more likely to engage in income-generating crime and drug use.

Despite these considerations, it must be admitted that the popularity of strain theory, which dominated criminologists’ attention during the 1960s, lessened thereafter. Some scholars were critical for purely intellectual reasons. But as we have cautioned, the popularity of criminological theories also is shaped, perhaps more profoundly, by changes in the social context that make previously cherished ideas seem odd and make new ideas seem a matter of common sense. Particularly as we discuss the labeling and conflict perspectives (see Chapters 7 and 8, respectively, in this volume), we will see how events during the late 1960s and early 1970s caused many criminologists to shift their allegiance to theories that emphasized the role of the state and of power in defining what is crime and why people engage in it.

All of this is not to imply, however, that strain theory was relegated to the criminological scrap heap; quite the contrary. Although the paradigm’s appeal diminished, it remains required reading for criminologists and serves as a standard against which newer theories often are compared and tested (Burton & Cullen, 1992). More important, starting around 1990—slowly at first and then with more momentum—a renewed interest in strain theory cropped up (see, e.g., Adler & Laufer, 1995; Agnew, 1992, 2006a, 2006b; Cullen, 1988; Messner, 1988; Passas, 1990; Passas & Agnew, 1997; Rosenfeld, 1989). Particularly significant were efforts that build on and revise the insights of traditional or classic strain theory. In particular, two important lines of inquiry emerged as major contemporary explanations of crime: Agnew’s general strain theory and Messner and Rosenfeld’s analysis of crime and the American dream.

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Agnew’s General Strain Theory

Robert Agnew’s key insight was that theorizing in the Mertonian school of strain theory is not so much wrong as it is limited. According to Agnew (1992), Merton and status frustration theorists identified one type of criminogenic strain: “relationships in which others prevent the individual from achieving positively valued goals” (p. 50), such as economic success and status in a high school. However, there may be other kinds of negative relations or situations that create strain and prompt people to break the law. The time has come, Agnew observed, to move beyond Merton’s paradigm, which he termed classic strain theory, and to explore these other sources of criminogenic strain. In short, the challenge is to develop a general strain theory of crime.

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Becoming a Strain Theorist

While a doctoral student at the University of North Carolina, Agnew (2011a) was interested in studying the sources of creativity. This project did not come to fruition, because no accessible data set on creativity existed, leaving Agnew with the challenge of how to complete his dissertation. “With each passing week,” he recollected, “my level of strain increased. To paraphrase Albert Cohen (1955), I had a problem and was in the market for a solution” (Agnew, 2011a, p. 140). A fellow graduate student alerted him to the Youth in Transition survey, which contained, among other variables, measures of delinquency.

With data now in hand, Agnew vigorously delved into the delinquency literature and, despite criticisms of the perspective, was persuaded that a broader version of strain theory held promise. His work was informed by his knowledge of social psychology. Classic strain theory, he felt, focused on a kind of strain—the inability to attain future economic success—that was too distant or far in the future to affect youths’ behavior. Albert Cohen (1955) was, to a degree, one exception, because he focused on the status frustration felt by students among their peers. In a similar way, Agnew wished to focus strain theory more on the everyday experiences that could create strain in people’s lives. Thus, for Agnew (2011a), the “major strains conducive to crime seemed to be more immediate in nature, such as being physically abused by a peer or having a serious argument with a family member. This insight was supported by the research in social psychology, including the stress and aggression research” (p. 141).

This line of inquiry eventually led to his developing a “revised strain theory” (Agnew, 1985), which was the prelude to his publication of his general strain theory in 1992. His most systematic presentation of the theory subsequently appeared in Pressured Into Crime: An Overview of General Strain Theory (Agnew, 2006b; see also Agnew, 2006a).

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Three Types of Strain

Again, Agnew argued that Merton’s classic strain theory identified one category of strain, which involved being blocked from desired goals. Unlike Merton, however, Agnew did not focus exclusively on economic goals. He expanded this type of strain to include blockage from any positively valued goal. This might include not attaining economic success, but it also might entail not making a sports team at school, not achieving status in one’s peer group, or not securing a date for a class prom. Beyond this innovation, he proposed two additional sources of strain (see Table 4.2).

Table 4.2 Agnew’s General Strain Theory: Types of Strain Table 4.2 Agnew’s General Strain Theory: Types of Strain

Types of Strain How Individuals Are Treated

Types of Strain Most Likely to Lead to Crime

1. Strain as the failure to achieve positively valued goals (traditional strain).

→ Individuals are unable to reach their goals.

1. The strain is seen as unjust.

2. The strain is high in magnitude.

2. Strain as the removal of positively valued stimuli from the individual.

→ Individuals lose something they value.

3. The strain is caused by or associated with low social control.

3. Strain as the presentation of negative stimuli.

→ Individuals are treated in a negative manner by others.

4. The strain creates some pressure or incentive to engage in criminal coping.

Source: Adapted from Agnew (2006a, 2006b).

First, Agnew (1992) argued that strain can be generated from the “actual or anticipated removal (loss) of positively valued stimuli from an individual” (p. 57). This strain might occur, for example, when parents take away privileges (e.g., use of the family automobile), when a student is kicked off an athletic team, when a dating relationship is terminated, when an individual’s job is eliminated, or when a loved one dies. In these situations, people might take drugs to manage the stress, or they might resort to illegal means to replace what was taken away (e.g., steal a car) or to seek revenge against those who caused their strain (e.g., assault a parent, coach, or boss).

Second, strain can be induced by the “actual or anticipated presentation of negative or noxious stimuli” (Agnew, 1992, p. 58). These adverse situations might include exposure to a sexually or physically abusive relationship, living in a family wracked by conflict, attending a dangerous school, and being supervised by a boss who is unfair or harassing. As Agnew (1992) pointed out, crime and delinquency may take place when people respond to this adversity by seeking to escape (e.g., running away from home), to eliminate or obtain

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revenge against the source of the stress (e.g., murder an abuser), or to dull the psychic pain by taking drugs.

In short, whereas classic strain theory focused on one category of strain, Agnew made the theory more general by identifying three categories of strain (see Table 4.2). In retrospect, this insight might seem simple since “anyone” would know that individuals face a variety of strains in their lives. But important theoretical advances often are “obvious” only after they have been illuminated. Further, such insights influence thinking only if they are presented in a way that promises to explain a phenomenon—in this case, crime—in a new way. Agnew succeeded at this task.

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Coping With Strain

Agnew assumed that, in general, the higher the dose of strain that a person experiences, the greater the likelihood of the person becoming engaged in crime or in some form of deviance. Even so, theorists in the classic strain theory tradition realized that strain is not related to crime in an ironclad way. Once people are under strain, they may or may not adapt to this state through criminal acts. (Recall Merton’s typology of adaptations in Table 4.1.) A complete theory of crime, therefore, must include not only an explanation of what causes strain but also an explanation of what causes people under strain to respond through criminal conduct. As noted, this insight also is found in the early work of Cloward and Ohlin (1960), who argued that access to different types of illegitimate means shapes the kind of adaptations people make to strain (see also Cullen, 1984).

Thus, Agnew (1992) set out to demarcate the “constraints to non-delinquent and delinquent coping” (pp. 66– 74)—that is, the variables that “condition” the response to strain. He identified a range of factors that diminish the risk of a criminal adaptation, such as the availability of other goals to substitute for blocked goals, individual coping resources (e.g., self-efficacy, intelligence), the delivery of social support from others, the fear of the consequences of legal punishments, the presence of strong social bonds, and the denial of access to illegitimate means. Other factors that foster the predisposition to criminality increase the likelihood of crime. These would include, for example, low self-control, prior criminal learning experiences (e.g., association with delinquent friends), the internalization of antisocial beliefs, and the tendency to blame others for being in strain-inducing predicaments. Note that Agnew borrowed many of his conditioning variables from other criminological theories (e.g., bonds, controls). Whereas these other theories would argue that these factors have a direct effect on crime, general strain theory contends that they increase criminal behavior only when they occur in conjunction with strain. For this reason, the conditioning variables often are measured in empirical tests with an interaction term (e.g., Strain × Number of Delinquent Friends).

Finally, Agnew included emotions within general strain theory. In his view, “negative emotions . . . create pressure for corrective action; individuals feel bad and want to do something about it” (Agnew, 2006a, p. 104). He focused, in particular, on the emotion of anger. General strain theory predicts that when strain elicits anger, crime (especially violent crime) is more likely to occur.

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Assessing General Strain Theory

Because Agnew stated general strain theory in a very clear way, the perspective has been subjected to numerous empirical tests from its inception to the present time (see, e.g., Agnew & White, 1992; Aseltine, Gore, & Gordon, 2000; Brezina, 1996; Chouhy et al., 2016; Hoffman & Miller, 1998; Hoffman & Su, 1997; Jang & Rhodes, 2012; Katz, 2000; Mazerolle, 1998; Mazerolle, Burton, Cullen, Evans, & Payne, 2000; Mazerolle & Maahs, 2000; Mazerolle & Piquero, 1997; Paternoster & Mazerolle, 1994; see also Kubrin et al., 2009). What does this research tell us about the perspective’s empirical support? Four conclusions are possible.

First, although the results are not consistent for every type of strain, there is consistent empirical evidence that exposure to strain increases the likelihood of criminal offending (Agnew 2006a, 2006b, 2013). The problem, however, is that the strains that can be encountered in life—and thus measured in empirical works—are seemingly unending. Such studies thus might show that strain-inducing situations are linked to crime, but they do not “make sense” of all the findings and tell us which strains are most criminogenic. Agnew (2001a, 2006b) understood this challenge and addressed it by identifying the strains that are most likely to lead to crime (see Table 4.2). This issue is discussed more fully in the following section.

Second, although some positive findings emerge, studies provide less support for the idea that adaptations to strain are conditioned by a range of other factors. This finding may occur because the methodology of using an interaction term (i.e., Strain × Conditioning Variable) is too crude to capture the complex way in which strain is conditioned by individual and social factors (Agnew, 2013). But another possibility is that the conditioning variables identified by Agnew mainly have direct effects on criminal behavior rather than coming into play when a person is under strain. For example, low self-control may cause crime by itself—that is, regardless of whether strain is present or absent. In fact, this is the position that control theorists would take (Gottfredson & Hirschi, 1990; see also Hirschi, 1969). These inconsistent findings have led Agnew (2013) to elaborate his theory—an issue that is addressed in the following section.

However, using sophisticated statistical techniques, Agnew has joined with Sherrod Thaxton in presenting an important test of conditioning effects. Thaxton and Agnew (in press) employed a sample of nearly 6,000 youths from across the United States to examine whether criminal coping to three strains (victimization, police strain, and school strain) was more likely among those with a high overall criminal propensity (measured by an index of 10 risk factors) and gang membership. Their analysis revealed that consistent with the predictions of GST, these youths were more involved in delinquency. As Thaxton and Agnew (in press) conclude, this finding “suggests that individuals must possess a range of factors conducive to criminal coping before a criminal response to strain is likely.”

Third, there is some evidence that the combination of strain and anger increases the risk of criminal conduct. What remains to be clarified, however, is whether strain creates anger, which then leads to crime, or whether people who are angry are more likely to create strain in their lives, which then leads to crime. Of course, both of these causal links to crime are possible (Mazerolle et al., 2000; Mazerolle & Piquero, 1997).

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Fourth, most of the tests of general strain theory are drawn from self-report studies of youths who attend school and live with their families (for an exception, see Chouhy, Cullen, & Unnever, 2016). Further support for this perspective, however, comes from Bill McCarthy and John Hagan’s research on delinquency among youths who have left home and are living on the streets (Hagan & McCarthy, 1997; McCarthy & Hagan, 1992). Consistent with Agnew’s work, their analysis reveals how adverse or noxious conditions can result in delinquent involvement both directly and indirectly. They observed that youths who leave home often live on “mean streets,” where they experience hunger, unemployment, and a lack of shelter. In a direct attempt to alleviate these adverse situations, they steal food and obtain money by pilfering property and by prostitution. Other adverse conditions influence delinquency indirectly by causing youths to take to the streets in the first place. Thus, youths who are raised in families where they are sexually and physically abused are more likely to escape this adversity by leaving home—only to find themselves facing the pressures for crime inherent in the deprivations of street life.

Equally relevant, ethnographic studies show that strain matters as well on the other end of the socioeconomic spectrum, in middle-class communities (see, e.g., Currie, 2004). Because of their diverse sources—not just economic but relational—strains are universal across society. Simon Singer’s 2014 award-winning book, America’s Safest City: Delinquency and Modernity in Suburbia, illustrates this reality (see Cullen, 2016). Using multiple methods, Singer studied how youths find their place and make transitions to adulthood in Amherst, New York, an affluent suburban city bordering Buffalo that Money magazine rated the “safest of all American cities” (Singer, 2014, p. 15). Despite this accolade, delinquency, as well as school cheating, were pervasive, both exceeding 70%, whereas substance use was 67%—though only a small fraction of these lawbreakers were arrested and sent to juvenile court. Importantly, Singer shows that modernity exposes these youngsters to special challenges, noting that “misfortunes, depression, illnesses, and a range of other troubles can happen to anyone at any time” (p. 267). These youths live in late-modern America in which they have the benefits of affluence but the necessity of achieving autonomy, rationality, conformity to moral and social rules, and educational success in a world of assertive parents and potential social isolation. In particular, they must establish “relational attachment” to adults and others—which may occur imperfectly—and face an array of problems that would fall neatly into the three categories of strain identified by Agnew’s general strain theory.

Although a few youths facing these strains experience tragic life outcomes (e.g., jail, suicide), most do not. In Agnew’s terms, this avoidance of crime is because their conditioning variables knife off criminal coping. Singer shows that social class matters in two ways. First, middle-class adults—whether parents, teachers, therapists, or even police—try to avoid using the juvenile justice system when kids get into trouble. They believe in the redeemability of these youths and understand that involvement in the justice system may be damaging. Second, adults in an affluent community have the capacity to deliver sustained social support to wayward youngsters, including guidance, emotional understanding, and diversion into a treatment program (see Cullen, 1994). The broader point is that qualitative research that captures the granular details of the actual lives of adolescents—as opposed to the exclusive use of self-report surveys filled out in one sitting—may be especially valuable in chronicling the strains that youths across social classes experience and the conditions that precipitate or prevent criminal coping. More studies along these lines should be undertaken (see Currie, 2004).

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Two Theoretical Extensions

Originally set forth in 1992, general strain theory is now more than two decades old. Some theories are stated and then left unrevised thereafter. By contrast, Agnew has continued to refine his theory since its initial statement. In response to potential shortcomings in his approach (see above), Agnew has extended his general strain theory in two important ways. These elaborations focus on identifying which strains are the most criminogenic and on clarifying when criminal coping occurs.

Four Strains Most Likely to Cause Crime.

A number of studies have found support for the proposition that exposure to strain increases the risk of criminal involvement. As noted above, however, the difficulty is that these studies often have measured a wide variety of strains using a wide variety of measures. Although Agnew stated his perspective parsimoniously—he identifies three major types of strain—each category of strain covers numerous subtypes of strain. Take, for example, the category of the presentation of noxious stimuli, which might involve diverse strains such as exposure to parental conflict, sexual abuse by family members or others, victimization by peers, conflict with friends, unpleasant school experiences, poor working conditions, and noisy and crowded living conditions. For general strain theory to make sense, it must address the issue of which strains—among the thousands that might conceivably be studied—are criminogenic and which are not. Indeed, it is essential for future research to focus on this issue.

Notably, nearly a decade after he first set forth general strain theory, Agnew (2001a) took up the challenge of “specifying the strains most likely to lead to crime and delinquency” (p. 319). He listed four factors that increase the likelihood that strain will prompt a criminal adaptation (see Table 4.2). This categorization of strain is intended to guide research on general strain theory (see also Agnew 2006a, 2006b).

First, “the strain is seen as unjust” (p. 327). When individuals perceive that the strain they are feeling is due to unfair treatment, they are likely to become angry. As noted previously, general strain theory contends that anger increases the risk of offending.

Second, the strain is “high in magnitude” (p. 332). When under severe strain, it is difficult to ignore the strain, keep one’s emotions under control, and resolve the strain in legal ways. To the extent that crime can relieve the strain, its immediate benefits may outweigh the more distant and uncertain costs that such conduct might elicit from the law.

Third, “the strain is caused by or associated with low social control” (p. 335). For example, if a juvenile is rejected by a parent, then two things occur: This act causes strain while it simultaneously lowers the level of social control over the juvenile by reducing his or her attachment to the parent.

Fourth, “the strain creates some pressure or incentive to engage in criminal coping” (p. 336). For example, a youth might experience strain if victimized by a delinquent peer. A failure to respond with violence might lead to more victimization and more strain. In the end, fighting back and getting revenge—potentially a form of

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“criminal coping”—might be seen as the only realistic option open to the youth.

Coping Most Likely to Cause Crime.

As noted, the choice of crime in response to strain has not been accounted for consistently by incorporating a conditioning variable (as measured by a Strain × Conditioning Variable interaction term) into a multivariate statistical model and then measuring whether the explained variation in the dependent variable has increased to a statistically significant degree. In response, Agnew (2013) recently revisited general strain theory to focus more clearly on the issue of “when criminal coping is likely” (p. 653). According to Agnew, addressing this issue is complicated by two considerations. First, strain does not usually lead to crime, in part because people have a range of conventional strategies to deal with this experience (see also Ngo & Paternoster, 2013). Second, only “certain individuals experiencing certain types of strain in certain circumstances engage in criminal coping” (p. 661, emphasis in original). This set of factors must converge to create “a strong propensity for criminal coping” (p. 653). This observation is likely correct, but it also points to a high level of complexity that will be difficult to unravel theoretically and to test using conventional statistical approaches.

Agnew (2013) has diagrammed “a model of the coping process in general strain theory” (p. 655). The model has four stages. In the first stage, “individuals experience or anticipate experiencing an objective strain” (p. 655). In the second stage, “individuals subjectively evaluate or cognitively appraise the objective strain. Evaluations of the magnitude and injustice are particularly important in the prediction of criminal coping” (p. 655). In the third stage, “individuals experience a negative emotional reaction to strain” (p. 656). And in the fourth stage, “individuals cope with their strain, with negative emotions providing the major impetus for coping” (p. 656).

In this model, conditioning variables can affect the coping process at two links in the causal chain. First, they can affect how objective strain is subjectively interpreted, which in turn affects the nature and intensity of the emotional reaction. For example, let us assume that a young adult male is at a bar and is the butt of a joke that is mildly insulting. One person might interpret this jesting as humorous or, even if not, shrug off the insult as inconsequential. Another person, however, might interpret the jesting as “disrespecting him” in public and threatening to his masculinity, become very angry, and wish to retaliate to restore his honor.

Second, conditioning variables can affect how individuals deal with their emotional reaction. Let us return to our example. One person who feels disrespected and becomes angry—but who is high on self-control and has strong conventional values—might still walk away or merely retaliate by tossing back a humorous insult. But another individual who is low on self-control and has internalized the “code of the street” might cope with a feeling of growing anger by assaulting the person who had insulted him. As Agnew (2013) noted, criminal coping will be affected by individual characteristics (e.g., problem-solving skills, level of control, prosocial vs. antisocial attitudes, personality) and by situational characteristics that determine the costs and benefits of a criminal act:

These factors influence the subjective evaluation of objective strains, including the perceived

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magnitude and injustice of strains. They influence the emotional reaction to strains, including the individual’s sensitivity to strains and the emotions experienced when upset, such as anger, depression, and fear. And they directly influence the choice of coping strategies. In particular, they influence the ability to engage in different strategies, the costs and benefits of different strategies, and the disposition for these strategies. (p. 657)

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A Theory of African American Offending

Although not true for all offenses (e.g., drug use), African Americans—especially young adult males in inner- city neighborhoods marked by concentrated disadvantage—are disproportionately involved in serious street crimes (Brezina & Agnew, 2013; see also Farrington, Loeber, & Stouthamer-Loeber, 2003). Despite making up about 13.3% of the American population (United States Census Bureau, 2018), Blacks are overrepresented in all offenses in the FBI Crime Index. In particular, African Americans accounted in 2016 for 54.5% of arrests for robbery and for 52.6% of arrests for murder and nonnegligent manslaughter (Federal Bureau of Investigation, 2018, Table 21A). Unnever and Gabbidon (2011, p. 2) add that because these crimes are mostly committed by males, “the data reveal that 6 percent of the population—black men—are arrested for approximately half of the robberies and homicides committed each year in the U.S.” National data from 2010 show further that the rate of deaths due to firearm homicide for Blacks was 14.6 per 100,000, whereas the comparable rate for Whites was 1.9 (Planty & Truman, 2013). Sampson and Bean (2006, p. 9) illuminate racial differences still further, noting that “African Americans are six times more likely to be murdered than whites, and homicide remains the leading cause of death among African Americans.” They also observed that the lifetime risk of imprisonment for males is less than 5% for Whites but 1 in 3 for Blacks. Clear (2007) has called this the “problem of concentrated incarceration” (p. 3).

Why is this so? Some of the disparity in official crime statistics and in incarceration may be attributed to police practices (e.g., stop-and-frisk policies concentrated in minority communities) and to laws that have a differential racial impact (e.g., drug laws that punish crack cocaine, more often used by Blacks, more severely than powder cocaine, more often used by Whites) (Tonry, 2011). Still, most criminologists would agree that racial differences in crime, especially for homicide and other violent offenses, exist and likely are due to the persistence of racial inequality in American society that leads to many African Americans growing up in neighborhoods marked by dire poverty and criminogenic circumstances. The collateral question, however, is whether the causes of crime are the same or different for Blacks and Whites.

Most criminological perspectives are general theories. They argue that people go into crime—whether Black or White, male or female, old or young—for the same reason. In community-level research, this view is called the “racial invariance” thesis, because of the assertion that the fundamental causes of violence do not vary by race (Sampson & Bean, 2006). Where these theories differ is in which factor they believe is the general cause of crime. Is it differential association? Experience with strain? Or perhaps the level of social disorganization? In this view, if Blacks are more involved in crime than Whites, it is because they are more exposed to one (or more) of these criminogenic risk factors. For example, because they often live in the inner cities, African Americans encounter more criminal peers and values to differentially associate with, more strain, and more disorganization. Studies have shown that, although exceptions exist, risk factors tend to have similar effects across races (Farrington et al., 2003; Hirschi, 1969). Notably, in a test of general strain theory, Eitle and Turner (2003) found support for the “differential exposure hypothesis” (p. 258). Thus, their analysis revealed that “racial differences in criminal involvement are largely reducible to exposure differences, with blacks typically exposed to significantly more stressful events over their lifetimes than members of other racial/ethnic

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groups” (p. 243; see also Brezina & Agnew, 2013).

Although their perspective is a general theory assumed to explain crime for all people, strain theorists nonetheless have long appreciated that African Americans confront a negative situation that is race specific and thus that does not pertain to Whites: They may experience real and/or perceived discrimination that can create a sense of injustice and potentially be criminogenic. In their classic book Delinquency and Opportunity, Cloward and Ohlin (1960) noted that “unjust deprivation” can encourage delinquency because it “cancels out the individual’s obligation to the established system” (p. 118). They observed further that minorities are particularly likely to develop these criminogenic views. Thus, “an increase in the visibility of external barriers to the advancement of Negroes heightens their sense of discrimination and justifies withdrawal of attributions of legitimacy from conventional rules of conduct” (p. 121). As part of general strain theory, Agnew (2006b) has also identified discrimination as a “major source of strain in and of itself” and proposed that it may lead African Americans to “blame the strains they experience on the deliberate acts of others, thus increasing the likelihood they will view their strains as unjust” (p. 148). Regrettably, most major data sets do not contain race-specific measures on discrimination, preferring to treat race only as a control variable rather than to include race-specific measures that could unpack its effects systematically. Even so, although still limited, a body of research now exists that confirms that perceived discrimination heightens criminal involvement among African Americans (Brody et al., 2006; Burt, Simons, & Gibbons, 2012; Gibbons, Gerrard, Cleveland, Wills, & Brody, 2004; Simons, Chen, Stewart, & Brody, 2003; Simons et al., 2006; Unnever, 2014; Unnever et al., 2009).

Although strain theory should be credited for illuminating the potential criminogenic effects of racial discrimination, this perspective considers this experience to be one among many kinds of strains that Blacks and Whites experience. Put another way, strain theory continues, for the most part, to be a general theory of crime. By contrast, in their important book A Theory of African American Offending, James Unnever and Shaun Gabbidon (2011) have offered a fully race-specific theory of crime. Given the long history of racial oppression in the United States, they note that the potential to be mistreated based on their skin color is not just one strain that Blacks experience but central to their lived experiences in American society. They possess a unique or “peerless worldview” of the American social order—a view of the world not shared by Whites who do not face the ubiquitous possibility of discrimination. As Unnever and Gabbidon (2011) contend, “nearly every African American believes that they will encounter racial prejudice and racial discrimination during their lives because they are black” (p. 27). They are convinced “that the United States has been and continues to be a systematically racist society” (p. 27). In turn, this worldview is reinforced by African Americans’ personal and vicarious experiences with discrimination in the criminal justice system (e.g., being stopped by police “when doing nothing wrong,” seeing prisons filled with people of color) and in the larger society (e.g., being watched by a clerk when shopping in a store, seeing noxious stereotypes of minorities in the media).

According to Unnever and Gabbidon, these experiences can be so intense and generate such negative emotions—especially, anger-defiance and depression—that they can trigger criminal involvement directly. They also can be criminogenic by weakening social bonds to conventional institutions. Still, despite widespread perceived discrimination, observe Unnever and Gabbidon (2011), “only a small percentage of

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African Americans offend. This, of course, means that the vast majority of African Americans somehow successfully negotiate the deleterious consequences of encountering racial injustices. In short, blacks are incredibly resilient” (p. 113). How can this be so? In an innovative contribution, Unnever and Gabbidon identify a key factor that affects how African Americans cope with objective and/or perceived discrimination: racial socialization.

Unlike their White counterparts, African American parents must socialize their children to deal with the realities of being a historically oppressed minority group in a society where they may still face degrading stereotypes, disquieting racial slurs, discrimination in housing and jobs, racial profiling by law enforcement officials, and uncomfortable social distance in interactions with others. Effective parents provide their youngsters with coping skills, including a strong sense of racial pride, to fend off attempts to devalue them for being Black, how to react when stopped unfairly by the police, and the lesson not to mistrust all Whites because of the bad actions of a few Whites. Other African American parents, however, either do not racially socialize their children or inculcate animosity toward the majority group. Their offspring thus are more likely to be sensitive to unjust treatment and to respond with negative emotions. They are also more likely to mistrust White-dominated institutions such as schools and the workplace and, in turn, to have attenuated social bonds. This is a toxic combination: the high magnitude strain of perceived injustice, anger-defiance (or depression), and weakened controls. The result is an increased involvement in criminal behavior. Although a relatively new perspective, tests of the theory’s core propositions have provided beginning empirical support (Unnever, 2014; Unnever, Barnes, & Cullen, 2016, 2017; Unnever, Cullen, & Barnes, 2016; see also Burt et al., 2012).

Unnever and Gabbidon do not see their race-specific theory as falling within general strain theory. In some ways, it shares common elements in linking offending to a source of strain and factors that condition coping. However, the key difference is that general strain theory outlines an analytical framework that can include any number of strains and coping mechanisms. By contrast, Unnever and Gabbidon offer a historically grounded theory that places African American offending within the context of racial oppression. In their theory, it is the content that matters—how Blacks experience life in a racially unequal society. They explain why discrimination leads to offending among African Americans and why it does not. It is thus a theory of crime and of conformity.

More generally, they have called for the creation of a “Black criminology” and have edited a volume in which leading scholars map out what this might involve (Unnever, Gabbidon, & Chouhy, 2019). The logic of this call mirrors the efforts by (mostly) female scholars to develop a “feminist criminology” that took gender as its starting point, asking what is unique about being female and male that can lead to crime (see Chapter 10 in this volume). In a similar way, Unnever and Gabbidon believe that any complete understanding of race and crime must start with the reality that African Americans have experienced an unparalleled oppression in the United States that affects all aspects of their lives—from cognitions used to interpret the world to confinement in hyper-ghettos. Many liberal-leaning scholars have argued that the causes of crime are general or invariant across races in an attempt to move beyond early racist theories that attributed crime to the supposed inherent inferiority of African Americans. Although well meaning, this approach, argue Unnever

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and Gabbidon, came with the cost of excluding from most major theories any consideration of what it means to be Black in America (see also Cullen et al., 2019).

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Crime and the American Dream: Institutional-Anomie Theory

Steven Messner and Richard Rosenfeld argued that much is to be gained by revisiting and revising Merton’s paradigm of social structure and anomie. Messner and Rosenfeld (1994) noted that the United States has a higher rate of serious crime, especially violent crime, than any other industrial nation (see also Currie, 1985, 2009). Why is this so? They doubted that the rampant lawlessness could be traced to individual traits such as Americans having a disproportionate number of defective personalities or bodies. Instead, taking a macro- level perspective, they argued for the need to discern what is distinctive about the very culture and structure of American society. Their perspective typically is referred to as institutional-anomie theory. Two decades after its initial statement, it remains an important macro-level theory of crime (Messner & Rosenfeld, 2013).

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Inventing Institutional-Anomie Theory

When Messner and Rosenfeld first became friends in the 1980s, Merton’s theory was in decline, with the anomie portion of the paradigm almost completely neglected and relegated to the criminological dustbin (Cole, 1975). However, Messner had been a student and then a colleague of Merton at Columbia University, whereas Rosenfeld had undertaken a dissertation examining inequality and crime that drew on anomie theory and had been schooled in the sociology of Talcott Parsons, one of Merton’s mentors at Harvard. Unlike most other scholars of their generation, they were thus sympathetic to the anomie perspective and believed that it had untapped explanatory power. A fortuitous meeting in the early 1980s led to an intellectual merger that later resulted in their classic 1994 book, Crime and the American Dream (Rosenfeld & Messner, 2011).

Messner and Rosenfeld believed that criminology had often forgotten the basic lessons taught in introductory sociology. The core components of the social system were culture, which prescribed what individuals should and should not do, and social structure, which includes the positions people hold and the roles they play. Culture (the American dream) and social structure (differential opportunity) were central to Merton’s anomie theory. In addition, however, Messner and Rosenfeld highlighted the importance of social institutions—an insight drawn from Talcott Parsons (1951):

Social institutions link culture and social structure together in the context of the basic social functions any society must carry out in order to survive, including adaptation to the environment (economy), collective goal attainment (polity), social integration (legal system), and the maintenance of the society’s fundamental normative patterns (family, religion). (Rosenfeld & Messner, 2011, p. 122, emphasis in original; see also Messner, Rosenfeld, & Karstedt, 2013; Rosenfeld, 2011a)

In their view, Merton’s anomie theory had focused on only one social institution, the economy. It did not examine how social institutions are interrelated and how culture can cause one institutional sphere, especially the economy, to be overemphasized and to cause problems in other social institutions (e.g., the family). When this imbalance occurs, they would argue, high crime rates result. Because their perspective incorporated this relationship among institutions into anomie theory, it came to be called institutional-anomie theory. The specifics of their approach follow.

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The American Dream and Anomie

The special contribution of Merton’s paradigm, Messner and Rosenfeld contended, is that it identifies the central role that the American dream plays in generating criminal behavior (see also Messner, 1988; Rosenfeld, 1989). Messner and Rosenfeld (1994) defined the American dream as “a commitment to the goal of material success, to be pursued by everyone in society under conditions of open, individual competition” (p. 69). Like Merton, they noted that the American dream’s strong cultural prescription for each individual to achieve monetary success, regardless of personal circumstance or competition, erodes the power of norms to regulate the use of legitimate or legal means to obtain this success. In short, the American dream fosters anomie or the breakdown of normative control.

In this anomic context, there is a tendency for people to use the “technically most efficient means” to achieve desired goals. On the positive side, the prevailing normative flexibility creates space for innovation and for moving beyond outmoded ways of doing things. But there is a darker side as well: The most efficient means to monetary gain often is to break the law, to rob with a gun, or to defraud the stock market through insider trading. Thus, anomie is criminogenic, and widespread anomie—as exists in American society—creates widespread lawlessness.

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Institutional Balance of Power

Although Messner and Rosenfeld embraced Merton’s analysis of American culture, they found his institutional analysis lacking. As may be recalled, Merton emphasized the role of America’s stratification system (the economic social institution) in restricting opportunities for advancement and, therefore, in creating criminogenic strains for individuals and anomie in society. Messner and Rosenfeld (1994) believed, however, that Merton’s approach misses what is distinctive about structural arrangements in the United States: the extent to which the “institutional balance of power is tilted toward the economy” (p. 76).

A capitalist economic system is conducive to producing individual pursuit of self-interest, competition, and innovation, but other developed nations with capitalist economies are not wracked by high rates of serious crimes. What is different about the United States? Messner and Rosenfeld answered that it is the economic institution that dominates other social noneconomic institutions—the family, the educational system, politics, and so on—far more than in other countries. Indeed, U.S. social institutions are arranged to be subservient to and to support the economy. Education, for example, is seen as a means to higher-paying employment; students who major in esoteric academic fields merely to learn or to foster personal development risk being ridiculed as “wasting their time” and “hurting their futures.” Family values are touted frequently, but corporate executives are expected to uproot their families if promotions require moving to other locations. And politicians’ reelection frequently hinges on little more than the strength of the nation’s economy.

In other developed nations, however, social institutions counterbalance the capitalist economy’s demand to pursue success at all costs and thus exert greater control over people’s conduct. As Messner and Rosenfeld (1994) pointed out, these social institutions “inculcate beliefs, values, and commitments other than those of the marketplace” (p. 86), and they tend to demand a level of involvement that constrains behavior. In the United States, however, noneconomic institutions are less successful in socializing, securing the allegiance of, and controlling the citizenry. Instead, “the cultural message that comes through with greatest force is the one most compatible with the logic of the economy: the competitive, individualistic, and materialistic message of the American dream” (p. 86). The result is a context conducive to the spread of anomie and, in turn, of lawlessness.

In summary, Messner and Rosenfeld (1994, 2001) argued that the United States’ high rate of serious crime is caused by the nation’s distinctive, mutually reinforcing culture and institutional structure. The American dream serves as a powerful cultural force that generates anomie by motivating the pursuit of money “through any means necessary.” It not only fosters but also receives continued legitimacy from the dominance of the economic institution. The intersection of culture and structure, therefore, creates a society in which anomie is pervasive and controls are weak. Predictably, the United States’ crime problem seems intractable and immune to the many “wars” waged against it.

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Assessing Institutional-Anomie Theory

Messner and Rosenfeld presented a persuasive perspective that to date has received a growing, but still relatively limited, body of empirical tests. In large part, the theory is difficult to assess because its main causal variables—the American dream, anomie, the institutional balance of power, and the efficacy of informal control exercised by societal institutions—are difficult to measure at the macro or societal level, especially within a single data set. The studies that do exist, however, provide qualified support for institutional-anomie theory (Baumer & Gustafson, 2007; Chamlin & Cochran, 1995; Cullen, Parboteeah, & Hoegl, 2004; Maume & Lee, 2003; Messner & Rosenfeld, 1997; Piquero & Piquero, 1998; Savolainen, 2000; for summaries of the extant research, see Kubrin et al., 2009; Messner & Rosenfeld, 2006; Messner et al., 2013).

In particular, there appears to be evidence that crime rates are lower in societies or other geographic areas in which the vitality and support for noneconomic institutions, such as the family, are more pronounced (Messner et al., 2013). In this regard, a meta-analysis of research by Pratt and Cullen (2005) revealed that the strength of noneconomic institutions is associated with lower rates of crime across macro-level units of analysis. The evidence is more controversial, however, when scholars have assessed whether the United States has a distinctive “American dream”—what has been called “American exceptionalism.” This research examines the responses to questions on surveys conducted across nations. The approach is to see whether, when compared to those in other areas of the world, Americans are more likely to say that they value things like material wealth, competition, and private ownership over government control. In a review of the existing studies, Messner and Rosenfeld (2006, p. 143) reported that there are at least “mixed results” showing that U.S. respondents are exceptional in their strong support for values consistent with the American dream. Clearly, further comparative research, using questions systematically designed to capture all elements of the American dream, will be required to settle this issue.

Finally, institutional-anomie theory would not predict the “crime drop,” especially in serious street offenses, that has occurred in the United States since the early 1990s (Baumer, Velez, & Rosenfeld, 2018; Latzer, 2016; Tonry, 2014; Zimring, 2007). The United States has swung economically from the Great Recession of 2008 to a period of economic growth, though one marked by tax cuts disproportionately slanted toward corporations and the rich and efforts to cut health and other social welfare benefits. One response by Messner and Rosenfeld (2013), however, has been to place crime rates in a broader context. They show that compared to 15 advanced nations, the United States has the highest rate of homicide, one that is 5 times the average of the other countries. The U.S. robbery rate ranks third, but these crimes are far “more likely to be carried out with a firearm” than in any other nation (2013, p. 22). Across America, the overall decline in crime masks the heterogeneity in the concentration of offending, with some cities and some neighborhoods within cities experiencing high rates of serious crime (see also Baumer et al., 2018). Further, Messner and Rosenfeld point to the prevalence of white-collar crime in the United States, another domain where offenders use any means necessary to commit their illegalities. Not only are there endless examples of multimillion-dollar, if not billion-dollar, financial scandals but also instances of violent white-collar crime (see Chapter 11 in this volume). Messner and Rosenfeld (2013, p. 31) note that in 2010 alone, “4,547 workers were killed on the job

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in the United States, and another 3.88 million job–related injuries and illnesses were recorded.” Another yearly estimate places the number of Americans who died from consumer products at over 29,000. They cautioned that even “if only 1 in 10 such incidents were the result of criminal offenses,” this toll would outstrip the deaths and injuries attributable to homicide and serious assaults (2013, p. 31).

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The Market Economy and Crime

In an independent theoretical analysis, Elliott Currie offered an explanation of the high rate of serious violent crime in America that was very similar to institutional-anomie theory. In 1985, Currie had published his classic book, Confronting Crime: An American Challenge (see Cullen, 2010). Taking what might be called a critical or left realist perspective (see Chapter 9), he counteracted the conservative view that crime was due to defects in individuals and to the failure to get tough by imprisoning more offenders (see Chapter 12). A central thrust to his analysis of high rates of violent crime was that the United States suffered from a high rate of economic inequality, which in turn disrupted other social institutions, such as families and communities. Currie subsequently elaborated this perspective by detailing how America’s distinctive “market economy” dominated other parts of society in ways that proved criminogenic (Currie, 1997; see also Currie, 2009, 2013). This core insight to his theory thus was similar to the core insight of Messner and Rosenfeld’s institutional- anomie theory.

Currie (1997) argued that the United States is characterized by an extreme form of capitalism, a “market economy” in which “the pursuit of personal economic gain becomes increasingly the dominant organizing principle of social life” (pp. 152–153). Echoing Messner and Rosenfeld’s concept of institutional balance of power, Currie noted that in the United States, “market principles, instead of being confined to some parts of the economy and appropriately buffered and restrained by other social institutions and norms, come to suffuse the whole social fabric—and to undercut and overwhelm other principles that have historically sustained individuals, families, and communities” (p. 152, emphasis in original). He proceeded to contend—again, much like Messner and Rosenfeld—that the United States is “unique” in the “extent to which the principles of the market society have driven America’s social and economic development and shaped its national culture” (p. 152).

According to Currie (1997), the dominance of the market economy fosters high rates of crime in at least seven ways:

(1) the progressive destruction of livelihood; (2) the growth of extremes of economic inequality and material deprivation; (3) the withdrawal of public services and supports, especially for families and children; (4) the erosion of informal and communal networks of mutual support, supervision, and care; (5) the spread of materialistic, neglectful, and “hard” culture; (6) the unregulated marketing of the technology of violence (i.e., guns); and (7) the weakening of social and political alternatives. (p. 154)

In this “toxic brew” of conditions, the power of the market economy is so strong that concern for productivity and profits outstrips the concern for the needs of many people who struggle under this system. America’s market economy is particularly criminogenic because it “plunges large segments of its population into extreme deprivation—while simultaneously both withdrawing public provision of support and chipping away relentlessly at the informal support networks that might cushion these disadvantages” (Currie, 1997, p. 167).

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In this context, citizens are urged to embrace a “competitive consumerism” in which individual success and materialism are held in esteem and the losers in this competition are left to deal with their failures and frustrations on their own and with lethal weapons easily obtained.

At the same time, the cultural ideology of the market economy disdains the kinds of policy initiatives— commonly found in other Western industrial nations—that might provide disadvantaged Americans with the opportunity to earn living wages and support their families. Instead of social interventions, individuals are largely left to fend for themselves. In the end, the main government program embraced to address the problem of violent crime has been to build more and more prisons to house the endless casualties of the nation’s unbalanced market economy.

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The Future of Strain Theory

It is difficult to determine whether Agnew’s general strain theory and Messner and Rosenfeld’s analysis of crime and the American dream—as well as other works in this tradition—are harbingers of strain theory’s reemergence as a dominant criminological theory. At a minimum, the intrinsic scholarly merit of these works will contribute to the continued revitalization of strain theory. As we have seen, many criminologists have not only read these revisions of strain theory but also published articles testing the various propositions put forth by Agnew and by Messner and Rosenfeld. In 21st-century America, however, it also is possible that the prevailing social context will be conducive to renewed interest in the strain perspective. Two conditions seem particularly relevant.

First, in response to the excessive individualism and emphasis on greed during the 1980s and 1990s, there has been a continuing cultural self-examination in the United States. Although many different voices are contributing to this discussion, they share the common theme that the core elements of the American dream —the pursuit of individual self-interest, competitiveness, and materialism—neither bring personal satisfaction nor create a good society. Instead, there is a call for Americans to think more about community, about the obligations of citizenship, and about helping others (Bellah, Madsen, Sullivan, Swidler, & Tipton, 1985, 1991; Coles, 1993; Etzioni, 1993; Putnam, 2000; Reich, 1988, 2001; Wuthnow, 1991). Even notions of “compassionate conservatism”—the core theme of George W. Bush’s first presidential campaign—emphasize the dangers of crass self-interest and the neglect of one’s fellow citizens (see also Olasky, 1992). Of course, as the American dream comes under critical scrutiny—as its darker side is unmasked—the relevance of strain theory is potentially heightened.

Second, we also may be in a period where it is more difficult to ignore the complicity of U.S. society in a range of social ills, including crime. During the 1980s, the strong conservative ideology of the Reagan era made it fashionable to blame social problems, including crime, on individuals and not on structural arrangements. But the Los Angeles riots of 1992, triggered by the acquittal of police officers charged with beating Rodney King, were a vivid reminder that the neglect of underlying problems eventually results in a day of reckoning (see also Currie, 1993). A similar lesson can be drawn from the protests in Ferguson, Missouri, following the 2014 shooting death of an unarmed Black teenager, Michael Brown, by a White police officer. Likewise, Hurricane Katrina not only left New Orleans in ruins but also laid bare the poverty and racial inequality that placed the lives of some citizens, but not others, in jeopardy. Writing during the mid-1990s, Messner and Rosenfeld (1994) made this point more broadly. They noted:

Given the growing awareness of vexing contemporary social problems—such as homelessness, the urban underclass, persistent economic stagnation accompanied by glaring social inequalities, and urban decay in general—explanations of social behavior cast in terms of fundamental characteristics of society, rather than individual deficiencies, are likely once again to “make sense” to many criminologists. (pp. 14–15)

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Even though the U.S. economy boomed during the latter part of the 1990s, the awareness that some people— largely those concentrated in segregated inner-city neighborhoods—were not participating in the technological revolution and were being left behind did not slip fully from the national consciousness. This understanding that the nation’s market economy can thrust even good people into financial ruin and stop hardworking folks from securing employment has been vividly—and in many instances heartbreakingly— illustrated by the Great Recession that started in 2008. Although economic recovery has occurred, the United States is still in the throes of considerable inequality. The very presidential election of Donald Trump in 2016 —with his populist promise to “make America great again”—reflects the sense among some voters that they are being economically marginalized. To the extent that this awareness of prevailing inequalities remains strong, strain theory—with its focus on the criminogenic costs of blocking opportunities for advancement and of placing people in adverse social circumstances—will receive its fair share of adherents in the criminological community.

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The Consequences of Theory: Policy Implications

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Expand Opportunities

If denial of opportunity generates criminogenic strains, then logic demands that the solution to crime lies in expanding legitimate opportunities. Most broadly, therefore, strain theory justifies programs that attempt to provide the disadvantaged with educational resources (e.g., Head Start), job training, and equal access to occupations. The perspective also would support efforts to introduce into prisons rehabilitation programs that allow offenders to earn educational degrees and to acquire marketable employment skills.

Apart from these general policy implications, it is noteworthy that strain theory has served as the basis for a variety of delinquency prevention programs (Empey & Erickson, 1972; Empey & Lubeck, 1971), the most famous of which was Mobilization for Youth (Empey, 1982; Moynihan, 1969; Pfohl, 1985). MFY, as the program was known, was based directly on Cloward and Ohlin’s opportunity theory. The two scholars, in fact, played an integral role in seeing their ideas put into practice.

In 1959, Cloward and Ohlin had been asked by a coalition of settlement houses located in New York’s Lower East Side community to develop a theoretical framework for a proposal to secure government funds to provide youths with social services (Laub, 1983). Delinquency and Opportunity (Cloward & Ohlin, 1960) was one by- product of this collaboration. The other product was a 617-page report carrying the title A Proposal for the Prevention and Control of Delinquency by Expanding Opportunities (Empey, 1982, p. 241).

During different social times, this proposal might have found a home on a dusty shelf, but during the early 1960s it offered a blueprint for social engineering that made eminent sense. The Kennedy administration had taken office recently with hopes of creating a “New Frontier of equal opportunity” and was ready to fulfill a long-standing family commitment to dealing with the problems of young Americans (Pfohl, 1985, pp. 224– 225). In 1961, the administration created the President’s Committee on Juvenile Delinquency and Youth Crime. David Hackett headed the committee.

In looking for promising strategies to address delinquency problems, Hackett learned of Cloward and Ohlin’s work. As Pfohl (1985) noted, their opportunity theory “resonated well with the liberal domestic politics of John F. Kennedy” (p. 224) and particularly with the president’s call for equal opportunity. Indeed, the fit between strain theory and the prevailing political context was so close that Ohlin was invited to Washington, D.C., to assume a Health, Education, and Welfare post and to assist in formulating delinquency policy. By May 1962, MFY had received a grant of $12.5 million, with more than half of that amount coming from the federal government. Cloward, meanwhile, was chosen as MFY’s director of research.

MFY drew heavily from Merton’s strain theory, setting up programs that extended youths’ educational and employment support. This reform also drew insights from the Chicago school, particularly Shaw and McKay’s admonition that community organization was a prerequisite for delinquency prevention. But one philosophical difference existed between MFY and Shaw’s CAP. Although both programs were committed to community self-help, the leaders of MFY also felt the need to change the political structures that sustained inequities in opportunity. They agreed, for example, that the problem with employment was not simply that

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minorities lacked skills but rather that they were excluded from union apprenticeships, and they agreed that the problem of poor educational opportunities was a matter not simply of youths’ lacking books in the home but also of policies that assigned the newest and least talented teachers to schools in slum neighborhoods. What was needed to overcome such formidable barriers to opportunity, therefore, was not community organization but rather community action that attacked entrenched political interests. Accordingly, MFY promoted boycotts against schools, protests against welfare policies, rent strikes against slum landlords, lawsuits to ensure poor people’s rights, and voter registration.

Commentators have disputed the wisdom of moving from the more focused agenda of providing youths with educational and employment training to a broader attempt to reform the opportunity structure by empowering slum residents (Moynihan, 1969). The choice of strategy soon brought MFY into a political struggle with city officials dismayed by threats of lawsuits and other efforts by the poor to get their share of the pie. In the ensuing conflict, MFY was subjected to investigations by the Federal Bureau of Investigation on suspicions of misappropriated funds and to claims by the New York Daily News that the staff was infested with “Commies and Commie sympathizers.” Although they were exonerated of these kinds of charges, the swirl of controversy led to the resignation of key MFY leaders, including Cloward, and ultimately to the disappearance of much of the program (Liska, 1981, p. 52). In Washington, meanwhile, the President’s Committee on Juvenile Delinquency and Youth Crime was allowed to wither away. “Influential members of Congress made it clear,” Empey (1982) noted, “that the mandate of the President’s Committee was to reduce delinquency, not to reform urban society or to try out sociological theories on American youths” (p. 243).

Thus, attempts to reduce delinquency by fundamentally changing the nature of the opportunity structure met with much opposition. But should MFY be judged as a failure? A less ambitious and confrontational reform might have succeeded in gaining more sustained political acceptance and support for programs. Two qualifications, however, must be added.

First, MFY must be credited for its attempt to attack the root causes of crime that most criminal reforms leave untouched. MFY’s failure to avoid boisterous and powerful opposition says less about the correctness of the approach taken and more about the political interests that buttress America’s structure of inequality. Second, although MFY’s impact on delinquency has not been established definitively (Liska, 1981), it did serve as a model for similar community action programs across the nation. Daniel Moynihan (1969), a noted critic of the program, nonetheless gave MFY the credit it is due:

MFY did lose in its battle with city hall, but it set a pattern for the community action programs that were to spring up across the land at the very moment its own came under fire. . . . Preschool education, legal aid for the poor (not just to defend them but to serve as plaintiffs), a theory of community organization, an emphasis on research and evaluation, and most especially the insistence on the involvement of the poor—all these were the legacy of Mobilization for Youth. It was no small achievement. (p. 123)

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Taming the American Dream

A key feature of attempts to reduce crime by expanding opportunities is that they implicitly take the American dream—people’s striving for individual material success—as legitimate. For Messner and Rosenfeld (2001), however, the American dream and the goals it inspires individuals to pursue have long been key ingredients in the nation’s high rates of serious crime. Indeed, attempts to expand opportunities—the prescription for reducing crime derived from traditional strain theory—may have the unanticipated consequence of intensifying the very cultural beliefs that promote crime. As Messner and Rosenfeld (2001) remind us:

The criminogenic tendencies of the American Dream derive from its exaggerated emphasis on monetary success and its resistance to the limits on the means for the pursuit of success. Any significant lessening of the criminogenic consequences of the dominant culture thus requires the taming of its strong materialistic pressures and the creation of a greater receptivity to socially imposed restraints. (p. 108, emphasis in original)

Taming the American dream, however, may be “easier said than done.” There is no simple program that can be implemented to make Americans less interested in economic success. Rather, true social change will be necessary—a daunting and, some would say, improbable task in the sense that it asks Americans not to be Americans (but see Putnam, 2000).

The logic of institutional-anomie theory suggests that reducing the power of the American dream would necessitate policies that strengthen other institutions. This might involve, for example, workplace regulations that give adults more time to spend with their families and support schools. Or it might mean social welfare policies that help people to form families and that give everyone a measure of material security. But it also would be important, according to Messner and Rosenfeld (2001), to pursue “cultural regeneration” directly. That is, it is essential to discredit money as the chief currency of a person’s success and instead to propose that “parenting, ‘spousing,’ teaching, learning, and serving the community” become valued “ends in themselves” (p. 108). Such an appeal might appear utopian. Even so, as Messner and Rosenfeld (2001) have cautioned, “it seems unlikely that social change conducive to lower levels of crime will occur in the absence of a cultural reorientation that encompasses an enhanced emphasis on the importance of mutual support and collective obligations and a decreased emphasis on individual rights, interests, and privileges” (p. 109).

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Conclusion

Over the past two chapters, we have seen how two paradigms—the Chicago school and Merton’s strain theory —represent early, yet bold and influential, efforts to show how the very fabric of American society—its slums and the contradictions between its cultural prescriptions and social structure—generates high rates of crime. They rejected as simplistic, if not as incorrect, previous theories that had sought to locate the causes of crime within individuals. Instead, they warned that the social organization of society constrains what people learn to become and what they might be pressured into doing. This is a lesson that cannot be overlooked casually, for it suggests, in a sense, that a society gets the crime it deserves.

The Chicago school and strain theory also illustrate the themes of this book. First, changes in the social context made each of these perspectives make sense to a good number of criminologists. For the Chicago school, the rapid growth and increasing diversity of urban society gave legitimacy to a theory that linked crime to these social transformations. For strain theory, the emergence of equal opportunity as a sociopolitical agenda provided an ideal context in which opportunity theory could win followers.

Second, the history of these perspectives shows how criminological theory can direct, or at least justify, criminal justice policy. CAP and MFY cannot be understood apart from the theories that provided the logic for their development and were convincing enough to prompt financial support. The writings of Shaw and McKay and of Cloward and Ohlin, therefore, clearly made a difference. Ideas, as we have seen, have consequences.

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Further Readings

Source: F. T. Cullen, & P. Wilcox. (Eds.). (2010). Encyclopedia of Criminological Theory. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Readings are available online at www.study.sagepub.com/lilly7e.

1. Agnew, Robert: General Strain Theory 2. Cloward, Richard A., and Lloyd E. Ohlin: Delinquency and Opportunity 3. Cohen, Albert K.: Delinquent Boys 4. Merton, Robert K.: Social Structure and Anomie

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http://www.study.sagepub.com/lilly7e

Chapter Five Society as Insulation The Origins of Control Theory

Walter C. Reckless 1899–1988 Ohio State University Author of Containment Theory

Courtesy of American Society of Criminology

The most important step in the solution to a problem, theoretical or otherwise, lies in asking the right questions about it. The proper formulation of the problem often may make the answer obvious. At the very least, asking the right question in the right way will contribute greatly to a solution. Asking the wrong question, or asking the right question in the wrong way, will result in no progress at all, although there may be an illusion of getting somewhere.

Unfortunately, the first step also usually is the most difficult one. Not only does it require a thorough understanding of the nature of the situation with which one is faced, but it also demands the capacity to think about it in new and creative ways. Because one is not likely to ask questions about aspects of the situation that one takes for granted, different criminologists have been led to see very different questions as the key to an understanding of crime and delinquency. What one takes for granted needs no explanation, but what one takes for granted depends on assumptions—in this case, assumptions about human nature and social order.

Most criminologists have taken conformity for granted as part of the natural order of things and have concentrated on trying to explain the “crime problem.” As we have seen, they have found their explanations in spirits and demons; in theories tracing the nonconformity to individual factors such as biological abnormalities or personality defects; or in theories tracing the nonconformity to social factors such as social disorganization, subcultural traditions, and inequality of opportunity, all of these being factors presumed to operate so as to

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distort the natural order of conformity. But is conformity really the natural order of things? To what extent should it be taken for granted?

By the time a person is a certain age, he or she speaks a certain language shared by others, drives a car in general obedience to traffic regulations, avoids urination or defecation in public, and in most other ways “goes along.” All this tends to be taken for granted, but the evidence indicates that it is not at all “natural” (Davis, 1948). In fact, great effort is expended by parents, teachers, and the individual involved in a concerted attempt to produce these results. Viewed in this way, all of this conformity is a striking thing much in need of explanation. That is the focus of control theory, which takes the position that because conformity cannot be taken for granted, nonconformity such as crime and delinquency is to be expected when social controls are less than completely effective.

In this sense, control theory is not so much a theory of deviance as a theory of conformity. It does not ask the question, “Why do people commit crimes and acts of delinquency?” Rather, it suggests that crime and delinquency are going to occur unless people conform to all of the social demands placed on them and then asks, “Why do people conform?” That is, if crime is gratifying—fun, exciting, physically enjoyable, emotionally satisfying, and/or materially rewarding—why don’t individuals just break the law? From this perspective on human nature and social order, the potential gratifications offered by crime and delinquency will be resisted only when sociocultural controls are operating effectively to prevent such behavior.

Control theory has been at the center of American criminology for the better part of a century—so much so that we devote two chapters to this perspective. Much of its appeal is the simplicity of its main theoretical premise: When controls are present, crime does not occur; when controls are absent, crime is possible and often does occur. Except for the fact that control and crime can be measured independently and the strength of the relationship assessed empirically, there is a tautological quality to this thesis: The very existence of crime seems to be persuasive evidence that controls have been rendered ineffective.

Although the organizing premise of control theory is simple—no control permits crime—the perspectives that fall under the umbrella of the control paradigm offer a complex view of how control is linked to criminal conduct. In this chapter, we explore the thinking of early control theorists, selecting those scholars whose work still resonates today. These include Albert Reiss’s insights on personal and social controls, F. Ivan Nye’s work on family controls, Walter Reckless’s influential containment theory, Gresham Sykes and David Matza’s revelations about techniques of neutralization, and Matza’s extension of that collaboration into his theory of delinquency and drift.

In Chapter 6, we chiefly explore the work of Travis Hirschi, arguably the most influential criminologist of the past half century. Hirschi developed two dominant control perspectives: first his social bond theory and then, in conjunction with Michael Gottfredson, self-control theory. We also consider some more recent variants of control theory that present more complex ideas on how control is implicated in crime and delinquency: Hagan’s power-control theory, Tittle’s control balance theory, and Colvin’s differential coercion theory. Finally, at the end of Chapter 6, we review the policy implications of control theory.

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Before embarking on this excursion across control theory, however, we first examine some forerunners of modern control theory. As in Chapters 3 and 4, here we stress the significance of the work of Durkheim and the Chicago school. Both bodies of work remain rich sources of ideas about both human nature and social order. It is not surprising to find that they also contributed much to the reconsideration of the basic assumptions about the relationship between human nature and social order. This marked the development of control theory.

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Forerunners of Control Theory

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Durkheim’s Anomie Theory

The origins of contemporary control theories of crime and delinquency are to be found in part in the work of French sociologist Émile Durkheim, in the same body of theory that inspired Merton’s analysis of anomie as a source of crime (see Chapter 4). Durkheim’s work was a product of the late 19th century, a period that had seen dramatic social change in the wake of the Industrial Revolution. He described anomie not simply as “normlessness” but as the more or less complete collapse of social solidarity itself, the destruction of the fundamental bonds uniting individuals in a collective social order so that each person is forced to go it alone. Technological change had combined with the rise of capitalism, and the old world of agrarian society, in which farmers and herders lived simply in face-to-face relationships with interests in common, was rapidly giving way to a more complex, urban, technologically sophisticated social system. The sense of community was being eroded; the large extended family consisting of many relatives working together was being torn apart and replaced with the new nuclear family of parents alone with their children, and the pace of life was accelerating with an increasing division of labor separating different individuals into occupational specialties.

Describing London in 1844, Karl Marx’s friend and collaborator, Friedrich Engels, painted the picture as follows:

The restless and noisy activity of the crowded streets is highly distasteful and is surely abhorrent to human nature itself. Hundreds of thousands of men and women drawn from all classes and ranks of society pack the streets of London. . . . Yet they rush past each other as if they had nothing in common. They are tacitly agreed on one thing only—that everyone should keep to the right of the pavement so as not to collide with the stream of people moving in the opposite direction. No one even thinks of sparing a glance for his neighbors in the streets. . . . We know well enough that this isolation of the individual—this narrow-minded egotism—is everywhere the fundamental principle of modern society. (cited in Josephson & Josephson, 1962, p. 32)

As we will see in Chapter 8, Marx and Engels saw this situation as a consequence of the underlying economic shifts that had generated capitalism. Writing in France later in the century, Durkheim disagreed. For him, the moral order was more fundamental than the economic order. The idea of social solidarity can be said to represent almost a religion to Durkheim (1893/1933):

Everything which is a source of solidarity is moral, everything which forces man to take account of other men is moral, everything which forces him to regulate his conduct through something other than the striving of his ego is moral, and morality is as solid as these ties are numerous and strong. (p. 398)

The Importance of Integration and Regulation.

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In Durkheim’s (1897/1951) view, social solidarity was maintained by two distinct sets of social functions: those involving integration and those involving regulation. Integration was described as a state of cohesion amounting to a common “faith” sustained by collective beliefs and practices leading to strong social bonds and the subordination of self to a common cause. For Durkheim, collective activity was what gave purpose and meaning to life. When integrative functions failed, the “collective force of society” was weakened, “mutual moral support” was eroded, and there was a “relaxation of social bonds” leading to extreme individualism (pp. 209–214).

Whereas Durkheim (1897/1951) saw integration as the sum of various social forces of attraction that drew people together, regulation was considered to be the sum of those forces of constraint that bound individuals to norms. Durkheim argued that the constraining regulative functions become more important in an urban society with a complex division of labor. Here different individuals may be attracted to a common goal and may be very willing to submit to the authority of the social system, but their efforts must be coordinated properly if society is to function smoothly. It is especially important that the regulative norms “deliver the goods”—that they maintain their legitimacy by demonstrated effectiveness. Even if an individual wished to work with others toward a common social purpose, he or she might turn in a deviant direction if the norms regulating the common effort were perceived as unnecessary, overly burdensome, or otherwise questionable.

The Nature of “Man.”

Durkheim’s (1897/1951) viewpoint was affected deeply by his conception of human nature. According to his homo duplex conception, any person was a blend of two aspects. On the one side, there was the social self or the aspect of self that looks to society and is a product of socialization and cultivation of human potentials— the “civilized” member of a community. On the other side, there was the egoistic self or the primal self that is incomplete without society and that is full of impulses knowing no natural limits. This conception of the primal aspect is somewhat similar to Freud’s notion of the id. In Durkheim’s view, conditions of social solidarity based on highly developed functions of social integration and social regulation allowed the more primal self to become fully humanized in a life shared with others on a moral common ground. One implication is that unless such social solidarity is developed and maintained, we may expect crime and delinquency.

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The Influence of the Chicago School

As described in Chapter 3, the social upheaval that so concerned Durkheim in France was repeated even more dramatically in the United States a few decades later. During the early years of the 20th century, and especially after World War I, the forces of technological change, increased industrialization combined with the rise of the large corporation, and rapid urbanization were accompanied by massive waves of immigration. Chapter 3 described the development of the Chicago school with its emphasis on immigration and especially urbanization as the major forces of social change that were leading to crime through social disorganization. But the Chicago school mined a rich vein of ideas about human nature and the social order, ideas that led some criminological theorists not toward a search for criminogenic forces in society that might be pulling or pressuring people away from their normal conformity but rather toward control theories that refused to take conformity for granted as the natural order of things.

Like some of the criminological theories discussed earlier, these control theories also were influenced by the social disorganization perspective, some explicitly and some implicitly. Although the accent was somewhat different among the various control theorists, two related Chicago school themes remained central. The first had to do with the interpretations of the nature of human nature. The second had to do with the nature of community.

Conceptions of Human Nature. As to human nature, the Chicago school developed the line of thought that explained the self as a blending of a primal self and a social self, but the focus was on showing just how the social self, so important to Durkheim, was formed. Although not at the University of Chicago himself, Charles H. Cooley can be considered part of “what came to be known as the Chicago school of social psychology” (Hinkle & Hinkle, 1954, p. 30). Cooley’s work influenced George Herbert Mead of the University of Chicago, and Mead carried forward this and other contributions. Both Cooley and Mead considered the common notion of imitation insufficient to explain social behavior and sought to understand the process by which something like the primal self became the social self.

Cooley (1922) pointed out that the human offspring depends on other humans in the family setting for a prolonged period. The family was treated as an example of what Cooley called a primary group in which interaction is of an intimate face-to-face character leading to a “we-feeling” or sense of belonging and identification with the group. The child would not even develop a sense of self without the feedback provided by others serving as a mirror. According to Cooley’s concept of the “looking-glass self,” the child develops a concept of who he or she “really is” by imagining how he or she appears to others and how others interpret and evaluate what they perceive and then by forming a sense of self based on that process (Cooley, 1902, 1909). Without interaction in primary groups, a person would not be fully human. For Cooley (1909), human nature itself, defined as “those sentiments and impulses that are human in being superior to those of lower animals,” was essentially the same throughout the world because the intense experience in primary groups was considered to be basically the same everywhere (p. 28).

Mead’s (1934) social psychology was reminiscent of Durkheim’s homo duplex in dividing the individual into

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an “I” and a “me.” Mead did little to describe the “I” except to suggest that this represents a process of fundamental awareness that becomes focused in different ways, leading to the development of the social self or “me.” The focusing was said to occur through a process of “taking the role of the other” and seeing things from that perspective, with certain “significant others” being especially important and society representing a “generalized other” (pp. 82–92). It was through this process that socialization occurred.

If successful, such socialization was considered to lead to personally integrated social beings who would see the world not through the narrow and unstable perspective of the shifting “I” (to the extent that the “I” can be said to be capable of organized perception at all) but rather through a social “me” that included others’ perspectives and interests as part of oneself. One implication was that unsuccessful socialization might lead to personal disorganization—to a self lacking in integration and consistency or to a self that was integrated internally but not integrated into society (or both).

The Study of Community. The second related Chicago school theme, the study of community, was reflected in the work of Park and Burgess and in the studies of the spatial distribution of natural areas and conflicting cultural traditions undertaken by Shaw and McKay (as outlined in Chapter 3). There the stress was on the idea of social disorganization. In addition to this approach, much of the social psychological emphasis in the works of different members of the Chicago school had to do with the possibility of such social disorganization through the collapse of community as a consequence of increasing “social distance” among individuals who refused to get close to one another (Hinkle & Hinkle, 1954). Wirth (1938) described it as a problem of segmentation that separated people and made it impossible for them to relate to one another as total personalities. This theme emphasized the impersonality and anonymity of life in urban industrialized societies in which people in the community did not know or care about one another and preferred it that way. The descriptions sounded like Durkheim’s discussion of anomie or Engels’s picture of London in 1844, only more so.

Beyond the concern with the apparent decline of community at a municipal or neighborhood level, some working within the tradition of the Chicago school focused attention on an even more ominous trend—the apparent decline in the moral integration of the basic primary groups themselves. Even the family, the most primary of all groups, seemed to be losing its influence over its members. If this proved to be true, then it suggested not only social disorganization but also personal disorganization resulting from fundamental problems in the formation of the personal self. It was out of this context of social transformation and sociological thought that control theory was to emerge in criminology.

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Early Control Theories

The concept of social disorganization led different criminological theorists in different directions. As suggested in Chapter 3, ideas of social disorganization could be seen in terms of how it created criminal cultures that, when transmitted and learned, motivated crime or in terms of a weakening of social controls that simply made crime and delinquency more possible. The latter approach was taken by early control theorists, such as Albert Reiss and F. Ivan Nye. Again, each of these theorists tended to take the position that crime and delinquency could be expected in conditions where controls were not effective.

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Reiss’s Theory of Personal and Social Controls

During the late 1940s, Albert J. Reiss completed a doctoral dissertation at the University of Chicago in which he attempted to develop an instrument for the prediction of juvenile delinquency (Reiss, 1949). Two years later, Reiss (1951) summarized part of his project in his article “Delinquency as the Failure of Personal and Social Controls.” Personal control was defined as “the ability of the individual to refrain from meeting needs in ways which conflict with the norms and rules of the community” (p. 196). Social control was defined as “the ability of social groups or institutions to make norms or rules effective” (p. 196). According to Reiss (1951):

Delinquency results when there is a relative absence of internalized norms and rules governing behavior in conformity with the norms of the social system to which legal penalties are attached, a breakdown in previously established controls, and/or a relative absence of or conflict in social rules or techniques for enforcing such behavior in the social groups or institutions of which the person is a member. (p. 196)

This approach clearly was influenced by the social disorganization tradition, but it had a control theory emphasis.

Reiss (1951) maintained that conformity might result either from the individual’s acceptance of rules and roles or from mere submission to them. Such a distinction ran parallel to Durkheim’s division of social solidarity forces into those representing integration and those representing regulation. Personal controls were said to include both

(a) mature ego ideals or non-delinquent social roles, i.e., internalized controls of social groups governing behavior in conformity with non-delinquent group expectations and (b) appropriate and flexible rational controls over behavior which permits conscious guidance of action in accordance with non-delinquent group expectations. (Reiss, 1951, p. 203)

Considered from the “perspective of the person,” social control was held to lie “in the acceptance of or submission to the authority of the institution and the reinforcement of existing personal controls by institutional controls” (Reiss, 1951, p. 201). Considered “from the standpoint of the group,” it was said to lie “in the nature and strength of the norms of the institutions and the effectiveness of the institutional rules in obtaining behavior in conformity with the norms” (p. 201).

In an obvious reference to Chicago school work in the tradition of Shaw and McKay, Reiss (1951) took pains to stress that “this formulation is not in contradiction with the formulations which view certain types of delinquency as a consequence of social control in the delinquent gang” (pp. 196–197). He was not concerned with the way in which delinquency might be fostered through cultural transmission of norms that conflicted with those of the larger society; rather, he was concerned with underlying processes that seemed (1) to occur

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prior to any later processes such as conflicting cultural transmissions and (2) to be necessary before any such subsequent processes (whatever they might be) could ever take place. Being both antecedent and necessary, the processes involving loss of personal and social control might be considered more basic. As Reiss himself put it, “The delinquent peer group is here viewed as a functional consequence of the failure of personal and social controls” (p. 197, emphasis added).

It is important to remember that Reiss’s goal was to develop a prediction instrument. As one reviewer pointed out at the time, Reiss was not seeking to explain what caused delinquency; rather, he was seeking to pin down those factors that had to occur before any such causes could be expected to produce their effects. “The chief concern as a predictor was failure to submit to social controls, the ‘why’ of such action being less important” (Symons, 1951, p. 208).

Following the tendency of the Chicago school tradition that stressed the social psychological dimension, Reiss (1951) began with the assumption that “primary groups are the basic institutions for the development of personal controls and the exercise of social control over the child” (p. 198). It followed that “delinquency and delinquent recidivism may be viewed as a consequence of the failure of primary groups to provide the child with appropriate non-delinquent roles and to exercise social control over the child so these roles are accepted or submitted to in accordance with needs” (p. 198). The key primary groups were identified as the family, the neighborhood, and the school.

Speaking of the family, for example, Reiss (1951) maintained that there is “social control over the child’s behavior when the family milieu is structured so that the child identifies with family members . . . and accepts the norms” (pp. 198–199, emphasis added). On the other hand, acceptance of or submission to such social control may decline if the family fails to “meet the needs of its members” and “provide for members’ needs through the purchase of material goods and services” (p. 198). Control also might be lost if the family exercised either “over-control or under-control of” the child’s behavior (p. 199).

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Nye’s Family-Focused Theory of Social Controls

One of the leading figures in the sociology of the family, F. Ivan Nye, was a product of Michigan State University and very much under the influence of the Chicago school. During the late 1950s, he set forth a more systematic version of control theory, making explicit the formulation of the problem as one of explaining conformity rather than nonconformity. According to Nye (1958), “It is our position, therefore, that in general behavior prescribed as delinquent or criminal need not be explained in any positive sense, since it usually results in quicker and easier achievement of goals than the normative behavior” (p. 5). Thus, the problem for the theorist was not to find an explanation for delinquent or criminal behavior but rather to explain why delinquent and criminal behavior is not more common.

In this view, it was not necessary to find some “positive” factor(s) of a biological, psychological, or sociological nature that operates to “cause” crime and delinquency. The problem was to locate the social control factor(s) that inhibited such nonconformity, the implication being that when the factor(s) operated ineffectively for some reason, crime and delinquency became a possibility available to an individual. Nye’s theoretical and research focus was on adolescents, and he considered the family to be the most important agent of social control over them. As the major primary group representing society, the family could generate direct control, internalized control, indirect control, and control through alternative means of need satisfaction. The same patterns of social control could be generated by other social institutions, although perhaps less powerfully.

These four modes of social control also were reminiscent of Durkheim’s concepts of a combination of integration and regulation. Direct control was considered to be imposed on the individual by external forces such as parents, teachers, and the police through direct restraints accompanied by punishment for misconduct. Internalized control was considered to occur when the individual regulated his or her own behavior, even in the absence of direct external regulation, through some process such as “conscience” or superego capable of restraining egoistic impulses. Indirect control had to do with the extent of affection and identification integrating the individual with authority figures in general and with parents in particular. Such integration might serve to keep the person in line when regulation through either direct control or internalized self- control was minimal. Finally, a social system that made available various means of achieving satisfaction rather than demanding that everyone pursue exactly the same goal in exactly the same manner was held to exert social control by “delivering the goods” in such a variety of legitimate ways that the temptation to nonconformity was reduced.

Although these different modes of social control were held to operate somewhat independently, with one being more important in a particular situation and another in a different context, Nye (1958) pointed out that they were mutually reinforcing. The sense of identification with and affection for parents should, to use Reiss’s (1951) terms, facilitate both an acceptance of and a submission to their direct controls. The same integration into the family unit should result in deeper internalization of parental expectations and regulations through an internal conscience that regulated behavior from within the individual. The fact that the family prepared the individual for the pursuit of alternative goals in life through a variety of means and that the larger society made this possible was a major force for the integration of the individual into the social order. Thus,

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integration and regulation combined to reinforce one another and to reduce the likelihood of nonconforming behavior such as crime and delinquency.

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Reckless’s Containment Theory

Walter C. Reckless also was raised intellectually in the tradition of the Chicago school. He would come to offer one of the most elaborate and, for some time, influential control theories. He would explore not only different sources of control but also a problem that was ignored by Shaw and McKay: not why many youths in disorganized areas became delinquent, but why some youths did not. Later scholars would use the term resiliency to describe youngsters who, despite facing an array of criminogenic risk factors, nonetheless resist crime and pursue conventional lives (see, e.g., Turner, Hartman, Exum, & Cullen, 2007).

Reckless obtained his doctorate at the University of Chicago during the mid-1920s, at the point of theoretical dominance for the Chicago school. Consistent with the Chicago school tradition, Reckless worked with Robert Park and Ernest Burgess. He would eventually undertake a dissertation on prostitution. Huff and Scarpitti (2011) explain Reckless’s movement into criminology:

By then, he was working in a roadhouse playing his violin and observing the activities going on around him: illegal drinking, gambling, prostitution, and various petty rackets. For a fledgling sociologist interested in crime, this was fertile ground for the development of ideas about illegal behavior. (p. 278)

Although this cannot be verified, Reckless relayed (to Cullen) that Al Capone would come into the establishment and put a large sum of money on the bar. He then would lock the doors and say that nobody could leave until enough shots of alcohol were consumed to exhaust the money. Reckless said that on these nights, he would have to play his violin into the early hours of the morning.

Beyond these experiences, Reckless also was influenced by ideas in the Chicago school about social psychology and their relevance for criminology. He asserted during the early 1940s that the central problem lay in explaining “differential responses” (1943, p. 51). By this he meant that criminology ought to pursue a search for “self-factors” that would explain why some individuals succumbed to social pressures leading to crime and delinquency, whereas others remained relatively law abiding in the same circumstances (see also Cullen, 1984). Partly as a result of his search for self-factors during the 1940s and 1950s, Reckless (1961) was able to present what he called his containment theory in some detail at the beginning of the 1960s.

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The Social Psychology of the Self

Like Durkheim and the members of the Chicago school in general, Reckless argued that the great social transformation from life in fairly simple, integrated, agrarian societies to life in complex, technologically sophisticated, highly industrialized urban environments placed a different set of pressures on the individual and the social order. As he revised his theory during the 1960s, Reckless (1967) became more explicit about the way in which the historical transformation represented a “new pitch” in social psychological terms:

The new situation or “pitch” may be described as follows. In a fluid, mobile society which has emphasized freedom of action for its individuals, the person is able to soar like a balloon without the ballast of social relationships. He can readily aggrandize himself at the expense of others. His society does not easily contain him. He no longer fits into expected roles. . . . He plays his major themes in life without agreed-upon ground rules. (p. 21)

Turning specifically to an examination of “crime in the modern world,” Reckless focused attention on the “individualization of the self” (pp. 10–12):

As an entity in personal development, the self seems to have had a sort of natural history. It appears to be relatively unimportant in primitive, isolated societies in which individuals very seldom break away from the undifferentiated uniformity of kin, village, and tribe. When human society in the course of evolution becomes differentiated, develops an increasing division of labor, and presents alternate choices to its members, the selves of certain persons begin to individualize and take on separate and distinct identities, departing from the mass of the people. (p. 11)

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Pushes and Pulls

As a control theorist, Reckless did not purport to offer a theory of crime causation. Indeed, he suggested that a variety of factors (e.g., biophysical forces, psychological pressures, social conditions such as poverty) might “push” a person toward crime or delinquency and that other factors (e.g., illegitimate opportunities) might “pull” one toward misbehavior. He recognized that the leading sociological theories in particular seemed to have effectively analyzed many of the central pushes and pulls. One of his more graphic analogies compared the etiology of crime and delinquency to that of malaria, insisting that the sociological theories stressing social structural forces be complemented by social psychological concepts emphasizing differential response:

Sociological theories that do not account for a self factor to explain differential response are akin to explaining malaria on the basis of the lady mosquito, the swamp, or the lack of screens on houses. But everybody does not get malaria, even under conditions of extreme exposure. Some get a light touch. Some get a very severe attack. Some remain relatively immune. The resistance is within the person—his blood, his chemistry, his differential immunity. (Reckless, 1967, p. 469)

Reckless’s containment theory was meant to explain why in spite of the various criminogenic pushes and pulls, whatever they might be, conformity remains the general state of affairs. He argued that to commit crime or delinquency requires the individual to break through a combination of outer containment and inner containment that together tend to insulate the person from both the pushes and the pulls. With rare exceptions, only when these powerful containing forces were weakened, could deviance occur. And even then it was not assured, given that containment theory was considered a risk theory dealing in probabilities. Every weakening of containment was seen as tending to increase the odds for nonconformity by opening a breach in the armor provided by external social control and internal self-control.

Reckless’s attraction to a control theory called containment has two other potential sources. First, he was influenced by the work on personal and social controls by Albert Reiss (1951), whose theory was discussed earlier. Similar to Reckless, Reiss also was trained at the University of Chicago. Second, as relayed to one of this book’s authors (Cullen), he attributed the origins of his theory to his travels in the Middle East when he still contemplated studying archaeology. He was struck by how regulated or “contained” social behavior was and thus by the lack of outward displays of deviance. These insights, he explained, would later help to shape his thinking on crime (see also Huff & Scarpitti, 2011).

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Factors in Outer Containment

The listing of factors involved in outer containment differed somewhat in various statements of containment theory as Reckless (1967) attempted to refine his theoretical position. He pointed out that the key factors binding the individual to the group might vary across different types of societies. Concentrating on “the external containment model for modern, urban, industrial, mobile society,” he stressed (1) reasonable limits, (2) meaningful roles and activities, and (3) “several complementary variables such as reinforcement by groups and significant supportive relationships, acceptance, [and] the creation of a sense of belonging and identity” (pp. 470–471). Durkheimian themes were clear here, although not spelled out in detail. For example, although the containing limits reflected effective regulation, the latter set of variables “can also be called incorporation or integration of the individual” (p. 471). Translated into Durkheimian terms, it is clear that the containing force of “meaningful roles and activities” involved a combination of regulation and integration:

Groups, organizations, associations, [and] bureaucracies, to operate or stay in existence . . . , must expect reasonable conformity. . . . If a group or organization can get its members to internalize their rules, it would be doing an excellent job of containing. If a group or organization can get its members to comply (although they have not internalized the regulations), they are doing an excellent job. If they can minimize the number of infractions or hold the violations to tolerable proportions (where members are effective, if not enthusiastic, conformists), they are doing a fair job. (Reckless, 1967, p. 470)

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Factors in Inner Containment

For Reckless, however, the emphasis was on inner containment. In contemporary society, the individual who at one point might be operating in a context of powerful outer containment provided by regulating limits, meaningful roles, and a sense of integration into a particular family, organization, or community might in a short time be operating in another context with few regulations, meaningless activities, and a sense of alienation. Inner containment, on the other hand, would tend to control the individual to some extent no matter how the external environment changed. Reckless (1967) identified the key factors here as including self-concept, goal orientation, frustration tolerance, and norm retention.

The importance assigned to self-concept echoed Cooley’s insistence on the significance of the “looking-glass self.” As indicated in Chapter 3, members of the Chicago school, such as Shaw and McKay, focused attention on the manner in which certain natural areas of high delinquency tended to produce “bad boys.” As a control theorist concerned with differential response, Reckless asked the opposite question: Why were there still so many “good boys” in these “swamps” of high delinquency?

Reckless had served on the sociology faculty of Vanderbilt University from 1924 until 1940, when he moved to The Ohio State University. Starting in 1955 with Simon Dinitz and others, he initiated a series of studies examining the question of resilience—of how boys can be good in delinquency areas (Huff & Scarpitti, 2011). Reckless and his associates concluded that such boys were “insulated” by “favorable self-concepts” (Dinitz, Reckless, & Kay, 1958; Dinitz, Scarpitti, & Reckless, 1962; Reckless, 1967; Reckless & Dinitz, 1967; Reckless, Dinitz, & Kay, 1957; Reckless, Dinitz, & Murray, 1956; Scarpitti, Murray, Dinitz, & Reckless, 1960). These studies suggested that an image of oneself as a law-abiding person of a sort not headed for trouble served to keep potential delinquents in relative conformity despite the pushes and pulls described previously. The research suggested that parents were the most influential sources of favorable self-concepts, with teachers and other authority figures also having some influence.

Reckless (1967) maintained that inner containment also greatly depended on goal orientation, defined as a sense of direction in life involving an orientation toward legitimate goals and an aspiration level “synchronized with approved and realistically obtainable goals” (p. 476). This approach ran directly opposite to the strain theory notion that social aspirations tended to become a major source of crime and delinquency because they were so frequently frustrated due to inadequate opportunity to achieve the goals in question. Instead, containment theory treated such goal orientation as providing a sense of direction that would keep the individual on the straight and narrow path of conformity. Such a perspective implied either (1) the assumption that opportunities actually were more widely available than was assumed by strain theory so that reasonable success goals were indeed “realistically obtainable,” (2) the assumption that realistic goal orientations would involve a scaling down of aspirations on the part of many individuals, or (3) both of these assumptions. These insights concerning the controlling role of goal orientation anticipated Hirschi’s (1969) discussion of the social bond of “commitment” (see Chapter 6).

Considering frustration tolerance as a major factor in inner containment, containment theory accepted the

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possibility that the control of biophysical urges toward deviance may be very frustrating and that contemporary society, indeed, may generate considerable frustration as a result of facts such as differential opportunity. It did not argue against efforts to deal with the sources of crime and delinquency by movement toward greater equality of opportunity, but it suggested that part of the differential response to familial, economic, political, and sexual frustrations can be accounted for by the fact that different individuals have developed different capacities for coping with frustration and that contemporary individualism generally is characterized by low frustration tolerance and consequent lack of self-control. Thus, Reckless (1967) maintained that the contemporary individual “develops a very low frustration tolerance to the ordinary upsets, failures, and disappointments in life” and that this may result in “the inability to exert self-control, to tolerate frustration, to recognize limits, [and] to relate to others” (pp. 20–21). These insights anticipated the discussion of Agnew (1992, 2006b), in his general strain theory, of the factors that condition the response to strain either toward or away from crime.

The fourth key component of inner containment, norm retention, referred to the “adherence to, commitment to, acceptance of, identification with, legitimation of, [and] defense of values, norms, laws, codes, institutions, and customs” (Reckless, 1967, p. 476). Although the emphasis on goal orientation stressed the integration of the individual through the containing power of direction toward legitimate ends, the emphasis on norm retention stressed the integration of the individual through identification with acceptable means. But for containment theory, the key problem here was not norm retention but rather norm erosion or understanding the processes by which this containing factor sometimes was eroded to allow for the possibility of crime and delinquency. Norm erosion was described as including “alienation from, emancipation from, withdrawal of legitimacy from, and neutralization of formerly internalized ethics, morals, laws, and values” (p. 476, emphasis added). These insights anticipated Hirschi’s (1969, p. 26) concept of “belief” and his claim that the weakening of belief in “the moral validity of norms” frees individuals to offend.

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Summary

Reckless’s theory is based on the simple insight that crime will occur when containment weakens or is absent. As we have seen, however, Reckless fleshed out this central premise through his discussion of sources of criminal motivation and types of containment. To make the complexities of his theory more understandable, we have provided a summary of the key components of containment theory in Table 5.1.

Table 5.1 Summary of Reckless’s Containment Theory Table 5.1 Summary of Reckless’s Containment Theory

Key Explanatory Concepts

Definition

Sources of Criminal Motivation

Pushes Factors that propel or motivate offenders toward crime, including biophysical forces, psychological pressures, and social conditions such as poverty.

Pulls Factors for crime that entice individuals to offend, such as the presence of illegitimate opportunities or peers who offend. Differential association and subculture theories are “pull” explanations.

Types of Containment

Outer containment

Factors within an organized group that serve to reinforce conventional behavior, encourage internalization of rules, and offer supportive relationships. Not found in socially disorganized neighborhoods.

Inner containment

Internal factors that insulate, or allow individuals to resist, the pushes and pulls toward crime that they encounter.

Components of Inner Containment

Self-concept Positive view of self as a law-abiding citizen. Anticipated the concept of “resilience.”

Goal orientation

Realistic view or aspirations that success goals are attainable. Anticipated Hirschi’s concept of “commitment.”

Frustration tolerance

Self-control to cope with failures and problems in life. Anticipated Agnew’s concept of coping or “conditioning” variables.

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Norm retention and erosion

Acceptance or belief in conventional values, laws, customs, and ways of behaving. Weakening or erosion of normative commitment can lead to crime. Anticipated Hirschi’s concept of “belief.”

It is difficult to report on the empirical status of containment theory. As noted, Reckless and his associates conducted a series of studies starting in the mid-1950s generally favorable to the perspective (for a review, see Reckless & Dinitz, 1967). Thereafter, however, research on containment theory was minimal (Janssen, Bruinsma, & Weerman, 2018; Jensen, 1973). Three factors likely contributed to this lack of attention. First, as seen in Table 5.1, the theory is complex, having various constructs that would have to be measured. Second, in the 1950s—the precomputer era when the discipline was small in number—empirical criminology was in its beginning stages. And third, Travis Hirschi’s 1969 publication of Causes of Delinquency set forth an alternative control perspective that was easier to understand and test (see Chapter 6). Hirschi’s “social bond theory” became the dominant control theory and was tested numerous times (Cullen, 2011; Kempf, 1993).

It would be a mistake, however, to assume that an older theory is by the very fact of its age less valuable than newer approaches. As will be discussed later, a common assumption of control theory found in Hirschi’s work is that humans are, by their very nature, motivated to use whatever means at their disposal—including crime —to gratify their desires. For Hirschi, then, the motivation to offend is universal and does not need to be explained; the only theoretical task is to explain who has controls sufficiently strong for them to resist the temptation of crime. Weak controls automatically lead to wayward behavior. As Janssen et al. (2018) note, Reckless’s theory was more comprehensive, identifying both sources of motivation to offend (pushes and pulls) and sources of control (inner and outer containment). It is one of the few theories that integrates motivation and control in a systematic way (Janssen et al., 2018).

Notably, Heleen Janssen, along with her colleagues Gerben Bruinsma and Frank Weerman (2018), have recently rescued containment theory from the empirical dustbin and tested its core propositions in a longitudinal study of 564 adolescents (ages 12 to 18) drawn from The Hague, a city in the Netherlands. Their design employed multiple indicators of environmental pulls and of inner and outer containment. For example, inner containment was measured by five scales, including anticipated guilt and shame, impulse and temper control, and risk adversity. Their analysis provides clear support for containment theory. Most important, they found that outer containment, but especially inner containment, insulated youths against delinquency when environmental pulls (or motivation) increased. Of course, this study remains to be replicated many times over. Nonetheless, as Janssen et al. (2018, p. 24) conclude, their work shows that “a relatively ‘old’ theory, seemingly lost in criminological history and neglected by most researchers, still has value today for understanding and thinking about juvenile delinquency.”

Finally, on a broader level, we want to emphasize that Reckless was influenced by a challenge that faced many scholars of his day: How is order possible as society is rapidly modernized? Thus, it is apparent that containment theory followed the Chicago school approach in a way that was very Durkheimian. It took a historical focus, seeing what apparently was an increase in crime and delinquency as a product of the modern world. Unlike strain theories, it did not stress economic inequality and argue that crime and delinquency must

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be dealt with primarily through a liberal political agenda stressing equality of opportunity. Like the Durkheimian tradition, it regarded the moral order as more fundamental than the economic order and concerned itself, to a considerable extent, with what it took to be the problem of the individual in a complex society who increasingly is cast adrift with boundless desires, little capacity to tolerate denial, and no real sense of direction or commitment to the traditional rules of social life.

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Sykes and Matza: Neutralization and Drift Theory

As we have seen, control theorists such as Reckless considered many of the sociological theories of crime and delinquency to be overly deterministic. If these problems were caused by slums, criminal traditions, lack of economic opportunity, and the like, then why was it that many (if not most) of those suffering from such pressures in fact did not become criminals or delinquent at all?

During the late 1950s, Gresham Sykes and David Matza turned attention to two related issues. First, if the social pressures causing delinquency were so powerful, then why was it that even the worst of delinquents seemed to be fairly conventional people, actually conforming in so many other ways? And why was it that although they continued to live in areas of crime and delinquency and continued to be faced with a lack of economic opportunity, most of them did not continue law-violating behavior beyond a certain age but rather settled down in law-abiding lives? Could it be that the delinquency that took up so small a part of their lives for so short a time really was some sort of aberration—a temporary, albeit occasionally dramatic, quirk rather than a basic characteristic?

Second, Sykes and Matza observed that delinquency was not confined to inner-city slums but occurred throughout the class structure. As noted below, they were writing in a new social context—not the era of mass immigration but post–World War II America. The nation was experiencing affluence, movement to the suburbs, and the growth of a distinct youth culture. In fact, self-report studies—a way to measure crime that became increasingly popular—showed that delinquency was widespread across society (see, e.g., Short & Nye, 1957–1958; for a review, see Sykes & Cullen, 1992). Theories linking crime to slum subcultures or blocked opportunity seemed incapable of explaining middle-class delinquency. The prototypical delinquent for Sykes and Matza was not Stanley, Shaw’s (1930) jack-roller, but Johnny the joy-riding car thief and Mary the shoplifter.

The collaboration between Gresham Sykes and David Matza (who passed away in 2018) occurred at Princeton University and was, like many scholarly partnerships, accidental. Matza’s plans to write a dissertation on labor movements were scuttled when his major professor took a year’s leave of absence. A new faculty member, Sykes, invited Matza to join him on a grant and to undertake a dissertation on delinquency (Blomberg, 2018; Lemelle, 2010). It might be recalled that Sykes (1958) had an interest in criminology that included his classic study of a New Jersey maximum-security prison—published under the title Society of Captives—that became the basis for the deprivation model of inmate adaptations.

In any event, Sykes and Matza set about challenging the view that delinquents were different “from the rest of us,” whether that was due to individual pathology or subcultural membership. Put another way, their goal was to normalize youths involved in delinquency. They did this through three classic theoretical works, the first two coauthored essays and the final one a book by Matza alone: (1) “Techniques of Neutralization: A Theory of Delinquency” (1957), (2) “Juvenile Delinquency and Subterranean Values” (1961), and (3) Delinquency and Drift (1964). Each of these contributions is discussed next.

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Techniques of Neutralization

According to Sykes and Matza (1957), the major theories of the day overemphasized the difference between delinquents and nondelinquents. Subcultural theories, for example, assumed that juveniles learned an alternative, criminal value system that made delinquency a natural choice. In contrast, Sykes and Matza argued that delinquents retained a commitment to conventional society and its standards of behavior; they knew right from wrong. This observation, however, led to a theoretical puzzle: How was it possible for youths to violate the conventional morality if they, in fact, had not rejected it—if they remained essentially integrated into the society and generally respectful of its regulations?

Sykes and Matza argued that delinquency would be possible if youths could escape the control that conventional society had over them. They explained that this was possible because part of the process through which one learned the conventional social norms consisted of the learning of excuses or techniques of neutralization by which those norms could be temporarily suspended and their controlling effects neutralized. When this occurred, youths were free to commit certain delinquent acts in particular circumstances without the necessity of rejecting the norms themselves. For example, students might believe that cheating on a test is wrong and not engage in this practice. But if they felt that a professor gave an unfair test, they might be able to justify cheating in this one case “because they had no choice.”

Sykes and Matza (1957) listed five specific techniques of neutralization: (1) denial of responsibility, (2) denial of injury, (3) denial of the victim, (4) condemnation of the condemners, and (5) appeal to higher loyalties (for a summary, see Table 5.2). Denial of responsibility is exemplified by the excuse that “a lot of the trouble I get into is not my fault.” Denial of injury is exemplified by excuses such as “they’ve got so much, they’ll never miss it.” An excuse such as “I only steal from drunks [or ‘queers,’ ‘rednecks,’ ‘outsiders,’ etc.]” represents denial of the victim. Condemnation of the condemners amounts to an insistence that certain people have no right to condemn certain violations because, for example, “they’re worse than we are.” Finally, “we have to do it to protect our turf size” represents excuses by appeal to higher loyalties. Sykes and Matza argued that it was the use of these techniques of neutralization that allowed delinquents to occasionally violate laws that they actually accepted and obeyed most of the time.

Table 5.2 Summary of Sykes and Matza’s Techniques of Neutralization Table 5.2 Summary of Sykes and Matza’s Techniques of Neutralization

Technique Neutralization Slogan

Denial of responsibility

Forces beyond my control made me break the law (e.g., my friends pressured me; my parents abused me).

“I didn’t mean it.”

Denial of injury

My delinquent act did not injure anyone (e.g., it was just a prank; I was just borrowing the money I took and was going to put it back).

“I didn’t really hurt anybody.”

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Denial of the victim

The victimization was deserved; thus, it was not wrong given the circumstances (e.g., I cheated because the teacher gives unfair tests; we beat up the kid because he knows he has no right to be on our turf).

“They had it coming to them.”

Condemnation of the condemners

It is okay to break the law because those running society are all corrupt and on the take. They are just hypocrites to criticize what I do (e.g., look at all the “respectable” people committing white-collar frauds).

“Everyone’s picking on me.”

Appeal to higher loyalties

I was obligated to break the law or I would lose my integrity and morality (e.g., I jumped into the fight to protect my friend; I lied to the police because it is wrong to snitch).

“I didn’t do it for myself.”

For more than a half century, Sykes and Matza’s research has continued to have a major influence in criminology. Thus, qualitative and empirical studies support the conclusion that neutralizations facilitate offending, the original list of five techniques has been elaborated to include other neutralizations, and the perspective has been applied to explain offense types ranging from street crime to white-collar crime (Maruna & Copes, 2005). At the same time, further development of this approach will require integrating Sykes and Matza’s views into the evolving literature within cognitive social psychology on how people use excuses and other beliefs when making the decision to break the law (Maruna & Copes, 2005).

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Subterranean Values

Remember that when Sykes and Matza were writing, the Chicago school and subcultural theories of crime were dominant within criminology. As we have seen, scholars such as Shaw and McKay (1942) and then Cohen (1955) as well as Cloward and Ohlin (1960) argued that criminal traditions favorable to crime were provided by, and thus concentrated in, slum neighborhoods. By contrast, in communities located at a distance from the city core, conventional culture was dominant, which meant that youths learned to be good kids. In this model, a good conventional culture promoted conforming conduct and a bad criminal culture promoted illegal behavior. Indeed, Sutherland’s (1939) theory required the existence of two competing or different cultures—one conventional and one criminal. Only with such culture conflict was it possible for youths to “differentially associate” with one cultural orientation over the other.

In their work on techniques of neutralization, Sykes and Matza (1957) denied that two cultures existed, asserting instead that the nation was marked by consensus over conventional culture. It was for this reason that techniques were needed to release juveniles to offend in certain circumstances but not in most others. In their next article together, Matza and Sykes (1961) continued their attack on the Chicago school but with a new twist. Now, they sought to problematize the very concept of “conventional” culture by arguing that it was complex and that adhering to its mandates could itself be criminogenic (Benson & Cullen, 2018). Note that in Chapter 4, a different but related argument was made by anomie theory where the American dream, a central societal virtue, could promote the pursuit of goals by whatever means possible, including illegal means.

According to Matza and Sykes, subcultural theorists embraced an overly Puritanical conception of a conventional culture that publicly admires the middle-class values of hard work, routinization, and moral uprightness and thus that stands in opposition to criminal culture (see also Currie, 2010). Conventional culture, however, is more complex than this. Lurking beneath the surface are what Matza and Sykes (1961, p. 716) called “subterranean values.” Although these values tend to be more of a private than public morality, they “are still recognized and accepted by many” (p. 716). More specifically, they are located mainly in the leisure class with its emphasis on adventure and thrills, the big money score and conspicuous consumption, and masculine manifestations of violence and aggression.

These subterranean values are glorified so long as they lead to appropriate behavior in the right circumstances. Examples might include the purchase of a fast and expensive sports car, high-stakes casino gambling, or daring activities such as skydiving or mountain climbing. The difficulty arises, however, when subterranean values are acted upon by immature and less circumspect youngsters, themselves members of an age-graded leisure class. Here, embrace of these values can lead to wayward acts—perhaps stealing a car for fun, using profits from drug sales to wear fancy clothes and party, or fighting to display toughness. The important point is this: Delinquency can reflect not outright criminal values but widely accepted conventional subterranean values such as the pursuit of “kicks, big time spending, and rep” (Matza & Sykes, 1961, p. 717; see also Brezina & Agnew, 2018). Accordingly, conclude Matza and Sykes (1961), “the delinquent may not stand as an alien in the body of society but may represent instead a disturbing reflection or a caricature” (p. 717).

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Drift Theory

This explanation of delinquency in terms of techniques of neutralization represented a control perspective because it sees these techniques as needed to neutralize existing social control, thereby allowing the possibility of delinquency. In fact, Ball (1966) argued that the concept of techniques of neutralization is not sufficiently developed to constitute a theory in its own right and might be integrated into Reckless’s more systematic containment theory by considering the various techniques as examples of the more general process of norm erosion posited by Reckless.

In any case, Matza (1964) himself developed the notion further during the mid-1960s in his classic book, Delinquency and Drift (see Blomberg, Cullen, Carlsson, & Jonson, 2018; Currie, 2010). Building on his writings with Sykes, he again took issue with the view of the positivist school of criminology that delinquents are pathological in some way—that they have defects that distinguish them from normal people and that propel them into crime. According to Matza, the positivist school suffered from an “embarrassment of riches” because it overpredicted delinquency in two ways (p. 21). First, most offenders do not engage in crime persistently due to a supposed defect but only episodically. Most of their time, in fact, is spent in conventional activities, much the same as nondelinquents. Second, most offenders experience “maturational reform,” which means that they stop offending as they move into adulthood (p. 22). Moffitt (1993) would later refer to this developmental pathway as “adolescence-limited” offending, contrasting it with “life-course-persistent” offending. Theories that attributed crime to some pathological trait or slum conditions would not explain why individuals would ever desist from crime since these factors never changed. Finally, Matza claimed that the positivist school denied offenders any sense of human agency, portraying them as helplessly or mindlessly driven into crime by forces beyond their control.

In this context, Matza wanted to create a more complex understanding of the delinquent enterprise, one in which the line between offenders and nonoffenders was more blurred than bright. Toward this end, he argued that delinquency is not so much the ineluctable expression of pathological defects but a process of “drift.” Because offenders are tied to the conventional order to some degree, a first step toward delinquency involves loosening these controls through techniques of neutralization (discussed above). But neutralization is facilitated not only by a youngster’s own beliefs but also, ironically, by the expression of certain ideologies by authorities who represent the official moral order. By this Matza meant that the authorities themselves often excuse violations by blaming parents, citing provocation on the part of the victims, or accepting explanations defining the infractions as involving self-defense or “accident” in a way that reinforces the norm neutralization of the juveniles. In this double-edged way, the controlling power of conventional norms might either be weakened by all sorts of qualifications built into them or be eroded through time as attempts to apply them are met with objections, excuses, and vacillations.

Importantly, neutralization makes delinquency not a foregone conclusion but only a possibility. Once freed from the constraints of the conventional order, youths now drifted between this moral order and a criminal one. In Matza’s (1964) language, “Those who have been granted the potentiality for freedom through the loosening of social controls but who lack the position, capacity, or inclination to become agents in their own

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behalf, I call drifters, and it is in this category that I place the juvenile delinquent” (p. 29). Dealing with a central criticism of control theory—which holds that “delinquency . . . cannot be assumed to be a potentiality of human nature which automatically erupts when the lid is off” (Cohen & Short, 1958, p. 30) but must involve at least some triggering factors—Matza made a concession that many other control theorists would not accept: He agreed that because delinquency may involve unfamiliar and dangerous behaviors, something more than loss of control is necessary to explain it. He held that the triggering factors that move a youngster from drift to delinquency consist of a combination of preparation and desperation.

For Matza, preparation involves a process by which the person discovers that a given infraction can be pulled off by someone, that the individual has the ability to do it himself or herself, and that fear or apprehension can be managed. Even if a delinquent infraction has become possible, it might not occur unless someone learns that it was possible, feels confident that he or she can do it, and is courageous or stupid enough to minimize the dangers. Otherwise, the possibility will fail to become a reality. As for the element of desperation, Matza argued that the central force there is a profound sense of fatalism and the feeling that the self is overwhelmed. This fatalism produces a need to violate the rules of the system so as to reassert individuality. In a sense, crime thus becomes a means of expressing a more meaningful identity—a way of supplying “some dramatic reassurance that he can still make things happen” (1964, p. 189). Unlike Reckless, Matza did not criticize such a need for individuality as often amounting to a misplaced egoism.

The combination of preparation and desperation creates what Matza termed the will to offend. Again, this is a motivational construct that explains why some youths in drift offend and others do not—and thus Matza’s approach departs from control theories that see the will to offend as ever present in a human nature that, unless controlled, will seek immediate gratification through the easiest means possible (including breaking the law).

But Matza’s construct of will also anticipated the contemporary focus on human agency, a theoretical development that emerged some four decades later (see Laub & Sampson, 2003; see also Cullen, 2017). This view rejects the hard determinism of the positivist school that, at least implicitly, sees individuals propelled into crime by a set of risk factors. This depersonalization truncates reality and reduces individuals to the role of voyeurs watching helplessly as they move down a conveyor belt leading to crime. By contrast, the view of will, or human agency, embraces a soft determinism that sees crime not only as intimately shaped by criminogenic conditions but also as involving, in the end, a person who thinks, interprets the world, makes choices, and acts (see Currie, 2010). An enduring contribution of Matza’s work thus was to remind scholars to focus in detail on the subjective side of offending (Blomberg et al., 2018).

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Control Theory in Context

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The Context of the 1950s

When Reiss (1951) published his article treating delinquency as a failure of personal and social controls at the beginning of the 1950s, the social disorganization themes of the Chicago school as developed during the Roaring Twenties still were in fashion, having been reinforced by the experiences of the Great Depression, World War II, and the rapid social change following the war. But almost as if Americans collectively were exhausted by these upheavals and were determined to have peace and quiet, the 1950s became a time of relative social conformity, at least on the surface. Television shows such as Lassie and Leave It to Beaver were almost caricatures of the era, with the (stereotypical) middle-class American father coming home from the office to greet the (stereotypical) happy (if slightly mischievous) children at their lemonade stand before inquiring of his (stereotypical) wife (clad in her stereotypical housedress and apron), “What’s for dinner, honey?” Conformity, conventionality, and complacency were the order of the day.

Given this pervasive atmosphere, approaches such as Nye’s theory tracing delinquency to departures from the model of the ideal family with all its conventional controls over the young seemed almost like common sense. Social critics were more alarmed by the atmosphere of stifling overconformity than by concern over general social disorganization. By the close of the 1950s and even into the early 1960s, Americans were being criticized as a “nation of sheep” (Lederer, 1961) in which the mother was trapped at home in a set of stereotypes about women amounting to a “feminine mystique” (Friedan, 1963) and the father went off to work, only to submit meekly as an “organization man” (Whyte, 1957). Despite the fascination with the apparent wildness of the big-city gangs, the young in general were being criticized as a mass of pop culture conformists, and traditionally unruly college students were being castigated as so lacking in any willingness to question things as to constitute a “silent generation” (Starr, 1985, p. 238). Throughout the 1950s, society as a whole seemed to be sleeping through the American dream.

Of course, not everyone was satisfied. As indicated in Chapter 4, there was concern in some quarters about continuing social inequality and differential opportunity, as evidenced by the renewal of interest in Merton’s (1938) anomie theory. The general public was fascinated with and strangely alarmed by the apparently senseless behavior of highly publicized adolescent male working-class gangs in the large cities, exotic groups that in some strange way failed to fit into the dream. Cohen’s (1955) delinquent subculture theory represented an effort to explain some of this, although Sykes and Matza (1957) maintained that delinquents were not as different as they might appear. By and large, opportunity theory fit the 1950s, stressing as it did the importance of everyone having access to full participation in the American way of life.

The tendency to stress the strain theory aspect of Merton’s approach tells a great deal about the preoccupations of the time. Although Merton himself used Durkheim’s term and described the way in which the amorality coming with intense emphasis on economic success weakened social control through a deemphasis on traditional normative standards of right and wrong, it was the idea of a discontinuity between success goals and the institutionalized means for their achievement that captured most of the attention. Many paid little attention to the powerful Durkheimian theme of moral erosion in their excitement over the theme that traced much of the nonconformity that did exist to a lack of access to legitimate opportunities to achieve

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those conventional economic aspirations so central to the dream.

Although the potentials for social change were seething under the surface of all this apparent tranquility and already were beginning to be felt here and there, this general atmosphere still prevailed in large part when Reckless (1961) first set forth his containment theory at the beginning of the 1960s. The formulation had somewhat less impact than might have been expected from a major theoretical statement by one of the nation’s leading criminologists. In some ways, his containment theory seemed to reflect more of the social climate of the post–World War I years of the 1920s, when Reckless was a graduate student at the University of Chicago and concerns over social disorganization filled the air, than of the complacent 1950s. But the onslaught of the 1960s was to make control theory much more popular.

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The Context of the 1960s

The massive social changes that took place in America during the 1960s, including the rising tide of protest over discrimination, the development of a youth counterculture, and the reaction to the war in Vietnam, not only shook American society but also had a considerable impact on criminological theory. Although Martin Luther King Jr.’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference had begun its work during the middle 1950s, the civil rights movement had not exploded into public consciousness until its rapid acceleration with the dramatic lunch counter sit-in by African American students in Greensboro, North Carolina, in 1960 (Starr, 1985; Zinn, 1964). The coming of the civil rights movement shattered much of the complacency of the 1950s, and its reliance on a nonviolent strategy of civil disobedience entailing the deliberate violation of segregation laws represented a direct repudiation of conventional social control in the name of a higher morality. But this was only the beginning.

The so-called Beats, representing part of the avant-garde literary world of the 1950s, had made a special point of defying conventionality by flaunting drug use, and the latter part of the decade had seen the birth of a strange new brand of rebellious music called “rock and roll.” Even so, neither of these had shaken the establishment. But between 1960 and 1966, the number of U.S. students enrolling in college more than doubled, topping 7.3 million (Starr, 1985). Early during the 1960s, widely publicized student protests at respectable and prestigious institutions such as the University of California, Berkeley, attacked the impersonality and complacency of the bureaucracies of higher education and demanded a place for individuality and greater freedom of expression. This developing counterculture tended to reject many of the conventional aspects of the American dream, including the characteristic overconformity, the model of the middle-class family, and the ruthless pursuit of material success. The search for an “authentic self” became a priority. “The perception of the banality of existence became the core of the youth revolt of the 1960s” (Aronowitz, 1973, p. 331).

Changes such as these, as well as dramatic events including the assassination of President Kennedy in 1963 and growing uneasiness over the slow escalation of military involvement in Southeast Asia, meant that Matza’s theory positing drift associated with a decline in moral consensus and a combination of preparation and desperation could find a more receptive audience. As the decade moved on, the continuing drama of the civil rights movement, the coming of militant feminism, the Vietnam War protests, the appearance of the hippies, the advocacy of psychedelic drug use on the part of respected Harvard University professors, and a host of other dramatic social and cultural shifts seemed to many to signal the complete collapse of personal and social control.

By the middle of the 1960s, the civil rights movement had taken on a different and more radical tone. The movement for Black separatism, demanding that several states be set apart for African Americans within the United States, had gained considerable strength. The Black Muslim movement had led many African Americans to reject Christianity as a “White man’s religion,” to change their names, and to embrace a variation of the Islamic faith. For many African Americans, much of the machinery of personal and social control seemed to be designed to ensure their continued social and emotional bondage.

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As the escalation of U.S. involvement in Vietnam accelerated under President Johnson, protests became more frequent and more violent. News media increasingly referred to the nation as being “torn apart” by the war. Social consensus appeared to have evaporated. The 1950s began to seem like an era in a very different society.

As for the feminist movement of the 1960s, it represented in large part an attack on the revered institution of the conventional family as a deceptive front for the political, economic, and sexual oppression of women. The counterculture of hippies and others, which grew up among the new breed of college students and spread to include both students and nonstudents as well as both youths and adults, seemed to mock the staid buttoned- down mentality of the 1950s. Many clean-cut, middle-class young men took to beards, sandals, beads, and shoulder-length hair, and previously demure young ladies adopted similar attire, except for the beards. Drugs, especially marijuana, seemed to be everywhere among them, and they were most united in their rejection of the middle-class preachments regarding conventional family life and dedication to the economic rat race.

To many observers, the 1960s seemed to be characterized by loss of self-control on the part of the individual and of social control on the part of organized religion, the family, educational institutions, the economic order, and the political state. It sometimes appeared that everything was being called into question and that all of the conventional institutions were crumbling. The times were ripe for acceptance of a perspective linking crime to the breakdown of control if it could be formulated in appropriate theoretical terms. At the close of the 1960s, Travis Hirschi, himself working in the midst of the social unrest at Berkeley, took up this challenge. Hirschi (1969) set forth a highly refined version of control theory—his “social bond” perspective— that became one of the most influential criminological theories during the last quarter of the 20th century. It is to the theoretical contributions of Hirschi that we next turn.

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Further Readings

Source: F. T. Cullen, & P. Wilcox. (Eds.). (2010). Encyclopedia of Criminological Theory. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Readings are available online at www.study.sagepub.com/lilly7e.

1. Matza, David: Delinquency and Drift 2. Nye, F. Ivan: Family Controls and Delinquency 3. Reckless, Walter C.: Containment Theory 4. Sykes, Gresham M., and David Matza: Techniques of Neutralization

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http://www.study.sagepub.com/lilly7e

Chapter Six The Complexity of Control Hirschi’s Two Theories and Beyond

Travis Hirschi 1935–2017 University of Arizona Author of Social Bond Theory

Steve Agan Photography

Travis Hirschi has dominated control theory for four decades. His influence today is undiminished and likely will continue for years, if not decades, to come (see, e.g., Britt & Costello, 2015; Britt & Gottfredson, 2003; Costello, 2013; Gottfredson, 2006; Hay & Meldrum, 2016; Kempf, 1993; Pratt & Cullen, 2000; Vazsonyi, Mikuška, & Kelley, 2017). Beyond the sheer scholarly talent manifested in his writings, what accounts for Hirschi’s enduring influence on criminological theory? Three interrelated considerations appear to nourish the appeal of his thinking.

First, Hirschi’s theories are stated parsimoniously. This means that his theories’ core propositions are easily understood (e.g., the lack of social bonds or of self-control increases criminal involvement). Second, Hirschi is combative and thus controversial. He stakes out a theoretical position and then argues that alternative perspectives are wrong. Hirschi (1983) has long been antagonistic to attempts to integrate theories. Good theories, he believes, have assumptions and an internal consistency that make them incompatible with other approaches. Attempts to mix them together result in fuzzy conceptual frameworks and inhibit the growth of the individual theories. Third, because Hirschi’s theories are parsimoniously stated and make claims that other theories are wrong, they are ideal to test empirically. One (but not the only) reason that theories flourish is that they are able to provide scholars with opportunities to conduct research and gain publication—the very

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accomplishment that allows for tenure and career advancement (Cole, 1975). Hirschi’s theorizing has thus been a rich resource that criminologists have mined for numerous publications (Gottfredson, 2006; Kempf, 1993; Pratt & Cullen, 2000; Sampson & Laub, 1993). There is little evidence that this vein of research ideas will soon run dry.

This is not to say that Hirschi’s theorizing has been universally popular. His frameworks are bold—critics would say pretentious (Geis, 2000)—because they claim to be “general theories” that explain crime across types of crime and types of people. Hirschi also has shown little interest in race, class, and gender inequalities that others—especially those from more critical perspectives—see as fundamental to any explanation of crime (see, e.g., Miller & Burack, 1993). Regardless of their merits, these critiques have done little to dim Hirschi’s influence; if anything, the controversy has sparked further research (see, e.g., Blackwell & Piquero, 2005).

In his career, Hirschi’s thinking has evolved rather substantially. In fact, he has proposed two related but ultimately competing theories. The first perspective, social bond theory, was presented in 1969 in his book Causes of Delinquency. The second perspective, self-control theory, was presented in 1990 in his book A General Theory of Crime—a work he coauthored with Michael Gottfredson. In this chapter, we review each theory and attempt to show how they are best considered rival theoretical perspectives. We also consider Schreck’s efforts to expand self-control theory to explain victimization.

Hirschi’s pervasive influence, however, should not mask the theoretical contributions of other scholars who have focused on the role of control in crime causation. In many ways, these alternative theories are richer in that they explore more carefully how control is shaped by context and can have diverse consequences. In short, they illuminate the complexity of control. Accordingly, we review three important contemporary control theories: Hagan’s power-control theory, Tittle’s control balance theory, and Colvin’s coercion theory. We also consider Cullen’s social support theory, which attempts to move beyond a pure control theory of crime.

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Hirschi’s First Theory: Social Bonds and Delinquency

The central premise of Hirschi’s first theory is that delinquency arises when social bonds are weak or absent. By itself, this proposition seems rather technical and not something that would stir much theoretical controversy. But Hirschi’s intent was not simply to identify another variety of control theory—his social bond theory—but in doing so to challenge the two major paradigms of his day: Sutherland’s differential association theory (which he termed cultural deviance theory) and Merton’s strain theory. His goal was to start a theoretical fight; he succeeded (see also Kornhauser, 1978).

Again, as a control theorist, he argued that these two perspectives asked the wrong theoretical question: Why are people motivated to commit crimes? For differential association theory, the answer was that youths are enveloped by a deviant culture that they learn in interaction with others. This positive learning—that is, learning to value crime—is what moves them to break the law. For strain theory, the blockage of goals creates a frustration that is the engine that drives individuals into crime. Hirschi, however, asserted that these theories were explaining something that did not require explanation—motivation. If humans would by their natures seek the easy and immediate gratifications inherent in crime, then they did not need to learn to want to commit crimes or be driven into crime by unbearable strains in order to break the law. In effect, such criminal cultural values and strains were redundant and thus did not explain who would be a delinquent and who would not be a delinquent.

For Hirschi, of course, the proper theoretical question was: Why don’t people break the law? What differentiates offenders from nonoffenders are the factors that restrain people from acting on their wayward impulses. The theoretical task thus was to identify the nature of the social controls that regulate when crime occurs. Hirschi (1969) called these controls “social bonds.”

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Hirschi’s Forerunners

Hirschi’s (1969) theoretical position was expressed with special clarity through a critique of alternative perspectives, an exploration of the differences between his own formulation and those of his predecessors in the development of control theory, and an examination of his position in the light of empirical data. A review of his approach may provide a clear example not only of the way in which criminological theories reflect contexts of time and place but also of the manner in which they are shaped by special considerations aside from the orientations of the particular theorists. Hirschi himself showed an appreciation of this and unusual candor in admitting just how certain considerations affected the way in which he set forth his position. These included the nature of the data available to him and the current unpopularity of one specific tradition through which he might have expressed his ideas—the social disorganization theme of the Chicago school.

Hirschi pointed out the significance of the data factor in an interview:

Control theory, as I stated it, cannot really be understood unless one takes into account the fact that I was attached to a particular method of research. When I was working on the theory, I knew that my data were going to be survey data; therefore, I knew that I was going to have mainly the perceptions, attitudes, and values of individuals as reported by them. . . . Had I data on other people or on the structure of the community, I would have had to state the theory in a quite different way. (quoted in Bartollas, 1985, p. 190, emphasis added)

The problem with the social disorganization theme was that it had lost a great deal of its popularity as an explanation of social problems in general and of crime in particular (Rubington & Weinberg, 1971). Like the older concept of social pathology, it had come under intense criticism as a matter of vague generalities masking a lack of value neutrality. As Clinard (1957) commented:

There are a number of objections to this frame of reference. (1) Disorganization is too subjective and vague a concept for analyzing a general society. . . . (2) Social disorganization implies the disruption of a previously existing condition of organization, a situation which generally cannot be established. . . . (3) Social disorganization is usually thought of as something “bad,” and what is “bad” is often the value judgment of the observer and the members of his social class or other social groups. . . . (4) The existence of forms of deviant behavior does not necessarily constitute a major threat to the central values of a society. . . . (5) What seems like disorganization actually may often be highly organized systems of competing norms. . . . (6) Finally, as several sociologists have suggested, it is possible that a variety of subcultures may contribute, through their diversity, to the unity or integration of a society rather than weakening it by constituting a situation of social disorganization. (p. 41)

These and other criticisms of the concept of social disorganization were widely accepted during the 1960s, and

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Hirschi was equally candid in describing how he deliberately avoided linking his theory to the social disorganization tradition because of its unpopularity at the time:

For example, I was aware at the time I wrote my theory that it was well within the social disorganization tradition. I knew that, but you have to remember the status of social disorganization as a concept in the middle 1960s when I was writing. I felt I was swimming against the current in stating a social control theory at the individual level. Had I tried to sell social disorganization at the same time, I would have been in deep trouble. So I shied away from that tradition. As a result, I did not give social disorganization its due. I went back to Durkheim and Hobbes and ignored an entire American tradition that was directly relevant to what I was saying. But I was aware of it and took comfort in it. I said the same things the social disorganization people had said, but since they had fallen into disfavor I had to disassociate myself from them. Further, as Ruth Kornhauser so acutely points out, social disorganization theories had been associated with the cultural tradition. That was the tradition I was working hardest against; so in that sense, I have compromised my own position or I would have introduced a lot of debate I didn’t want to get into had I dealt explicitly with social disorganization theory. Now, with people like Kornhauser on my side and social disorganization back in vogue, I would emphasize my roots in this illustrious tradition. (quoted in Bartollas, 1985, p. 190)

So, Hirschi (1969) was especially careful to avoid working explicitly out of the social disorganization tradition and to ground his position instead in the thought of other forerunners such as Durkheim and Hobbes. Concentrating on a search for the essential variables providing control through bonds to conventional society, he developed his own position and presented a body of systematic research in support of it. This combination seemed to represent the epitome of tightly reasoned and empirically grounded control theory.

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Hirschi’s Sociological Perspective

The control theorists examined to this point tended to distinguish between control exerted from sources external to the individual and control exerted from within the individual. Indeed, Reckless (1961) argued that the individual is so isolated in contemporary society—so free to move from one context of external control to another or even to escape from most of it—that internal control is the more basic factor in conformity. Hirschi’s position was much more sociological in nature. The characteristics that other control theorists took to be aspects of the personality were considered by Hirschi to be factors sustained by ongoing social relationships that he termed social bonds.

Other control theorists gave great weight to the notion of internalization, the process by which social norms are taken so deeply into the self as to become a fundamental part of the personality structure. Citing Wrong’s (1961) critique of this “over-socialized conception of man,” Hirschi (1969, p. 4) insisted instead that what seems to be deeply rooted internalization of social expectations actually is much too superficial to guarantee conformity. First, he rescued Durkheim from the strain theorists. Pointing out that “because Merton traces his intellectual history to Durkheim, strain theories are often called ‘anomie’ theories,” Hirschi (1969) showed that “actually, Durkheim’s theory is one of the purest examples of control theory” (p. 3). Next he turned to the question posed by Hobbes—“Why do men obey the rules of society?”—observing that an assumption of internalization commonly was used as a means of avoiding Hobbes’s own conclusion that conformity was based essentially on fear. Here there was an echo of Reiss’s distinction between conformity resulting from acceptance of the rules and conformity based on mere submission.

This willingness to acknowledge that conformity might be based on simple submission to the forces of social regulation without internalized acceptance of the norms became fairly clear in Hirschi’s first citation of Durkheim as a control theorist. Hirschi (1969) remarked that “both anomie and egoism are conditions of ‘deregulation,’ and the ‘aberrant’ behavior that follows is an automatic consequence of such deregulation” (p. 3); he made this remark without noting Durkheim’s complementary stress on integration as a factor in conformity. Turning immediately to Hobbes, he put the matter with stark clarity as follows:

Although the Hobbesian question is granted a central place in the history of sociological theory, few have accepted the Hobbesian answer. . . . It is not so, the sociologist argued: There is more to conformity than fear. Man has an “attitude of respect” toward the rules of society; he “internalizes the norms.” Since man has a conscience, he is not free simply to calculate the costs of illegal or deviant behavior. . . .

Having thus established that man is a moral animal who desires to obey the rules, the sociologist was then faced with the problem of explaining his deviance. (p. 5)

For Hirschi (1969), then, the problem of explaining deviance was a false problem based on the mistaken assumption that people are fundamentally moral as a result of having internalized norms during socialization.

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He insisted, however, that it was an “oversimplification” to say that “strain theory assumes a moral man while control theory assumes an amoral man” because the latter “merely assumes variation in morality: For some men, considerations of morality are important, for others they are not” (p. 11). Unlike Matza, who believed that it was necessary to suggest forces of preparation and desperation as a way of explaining why the mere loss of control might result in delinquency, Hirschi suggested no motivational factors and simply noted that loss of control sets the individual free to calculate the costs of crime. “Because his perspective allows him to free some men from moral sensitivities, the control theorist is likely to shift to a second line of social control—to the rational calculational component in conformity and deviation” (p. 11).

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Why Social Control Matters

Again, Hirschi was a control theorist who believed that the key issue is to explain why people, all of whom are motivated to seek immediate gratification in the easiest way possible, refrain from doing so. Why don’t they do it? Why don’t they commit crimes to get what they want?

Here is another way of putting this issue. Hirschi believed that each potential criminal act has benefits and consequences (also called costs). In his view, most people in society see pretty much the same benefits in crime, because such acts allow them to get what they want (e.g., take something), feel something they like (e.g., get high on drugs), or stop something they find unpleasant (e.g., hit someone aggravating them) (Marcus, 2004). Importantly, Hirschi never showed empirically that people see the same benefits in crime; he just assumed this to be the case. However, this is a key assumption.

If most people see crime as having the same benefits—that is, if crime is gratifying or tempting to most people —then it logically follows that most people are equally motivated to offend. As noted, other criminological theories dispute the equal motivation thesis; in fact, they spend a great amount of time explaining why some individuals are more motivated to offend than others (e.g., they are under more strain; they have internalized criminal values). But if we assume, as did Hirschi, that motivation to offend is universal, then motivation cannot explain who is or is not a criminal.

Think of this issue methodologically. An independent variable—in this case motivation to offend—has to vary if it is to explain variation in the dependent variable—in this case involvement in criminal conduct. What, then, does vary? Of course, it is social control. Thus, for Hirschi, variation in the strength of social control is what explains variation in the extent to which people engage in crime.

Importantly, Hirschi did not just emphasize control but rather social control. As noted, he set forth a sociological theory of crime. Control did not reside in some psychological trait or permanently entrenched set of beliefs. Instead, for Hirschi, the control resides in a person’s ties to conventional society—to its adult members (parents, teachers), its institutions (family, school), and its beliefs (laws, normative standards). The control thus lies in a person’s relationship to society. Hirschi called these different kinds of ties or relationships social bonds. He identified four social bonds: attachment, commitment, involvement, and belief; these are discussed below in detail.

For Hirschi, variation in social bonds thus explains variation in crime. The stronger the bond, the more likely criminal enticements will be controlled and that conformity will ensue; the weaker the bond, the more likely individuals will succumb to their desires and break the law. This returns us, then, to the question, “Why don’t they do it?” The answer should be clear: People do not engage in crime—they do not act on their desire for gratification—because they are stopped from doing so by their social bonds. In short, social bonds control their attraction to illegal temptations and ensure their conformity. Much like a dam holding back floodwaters, social bonds keep individuals safe from crime. But if the dam cracks or breaks, then criminal motivations can flood these individuals and no barrier exists to prevent them from offending.

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Importantly, the stability of the social bond is not a given. The social bond remains strong only so long as it is nourished by interaction with conventional others. If youngsters become distant from parents, give up on going to college and caring about grades, or are cut from sports teams, their bonds can attenuate. And if bonds weaken, crime can take place. Because bonds can vary in strength across time—for example, weaker in the teenage years, stronger before and after—people can move into and out of illegal conduct. Adult offenders might desist from crime if they enter a quality marriage or get a good job. In short, the presence and strength of social bonds can explain change in offending. As we will see in Chapter 16, this insight forms the basis of Sampson and Laub’s (1993) life-course theory, which uses variation in social bonds to explain why people enter and desist from crime across various points in their lives.

Finally, in his social bond model, Hirschi rejected the view of the classical school of criminology and of later rational choice theorists (see Chapter 13) that crime is simply due to a weighing of costs and benefits. As noted, Hirschi saw the choice of crime as involving costs (or consequences) and benefits (or gratifications). But he differed from the classical school in two important ways. First, he did not see the benefits of crime as varying across individuals, as the classical school would, but rather as easily available to everyone.

Second, the cost of crime was not, as the classical school implied, mainly a matter of legal sanctions, such as imprisonment. Although a simplification, the classical school and some rational choice theorists implicitly suggest that people faced with the decision to commit a crime calculate (1) how much money they will get versus (2) their chances of being arrested and sent to jail. For Hirschi, such a position truncates reality. Indeed, Hirschi’s delinquents in Causes of Delinquency made choices but did so within a rich social environment populated with parents, teachers, homework, grades, school activities, and so on. Only when youths were loosened from the ties that bound them to the conventional order were they free to choose to pursue the benefits crime had to offer. Again, this attention to relationships within social institutions is what made Hirschi’s theory fundamentally sociological.

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The Four Social Bonds

What, then, are the bonds that form the basis of Hirschi’s delinquency theory? They are attachment, commitment, involvement, and belief. These social bonds are summarized in Table 6.1.

Table 6.1 Summary of Hirschi’s Social Bond Theory of Delinquency Table 6.1 Summary of Hirschi’s Social Bond Theory of Delinquency

Social Bond Nature of the Social Bond Nature of Social Control: Why Don’t They Do It?

Attachment Emotional closeness to others, especially parents.

Indirect control—closeness leads youths to care about parents’ opinions, including their disapproval of “bad behavior.” Youths do not offend because they do not want to disappoint their parents (or others to whom they are attached, such as teachers).

Commitment High educational and occupational aspirations and good grades in school.

Stake in conformity makes the cost of crime too high. This is thus the rational component of the social bond.

Involvement

Participation in conventional activities, including homework, work, sports, school activities, and other recreational pursuits.

Lack of unstructured or leisure time limits opportunities to offend.

Belief

An embrace of the moral validity of the law and of other conventional norms (e.g., school rules).

Moral beliefs restrain impulses to offend; conversely, crime occurs when such conventional beliefs are weakened.

The Social Bond of Attachment.

In Hirschi’s delinquency theory, attachment is the emotional closeness that youths have with adults, with parents typically being the most important. This closeness involves intimate communication, “affectional identification” with parents (i.e., wanting to be like their parents), and a sense that parents know what they are doing and where they are. This bond is rooted in the extent to which children spend time with parents and “interact with them on a personal basis” (Hirschi, 1969, p. 94).

When close to parents, youngsters care about their opinions and do not wish to disappoint them. As a result, parents are able to exercise indirect control. Direct control is when parents supervise their offspring while in

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their presence (e.g., discipline them for misconduct). Indirect control, however, occurs when children are not in the same location—that is, are physically separated from parents. Hirschi (1969) also referred to this as “virtual supervision.” Where, then, does the control come from? According to Hirschi, youngsters refrain from offending because their attachment makes parents psychologically present. They do not skip school, vandalize, or take drugs because, as the saying goes, “my parents would kill me.” As Hirschi (1969) stated:

So-called “direct control” is not, except as a limiting case, of much substantive or theoretical importance. The important consideration is whether the parent is psychologically present when temptation to commit crime appears. If, in the situation of temptation, no thought is given to parental reaction, the child is to this extent free to commit the act. (p. 88)

The Social Bond of Commitment.

Commitment involves youths’ stake in conformity (Briar & Piliavin, 1965). Because they invest so much in school success, for example, they would not want to “blow their future” by doing something wrong. This is the rational component of the social bond because commitment is part of a cost-benefit calculation. Those highly committed would find delinquency irrational to commit. They are thus controlled by this consideration.

Commitment was defined not in terms of a surrender of self-interest but rather as the degree to which the individual’s self-interest has been invested in a given set of activities. For Hirschi (1969), this was the “rational component of conformity,” essentially a matter of the rational calculation of potential gains and losses, so that the individual contemplating a deviant act “must consider the costs of this deviant behavior, the risk he runs of losing the investment he has made in conventional behavior” (p. 20). In this sense, a youth who has invested much time and energy in conforming to the expectations of parents and teachers, working hard, and perhaps graduating with honors has a tighter bond with society because he or she has a powerful “stake in conformity” and much to lose by getting out of line.

Of course, “in order for such a built-in system of regulation to be effective, actors in the system must perceive the connections between deviation and reward and must value the rewards society proposes to withhold as punishment for deviation” (p. 162). Hirschi went on to point out that “the stance taken toward aspirations here is virtually opposite to that taken in strain theories” because in control theory “such aspirations are viewed as constraints on delinquency” (p. 162). Although strain theory tended to see high aspirations as leading to frustration and consequent deviance, Hirschi, like Reckless, maintained that the opposite was true: Legitimate aspirations gave a “stake in conformity” that tied the individual to the conventional social order, at least when he or she had invested in the pursuit of such goals instead of merely wishing for them.

The Social Bond of Involvement.

Involvement is, in effect, another way of proposing that denial of access to criminal opportunities makes delinquency less likely. Discussions of Hirschi’s theory do not typically frame involvement in terms of opportunity, but it is useful to do so. He is pointing to the fact that structured conventional activities take

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away chances to offend. This insight is now common in environmental or opportunity theories of crime (see Chapter 13).

Thus, as for involvement as a factor in social control, Hirschi (1969) did not stress the psychological theme of emotional entanglement; rather, he stressed the sociological observation that “many persons undoubtedly owe a life of virtue to a lack of opportunity to do otherwise” (p. 21). Acknowledging that the old thesis “idle hands are the devil’s workshop” and the commonsense suggestion that delinquency could be prevented by keeping young people busy and off the streets had so far found little support in research, he went on to examine the possibility that involvement defined in terms of sheer amount of time and energy devoted to a given set of activities might represent a key factor in social control. Aside from findings such as those relating time spent on homework to extent of delinquency, however, Hirschi’s data failed to lend much support to the hypothesis that involvement, as he conceptualized it, represented a variable crucial to preventing wayward behavior.

However, more recent data have provided more support to the idea that involvement in conventional activities reduces the opportunity to offend. In 1996, Osgood, Wilson, Bachman, O’Malley, and Johnston made the key insight that activities can be either structured or unstructured. Structured activities are organized, supervised by adult authority figures, and conducted in prosocial environments. These might include a school athletic team, a church youth group, a tennis lesson, or perhaps a tutoring session. By contrast, unstructured activities are unorganized, unsupervised, and held in settings where trouble might arise. These might include hanging out in a mall, drinking in a park at night, or joyriding.

Research shows that socializing through unstructured activities is associated with criminal conduct (Osgood, 2010). In a study of 700 British “young people” in the Peterborough Adolescent and Young Adult Development Study, Wikström, Oberwittler, Treiber, and Hardie (2012) reported that “the rate of crime is particularly high during unstructured peer-oriented activities” (p. 319). Their analysis also revealed, however, that unstructured activities were especially consequential for “crime-prone” youths who gravitated to “criminogenic settings” (e.g., places with low collective efficacy) (2012, p. 319). Future research thus might profit by exploring the interaction among differences in individual propensity, social settings, and activities.

Another study by Hughes and Short (2014) is similarly illuminating. This project reanalyzed data on 490 boys in Black and White gangs and nongang comparison groups originally studied between 1959 and 1962 by Short and Strodtbeck (1965)—an investigation that yielded their classic book Group Process and Gang Delinquency. One value of revisiting data from a different era is to see if causal mechanisms remain constant across time. Consistent with much research, Hughes and Short found that gang membership increases delinquency (see Pyrooz, Turanovic, Decker, & Wu, 2016). But why is this so? They discovered that an important part of the “gang-facilitative effect occurs indirectly through unstructured and unsupervised socializing with peers, including hanging on the streets, riding around in cars, and attending house or quarter parties” (Hughes & Short, 2014, p. 441). Their analysis also revealed that one interactive process that arose when peers were left to their own devices was “signifying,” where youths taunt, insult, razz, or “play the dozens” with one another with an audience present. These status contests were a source of fighting, likely an effort to “save face” in front of peers who might well have been egging them on (2014, p. 441).

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This finding supports Hirschi’s involvement thesis but also shows an important limitation of his theory. Hirschi is correct that lack of involvement frees youths to get into trouble. However, social bond theory assumes only that youngsters will be sufficiently motivated to engage in some kind of delinquency. It does not take up the next step of explaining which youths who are out on their own in unstructured and unsupervised activities are more crime prone—the point addressed by Wikström et al. (2012) discussed above—or take up the situational circumstances, such as gang membership, that might provoke youths just “hanging out” to suddenly start fighting—the point addressed by Hughes and Short (2014). The failure of social bond theory to clarify fully what happens when social bonds, such as involvement, weaken is a significant limitation—but, as noted, it also presents an opportunity for current researchers to explore.

The Social Bond of Belief.

Hirschi’s (1969) use of the term belief also was much more sociological than psychological. He did not use the term to indicate deeply held convictions; rather, he used it to suggest approbation in the sense of assent to certain values and norms with some degree of approval. Used in this way, beliefs are seen not as profoundly internalized personal creeds but rather as impressions and opinions that are highly dependent on constant social reinforcement. If the degree of approbation is slight, then the belief becomes a matter of simple assent —of a willingness to submit and “go along,” at least for the present. If the degree of approbation is greater, then it may amount to a belief to which the individual gives eager approval and wholehearted cooperation. The point is that such beliefs were not taken to be inner states independent of circumstances; instead, they were taken to be somewhat precarious moral positions much in need of social support based on the ongoing attachment to conventional social systems described earlier.

Hirschi (1969) was careful to point out that he was not accepting that approach to control theory in which “beliefs are treated as mere words that mean little or nothing if the other forms of control are missing” (p. 24). He was equally careful to reject the other extreme represented by Sykes and Matza’s (1957) insistence that delinquents “believe” in the conventional morality to the extent that techniques of neutralization become necessary before violations can occur. Hirschi (1969) took the position that individuals differ considerably in the depth and power of their beliefs and that this variation is dependent on the degree of attachment to systems representing the beliefs in question. As he put it, “The chain of causation is thus from attachment to parents, through concern for the approval of persons in positions of authority, to belief that the rules of society are binding on one’s conduct” (p. 200). In this view, it is not that people lack consciences or that they are, in truth, totally amoral beings who simply babble on about how much they think they “believe in” things. Rather, it is that “attachment to a system and belief in the moral validity of its rules are not independent” (p. 200); what is called belief depends on the strength of attachment and will decline with it.

Thus, belief is best seen as the extent to which adolescents embrace the moral validity of the law and other conventional normative standards. For Hirschi, youths do not commit crime because, as Sutherland or Akers would suggest, they have learned delinquent values supportive of stealing or fighting. Rather, they know right from wrong. The problem, however, is that wayward youths do not care that much whether something is right or wrong; that is, they lack an allegiance to—or a bond with—conventional laws and rules. Whereas

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conforming kids obey the law because they respect it and see it as legitimate, delinquent kids have no belief in the moral validity of such standards; thus, their belief in the law is too weak to control their desires to gratify their needs through illegal means. “Control theorists,” in Hirschi’s (1969) words, are “in agreement on one point (the point which makes them control theorists): delinquency is not caused by beliefs that require delinquency but is rather made possible by the absence of (effective) beliefs that forbid delinquency” (p. 198).

This issue of belief is critical in understanding the long-standing feud between differential association/social learning theory and control theory. Recall that Travis Hirschi and Ronald Akers both started their careers on the same sociology faculty at the University of Washington. They have had cordial personal relations for the past four decades. Nonetheless, during these years they have been archrivals theoretically (Akers, 2011). The crux of the argument is that Akers asserts that beliefs or definitions favorable to crime can be learned and lead people to offend. That is, individuals offend because they are socialized to embrace criminal cultural beliefs. By contrast, Hirschi asserts that such “cultural deviance” is a myth (see also Kornhauser, 1978). He denies that any positive learning is needed to commit crime. That is, youths—or adults—do not need to learn criminal beliefs and skills because (1) as gratification-seeking beings, the motivation to offend already exists within them and (2) crime is easy to commit and thus no acquisition of special skills is required.

Instead, Hirschi contends that crime occurs when people are not socialized properly into conventional beliefs. For Hirschi, criminals do not live in some isolated, self-contained criminal subculture where they learn a different way of seeing the world that requires conformity to crime. Rather, they grow up within the dominant society where, from early in life onward, they have received the message from parents, teachers, and clergy that breaking the law is wrong. Hirschi thus observes that criminals violate laws they believe in. What he means by this is that offenders know that crime is wrong because they have been socialized into the dominant culture. Why, then, do they break the law? It is because their socialization has been defective. As a result, their belief in the moral validity of laws or rules is weak or “attenuated.” And when bonds are weak, criminal conduct becomes possible.

So, let us put this matter simply. For social learning theorists—ranging from Sutherland to Akers—people go into crime because they learn criminal beliefs that define such acts as required, good, or permissible. For Hirschi, people go into crime because they fail to internalize conventional beliefs to the degree needed to control them from succumbing to the seductions of vice, violence, or thievery.

Finally, recall from Chapter 3 that this same debate marks community theories of crime. On one side, there is the cultural deviance perspective, which argues that oppositional criminal codes are learned and lead to crime. On the other side, there is the cultural attenuation perspective, which argues that weak allegiance to the criminal culture is what makes crime possible. In this context, Hirschi’s ideas on belief are the individual-level version of the community-level theory of attenuated conventional culture (see Kornhauser, 1978).

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Assessing Social Bond Theory

Since its publication in 1969 in Causes of Delinquency, Hirschi’s social bond theory has been one of the most, if not the most, tested theories in the field of criminology (Kempf, 1993). The results of this large body of studies, however, are difficult to interpret. As Kempf (1993) pointed out, the existing research has been characterized by diverse and at times weak measures of the four social bonds and by inconsistent findings. Still, the fairest assessment is that there is evidence that the presence of social bonds is inversely related to delinquency and to adult crime (Gottfredson, 2006; Sampson & Laub, 1993). According to Akers and Sellers’s (2004, p. 122) review of the existing research, the magnitude of this relationship between bonds and offending appears to range “from moderate to low” (see also Kubrin et al., 2009).

These findings thus suggest that social bonds are implicated in crime but that they are not the sole cause of offending. This observation prompts us to ask what might be missing from Hirschi’s control perspective. One potential limitation to his theory is that it was based on the assumption that humans are naturally self- interested and thus need no special motivation to break the law. Again, as a control theorist Hirschi asserted that the key theoretical problem was to explain what restrains people from acting on their natural inclination to gratify their desires by stealing, hitting, driving fast, becoming inebriated, and other such wrongdoing. However, as noted above, it seems unlikely that all individuals are, in fact, equally motivated to commit crimes. And if not, then a complete theory must include factors—such as exposure to strain and the learning of criminal definitions—that make some people more strongly predisposed or “motivated” to offend than other people.

Another limitation to Hirschi’s perspective is his failure to explore how social bonds are potentially affected by the larger social forces in American society. Theorists may legitimately choose to restrict their focus to a limited problem. In this case, Hirschi chose to focus on the emergence of bonds within a youth’s immediate or proximate social context of the family and school. Still, in staking out this explanatory territory, Hirschi did not explore how the formation of social bonds is affected by factors such as changing gender roles, neighborhood disorganization, enduring racial inequality, or the deterioration of the urban industrial economy (for an example of a more contextualized use of social bond theory, see Sampson & Laub, 1994). Despite having an analytical elegance, his theory thus tends to be detached—to stand at arm’s length—from many of the pressing realities of American society. Notably, this contrasts sharply with Shaw and McKay who tried to illuminate how the breakdown of control was shaped by large social forces (e.g., immigration, urbanization) that were placing communities at risk of social disorganization.

Finally, Hirschi argued that social bond theory applied equally to African Americans and to Whites. Based on limited data analyses, he concluded that unjust deprivation from racial discrimination—a factor that strain theorists Cloward and Ohlin (1960) linked to delinquency—was not criminogenic for minorities. As a result, there was no need to develop a theory that was race-specific—that is, that explored whether some experiences might have a unique crime-inducing effect for African Americans but not for Whites. According to Hirschi (1969, pp. 79–80), “There is no reason to believe that the causes of crime among Negroes are different from those among whites. . . . It follows . . . that we need not study Negro boys to determine the causes of their

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delinquency.”

Notably, however, James Unnever and colleagues (2009) revisited the Richmond Youth Project data set, generously supplied to them by Hirschi, which was the basis for Hirschi’s dissertation and, eventually, for Causes of Delinquency. This data set, based on a survey of junior and senior high school students, was originally collected in 1964 under the direction of Alan B. Wilson. Then a graduate student, Hirschi rose from an unpaid assistant to the project’s deputy director. He was allowed to place questions on the survey and to use the data for his dissertation (Laub, 2002). As is common practice in criminology, Hirschi included in his empirical analysis only those variables that seemed to measure the theories he was assessing (strain, cultural deviance, and control). Unnever et al.’s inspection of the Richmond Youth Project survey instrument, however, revealed a range of other questions that more directly measured perceived racial discrimination by the African American males in the sample. More noteworthy, when they reanalyzed Hirschi’s data, they found that perceived racial discrimination was a robust predictor of delinquent involvement whose effects rivaled those of the social bond measures.

This discovery is important for two reasons. First, if Hirschi had expanded his investigation to include these items in the mid-1960s, the future of criminology might have been quite different. Hirschi might have concluded that, although social bonds have similar effects across race, perceived and real racial discrimination is a distinctive risk factor experienced by African American youngsters. Given Hirschi’s stature, a whole line of inquiry might have been undertaken, in the context of the civil rights movement, that explored how the racial animus faced by minorities places a special criminogenic burden on them.

Second, Unnever et al.’s findings are not idiosyncratic. There is now a small but growing body of research showing that perceived racial discrimination leads to delinquency and other problems among African Americans (Agnew, 2006b; Unnever, 2014; Unnever et al., 2009; see also Brody et al., 2006; Burt et al., 2012; Gibbons et al., 2004; Simons et al., 2003; Simons et al., 2006). This is an issue that criminologists—whether control theorist or not—need to explore in the time ahead (see, more generally, Gabbidon, 2007). Recall from Chapter 4 that Unnever and Gabbidon (2011) have taken an important step in this direction in their “theory of African American offending,” which explores the sources and consequences of Blacks’ experiences with and perceptions of racial discrimination (see Unnever, 2014; Unnever et al., 2017; Unnever et al., 2016).

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Hirschi’s Second Theory: Self-Control and Crime

As we have seen, Hirschi’s social bond theory has continued to be a major paradigm since it was set forth in 1969 in Causes of Delinquency. A little over two decades later, however, Hirschi joined with Michael Gottfredson to set forth a related but different control theory: self-control theory. This perspective created considerable controversy and generated considerable research on its central premise that self-control had “general effects”—that is, that it was the key causal factor in crime and deviance across an individual’s life and across social groups. For this reason, they claimed to have set forth a “general theory of crime.”

Gottfredson’s first contact with Hirschi came as an undergraduate at the University of California at Davis, when he took Hirschi’s course on juvenile delinquency. Gottfredson would later pursue his doctorate at, and be invited to join the faculty of, the University at Albany (then known as the State University of New York at Albany). Hirschi also moved to Albany’s School of Criminal Justice, where Gottfredson and he developed a working relationship. This collaboration would continue at the University of Arizona where they would both serve on the faculty (Gottfredson, 2011).

In the sections that follow, we first review the central ideas of self-control theory. We then assess the theory’s empirical status and conceptual challenges. Finally, we consider how, despite sharing some common views, Hirschi’s two control theories—social bond and self-control—represent incompatible, if not competing, explanations of crime. This discussion includes Hirschi’s largely problematic effort to reconcile the constructs of self-control and social bonds through his revised social control theory.

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Self-Control and Crime

In A General Theory of Crime, Michael Gottfredson and Travis Hirschi crafted an explanation of crime that departs significantly from Hirschi’s earlier work. As noted previously, social bond theory rejected the attempt to explain crime through internalized control. Instead, taking a distinctively sociological approach, Hirschi (1969) emphasized that control is sustained by individuals’ continuing relationship with the conventional order—by their bonds to family, school, work, everyday activities, and beliefs. By contrast, Gottfredson and Hirschi (1990) abandoned the idea that continuing social bonds insulate against illegal involvement in favor of the proposition that self-control, internalized early in life, determines who will fall prey to the seductions of crime.

The Nature and Impact of Low Self-Control.

It is perhaps instructive that Gottfredson and Hirschi’s conception of control as a permanent internal state rather than as an ongoing sociological product reflects a broader trend in criminological theory, encouraged by the context of the 1980s, to revitalize individual theories of crime (see Chapter 12). In any case, Gottfredson and Hirschi contended that their approach was formulated for a more important reason: It explains what we know about the nature of crime. As criminologists who believe in science and facts, they were led to develop this new general theory of crime.

Gottfredson and Hirschi claimed that much criminological theorizing pays virtually no attention to the facts about the nature of crime uncovered by empirical research. There are exceptions, such as Albert Cohen (1955) whose focus on the nonutilitarian nature of delinquency illuminated how youths coped with status frustration and James Messerschmidt (1993) who examined how crime can be a means of “doing masculinity.” But, overall, Gottfredson and Hirschi were correct that in most causal theoretical models, crime is seen only as some nondescript dependent or outcome variable and its nature is not treated as telling us much about the nature of the offender. This implicit assumption, however, is odd. Let us take two individuals: One enjoys riding roller coasters and driving a motorcycle at high speeds without wearing a helmet; the other enjoys singing in the church choir and reading a good book. Most of us would agree that such behavioral choices would provide a pretty good clue as to which individual prefers risk and which does not.

According to Gottfredson and Hirschi, here are the key facts about crime: Crime provides short-term gratification such as excitement, small amounts of money, and relief from situational aggravations. People who are involved in crime also engage in behaviors that are “analogous” or similar to crime in that they too furnish short-term gratification—such as smoking, substance abuse, speeding in automobiles, gambling, and irresponsible sexual behaviors. Criminals do not plan their conduct. Their crimes are not specialized or sophisticated but rather are responses to whatever easy illegal opportunities present themselves. Similarly, offenders fail in social domains—school, work, marriage, and so on—that require planning, sustained effort, and delayed gratification. What, then, do these facts about the nature of crime tell us about who offenders are? They must be, observed Gottfredson and Hirschi (1990), individuals who “tend to be impulsive, insensitive, physical (as opposed to mental), risk-taking, shortsighted, and nonverbal” (p. 90).

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Gottfredson and Hirschi discussed these six characteristics as “elements of self-control” (p. 89). The most prominent scale of low self-control measures these six elements by including four items to assess each element (Grasmick, Tittle, Bursik, & Arneklev, 1993). However, unlike the four social bonds in Hirschi’s earlier social control theory, Gottfredson and Hirschi (1990) did not conceive of these elements as constituting six distinct constructs. Rather, they saw them as comprising a single general propensity for crime, which they originally labeled as criminality. What they were describing was how individuals differed in the ability to resist crime. They called this “the problem of self-control: the differential tendency of people to avoid criminal acts whatever the circumstances in which they find themselves” (p. 89). That is, “people differ in the extent to which they are vulnerable to the temptations of the moment” (p. 89).

If crime and analogous behaviors provide easy gratification, then why does not everyone engage in these acts? Logic suggests that something must be restraining law-abiding citizens from taking advantage of the ubiquitous temptations they confront in their daily routines. Of course, Hirschi’s (1969) first theory identified one source of control: social bonds. But in A General Theory of Crime, the phrase “social bond” (or “social control” as Hirschi often referred to his first theory) does not appear in the book’s index. On page 87, there is a passing reference to the choice of crime being affected by “social or external control” because the “costs of crime depend on the individual’s current location in or bond to society.” But the idea is not developed and plays no part in the general theory.

Gottfredson and Hirschi (1990) also distinguished between criminality and crime—between low self-control and the actual commission of a criminal act. They argued that even if someone desires to offend, crime can occur only if the opportunity exists to engage in the conduct. So, another answer that might have been given is that some people commit a lot of crime because they have access to criminal opportunities, whereas those without such access cannot act on their impulses and therefore stay crime free. But the importance of opportunity in their explanation of offending mostly vanishes because they see crime as very easy to commit and as taking few, if any, skills. Crime opportunities thus are everywhere and available to everyone. In essence, opportunity is so ubiquitous as to become a constant, and a constant cannot explain variation in behavior.

At this point, then, Gottfredson and Hirschi (1990) relinquished social causation of crime—whether social bonds or differential opportunity—and moved the source of control (and thus of crime) inside the individual. As noted, they argued that crime is due to individual differences in the propensity to resist the easy, immediate gratification offered by crime and analogous behaviors. Control thus no longer resides in the quality of social relationships (strength of bonds) but as a quality of the self (strength of self-control).

In the general theory, people are not bound by external ties as social bond theory proposed but rather make choices based on how much willpower they have. Those with a high level of self-control do not hit people when provoked, do not shoplift fancy clothes displayed in department stores, and do not grab computers sticking out of a backpack. They also do not drive fast without a seatbelt on, use offensive language in public, have unprotected sex, get tattoos while inebriated, cut classes, and quit their jobs when bored or angry (see, e.g., Reisig & Pratt, 2011). They resist situational motivations that create immediate temptations that, on reflection later, anyone with good judgment would know are criminal, dangerous, or foolish.

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Thus, Gottfredson and Hirschi’s key thesis is this: The lower the level of self-control, the higher the level of crime, analogous (or deviant) behavior, and social failure. This is a parsimonious theory, so simple in fact that it would not seem destined to be the leading theory of crime a quarter century after it was set forth. But its simplicity is its genius; all scholars can understand this thesis and how to test it (i.e., see if some measure of self-control produces some undesirable outcome). Clarity and testability mean that scholars continue to conduct empirical studies of the general theory. In fact, it is a criminological industry that shows no signs of slowing down.

The Origins of Self-Control.

Gottfredson and Hirschi registered one other fact of crime that most of their contemporary criminologists in 1990 had ignored: Involvement in antisocial behavior, including crime, appears to be stable across the life course. Thus, children manifesting conduct problems tend to grow into juvenile delinquents and eventually into adult offenders. Gottfredson and Hirschi’s embrace of stability had two important implications.

First, it meant that social bond theory had to be wrong. Hirschi’s first theory was intended to explain not only stability but also change in offending (see Sampson & Laub, 1993; see Chapter 16 in this volume on this issue). Similar to Matza (1964), Hirschi had criticized rival perspectives for being theories of stability because their causal variables (e.g., strain from blocked opportunity and the learning of criminal values) were unlikely to change as offenders grew older (i.e., they still were denied the American dream and they still belonged to a criminal culture). By contrast, social bond theory could explain change, including “maturational reform” or the aging out of delinquency by many youths (see also Moffitt, 1993, on adolescence-limited offending). In this view, juveniles’ bonds weakened during the teen years to spike involvement in crime but then strengthened and pulled these same individuals out of crime as adulthood brought the ties of marriage and employment.

But once Gottfredson and Hirschi emphasized stability in wayward behavior across the life course, change evaporated as an issue to be explained. Because desistance from crime never occurred, the task instead was to account only for continuity in bad conduct—from childhood to adulthood. Gottfredson and Hirschi argued that criminal propensity—a permanent individual difference—was carried across the life course. This trait, of course, was low self-control. Thus, people were antisocial in childhood because they lacked self-control; they were delinquent as teens because they still lacked self-control; and they were criminal in adulthood because they continued to lack self-control. There no longer was any role for social bonds to play in Hirschi’s theorizing.

Second, if stability in antisocial conduct started in childhood, this meant that the origins of self-control must occur during the early years in life. Note that this represented a major attack on all criminological theories that linked crime to any social condition or other factor that occurred after age 8 or 10. Academic departments have entire courses devoted to juvenile delinquency that focus on the experiences in the teenage years that are criminogenic. Gottfredson and Hirschi were arguing, in essence, that all these theories were incorrect. In fact, nothing that occurs after age 10, whether during the juvenile years or in adulthood, is related to crime. Only low self-control matters. In their view, many conditions that scholars believed caused crime—such as school failure or gang membership—were in fact the result of low self-control. Their relationship to crime was illusory (we use the term spurious). Thus, individuals low in self-control not only offend but also fail at school and self-

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select themselves into gangs. Crime and these conditions are correlated, but only because the same person is making a series of bad choices due to his or her low self-control. When two variables are correlated but explained by a third common cause, we describe this as a spurious relationship. As such, Gottfredson and Hirschi portrayed criminology as a field replete with spurious theories.

What, then, determines whether a child will develop self-control? Gottfredson and Hirschi rejected biological sources of this trait, a decision that would later prove incorrect (see, e.g., Beaver, Ferguson, & Lynn-Whatley, 2010; Wright & Beaver, 2005, 2013). Ironically, they set forth a sociological explanation, arguing that the effectiveness of parental management determined a child’s level of self-control. In what has been termed the parental management thesis, they proposed that self-control was a product of direct control—that is, how parents supervise their offspring (Cullen, Unnever, Wright, & Beaver, 2008).

Importantly, Gottfredson and Hirschi assume that low self-control is natural—it is the human nature with which we are born. As control theorists, they see humans as seekers of immediate gratification through the easiest means possible. Inculcating in a child the capacity to resist such pleasures is challenging. Effective parental management involves three key ingredients, all of which must be present for self-control to be developed. Thus, parents must do the following: (1) monitor their child; (2) recognize deviant behavior when it occurs; and (3) punish or correct the misconduct.

Parental management can fail for a variety of reasons. For example, if the family size is large or only a single parent is present, less time may be available to monitor the child. Parents who are criminals may lack the self- control to parent consistently or the values to recognize deviant behavior when it occurs. Or it may be that some parents do not know how to punish and correct, instead engaging in harsh and erratic discipline that is counterproductive. Perhaps most important is how much parents care for their child. It is here that the concept of attachment is introduced into the general theory. However, in this case, it is not the child’s bond to the parents that motivates conformity but the parents’ bond to the child that motivates the effort to engage in direct control over the child.

Finally, Gottfredson and Hirschi do not rule out the possibility that schools or other social institutions might play a role in inculcating self-control, though they have little faith that this will occur. In their view, “self- control differences seem primarily attributable to family socialization practices. It is difficult for subsequent institutions to make up for deficiencies, but socialization is a task that, once successfully accomplished, appears to be largely irreversible” (1990, p. 107). Thus, those with the misfortune of having parents who are neglectful and ineffectual in child rearing face a bleak future. Lacking self-control, they not only will be attracted to crime but also are likely to fail in and drop out of school, to lose jobs, and to be unable to sustain meaningful intimate relationships. By contrast, children with parents with enough caring and resources to supervise and punish their misconduct will develop the self-control needed to resist the easy temptations offered by crime and to sustain the hard work necessary to succeed in school, work, and marriage.

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Assessing Self-Control Theory

Gottfredson and Hirschi’s (1990) A General Theory of Crime now is three decades old. Because it has remained a dominant perspective, it has been subjected to extensive empirical tests and conceptual analysis. Here, we discuss this evaluative literature in four parts: (1) the theory’s empirical status, (2) qualifications of the original statement of the theory, (3) oversights by the theory, and (4) elaborations of the theory.

Empirical Status.

Empirical tests of Gottfredson and Hirschi’s (1990) perspective generally support the theory’s conclusion that low self-control is related to criminal involvement, including across cultures (Brownfield & Sorenson, 1993; Burton, Cullen, Evans, & Dunaway, 1994; Chapple, 2005; Chapple & Hope, 2003; Evans, Cullen, Burton, Dunaway, & Benson, 1997; Grasmick et al., 1993; Keane, Maxim, & Teevan, 1993; Nagin & Paternoster, 1993; Sellers, 1999; Vazsonyi, Pickering, Junger, & Hessing, 2001; Ward, Gibson, Boman, & Leite, 2010; Wood, Pfefferbaum, & Arneklev, 1993; for a more general assessment, see Goode, 2008; Hay & Meldrum, 2016; Serrano Maíllo & Birkbeck, 2014). Indeed, two meta-analyses of the existing empirical literature—one older (Pratt & Cullen, 2000) and one more recent (Vazsonyi et al., 2017)—found that self-control is an important predictor of crime (see also DeLisi & Vaughan, 2014). In a narrative review of more than 15 years of research, Michael Gottfredson (2006) has put the matter more forcefully (see also Britt & Gottfredson, 2003; Hay & Meldrum, 2016; Kubrin et al., 2009):

In the context of the theory, however, the claims for self-control are quite strong. As a general cause, it should predict rate differences everywhere, for all crime, delinquencies and related behaviors, for all times, among all groups and countries. . . . A very large number of high quality empirical studies published since the theory was developed now, in the aggregate, provide very significant support for these strong claims. (pp. 83–84)

Although ignored by Gottfredson and Hirschi, research from psychology has long established that self-control is related to a host of life outcomes. The most famous example of this research is the so-called “marshmallow test” conducted by Walter Mischel and his colleagues, starting at Stanford University in the late 1960s and then continuing in a variety of settings over the years (see Mischel, 2014). The subjects were preschoolers enrolled in Stanford’s Bing Nursery School between 1968 and 1974, who then were followed well into adulthood. The purpose of the experiment was to assess the youngsters’ ability to exercise self-control and delay gratification. The children were asked to sit at a small desk in what was called the “Surprise Room,” where they had just played. They were instructed to select a treat that they liked to eat; alas, most participants did not pick marshmallows but other goodies such as cookies. At any rate, they were told that they had two choices. They could eat the treat any time they wished, or, if they waited for the researcher to return by herself, they would get two treats. Timed by how long they waited, the preschoolers showed clear individual differences in self-control. Most remarkable, in their follow-ups, Mischel and his associates found that these early differences were related to later life outcomes—much as Gottfredson and Hirschi’s theory predicts (for

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an assessment, see Watts, Duncan, & Quan, 2018). As Mischel (2014) notes:

The more seconds they waited at age four or five, the higher their SAT scores and the better their rated social and cognitive functioning in adolescence. At age 27–32, those who had waited longer during the Marshmallow Test in preschool had a lower body mass index and a better sense of self- worth, pursued their goals more effectively, and coped more adaptively with frustration and stress. At midlife, those who could consistently wait (“high delay”), versus who couldn’t (“low delay”), were characterized by distinctively different brain scans in areas linked to addictions and obesity. (p. 5)

Theoretical Qualifications.

Given the existing level of empirical support, it seems likely that this perspective will continue to influence criminological thinking in the time ahead. It is clear that Gottfredson and Hirschi have identified a factor in self-control that has wide-ranging effects. At the same time, self-control theory appears to be overstated in places.

Thus, although self-control explains variation in criminal involvement, this does not mean that causes identified by rival theoretical models, such as differential association, are unimportant (Baron, 2003; Brownfield & Sorenson, 1993; Burton et al., 1994; Nagin & Paternoster, 1993; Pratt & Cullen, 2000). In fact, in a study of middle-school students, Unnever, Cullen, and Agnew (2006) found that low self-control and aggressive attitudes not only both independently predict delinquency but also have a significant interactive effect on violent and nonviolent offending. It appears that both low self-control and attitudes supportive of aggression (a social learning theory variable) are criminogenic risk factors (Andrews & Bonta, 2010).

Similarly, it seems unlikely that individual differences in self-control and misconduct, established early in life, will always remain stable across the life course; change is possible. In research we revisit in Chapter 16, Robert Sampson and John Laub (1993) presented longitudinal data showing that adult social bonds, such as stable employment and cohesive marriages, can redirect offenders into a pathway to conformity well beyond their childhood years.

Furthermore, the relationship among self-control, crime, and analogous behaviors is potentially problematic. It is doubtful that criminal and analogous (in this case deviant) behaviors will be strongly correlated among all offenders—including, for example, white-collar criminals who have evidenced delayed gratification in acquiring high-status occupational positions (Benson & Moore, 1992). And some (but not all) evidence suggests that, contrary to theoretical predictions, self-control is not strongly related to all types of analogous behaviors, such as smoking (Arneklev, Grasmick, Tittle, & Bursik, 1993), or to all forms of crime, such as intimate violence (Sellers, 1999; cf. Gottfredson, 2006).

Another thesis that has merit but is likely overstated is Gottfredson and Hirschi’s contention that ineffective parenting—the failure of parents to care enough to monitor, recognize, and punish wayward conduct—is the chief source of low self-control. A number of studies have been conducted that support the impact of

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parenting on levels of self-control in the predicted direction (for a review, see Cullen et al., 2008). But research also shows that the origins of self-control are likely more complicated than Gottfredson and Hirschi theorized. One study revealed, for example, that the exertion of parental controls might decrease self-control among girls but increase it among boys in nonpatriarchal homes (Blackwell & Piquero, 2005). There also is evidence that, beyond parental management, levels of self-control are increased by effective school socialization and decreased by adverse neighborhood conditions (Pratt, Turner, & Piquero, 2004; Turner, Piquero, & Pratt, 2005). Even more important, research suggests that parents may affect levels of self-control less by their parenting styles and more by genetic transmission (Beaver et al., 2010; Wright & Beaver, 2005; see also Unnever, Cullen, & Pratt, 2003). These findings are consistent with studies in psychology reporting that personality traits—including those similar to the construct of low self-control (e.g., impulsivity)—are modestly influenced by parenting but have approximately half their variance attributable to heredity (Harris, 1995, 1998).

Finally, it is notable that self-control can be established in childhood among troubled children who, it would appear, did not have this propensity instilled by their parents or other caregivers. Thus, meta-analyses of early self-control improvement programs (for youngsters up to age 10) reveal that these interventions are effective in increasing self-control and reducing conduct problems and delinquency (Piquero, Jennings, & Farrington, 2010; Piquero, Jennings, Farrington, Diamond, & Gonzales, 2016). Whether self-control is malleable at later ages and susceptible to intervention remains to be established.

Theoretical Oversights.

Beyond contentions that might be overstated, it also is relevant to consider what might be missing from self- control theory. In this regard, Gottfredson and Hirschi (1990) failed to resolve a hidden inconsistency in their thinking. On the one hand, they implied that social class is an unimportant correlate of crime and that crime is found across the class structure. On the other hand, the logic of their model seemingly predicts a strong correlation between class and crime. Their image of offenders is that of people who are social failures. Lacking self-control, offenders do poorly in school and in the job market. They inevitably slide into the lower class. Furthermore, offenders can be expected to be inadequate parents themselves, passing on low self-control and economic disadvantage to their offspring. Over generations, then, crime should be concentrated increasingly in the bottom rungs of society. In the future, this inconsistency will require systematic attention.

Relatedly, although Gottfredson and Hirschi may have identified a crucial link in the chain of conditions causing crime, they remained silent on the larger structural conditions that might affect family well-being, the ability to deliver quality parenting, and the inculcation of self-control. Currie (1985) called this omission the “fallacy of autonomy—the belief that what goes on inside the family can usefully be separated from the forces that affect it from outside: the larger social context in which families are embedded for better or for worse” (p. 185). A more complete understanding of crime, therefore, would place parents and children within the context of a changing American society. In particular, it seems essential to examine the structural forces and government policies that have shredded the social fabric of many inner-city neighborhoods, impeded the development of stable and nurturing families, and placed many youths at risk for early involvement in crime

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(Currie, 1985, 1989, 1993; Panel on High-Risk Youth, 1993).

Theoretical Elaborations.

Some scholars have argued that self-control is more complicated than portrayed by Gottfredson and Hirschi (1990) and thus needs to be elaborated. Three advances merit consideration.

First, Tittle, Ward, and Grasmick (2004, p. 166) have illuminated the “conceptual incompleteness” of self- control theory. They proposed that the construct of self-control is not a single trait or predisposition but rather involves two elements: the capacity for self-control and the desire for self-control. Gottfredson and Hirschi have largely theorized about how people differ in their capacity or ability to exercise self-control. Tittle et al. suggested, however, that individuals may also vary in their interest in exercising self-restraint. Although a beginning study, Tittle et al. (2004) present evidence drawn from a community survey of Oklahoma City adults showing that self-control capacity and desire can have independent and interactive effects on forms of misbehavior (see also Cochran, Aleska, & Chamlin, 2006).

In developing the concept of desire for self-control, Tittle et al. (2004) made an effort to bring motivation— what Hirschi had always taken for granted—back into control theory. They noted that one type of motivation is the desire to commit a crime; this is the kind of motivation that traditional theories, such as strain and social learning approaches, try to explain. In contrast, Tittle et al. contended that the desire for self-control was a qualitatively distinct kind of motivation; it was the motivation to resist the lure of offending. These two types of motivation—the desire to offend and the desire to exercise restraint—are not two ends of the same continuum. Rather, Tittle et al. asserted that they are likely competing motivational forces whose comparative strength may determine whether a criminal act occurs. This fresh view of the complexity of motivation is a line of inquiry that future research might profitably investigate.

Second, Muraven, Pogarsky, and Shmueli (2006) argue that the strength or level of self-control is not static but rather is similar to a muscle that, if overused, becomes weaker (see also Vohs, Baumeister, & Schmeichel, 2012). This depletion thesis suggests that self-control is a limited resource. Criminal conduct thus might be expected to increase in situations where people must repeatedly exercise self-control (e.g., when under strain). In an experimental study, Muraven and colleagues showed that when demands on self-control increased, their subjects were more likely to cheat thereafter.

Third, more generally, there is voluminous theory and research in the social psychological field of self- regulation, a term used synonymously with self-control (Vohs & Schmeichel, 2007; see also Dean, 2013). Gottfredson and Hirschi (1990) derived their theory primarily from criminological traditions and not from this alternative literature. However, future advances in their general theory will be limited if self-regulation theory and research are not fully consulted. For example, Vohs and Schmeichel (2007) document that self- control consists of two components—“urge strength” and “restraint strength.” Self-regulation thus may involve either keeping urges in check or resisting urges once they arise. In criminological terms, control may involve suppressing the motivation or urge to offend or resisting the enticement of crime once this urge arises.

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This literature also rejects Gottfredson and Hirschi’s (1990) view that levels of self-control are fixed immutably in childhood (Mischel, 2014). Much of the self-regulation field is orientated toward behavioral change, especially in how “bad habits” can be broken and good habits established (e.g., exercising more, dieting) (Dean, 2013). Self-control is thus seen not only as a trait but also as a process. This process involves three stages: (1) setting goals, (2) monitoring progress toward these goals, and (3) developing the regulatory strength to reach the goals (Vohs & Schmeichel, 2007). Self-control failures arise when people set unrealistic goals, do not monitor their actions related to goal attainment, and lack the motivational energy to avoid regulatory depletion. This model would seem to have applicability to explaining why offenders, who often express a desire to desist from crime, nonetheless recidivate. If crime is envisioned as a bad habit, then breaking this habit might require not only setting the goal of conformity but also teaching offenders how to monitor progress toward this goal and how to avoid being in circumstances (e.g., no job, no place to live) where self-control depletion is likely to occur.

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Self-Control and Social Bonds

As noted, Hirschi set forth two of the most important control models of crime: his early work on social bond theory and his later work, with Gottfredson, on self-control theory. With only limited exceptions (Gottfredson, 2006; Laub, 2002), Hirschi and Gottfredson refrained from detailing precisely how the two perspectives converged and diverged. Thus, in A General Theory of Crime there is no attempt to explain the limitations of social bond theory and why they believed that self-control theory would advance our understanding of criminality. Thus, as Laub (2002, p. ix) points out, the “field has been struggling to reconcile” the two perspectives (see, e.g., Longshore, Chang, & Messina, 2005; Taylor, 2001). Below, we add our insights to this controversy (see also Table 6.2).

Table 6.2 Hirschi’s Two Theories of Crime Table 6.2 Hirschi’s Two Theories of Crime

Dimension of the Theory

Gottfredson and Hirschi’s Self-Control Theory

Hirschi’s Social Bond Theory

Nature of control

Self-control Social bonds

Type of control

Internal Social: due to quality of relationships to society.

Stability of control

Established in childhood; individual differences in self-control persist throughout life.

Control may change across life as the strength of the social bonds changes.

Relationship of bonds to crime

Spurious; quality of bonds and level of crime both caused by level of self-control.

Causes crime; quality of bonds determines level of crime.

Hirschi based both perspectives on the notion that the motivation to deviate was rooted in the natural human inclination to pursue immediate gratification in the easiest way possible and without regard for others. Thus, for both theories, the key factor separating wayward and conforming people was whether the controls existed to restrain them from acting on these impulses. How, then, did Hirschi’s control theories differ from one another? As suggested previously, the distinguishing feature was the source of the control—social bonds in one case, self-control in the other.

This difference is consequential. Indeed, it is so fundamental that it makes Hirschi’s models rival theoretical perspectives—a conclusion alluded to previously (compare Hirschi & Gottfredson, 1995, to Sampson & Laub, 1995). Self-control theory is a sociological explanation only in the sense that the effectiveness of early parenting is held to determine the level of self-control that children develop. After this point, however, Hirschi and Gottfredson’s perspective becomes a theory of stable individual differences. Across the life course,

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the level of self-control will influence virtually every aspect of a person’s life, from involvement in crime to success in all institutional domains (e.g., family, school, employment, marriage). By contrast, Hirschi’s original social bond theory is more of a pure sociological theory. The development of social bonds is not limited to childhood; rather, bonds are potentially formed at any age. The theory implies that when bonds are formed, they will restrain deviant motivations and prevent criminal involvement (Sampson & Laub, 1993).

Hirschi’s two control theories diverge, then, on a critical point. His second perspective argues that social bonds have no influence on criminal involvement. Instead, the relationship between social bonds and crime is spurious (Evans et al., 1997). For example, take the social bond of attachment to parents. Social bond theory would contend that the bond of attachment reduces delinquency. By contrast, self-control theory would argue that children high in self-control are more likely to be attached to parents and to avoid delinquency, whereas children low in self-control have difficulty in forming attachments and are free to break the law. Therefore, attachment and delinquency are related only because both are caused by a third underlying factor—self- control. (Recall as well from the previous discussion that this claim of spuriousness would pertain not only to social bonds but to any sociological condition said to cause crime.)

Phrased differently, Hirschi changed his mind over the years. He once thought that social bonds were the main determinant of crime. Later, however, he (and Gottfredson) came to believe that social bonds were merely a manifestation of a person’s level of self-control and thus had no independent causal relationship to criminal involvement. This issue will surface in Chapter 16, where we revisit Gottfredson and Hirschi and explore the implications of their theory for life-course perspectives, especially the work of Sampson and Laub (1993).

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Hirschi’s Revised Social Control Theory

In 2004, Hirschi reflected on his social bond and self-control perspectives. He was confronted with two theoretical difficulties. The first we have just mentioned: his failure to reconcile his two control theories that seemed fundamentally at odds with one another. The second involved the tendency of scholars to interpret self-control theory as a “trait” explanation of criminal conduct. It is unclear whether these relatively brief thoughts published in a forum not widely read by criminologists will define a third avenue of social control theory (see also Gottfredson, 2006). Even so, his essay—which may comprise his final thoughts on this subject—is worthy of consideration.

The concept of the social bond presented two interrelated problems for Hirschi who, writing with Gottfredson in A General Theory of Crime (1990), developed the construct of self-control. First, because social bonds are unstable over time, changes in their strength cause changes in criminal involvement across the life course. Second, as Sampson and Laub (1993) would point out, the strength of the social bond at any given time is affected by the quality of the relationships in which offenders are involved. The bond is a two-way street; it involves the offender (or potential offender) and those with whom the individual interacts. Again, because relationships both form and end, social bonds are a source not only of continuity but also of change in behavior. These assumptions that bonds are unstable and relationship-based are inconsistent with the premises of self-control theory, which sees control as stable and internal.

Hirschi (2004) now rejects the instability thesis and asserts that social bonds are stable. He does this by asserting that the “source and strength of ‘bonds’ is almost exclusively within the person reporting or displaying them” (p. 544). Thus, attachment is not based on the quality of the relationship between a parent and a youngster but rather resides mainly in the youth’s mind. It is not clear what might occur when parent- child attachments are compromised (e.g., divorce, child abuse), but this possibility recedes to a minor consideration in Hirschi’s revised social control theory. In any event, if the social bond is now stable and internal, how does it differ from self-control? It does not, says Hirschi (2004); “they are the same thing” (p. 543). In this way, social bond theory is now “saved” and becomes identical to self-control theory.

But in his revised perspective, self-control also changes its character. In its original statement, those lacking self-control were portrayed as impulsive, risk taking, insensitive to the needs of others, and unable to defer gratification. These “elements of self-control” (Gottfredson & Hirschi, 1990, p. 89) were hypothesized to constitute a single propensity. For most scholars, this meant, in effect, that self-control was akin to a stable personality trait that individuals carried with them across situations and across the life course.

Hirschi (2004), however, was uncomfortable with his self-control theory being transformed into a psychological trait explanation of crime. In his view, the problem with linking a bad trait to bad behavior is that it omits the way in which individuals make choices. People are not simply bundles of impulses that make delayed gratification difficult. Rather, there is a rational or cognitive process that intervenes between propensity and behavior. People think and then act. Of course, there are individual differences in how people think. Some pay attention to consequences whereas others do not (see also Gottfredson, 2011).

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As Hirschi (2004) observed, his theory seemed to suggest—or was interpreted to suggest—that “offenders act as they do because they are what they are (impulsive, hot-headed, selfish, physical risk takers), whereas nonoffenders are, well, none of these” (p. 542). Put another way, self-control was a trait that either prevented or permitted the gratification-seeking side of human nature to seek fulfillment. But for Hirschi, control theory was not meant to strip people of human agency. This was Hirschi’s long-standing criticism of positivism in which bad traits were said to equal bad behavior, with the actor somehow disappearing from the equation. Hirschi had meant to retain the classical school idea of people as rational actors—as seeing the world, assessing options, and then acting in their self-interest (Gottfredson & Hirschi, 1990). This feature of his self-control theory, however, was lost in its translation and testing by criminologists. In his 2004 essay, Hirschi intended to reinsert the actor and agency back into the crime equation. Thus, he asserted that “self- control involves cognitive evaluation of competing interests—an idea central to control theories. The theory requires an explanatory mechanism that retains elements of cognizance and rational choice” (p. 542; see also Marcus, 2004).

Thus, in his revised social control theory, Hirschi (2004) redefines self-control as “the tendency to consider the full range of potential costs of a particular act” (p. 543, emphasis in original). In short, some people refrain from crime and analogous deviant behaviors because they are able to see the diverse consequences such conduct will have. They do so, Hirschi observes, in large part because they have something to lose—attachments, commitments, involvements, and beliefs they cherish. Social bonds are the costs they weigh that inhibit offending. Other individuals, those with low self-control, think little about consequences and hence are free to pursue immediate gratification. Weak in social bonds, there is little about their lives that inhibits going into crime.

Hirschi’s revised theory is provocative and offers fresh research possibilities. Indeed, an increasing number of studies have been undertaken that offer some empirical support for his perspective (see, e.g., Bouffard, Craig, & Piquero; 2014; Jones, Lynam, & Piquero, 2015; Piquero & Bouffard, 2007; Ward, Boman, & Jones, 2015). Even so, his theory suffers from two major shortcomings. First, Hirschi provides no clear explanation of the origins of social bonds. By implication, he seems to be saying that social bonds are not established through social relationships but rather reflect a youngster’s internal orientation. Very early on, some children are cooperative and eager to please whereas others are lazy and inattentive (Hirschi, 2004, p. 544). If we have bonds, it is because we are the architects, through the choices we make, of these ties to the conventional order. Apparently, individuals differ in their natural capacity to establish social bonds, which in turn are the costs that make self-control more likely. The causal scheme seems to be that self-control creates social bonds, which in turn creates self-control. Second, Hirschi simply asserts that social bonds are stable and thus the “same” as self-control. But these two constructs—social bonds and self-control—cannot be made the same by theoretical fiat (see Ward et al., 2015).

Indeed, in the end, the stability or instability of social bonds, where they come from, and the effects that they have independent of self-control are empirical questions. In this regard, the work of Sampson and Laub (1993), whose age-graded social bond theory we discuss more fully in Chapter 16, casts doubt on the central claims of Hirschi’s revised social control theory.

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Self-Control and Vulnerability to Victimization

In 1999, Christopher Schreck extended Gottfredson and Hirschi’s work in an important way, arguing that low self-control might increase the risk not only of criminal and analogous behaviors but also of victimization. He called this idea “self-control as a theory of vulnerability” to victimization (1999, p. 635). Why might low self-control make people more vulnerable to being a crime victim? Schreck presented a complex analysis that can perhaps be captured in four factors that link self-control to victimization (see also Wilcox & Cullen, 2018).

First, low self-control leads individuals to engage in risky lifestyles associated with victimization, such as drinking heavily, staying out alone at night, frequenting dangerous places (e.g., bars with a bad reputation), and associating with offenders—perhaps because they, too, are involved in crime (see Pratt & Turanovic, 2016). Second, alternatively, self-control is needed to engage in effective crime avoidance. Preventing victimization takes effort and attention to details, such as locking car doors and not leaving property unattended. It also means altering lifestyle choices once victimized to avoid being a repeat victim (see Turanovic & Pratt, 2014). Third, those with low self-control tend to be insensitive to the needs of others and thus less likely to develop the kind of close, reciprocal relationships that would inspire friends to protect them from crime. For instance, they may lack a close friend who would see that they were in a vulnerable situation (e.g., highly inebriated) and block a potential perpetrator from sexually assaulting them. Or, as Schreck (1999, p. 636) observes, they may be “less likely to know their next-door neighbors,” a situation that would “decrease guardianship around a house and make a break-in more attractive to a burglar.” Fourth, those with low self- control may play a role in precipitating their victimization because they lack the cognitive and interpersonal skills to resolve conflicts. Due to their impulsiveness, they may also be unpopular, leading, for example, to their being bullied in school settings (Kulig, Pratt, Cullen, Chouhy, & Unnever, 2017).

In Chapter 13, we review another prominent theory of victimization—routine activity theory (Cohen & Felson, 1979). For now, it is sufficient to note that Schreck (1999) succeeded in creating an important alternative theory of victimization that has inspired considerable research over the past two decades (Wilcox & Cullen, 2018). Notably, a meta-analysis of 66 studies by Pratt, Turanovic, Fox, and Wright (2014) revealed modest, but consistent, support for self-control as a predictor of victimization (mean effect size of .154). Their analysis also suggested that self-control is likely to be moderated by—or exert its effects through—risky lifestyles (e.g., having delinquent peers, using illicit substances, being an offender).

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The Complexity of Control

Although Travis Hirschi has been the dominant figure in contemporary control theory, other scholars have also explored the way in which social controls are related to criminal behavior. At its core, control theories traditionally have linked conformity to the presence of control and crime to the absence of control. More recent perspectives, however, have illuminated that social control is a complex phenomenon that may have differential effects depending on its quality, its magnitude, and the context in which it is applied. In the sections below, we review three prominent theories that explore the conditions under which control not only restrains offending but also might well prove criminogenic. These include John Hagan’s power-control theory, Charles Tittle’s control balance theory, and Mark Colvin’s coercion theory.

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Hagan’s Power-Control Theory

Gender and Delinquency.

John Hagan’s power-control theory shares common aspects with Gottfredson and Hirschi’s perspective. First, Hagan (1989) contended that delinquency is more likely when a person has a preference for taking risks, an orientation that Gottfredson and Hirschi saw as central to a lack of self-control. Second, both approaches believe that personal orientations, whether risk taking or self-control, are established by the nature of parenting. In short, families are incubators for or prophylactics against criminal involvement.

At this juncture, the two theories diverge. For Gottfredson and Hirschi, parenting is either good or bad, and this determines whether self-control is or is not inculcated. For Hagan, the critical issue is how the balance of power between parents affects the nature of parenting and, in turn, risk preferences and crime. That is, power relations between husbands and wives shape how children are controlled (hence power-control theory).

Hagan contended that in patriarchal families, parents exercise greater control over female children than over male children. The family, in effect, tries to reproduce gender relations in the next generation. Daughters are socialized to be feminine and to value domesticity—in short, to prepare for their futures as homemakers. Sons are encouraged to develop boldness and to experience the world—in short, to prepare for their futures as breadwinners. The result is that boys have stronger preferences for risk taking that, in turn, increase their involvement in delinquency.

In egalitarian families, however, parents supervise female and male children more similarly. “In other words,” observed Hagan (1989), “as mothers gain power relative to husbands, daughters gain freedom relative to sons” (p. 157). Again, parents tend to reproduce themselves. Daughters—not just sons—are seen as potentially entering the occupational arena and as being equal partners in future relationships. Unlike girls in patriarchal families, they are not socialized as fully into the “cult of domesticity” and are given more latitude to engage in risky activities. The result is that daughters’ and sons’ risk preferences become more alike, and, therefore, their rate of involvement in delinquency converges.

Assessing Power-Control Theory.

Although power-control theory has not been without its critics and may be in need of some qualification, the perspective is amassing a fair amount of empirical support as a useful theory of delinquency (Blackwell, 2000; Blackwell & Piquero, 2005; Grasmick, Hagan, Blackwell, & Arneklev, 1996; Hagan, 1989; Hagan, Gillis, & Simpson, 1990; Hagan & Kay, 1990; Hill & Atkinson, 1988; Jensen & Thompson, 1990; McCarthy, Hagan, & Woodward, 1999; Singer & Levine, 1988). Furthermore, the theory advances criminological thinking by illuminating the need to consider how gender-based power relations in society influence parental control and, ultimately, delinquent involvement.

Several considerations, however, have yet to be addressed systematically by power-control theory. First, perhaps the theory’s principal limitation is that it remains largely silent on how other structural conditions

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affect the nature and effectiveness of parenting. In particular, the theory must address the intersection of class and gender and must comment more clearly on how other types of power relationships in society affect crime. For example, the theory is unclear about how delinquency is affected by the parenting practices of single mothers within the context of impoverished communities. Second, the perspective originally was developed more as an explanation of “common” delinquent behavior than as an explanation of chronic and/or serious offending (Hagan, 1989, p. 160). But if a theory cannot account for the kinds of crime that most concern criminologists and policy makers, then its significance is decreased commensurately. Third, although empirical support for the theory exists, most studies have not tested the theory versus competing theories such as social learning theory and theories of individual differences (e.g., low self-control theory). Unless power- control theory enters into such a theoretical “competition,” it will be unclear whether the effects of its variables are real or spurious (i.e., their effects will disappear once the effects of other theories’ variables are taken into account in statistical tests).

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Tittle’s Control Balance Theory

Theoretical Propositions.

Control theories generally focus on the factors that restrain or “control” the behavior of individuals. They do not consider the control exercised by these individuals over their social environment. Charles Tittle, however, made the innovative insight that people are not only objects of control but also agents of control (Tittle, 1995, 2000). In his control balance theory of crime and deviance, he argued that each person has a certain amount of control that he or she is under and a certain amount of control that he or she exerts.

For some individuals, the relative amount of control is in balance; others suffer from a control deficit, and still others experience a control surplus. Control balance tends to be associated with conformity, and control imbalance tends to be associated with deviance. “The central premise of the theory,” observed Tittle (1995), is that “the amount of control to which an individual is subject, relative to the amount of control he or she can exercise, determines the probability of deviance occurring as well as the type of deviance likely to occur” (p. 135). He called this the control ratio.

If Tittle merely offered the thesis that control imbalance is criminogenic, then his theory would be parsimonious and easily understood. But for Tittle, the causal process of wayward conduct is complex and contingent on the intersection of an array of factors. Tittle’s embrace of complexity is a double-edged sword: He sought to capture—not ignore—the multifaceted conditions that prompt misconduct, but his theory involves so many variables that interact in so many ways that it is difficult to test. Not surprisingly, compared to competing perspectives such as Agnew’s general strain theory and Gottfredson and Hirschi’s self-control theory, empirical research on control balance theory is limited. Studies published thus far, however, do furnish some supportive evidence for the theory (see, e.g., Baron & Forde, 2007; Hughes, Antonaccio, & Botchkovar, 2015; Piquero & Hickman, 1999; Tittle, 2004, p. 396; for a summary of the evidence, see Fox, Nobles, & Lane, 2016).

Tittle’s theory begins by exploring why individuals become predisposed to develop a motivation to deviate. The potential for such a predisposition lies in human nature because we are creatures that have a strong urge for autonomy—that is, a proclivity to escape the control that others wish to impose on us. This desire for autonomy is made even more salient when people are blocked from attaining goals they are seeking and when their control ratios are unbalanced. The convergence of these factors—autonomy, goal blockage, and control imbalance—fosters a “state of readiness to experience motivation for deviant behavior” (Tittle, 2000, pp. 319– 320).

This predisposition can develop into a clear deviant motivation when two conditions transpire. First, the person must “become acutely aware of his [or her] control imbalance and realize that deviant behavior can change that imbalance either by overcoming a deficit or by extending a surplus” (Tittle, 2000, p. 320). That is, the functionality or payoff of deviance must become apparent. Second, the person must be provoked to experience a “negative emotion”—“a feeling of being debased, humiliated, or denigrated that intensifies the

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thought that deviance is a possible response to the provocations” (p. 320). Again, deviance is functional in this situation because it allows the person to rectify the attempt to degrade him or her.

Once deviant motivation has emerged, deviant behavior still might not occur. For one thing, a person must have the opportunity to engage in a given act. Constraints also must be overcome. These might involve situational risks (e.g., getting caught) or an individual’s moral inhibitions, level of self-control, or social bonds. Also salient is the control balance ratio, which can shape whether deviant behavior will occur and, if so, what kind will occur.

Tittle sought to have a “general” theory and thus to explain all forms of deviation. He proposed a typology of deviance in which seven behavioral categories are arranged on a continuum. At the midpoint of this continuum lies conformity, which is said to correspond to a situation where there is control balance. On the left side of the continuum, which he labeled repression, are three categories, each of which involves a control deficit. Extreme repression yields submission, moderate repression yields defiance, and marginal repression yields predation. On the right side of the continuum, which he called autonomy, are three categories that involve a control surplus. Maximum autonomy yields decadence, medium autonomy yields plunder, and minimum autonomy yields exploitation.

Criminologists would mostly be interested in the category of predation. Tittle contended that serious forms of crime would occur among people with small deficits in control. When deficits are limited, the individual may well judge that a criminal act might be successful in erasing the control imbalance that he or she is experiencing. A youngster’s use of violence, for example, could change his or her control ratio and cause other juveniles to leave the youngster alone. If faced with a larger control deficit, however, a person might merely submit or perhaps engage in less serious forms of deviance, such as vandalism, that show defiance but do not elicit costly actions from those capable of exerting control over the person. Control surpluses generally free people to engage in a range of deviant acts without consequences. Tittle noted that many forms of corporate and white-collar crimes are due to such control surpluses (see Piquero & Piquero, 2006).

In 2004, Tittle refined his theory, replacing his typology of deviance with a continuum along which deviant acts, including crime, can be placed. Thus, he argues that any deviant act can be rated as to its degree of control balance desirability. This construct involves two factors. First, deviant acts vary in their “likely long- range effectiveness” in altering a person’s “control imbalance.” Second, deviant acts vary in the degree to which committing them requires that a person “is directly involved with a victim or an object that is affected by the deviance” (Tittle, 2004, p. 405). Long-range effectiveness is desirable because it means that the problem of a control imbalance is resolved, thus making further action unnecessary. Avoiding direct involvement with a victim is desirable because distance and impersonality lessen the chance that the person will be subjected to countervailing reactions. For example, if a worker were to assault a boss who humiliated the individual, the assault would have low control balance desirability. Why? Because the worker would only temporarily alter his or her control imbalance vis-à-vis the boss. There also would likely be a reaction by the boss that might ultimately make the control deficit worse (e.g., hit the worker back; fire the worker; have the worker arrested). In any case, the challenge that awaits is to explore how the core elements of Tittle’s theory predict when acts

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of varying levels of control balance desirability will be committed (see Tittle, 2004).

Assessing Control Balance Theory.

Again, Tittle presented a fascinating theory that revises the core proposition of previous control theories. Traditional control theories link crime to a breakdown or lack of control. Although Tittle would agree with this thesis (to a degree), he made the poignant suggestion that too much control, which places a person in a control deficit, also may be a cause of crime (see also Sherman, 1993). His insight that crime can function to restore a sense of control is consistent with other theories that emphasize the role of criminal behavior in resolving problems, such as relieving strain, proving masculinity, and defending self-respect through defiance.

Tittle’s theory, however, has some potential weaknesses. First, Tittle can be admired for attempting to develop a theory that not only demarcates the causes of crime and deviance but also links these causal elements to the nature of the phenomena being explained (i.e., first his typology deviance, which then was replaced by his continuum of control balance desirability). But this is likely to be an unprofitable line of inquiry. It seems nearly impossible, for example, to measure what the control balance desirability would be for the endless acts that are seen as being deviant, let alone criminal—especially since the desirability of an act could vary by a host of situational factors (thus, threatening a bothersome boss with assault might be more or less desirable depending on how big the perpetrator was and how scared the boss was). Even if strides could be made in measuring the control balance desirability of acts, scholars are unlikely to find this complex and tedious task an attractive use of their time. In the end, Tittle’s theory will find more adherents if he abandons attempts to define and measure deviance and instead concentrates his attention on the conditions under which control balance leads to crime as opposed to other outcomes. Notably, this is the strategy of virtually every other theory.

Second, his emphasis on autonomy as the wellspring of human motivation seems unnecessarily limited. Why not consider, for example, the desire for self-gratification, a drive that many other control theories claim is universal and central to the motivation to deviate?

Third, Tittle relegated the main causal variables from other theories, such as self-control, social bonds, and social learning, to the secondary role of constraints or contingencies. A competing theorist such as Ronald Akers, for example, would argue instead that social learning has important “main effects” or independent influences on criminal behavior apart from any of the processes outlined by Tittle. As with other theories seeking greater credibility, the challenge is to pit control balance theory in an empirical contest versus other theories. Only in this way will it be possible to assess whether, relative to other known predictors of crime, the control ratio factors identified by Tittle exert strong or weak effects on criminal behavior.

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Colvin’s Differential Coercion Theory

Mark Colvin’s differential coercion theory is another perspective that argues that the impact of control on crime will differ by its quality. As detailed in the following section, he is troubled by the use of coercion as a means of control, whether in social institutions or in the criminal justice system. In fact, Colvin has long been critical of the extreme form of capitalism in the United States (what Currie, 2013, called the “market economy”), which he believes is conducive to coercion (Colvin & Pauly, 1983; Vander Ven & Colvin, 2013). In his view, capitalism is a competition in which the owners and managers of businesses seek to maximize profits at the expense of workers. Unions are especially important, because they provide one of the only means that laborers can use to limit their employers’ workplace control over them and to increase their compensation (e.g., pay, medical benefits, vacation time). The capitalist class has attacked unions and decreased their membership, which has resulted in workers experiencing more coercion both from managers they have no power to resist and from living in financially insecure, harsh conditions.

According to Colvin, coercion in the means of production is reproduced in other settings (see Colvin & Pauly, 1983). For example, research shows that workers who are controlled coercively in the workplace are more likely to use coercive child rearing in their families (Vander Ven & Colvin, 2013). Further, the nation’s culture is penetrated by the concern for profits at all costs (see also Messner & Rosenfeld, 2013). Thus, “bleeding heart liberals” are mocked, and a culture of “looking out for number one” is trumpeted (Vander Ven & Colvin, 2013, p. 616). Mean-spirited messages about the poor (e.g., “lazy and undeserving welfare queens”) and about offenders (e.g., “lock them up and throw away the key”) legitimate coercive policies and undermine social welfare reforms. With the current balance of power tilting toward the capitalist class and away from labor, coercion is likely to become further entrenched and remain a constant source of crime in the United States.

By placing his theory in a structural context, Colvin is similar to Hagan whose power-control perspective is rooted in an understanding of patriarchy. Other control theorists—especially Hirschi in his two theories— ignore the structural arrangements of American society. They present mainly micro-level theories that identify sources of crime that seem to exist in a sociohistorical vacuum. Low self-control might be related to crime across social contexts, but Gottfredson and Hirschi (1990) do not explore how this key criminogenic factor is affected by, say, life in a crime-ridden inner-city neighborhood or life during America’s Great Recession that started in 2008. At the same time, the brilliance of Hirschi’s theories must be recognized: They clearly identify the proximate causes of crime. Perspectives that focus on macro-structural conditions but are fuzzy on how crime actually occurs lose their persuasiveness. In this regard, Colvin (2000) has done the heavy theoretical lifting of specifying the precise mechanisms through which coercion leads to crime. This causal model is thus considered next.

Theoretical Propositions.

From birth onward, people are exposed to varying levels of coercion—an experience that is consequential. Thus, some people have the good fortune of living in social environments where compliance is secured largely through noncoercive means. Other individuals, however, encounter coercive environments across the life

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course. Often, this coercion is harsh and erratic, a combination that creates strong criminal predispositions and fosters chronic offending. According to Colvin:

Chronic criminals are made, not born. They emerge from a developmental process that is punctuated by recurring erratic episodes of coercion. They become both the recipients and the perpetrators of coercion, entrapped in a dynamic that propels them along a pathway toward chronic criminality. (Colvin, 2000, p. 1)

Colvin (2000) defined interpersonal coercion as the “threat of force and intimidation aimed at creating compliance through fear” (p. 5). Such coercion may involve physical punishments or the withdrawal of love and support. People also may face impersonal coercion, which is “pressure arising from structural arrangements and circumstances that seem beyond individual control such as economic and social pressure caused by unemployment, poverty, or competition among businesses or other groups” (p. 5). Frequently, these two forms of coercion intersect, with those subject to interpersonal coercion living in environments most affected by impersonal forms of coercion.

Colvin called his perspective differential coercion theory because, in his view, people vary in the extent to which they are exposed to coercion. This is much like Sutherland used the term differential association to refer to variation in exposure to sources of criminal learning. Colvin’s use of this term also is similar to Regoli and Hewitt’s (1997) differential oppression theory. In any case, Colvin argued that controls aimed at securing compliance—aimed at getting people to obey social norms—vary along two dimensions. First, the controls can be either coercive or noncoercive. Second, the controls can be applied in a way that is either consistent or erratic. Consistent noncoercive controls are most likely to create psychologically healthy youths who are unlikely to break the law. The most problematic combination, however, is when control is exercised in a coercive and erratic fashion. This form of differential coercion, according to Colvin, produces chronic criminality.

In Colvin’s model, coercive and erratic control produces many of the factors that other theorists believe cause crime. In this sense, it is an “integrated” theory. Still, the primary causal factor in this theory—differential coercion—is unique. In any event, harsh and inconsistent coercion creates a sense of unfairness and “anger” (general strain theory), “weak or alienated social bonds” (social bond theory), “coercive modeling” (social learning theory), “perceived control deficits with feelings of debasement” (control balance theory), and “low self-control” (Gottfredson & Hirschi’s general theory) (Colvin, 2000, p. 43). In combination, these factors create a strong overall predisposition for chronic involvement in crime. These forces, which Colvin called social psychological deficits, also foster within individuals a coercive ideation. Here people have a worldview that coercion can best be overcome by acting coercively in return. Harboring such thinking, they risk becoming involved in predatory behaviors, using violence or the threat of violence to control their environments.

Colvin (2000, p. 87) indicated that the causes of chronic criminality are both intergenerational and developmental. The process begins with parents who come from coercive backgrounds, are employed in

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coercive workplaces, and are buffeted by impersonal coercive forces (e.g., economic recessions, poverty, racism, harsh living conditions). Such parents then reproduce themselves, so to speak, by using coercive and erratic child-rearing techniques. Their social psychological deficits and coercive ideation are thus transmitted to their children. In turn, these youngsters enter social environments—school, peer groups, and so on—where they experience harsh controls, further reinforcing their deficits and coercive thinking orientations. As they move into early adulthood, they tend to be employed in the secondary labor market, which fails to lift them out of poverty and exposes them to coercive working conditions. Often, they are ensnared in the criminal justice system, where they experience more coercive treatment. These factors across the life course continually nourish coercive ideation and criminal predispositions, thereby placing these individuals at risk for chronic criminality. Eventually, these offenders will reproduce their experiences in a subsequent generation of youths.

Breaking this cycle, Colvin contended, will require a “theory-driven response.” On a broad level, Colvin favors creating a less coercive society in which people’s human needs are given priority by government policies. Moving in this direction requires the political will to implement a range of supportive social programs (see also Colvin, Cullen, & Vander Ven, 2002; Cullen, Wright, & Chamlin, 1999; Currie, 1998b). These might include, for example, programs to help individuals facing crises such as joblessness and homelessness, programs to help parents raise children more effectively, universal Head Start programs, early intervention programs with youths at risk for crime, more commitment to public education, efforts to make work environments less harsh and more democratic, and a criminal justice system that stresses crime prevention, fairness, restoration, and rehabilitation.

Assessing Differential Coercion Theory.

In Crime and Coercion, Colvin (2000) marshals evidence supporting the various links on his causal model (see also Vander Ven & Colvin, 2013). Empirical tests of this perspective, however, are needed. Even so, beginning evidence across different social contexts exists that is supportive of coercion theory. Thus, based on a sample of 2,472 middle-school students, Unnever, Colvin, and Cullen (2004) provide evidence consistent with core propositions of differential coercion theory. They found that as predicted by the theory, exposure to coercive environments increased self-reported delinquency and that these effects were mediated by social- psychological deficits. Similarly, based on a sample of 300 homeless street youths ages 16 to 24 in Toronto, Baron (2009) discovered that a multidimensional measure of coercion predicted involvement in violent offenses. In line with Colvin’s theory, the direct effect of coercion on violence was partially mediated by low self-control, anger, coercive modeling, and coercive ideation. A subsequent study by Baron (2015) on another sample (n = 400) of street youths in Toronto yielded similar results. Finally, Listwan and colleagues have shown that more coercive prison environments decrease released offenders’ psychological well-being and increase their recidivism (Listwan, Colvin, Hanley, & Flannery, 2010; Listwan, Sullivan, Agnew, Cullen, & Colvin, 2013). In fact, research consistently reveals that coercive correctional interventions are ineffective and can lead to increases in reoffending (Andrews & Bonta, 2010; Cochran, Mears, & Bates, 2013; Cullen & Jonson, 2017).

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Beyond Control: Cullen’s Social Support Theory

The Invention of Social Support Theory.

When Francis T. Cullen was a graduate student in the 1970s at Columbia University, he entered criminology through his mentorship by Richard Cloward, the noted coauthor of Delinquency and Opportunity (Cloward & Ohlin, 1960). In fact, Cullen’s (1984) dissertation, subsequently published as a book, was a theoretical extension of Cloward’s (1959) concept of illegitimate means to criminological theories generally. While at Columbia, however, he also befriended Bruce Link, a fellow classmate and tennis partner who would become a leading medical sociologist. Through his association with Link, his interest in labeling theory deepened (Cullen & Cullen, 1978) as they joined together to conduct studies focusing on stigma and the mentally ill (see, e.g., Link, Cullen, Frank, & Wozniak, 1987; Link, Cullen, Struening, Shrout, & Dohrenwend, 1989; for an application to crime, see Krohn, Lopes, & Ward, 2014). It was also through Link that Cullen became familiar with research that examined how stress is a source of psychopathology. As part of this paradigm, scholars examined as well how social support might lessen mental symptoms, either directly or by buffering the effects of stress. Social support theory emerged as a major perspective across a number of areas (see, e.g., House, 1981; Lin, Dean, & Ensel, 1986; Pierce, Sarason, & Sarason, 1996; Vaux, 1988). The theory remains a vibrant framework in the health field and beyond today (Thoits, 2011).

Although he contemplated the possibility for some time, Cullen did not initially apply the concept of social support to the explanation of crime. Instead, he had an interest in a topic that had emerged in criminal justice and in occupational sociology—the stress experienced by workers. In a series of studies with Link and others, he explored how social support influenced different forms of stress experienced by correctional and police officers (see, e.g., Cullen, Lemming, Link, & Wozniak, 1985; Cullen, Link, Wolfe, & Frank, 1985). It was not until 1994 when the opportunity arose to deliver his presidential address to the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences that Cullen believed that he was fully prepared to set forth a theory of social support and crime. He was not the only scholar to argue that social support was implicated in criminal conduct; others did so independently at the same time (see, in particular, Drennon-Gala, 1994, 1995). Still, Cullen’s version had the advantage of being published in a prominent forum, Justice Quarterly, and of articulating the theory systematically in a set of core propositions. He also elaborated his theory in several subsequent publications (Colvin et al., 2002; Cullen et al., 1999; Cullen & Wright, 1997; Wright & Cullen, 2001; Wright, Cullen, & Wooldredge, 2000). His theory has been cited frequently and tested in a number of studies (Makarios & Sams, 2013).

Although rooted originally in the stress paradigm of health outcomes, Cullen’s social support theory was also formulated as a rejection of control perspectives and the image of social life they conveyed. In his view, control theory reduced the human experience to internal feelings of self-denial and to external relations marked by surveillance and punishment. Humans were transformed into joyless creatures, and relationships were robbed of any sense of love and mutual affection. As a parent, husband, friend, and colleague, this caricature of life struck Cullen as offering an impoverished, truncated view of reality—as not reflecting what he experienced in

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his daily interactions. Controls might shape individuals’ decisions, but life was about far more than being governed by dreary, frustrating restraints that blocked evil desires lurking just below the surface. Social concern for others also was fundamental to the human condition (Agnew, 2014). Daily life was filled with instances in which people cared about one another and helped one another out. Parents hugged and kissed their kids; teachers imparted knowledge and encouraged their students to go to college; friends lent a sympathetic ear and talked for hours on the phone after the painful end to a relationship; and government officials helped the poor to apply for food stamps and to obtain housing. In short, to Cullen, social support is woven into the very fabric of the social system.

More broadly, by focusing on defects in humans and in their social conditions, criminologists had a blind spot when theorizing about how good things in society might lessen the risk of crime. Perhaps because health outcomes involve care by physicians and psychotherapists, the significance of providing assistance—social support—was more obvious to medical sociologists such as Bruce Link (see also Thoits, 2011). Cullen argued that the concept of social support was important not just to the physically and mentally ill but generally in society—and thus that it also needed to be carefully integrated into criminological thinking. His ambitions in this regard were modest. He thought it was foolish to propose a general theory of crime claiming to explain all criminal behavior and that all other perspectives were wrong. Instead, he saw his social support approach more, to use Merton’s (1968) term, as a “middle-range theory” that identified a concept that could help to organize the study of crime in a new way. The goal thus was not to tear down rival theories but to illuminate how social support might enrich our understanding of crime causation.

Theoretical Propositions.

Social support is the provision of assistance to another person. Usually, the concept is divided into two types: instrumental and expressive (Lin, 1986; Vaux, 1988). Instrumental support is envisioned as giving someone the resources needed to reach a goal. This might range from paying a child’s college tuition or helping a friend find a job to filling in as a babysitter during a crisis or training a youngster to be a good tennis player. Expressive support might involve boosting a child’s self-esteem after a failure, listening to a friend express anger and frustration, or hugging someone to validate the person’s worth and identity. Social support can be objective and perceived, be delivered by informal or formal (government) sources, and exist at the micro and macro levels (Cullen, 1994).

In his 1994 address, Cullen set forth 14 propositions. It is possible, however, to reduce these to three core assertions. First, social support reduces crime. All other factors being equal, individuals who receive more support and communities (or nations) with more support will experience less criminal conduct.

Second, social support makes control more effective. Control, whether applied by parents or the criminal justice system, occurs in a social context. Ample evidence exists that control is most effective when it is exerted as part of a supportive as opposed to a detached or punitive relationship. For example, parenting tends to be more effective when it is not only restrictive but also warm (often called authoritative parenting) (see Wright & Cullen, 2001). Sampson and colleagues’ (1997) theory of collective efficacy includes not only the willingness to exert informal control but also the expectation among neighbors that they can trust one another

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to be supportive. And Braithwaite’s (1989) shaming theory (see Chapter 7 in this volume) argues that shaming is effective in reducing crime only if it is supportive or reintegrative rather than rejecting and stigmatizing. Similarly, Lawrence Sherman’s (1993; see Chapter 7 in this volume) defiance theory links crime to controls applied in a disrespectful or nonsupportive fashion and to people who, due to a lack of social bonds, experience few supportive relations in their lives. Further, even with genetic factors controlled, a study using the Add Health data on twin pairs revealed that social support had a causal impact on increasing levels of self-control (Beaver, Boutwell, & Barnes, 2014).

These insights have obvious policy implications. As noted, there is mounting evidence that punitive, nonsupportive correctional interventions do not lower recidivism. Reducing crime is a complex enterprise that must address a number of causal factors (e.g., changing antisocial attitudes in offenders). Nonetheless, social support remains an essential ingredient in programs that seek to change offenders’ criminality. Effective rehabilitation involves an ethic of care and the delivery of concrete human services directed at helping offenders to think prosocially and to assume conventional social roles. Being mean—whether that involves throwing people into harsh prisons or threatening them to scare them straight—simply does not work to decrease recidivism (Andrews & Bonta, 2010; Cullen & Jonson, 2017).

Third, social support reduces crime by increasing prosocial and decreasing antisocial influences. Social support is not a single, autonomous factor but rather an activity that permeates many facets of life. As a result, it is implicated in crime causation in many ways. Here are six ways social support limits criminal involvement:

1. Social support contributes to the healthy development of infants and children. Support given to at-risk mothers during pregnancy can limit neuropsychological deficits related to life-course-persistent offending (Moffitt, 1993; Olds, 2007). Supportive parenting nurtures children and avoids practices that are criminogenic (e.g., harsh or abusive child rearing). As noted, supportive parenting also contributes to the development of children’s self-control (Beaver et al., 2014).

2. The delivery of support is a conduit for prosocial learning. It is a form of differential association that models prosocial behavior and reinforces conventional attitudes (e.g., the value of helping, not harming, others; empathy for others’ problems).

3. Social support builds social bonds that tie people to the conventional order. Parental expressive support facilitates children’s attachment. Instrumental support provides others with access to educational and occupational opportunities, thus increasing commitment.

4. Social support insulates against strain, preventing its effects from being felt intensely or, if experienced, by serving as a factor increasing noncriminal coping (Agnew, 2006b; Cullen & Wright, 1997). In this sense, social support might be considered as a “social ‘fund’ from which people may draw when handling stressors” (Thoits, 1995, p. 64).

5. Social support reduces the stigmatizing effects of criminal labeling. It can foster positive identities among offenders, encouraging them to envision a good life (see Maruna, 2001). It also is integral to reentry programs that seek to help offenders return to society and assume prosocial roles.

6. On the macro level, social support fosters government social welfare policies, cultural values, and community integration that help to diminish the effects of the root causes of crime (e.g., concentrated

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disadvantage). Supportive nations and communities focus on human needs and do not consign individuals to dealing with personal and social troubles on their own.

Assessing Social Support Theory.

Voluminous empirical evidence accumulated over the past three decades confirms that a lack of social support is related to negative health and behavioral outcomes, including antisocial or criminal conduct (see Barrera & Li, 1996; Cullen & Wright, 1997, pp. 194–195; Thoits, 2011; Vaux, 1988). With regard to crime, Makarios and Sams (2013) have conducted the most systematic analysis of the quantitative literature. Their review of 14 micro-level studies revealed that “a substantial amount of empirical evidence suggests that social support is related to individual criminal involvement” (2013, p. 176). Although the results were more mixed, their review of 21 studies concluded that “the majority of macro-level tests” also showed that social support is inversely associated with crime rates (p. 179; see also Pratt & Cullen, 2005). Notably, recent studies have continued to provide evidence showing that social support, either directly or indirectly through other factors (e.g., self- control, social bonds), reduces a range of negative outcomes, from prison misconduct to criminal behavior, among diverse samples (see, e.g., Baron, 2015; Dong & Krohn, 2017; Woo et al., 2016).

Despite these promising findings, empirical analyses of social support theory remain in their infancy. Social support is a multifaceted concept whose effects are likely complex, shaped by structural conditions and operating through social psychological processes (Thoits, 2011; Vaux, 1988). Most criminological tests of the theory employ scales of a few items that measure, at most, limited facets of social support. These works are instructive, but the next generation of research must probe more carefully the diverse ways that social support is implicated in crime causation (see, e.g., Brezina & Azimi, 2018).

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The Consequences of Theory: Policy Implications

Unlike some of the other theories examined in this book, control theory has tended to reinforce the sorts of prevention and intervention efforts that have been around for decades and that to many have become a matter of “common sense” (Empey, 1982, p. 268). It is worth noting, however, that the Durkheimian heritage has emphasized prevention through the strengthening of the institutions of socialization rather than through a policy of deterrence relying primarily on fear of getting caught. And it is important to stress that control theory has suggested that regulation of the individual must come through policies fostering integration into the social order rather than through policies of isolation and punishment. That is, these perspectives teach us that attempts to reduce crime by “get tough” laws and harsh penalties—that is, through state punitive control— are unlikely to be effective because they do little to establish any self-control and social bonds that insulate against offending.

The control theories we have examined have less to say about the prevention and control of professional crime, organized crime, and corporate and white-collar crime than about prevention and control of juvenile delinquency or ordinary street crime. With respect to prevention, they provide considerable support for programs to strengthen families, particularly with respect to effective child rearing. These efforts often are labeled early intervention programs.

These programs often target parent-child attachment for improvement, because weakened bonds are a risk factor for misconduct. To the extent that such programs focus on development of self-control, they stress the need for policies that assist the family in inculcating the favorable self-concepts, impulse control, and frustration tolerance that can keep people out of trouble even in situations of weak external control.

School programs also have been developed that specifically target the need to establish youngsters’ bonds to school who are at risk of academic failure and a lack of educational commitment. A range of successful results have been reported (Catalano, Arthur, Hawkins, Berglund, & Olson, 1998; Hawkins & Herrenkohl, 2003; Lösel & Bender, 2003). For example, the Seattle Social Development Project was “designed specifically to prevent antisocial behaviour by promoting academic achievement and commitment to schooling during the elementary grades” (Hawkins & Herrenkohl, 2003, p. 268). This intervention used multiple methods to improve the ability of students to learn and to solve problems without resorting to anger and aggression, of teachers to manage behavior and instruct effectively, and of parents to support their children’s learning. The intervention increased school achievement and commitment and in turn reduced both the initiation of delinquency and violence in the teenage years (Hawkins & Herrenkohl, 2003).

Control theory suggests prevention and reintegration policies moving adults into stable social networks of employment and community activities, but less has been done here than with programs for youths. Control theory also suggests a search for policies capable of demonstrating the payoff of hard work toward conventional goals to draw both adolescents and adults into positions of personal commitment in which there is too much of a stake in conformity to lose by a return to delinquency or crime. Unfortunately, such programs tended to become casualties of the shifting political climate of the 1980s and 1990s and the popularity of “get

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tough” policies. More recently, however, there has been an inmate “reentry movement” that is illuminating the consequences of severing the ties of offenders from families, community, and work. Part of this agenda is thus the call to explore ways to foster social bonds that promote prosocial behavior (see, e.g., Travis, 2005).

Control theories are most impressive to the extent that a person accepts the larger social structure and conventional middle-class values as things to be taken for granted. For control theory, the systems that are to accomplish the regulation of the individuals at risk for crime and delinquency through their integration almost always are systems defined in conventional middle-class terms. Interestingly enough, this seems true even of approaches such as Hagan’s power-control theory, in which the egalitarian family really is the new ideal of the middle class, although it is true that this approach faces up to the possibility that the freedom gained by daughters in such families actually may represent a weakening of control. The larger question is the following: What if all of these systems themselves (e.g., families, schools), or at least some of them, are part of the problem rather than the solution? Integration into a “bad” system may be worse than no integration at all. As we will see in Chapters 7 and 8, some criminological theorists have argued that the major problems are indeed located in the conventional systems themselves and that these systems, rather than the particular criminals or delinquents, are the major sources of crime and delinquency. Labeling theorists insist that the conventional systems tend to aggravate crime and delinquency by overreacting to minor nonconformity, whereas conflict theorists maintain that these systems really are covert instruments of oppression masquerading as helpful agencies of desirable socialization.

Even if one is convinced that conventional institutions, such as the middle-class family and the school, do not create major problems through a tendency to reject and stigmatize those who do not fit into them well and are not instruments of social oppression, it does not follow that successful integration and regulation functions will solve crime and delinquency problems. Speaking of impoverished African Americans, for example, Empey (1982) remarked, “It is not merely that underclass children are sometimes in conflict with their parents, or that their academic achievement is low, but that they are caught in an economic and political system in which they are superfluous” (p. 299). If the basic problem is located in the larger sociopolitical order, then how can policies focused on strengthening families and schools do much to prevent and control crime and delinquency in the long run? Is the sociopolitical order to be accepted as it is, in which case policy must be directed toward inculcating values that support it? Or must more basic policies be developed that challenge some of the assumptions on which the conventional order is based? The labeling theorists and conflict theorists to be examined in Chapters 7 and 8 have focused our attention on just such issues.

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Conclusion

It is instructive to note that the control theories that focus on explaining juvenile delinquency tend to locate control influences primarily in the family and secondarily in the school and that those theories that focus on adult crime tend to put greater emphasis on inner factors such as self-concept and self-control. Although juveniles might be influenced less by internal factors than by social forces such as peer pressures and parental control, internal factors might be more important in raising the odds of conformity on the part of the adult out of school and away from family supervision. In short, the adult is more on his or her own in the world, complete with a character structure that presumably is crystallized more fully. The relative mix and impact of internal and external control across the life course is an issue that warrants further investigation.

Even though they vary somewhat in their stress on particular forces of integration and regulation and in their attachment to a social disorganization perspective, the theories covered in the past two chapters share certain similarities beyond the fact that they all take the control perspective. Reckless’s stress on goal orientation sounds very much like the emphasis that Hirschi placed on commitment in his earlier sociologically oriented social bond theory. Both theories consider legitimate aspirations to be a crucial factor in insulating a potential deviant from nonconformity. Reckless’s concept of norm erosion as the obverse of norm retention is closely related to Sykes and Matza’s concept of techniques of neutralization in such a way that the latter can easily be subsumed as one aspect of the former (Ball, 1966). In much the same way, Reiss’s distinction between conformity as a consequence of acceptance and conformity as a consequence of submission is quite similar to Nye’s distinction between internalized control and direct control. Gottfredson and Hirschi’s psychologically oriented self-control theory shows considerable similarity to Reckless’s notion of inner containment, albeit with a much more systematic theory of how such control may fail to develop. Hagan’s power-control theory reads in some ways like an update of Nye’s perspective in terms of U.S. families during the late 1980s as compared to the more patriarchal families of the 1950s. There also is an overlap between Tittle’s concept of a control deficit and Colvin’s focus on coercion. And with a few contemporary exceptions (e.g., the works of Hagan and Colvin), these theories share a Durkheimian stamp and remain largely silent on issues of how power and inequality influence the quality and impact of social control. These issues will occupy our attention in the chapters ahead.

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Further Readings

Source: F. T. Cullen, & P. Wilcox. (Eds.). (2010). Encyclopedia of Criminological Theory. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

1. Colvin, Mark: Coercion Theory 2. Gottfredson, Michael R., and Travis Hirschi: Self-Control Theory 3. Hirschi, Travis: Social Control Theory 4. Tittle, Charles R.: Control Balance Theory

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Chapter Seven The Irony of State Intervention Labeling Theory

John Braithwaite 1951– Australian National University Author of Reintegrative Shaming Theory

Courtesy of John Braithwaite

When people violate the law, we assume that the state’s most prudent response is to make every effort to apprehend the culprits and process them through the criminal justice system. Informing this assumption is the belief that state intervention reduces crime, whether by scaring offenders straight, by rehabilitating them, or by incapacitating them so that they no longer are free to roam the streets victimizing citizens. Scholars embracing the labeling theory of crime, however, attack this line of reasoning vigorously. They caution that, rather than diminishing criminal involvement, state intervention—labeling and reacting to offenders as “criminals” and “ex-felons”—can have the unanticipated and ironic consequence of deepening the very behavior it was meant to halt.

Thus, labeling theorists argue that the criminal justice system not only is limited in its capacity to restrain unlawful conduct but also is a major factor in anchoring people in criminal careers. Pulling people into the system makes matters worse, not better. This contention takes on importance when we consider the width of the net cast by criminal justice officials. On any given day, more than 2.1 million Americans are in jails or in state or federal prisons, and 4.65 million more are on probation or parole supervision and living in communities (Kaeble & Glaze, 2016). For minorities, moreover, the presence of state intervention in their lives is particularly extensive. Nearly one in three African American males between 20 and 29 years of age is

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under some form of control by the criminal justice system (Mauer, 1999; see also Pattillo, Weiman, & Western, 2004). In an analysis of a cohort born between 1965 and 1969, Western (2006) has shown the special vulnerability to incarceration of the most disadvantaged minorities. Thus, among African American men who are high school dropouts, he calculated that 58.9%—nearly 6 in 10—will spend some time in prison during their lifetime; the comparable figure for White dropouts is 11.2% (Western, 2006; see also Wacquant, 2001, 2009).

In this chapter, we examine why labeling theorists believe that state intervention is dangerously criminogenic, particularly in light of the faith that current policy makers have in the power of prisons to solve the crime problem. We also consider why, during the 1960s and early 1970s, labeling theory (or, as it also is known, the “societal reaction” approach) grew rapidly in popularity and markedly influenced criminal justice policy. Later, we consider some recent theoretical extensions of the labeling perspective. First, however, we discuss how scholars in this school of thought rooted their work in a revisionist view of what crime is and of how its very nature is tied inextricably to the nature of societal reaction.

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The Social Construction of Crime

Before the advent of labeling theory, most criminologists were content to define crime as “behavior that violates criminal laws.” This definition was useful in guiding inquiry and in setting rough boundaries for criminology as a field of study. Too often, however, the easy acceptance of this definition led criminologists to take for granted that they knew what crime was and could get on with the business of finding its causes either in offenders or in their environments. This reification of conceptual definitions blinded many scholars to seeing that, as a socially constructed phenomenon, what is or is not “criminal” changes over time, across societies, and even from one situation to the next. Without this insight, scholars failed to explore the social circumstances that determine which behaviors are made criminal, why some people have the label of criminal applied to them, and what consequences exist for those bearing a criminal label.

Labeling theorists sought to correct this oversight. As a starting point, they urged criminologists to surrender the idea that behaviors are somehow inherently criminal or deviant. To be sure, behavior such as killing or raping another person is injurious by nature. Even so, what makes an act criminal is not the harm it incurs but rather whether this label is conferred on the act by the state. Thus, it is the nature of the societal reaction and the reality it constructs—not the immutable nature of the act per se—that determines whether a crime has occurred (Becker, 1963; Erikson, 1966). Pfohl’s (1985) discussion of whether killing is “naturally deviant” illustrates the essence of this position nicely:

Homicide is a way of categorizing the act of killing, such that taking another’s life is viewed as totally reprehensible and devoid of any redeeming social justification. Some types of killing are categorized as homicide. Others are not. What differs is not the behavior but the manner in which reactions to that behavior are socially organized. The behavior is essentially the same: killing a police officer or killing by a police officer; stabbing an old lady in the back or stabbing the unsuspecting wartime enemy; a Black slave shooting a White master or a White master lynching a Black slave; being run over by a drunken driver or slowly dying a painful cancer death caused by a polluting factory. Each is a type of killing. Some are labeled homicide. Others are excused, justified, or viewed, as in the case of dangerous industrial pollution, as environmental risks, necessary for the health of our economy, if not our bodies. The form and content of what is seen as homicide thus varies with social context and circumstance. This is hardly the characteristic of something which can be considered naturally or universally deviant. (p. 284)

Armed with this vision of crime as socially constructed, labeling theorists argued that criminologists could ill afford to neglect the nature and effects of societal reaction, particularly when the state was the labeling agent. One important area they investigated was the origins of criminal labels or categories. Howard Becker (1963), for example, explored how the commissioner of the treasury department’s Federal Bureau of Narcotics served as a “moral entrepreneur” who led a campaign to outlaw marijuana through the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937. In Becker’s view, this campaign, marked by attempts to arouse the public by claims that smoking pot caused

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youths to lose control and commit senseless crimes, was undertaken to advance the bureau’s organizational interests. The bureau’s success in securing passage of the act, Becker concluded, resulted in “the creation of a new fragment of the moral constitution of society, its code of right and wrong” (p. 145; see also Galliher & Walker, 1977).

Numerous other scholars provided explanations of attempts to criminalize other forms of behavior. Anthony Platt (1969) studied how, at the turn of the 20th century, affluent women “invented delinquency” through their successful campaign to create a court exclusively for juveniles. With the establishment of this court, juveniles were treated as a separate class of offenders, and the state was granted the power to intervene not only when youths committed criminal acts but also when they showed signs of a profligate lifestyle—acts such as truancy and promiscuity that became known as “status offenses.” This movement, Platt observed, was class biased because it was directed primarily at “saving” lower-class youths, reaffirmed middle-class values, and left unaddressed the structural roots of poverty.

In a like vein, Stephan Pfohl (1977) investigated the “discovery of child abuse,” which prior to the 1960s had largely escaped criminal sanctioning. Pfohl showed how pediatric radiologists, who read X-rays in hospitals, were instrumental in bringing attention to the abuse of children. Their efforts, he claimed, were fueled by the incentive to demonstrate the importance of pediatric radiology and, thereby, to enhance the low prestige of this specialty in the medical community.

Kathleen Tierney (1982) focused on the “creation of the wife-beating problem.” She revealed how wife battering did not emerge as a salient social issue deserving of criminal justice intervention until the mid-1970s, when feminist organizations and networks were developed sufficiently to make domestic violence socially visible, to establish victim shelters, and to earn the passage of new laws. Also critical to the battered women’s movement was the media, which dramatized wife beating because

it mixed elements of violence and social relevance . . . [and] provided a focal point for serious media discussion of such issues as feminism, inequality, and family life in the United States—without requiring a sacrifice of the entertainment value, action, and urgency on which the media typically depend. (pp. 213–214)

These and similar analyses showed, therefore, that what the state designated as criminal was not a constant but rather the result of concrete efforts by men and women to construct a different reality—to transform how a particular type of behavior was officially defined. Moreover, it was not simply the extent or harmfulness of the behavior that determined its criminalization. After all, drug use, juvenile waywardness, child abuse, and wife battering had long escaped state criminal intervention despite their pervasiveness and injurious effects. These behaviors were criminalized only when the social context was ripe for change and groups existed that were sufficiently motivated and powerful to bring about legal reform.

But what occurs once a form of behavior is defined as unlawful and a criminal label is created? To whom will this label be applied? The common answer to this question is that those who engage in the proscribed activity

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will be labeled as criminals. Labeling theorists, however, again were quick to point out that such thinking implicitly assumes that societal reaction can be taken for granted and treated as nonproblematic. It ignores not only that the innocent occasionally are falsely accused but also that only some lawbreakers actually are arrested and processed through the criminal justice system (Becker, 1963). A lawbreaker’s behavior, therefore, is only one factor—and perhaps not the most important factor at that—in determining whether a criminal label is conferred.

A number of labeling theory studies illustrate this principle. In one experimental study conducted in Los Angeles, a racially mixed sample of college students, all of whom had perfect driving records during the past year, had Black Panther bumper stickers affixed to their car bumpers. Within hours of the experiment’s start, they began to accumulate numerous tickets for traffic violations (e.g., improper lane changes), thereby suggesting that police officers were “labeling” differentially on the basis of the bumper stickers (Heusenstamm, 1975). Other researchers interested in police encounters with juveniles observed that officers’ decisions to arrest wayward youths were based less on what laws were violated and more on the juveniles’ demeanor—whether they were respectful and cooperative or surly and uncooperative (Piliavin & Briar, 1964).

Steffensmeier and Terry (1973) examined whether customers in three stores would report a shoplifting incident to an employee. The incidents were rigged, with study confederates instructed to place themselves “under the direct observation of a customer (the subject), and then steal some item of merchandise in an obvious and deliberate manner” (1973, p. 319). Accomplices, serving as store employees, would then make themselves “readily available should the subject wish to report the shoplifting incident” (p. 319). The experimental design varied not only the sex of the shoplifter and customer but also the appearance of the offender. The male and female “straight” shoplifters were neatly dressed and well groomed. By contrast, the “hippie” shoplifters had uncombed hair, patched blue jeans, and shabby shoes and no socks on their feet. Although the sex of either party had little impact on reporting, the subjects were more likely to turn in the hippy shoplifters. In short, labeling was contingent not only on the offenders’ behavior but also on their appearance. “A hippie identity or label,” concluded Steffensmeier and Terry (1973), “constitutes, for many subjects, a master status, a pivotal category, or a central train, which greatly increases the individual’s vulnerability to stigmatization as a deviant” (p. 424).

Still another researcher, William Chambliss (1973), examined one community’s societal reaction to two groups of high school boys: a middle-class group he called the “Saints” and a working-class group known as the “Roughnecks.” Although the two groups had a rate of delinquency that was “about equal,” the “community, the school, and the police react[ed] to the Saints as though they were good, upstanding, nondelinquent youths with bright futures but [reacted] to the Roughnecks as though they were tough, young criminals who were headed for trouble” (pp. 24, 28). Why did this occur? In Chambliss’s view, a major reason was the community’s lower-class bias, which led police to define the Saints’ behaviors as pranks and to anticipate that the poorly dressed and poorly mannered Roughnecks were up to no good.

Through these and similar studies, labeling theorists revealed that the nature of state criminal intervention was not simply a matter of an objective response to illegal behavior but rather was shaped intimately by a

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range of extralegal contingencies (Cullen & Cullen, 1978). Much attention was focused on how criminal justice decision making was influenced by individual characteristics such as race, class, and gender. In addition, however, researchers explored how rates of labeling vary according to the resources available to and political demands placed on police and other criminal justice organizations. This body of research also highlighted how official measures of the extent of crime, such as arrest statistics reported each year by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, depend not only on how many offenses are committed but also on the arrest practices of police. Accordingly, official crime statistics may be inaccurate to the extent that they reflect a systematic bias in enforcement against certain groups (e.g., the urban poor) or fluctuations in the willingness of police to enforce certain laws (e.g., rape).

In sum, labeling theorists elucidated the importance of considering the origins of criminal labels and the circumstances that affected their application. But they did not confine their attention to these concerns. They proceeded to put forward the more controversial proposition that labeling and reacting to people as criminals composed the major source of chronic involvement in illegal activity. They claimed that state intervention created crime rather than halted crime. We consider this line of reasoning next.

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Labeling as Criminogenic: Creating Career Criminals

Where should the search for the cause of crime begin? As we have seen, scholars traditionally have argued that the starting point for criminological inquiry should be either individual offenders themselves or the social environments in which they reside. Labeling theorists, however, argued that causal analysis should commence not with offenders and their environs but rather with the societal reaction that other people—including state officials—have toward offenders. Again, their contention was based on the belief that labeling and treating lawbreakers as criminals have the unanticipated consequence of creating the very behavior they were meant to prevent.

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Early Statements of Labeling Theory

The idea that criminal justice intervention can deepen criminality did not originate with the labeling theorists of the 1960s. A number of early criminologists, for example, noted that prisons—a severe form of societal reaction—were breeding grounds for crime. Jeremy Bentham, the classical school theorist, lamented that “an ordinary prison is a school in which wickedness is taught by surer means than can ever be employed for the inculcation of virtue. Weariness, revenge, and want preside over these academies of crime” (cited in Hawkins, 1976, p. 57). In 1911, Lombroso echoed this theme in his observation that “the degrading influences of prison life and contact with vulgar criminals . . . cause criminaloids who have committed their initial offenses with repugnance and hesitation to develop later into habitual criminals” (Lombroso-Ferrero, 1972, pp. 110–111). Willem Bonger, the Dutch Marxist scholar, noted similarly that in imprisoning “young people who have committed merely misdemeanors of minor importance . . . , we are bringing up professional criminals” (Bonger, 1916/1969, p. 118). And Shaw (1930) felt compelled to title the chapter in The Jack-Roller on correctional institutions “The House of Corruption.”

Although observations such as these anticipated the more developed views of later labeling theorists, Frank Tannenbaum (1938) was perhaps the earliest scholar to specify in general terms the principle that state intervention is criminogenic because it “dramatizes evil.” “Only some of the children [who break the law] are caught,” noted Tannenbaum (1938), “though all may be equally guilty.” And this event is not without consequence. The youth is “singled out for specialized treatment” as the “arrest suddenly precipitates a series of institutions, attitudes, and experiences which other children do not share.” Now the youth’s world is changed fundamentally; people react differently, and the youth starts to reconsider his (or her) identity. “He is made conscious of himself as a different human being than he was before his arrest,” Tannenbaum observed. “He becomes classified as a thief, perhaps, and the entire world about him has suddenly become a different place for him and will remain different for the rest of his life” (p. 19). This is particularly true if the youth is placed in prison, for that is where incipient, “uncrystallized,” criminal attitudes are “hardened” through the “education” that older offenders provide (pp. 66–81).

In the end, Tannenbaum (1938) cautioned, we would do well to consider the potential consequences before taking the initial step of pulling a juvenile into the criminal justice system:

The first dramatization of “evil” which separates the child out of his group for specialized treatment plays a greater role in making the criminal than perhaps any other experience. . . . He has been tagged. A new and hitherto nonexistent environment has been precipitated out of him. The process of making the criminal, therefore, is a process of tagging, defining, identifying, segregating, describing, emphasizing, [and] making conscious and self-conscious; it becomes a way of stimulating, suggesting, emphasizing, and evoking the very traits that are complained of. . . . The person becomes the thing he is described as being. (pp. 19–20)

In 1951, Edwin Lemert further formalized these insights when he distinguished between two types of

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deviance: primary and secondary. Primary deviance, he contended, arises from a variety of sociocultural and psychological sources. At this initial point, however, the offender often tries to rationalize the behavior as a temporary aberration or sees it as part of a socially acceptable role. The offender does not conceive of himself or herself as deviant, nor does the offender organize his or her life around this identity (p. 75). By contrast, secondary deviance is precipitated by the responses of others to the initial proscribed conduct. As societal reaction intensifies progressively with each act of primary deviance, the offender becomes stigmatized through “name calling, labeling, or stereotyping” (Lemert, 1951, pp. 76–77). The original sources of waywardness lose their salience as others’ reactions emerge as the overriding concern in the person’s life and demand to be addressed. Most often, the offender solves this problem by accepting his or her “deviant status” and by organizing his or her “life and identity . . . around the facts of deviance.” Accordingly, the offender becomes more, rather than less, embedded in nonconformity. As Lemert (1972) explained:

Primary deviance is assumed to arise in a wide variety of social, cultural, and psychological contexts, and at best [it] has only marginal implications for the psychic structure of the individual; it does not lead to symbolic reorganization at the level of self-regarding attitudes and social roles. Secondary deviation is deviant behavior, or social roles based upon it, which becomes [a] means of defense, attack, or adaptation to overt and covert problems created by the societal reaction to primary deviation. In effect, the original “causes” of the deviation recede and give way to the central importance of the disapproving, degradational, and isolating reactions of society. (p. 48)

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Labeling as a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

Although Tannenbaum and Lemert stated fairly explicitly the theme that societal reaction can induce waywardness, this view of labeling did not win wide intellectual attention and become an identifiable school of thought in the criminological community until the mid- to late 1960s (Cole, 1975). As will be discussed later, the sudden pervasive appeal of labeling theory can be traced largely to the social context of the 1960s that made it seem plausible that state intervention was the crime problem’s cause and not its solution. But another circumstance also was important in contributing to labeling theory’s ascendancy: the existence of a group of scholars—Howard Becker, Kai Erikson, and John Kitsuse were perhaps the most influential among them— whose combined writings argued convincingly that societal reaction is integral to the creation of crime and deviance (Becker, 1963; Erikson, 1966; Kitsuse, 1964).

To show how societal reaction brings about more crime, these labeling theorists borrowed Merton’s (1968) concept of the “self-fulfilling prophecy.” For Merton, “The self-fulfilling prophecy is, in the beginning, a false definition of the situation evoking a new behavior which makes the originally false conception come true” (p. 477, emphasis in original).

Consistent with this reasoning, labeling scholars argued that most offenders are defined falsely as criminal. In making this claim, they did not mean to imply that offenders do not violate the law or that justice system officials have no basis for intervening in people’s lives. Instead, the falseness in definition is tied to the fact that criminal labels, once conferred, do not simply provide a social judgment of the offenders’ behavior; they also publicly degrade the offenders’ moral character (Garfinkel, 1956). That is, being arrested and processed through the justice system means that citizens not only define the offenders’ lawbreaking conduct as bad but also assume that the offenders as people are criminal and, as a consequence, are the “type” that soon would be in trouble again. Yet as Lemert’s (1951) work suggested, such predictions about personal character and future behavior are likely to be incorrect. Much primary deviance—including initial experiments in crime and delinquency—is not rooted fundamentally in character or lifestyle and thus is likely to be transitory and not stable (Scheff, 1966).

In short, theorists observed that the meaning of the label “criminal” in our society leads citizens to make assumptions about offenders that are wrong or only partially accurate. These assumptions are consequential, moreover, because they shape how people react to offenders. Equipped with false definitions or stereotypes of criminals, citizens treat all offenders as though they were of poor character and likely to recidivate. On one level, these reactions are prudent, if not rational; after all, it seems safer not to chance having one’s child associate with the neighborhood’s “juvenile delinquent” and not to employ a “convicted thief” to handle one’s cash register. Yet on another level, these reactions have the power to set in motion processes that evoke the very behavior that was anticipated—that transform an offender into the very type of criminal that was feared.

But how is the prophecy fulfilled? How are incipient criminals, who might well have gone straight if left to their own devices, turned into chronic offenders? Again, the conferring of a criminal label singles out a person for special treatment. The offender becomes, in Becker’s (1963) words, “one who is different from the rest of

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us, who cannot or will not act as a moral human being and therefore might break other important rules” (p. 34). As a result, being a “criminal” becomes the person’s “master status” or controlling public identification (pp. 33–34; see also Hughes, 1945). In social encounters, citizens do not consider the offender’s social status as a spouse, as a parent, or perhaps as a worker; they focus, first and foremost, on the fact that they are interacting with a criminal.

Admittedly, this public scrutiny might scare or shame some offenders into conformity. But for other offenders, the constant accentuation of their criminal status and the accompanying social rebuke has the unanticipated consequence of undermining the conforming influences in their lives and of pushing them into criminal careers. Thus, in the face of repeated designation as criminals, offenders are likely to forfeit their self- concepts as conformists or “normal” persons and to increasingly internalize their public definition as deviants. As this identity change takes place, the offenders’ self-concepts lose their power to encourage conformity; the pressure to act consistently with their self-concepts now demands breaking the law.

Similarly, people who are stigmatized as criminal often are cut off from previous prosocial relationships. As one’s reputation as a reprobate spreads, phone calls are not returned, invitations to social engagements are not extended, friends suddenly no longer can find time to meet, and intimate relationships terminate. One solution to being a social pariah is to seek out those of a like status. Accordingly, conditions are conducive for offenders wearing a criminal label to differentially associate with other lawbreakers, thereby forming criminal subcultural groupings. Such associations are likely to further reinforce antisocial values and to provide a ready supply of partners in crime.

The abrogation of ties to conventional society, labeling theorists warned, is most probable when state intervention involves institutionalization. Imprisonment entails the loss of existing employment and strains family relations to the point where they might not survive. It also mandates that offenders reside in a social setting where contact with other, more hardened criminals is enforced. Education in crime, as Tannenbaum (1938) and other early criminologists noted, is the likely result.

Finally, saddling offenders with an official criminal label, particularly when they have spent time in jail and carry the status of ex-convict, limits their employment opportunities. Through their jail sentences, offenders may “pay back” society for their illegal behavior, but they find it far more difficult to shake their definition as persons of bad character who might fall by the wayside at any time. Therefore, employers see them as poor risks and hesitate to hire them or to place them in positions of trust. Most often, offenders are relegated to low-paying dreary jobs with few prospects for advancement. In this context, crime emerges as a more profitable option and a lure that only the irrational choose to resist.

In sum, labeling theorists asserted that the false definition of offenders as permanently criminal and destined for lives of crime fulfills this very prophecy by evoking societal reactions that make conformity difficult and criminality necessary, if not attractive. The labeling process thus is a powerful criminogenic force that stabilizes participation in illegal roles and turns those marginally involved in crime into chronic or career offenders. It is an especially dangerous source of crime, moreover, because its effects are unanticipated and rarely observed. Indeed, the common response to escalating crime rates is not to minimize societal reaction

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but rather to arrest and imprison more people. From a labeling perspective, such “get tough” policies ultimately will prove self-defeating, for they will succeed only in subjecting increasing numbers of offenders to a self-fulfilling process that makes probable lives of crime.

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Assessing Labeling Theory

Few criminologists would dispute either that labeling theory succeeded in bringing attention to the issue of societal reaction or that this innovative theoretical focus was an important reason behind the perspective’s popularity. Even so, labeling theory’s central propositions have not escaped considerable critical analysis (Gove, 1975, 1980). As we will see, this assessment suggests the need to temper some of the perspective’s boldest claims but also indicates that it would be unwise to discount the insights set forth in the labeling tradition.

One line of criticism came from conflict or radical criminologists. Although they agreed that crime was socially constructed and that labels were differentially applied, they did not believe that labeling theorists went far enough in their analysis. Radical scholars argued that the origins and application of criminal labels were influenced fundamentally by inequities rooted in the very structure of capitalism. As Chapter 8 shows in greater detail, radicals insisted that differences in power determined that the behaviors of the poor, but not those of the rich, would be criminalized. Labeling theorists understood that political interest and social disadvantage influenced societal reaction, but again, they did not make explicit the connection of the criminal justice system to the underlying economic order. As Taylor, Walton, and Young (1973) observed in The New Criminology, they failed “to lay bare the structured inequalities in power and interest which underpin processes whereby laws are created and enforced.” Thus, they stopped short of exploring “the way in which deviancy and criminality are shaped by society’s larger structure of power and institutions” (pp. 168–169).

A very different critique was leveled by criminologists of a traditional positivist bent, who maintained that labeling theory’s major tenets wilted when subjected to empirical test. These critics contended—correctly, we believe—that the perspective’s popularity had less to do with its empirical adequacy and more to do with its voicing a provocative message that meshed with the social times (Hagan, 1973; Hirschi, 1975). After all, in asserting that state intervention deepened criminality, none of the early labeling theorists had presented hard data supporting this thesis.

Thus, these positivist or empirically oriented criminologists brought data to bear on what were considered labeling theory’s two principal propositions: first, that extralegal factors, not behavior alone, shaped who was labeled; and second, that labeling increased criminal involvement.

The Extralegal Factors Proposition.

To assess the first labeling theory proposition, scholars set up studies to test whether extralegal factors, such as an offender’s race, class, and gender, are more important in regulating criminal justice labeling than are legal factors, such as the seriousness of the illegality or the offender’s past record. Contrary to the expectations of the labeling theorists, research studies have found repeatedly that the seriousness of the crime—not the offender’s social background—is the largest determinant of labeling by police and court officials (Sampson, 1986b). Thus, from early on, critics of labeling theory have concluded that extralegal variables exert only a weak effect on labeling (Gove, 1980; Hirschi, 1975; Tittle, 1975b).

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Not all criminologists, however, would agree with this conclusion. Research by Robert Sampson, for example, forced a reconsideration of the critics’ sweeping rejection of the idea that official reactions are influenced by a variety of contingencies. Thus, Sampson (1986b) uncovered an “ecological bias” in police control of juveniles. Even when he took into account the seriousness of lawbreaking behavior, police were found to be more likely to make arrests in poor neighborhoods than in more affluent neighborhoods. One possible explanation for this ecological pattern is that police resources are concentrated more heavily in lower-class areas, where it is assumed that anyone encountered is likely to have a character sufficiently disreputable to warrant close surveillance. In any case, Sampson provided convincing evidence of an extralegal circumstance that causes differential selection in the criminal justice system.

The controversy over labeling has resurfaced in the recent debate over “racial profiling.” Research is now probing whether African Americans (and other minorities) experience traffic stops because of their race and ethnicity—that is, because they are guilty of “driving while Black (or Brown).” Although there is some conflicting evidence, even when other behavioral factors are taken into account, minority drivers appear to be stopped, cited, searched, arrested, and have force used against them more often. It is unclear whether this disparity is due to individual prejudice on the part of officers or to more institutionalized practices in which officers stop minorities because they believe that they are more likely to be transporting drugs or because they are driving in neighborhoods “where they are out of place and do not belong.” Regardless, consistent with labeling theory, whether individuals are subjected to social control and potentially have a criminal label attached to them is determined by more than simple legal factors (Engel & Calnon, 2004; Engel, Calnon, & Bernard, 2002; Novak, 2004).

Particularly controversial as well has been the national attention given to police killings of unarmed Black men, several of which have been captured by videos widely available on the Internet (Hayes, 2017; Mac Donald, 2016; Zimring, 2017). The 2014 shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, set off a firestorm of protest culminating in the Black Lives Matter movement. Other celebrated cases videotaped by onlookers—such as the suffocation of Eric Garner in Staten Island, New York, the shooting of 12-year-old Tamir Rice in Cleveland, Ohio, and the killing of Walter Scott in North Charleston, South Carolina, among others—further energized attention to this issue. Charges have been made that police officers either are overtly racist and thus take Black lives wantonly or harbor implicit racial biases rooted in stereotypes of the “dangerous Black thug” that lead to premature discharge of their firearms. Disentangling how much police use of deadly force is racially motivated—that is, how much is an extralegal labeling effect—has generated considerable controversy.

Part of the difficulty is the lack of a national reporting system on police killings (Zimring, 2017). The best estimate is that officers kill about 1,000 people annually, 51.6% of whom are categorized as White Non- Hispanic and 26.1% as Black/African American (Zimring, 2017). Given that African Americans constitute about 12% to 13% of the U.S. population, might this overrepresentation in victims of police violence be evidence of discrimination? A well-known advocate of the police, Mac Donald (2016, p. 73) disputes this view, arguing that the figures on Black police killings reflect racial differences in violent crime and the fact that “40 percent of cop killers” are Black. Further, in three fourths of cases, assailants of both races have a gun

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(most often) or some other weapon (e.g., a knife) (Zimring, 2017). Still, one area where bias may arise is when police kill a supposed suspect when they erroneously assume the individual is wielding a gun—the very cases depicted on videos. As Zimring (2017, p. 59) asks, “Why then do racial minorities have twice the proportion of inaccurate police gun assumptions?”

One of the most persuasive demonstrations of racial bias can be seen in an innovative study that analyzed the language officers used toward offenders as recorded by body cameras during traffic stops—an event that occurs about 26 million times in the United States annually (Voigt et al., 2017). The research team was given access to the body-camera footage for the month of April 2014 in the racially diverse city of Oakland. They were able to transcribe the language used in 981 stops (682 of Blacks and 299 of Whites), which in turn yielded 36,738 “utterances.” A system was developed based on “computational linguistic techniques” that allowed each utterance to be judged by whether “respect” was being communicated. Even when a number of contextual factors were controlled (e.g., severity and outcome of the stop, location of the stop), the data revealed that officers spoke with “consistently less respect” toward Black as opposed to White drivers (Voigt et al., 2017, p. 1). In concrete terms, the researchers found that “white community members are 57% more likely to hear an officer say one of the more respectful utterances . . . whereas black community members are 51% more likely to hear an officer say one of the least respectful utterances” (2017, p. 4). A complicating finding, however, was that the race of the officer was not related to racial disparities in the use of respectful language. This result suggests that bias toward African American drivers may be tied less to who initiated the traffic stop and more to occupying the role of a police officer.

Finally, perhaps the best empirical evidence on this issue is the meta-analysis of 27 independent data sets assessing police officer arrest decisions conducted by Kochel, Wilson, and Mastrofski (2011). The researchers discovered that the probability of arrest was .20 for Whites and .26 for African Americans—a gap that was not explained away when legal factors were controlled. Is this disparity meaningful? Kochel and colleagues (2011) noted that Blacks had a 30% higher chance of arrest (6% vs. 20%), a difference they believed to be “large enough to be of practical concern” (p. 490). As they concluded, “race matters” (p. 498).

Theories of Societal Reaction.

Beyond sheer discrimination, what might influence why minorities are overrepresented in the criminal justice system—more vulnerable to arrest and eventually incarceration? Three theoretical perspectives merit discussion. These approaches are not generally seen as part of labeling theory. Nonetheless, they are theories of societal reaction, and thus have the potential to enrich the labeling paradigm.

First, deployment theory argues that police are more likely to arrest minorities because they are more likely to be deployed in greater numbers in inner-city neighborhoods whose residents are disproportionately people of color (Engel, Smith, & Cullen, 2012; Tomaskovic-Devey, Mason, & Zingraff, 2004). Allocating officers to these communities reflects residents’ higher calls for service, open-air drug markets that create public disorder, and the concentration of serious violent crime, including shootings and homicides. “Problem-oriented” or “hot spots” policing requires that personnel be focused on locations where problems—whether incivilities or crime —exist (Weisburd & Braga, 2006). If law enforcement refused to respond to troubles in impoverished

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communities, it would rightly be criticized for “not caring” and thus acting in a discriminatory fashion. But the very presence of police in a neighborhood increases the likelihood that officers will do what officers do: exercise social control. Police might respond to serious disputes, whether domestic or on the streets, but they also might stop and frisk young males suspected of carrying weapons or illicit substances, halt and search vehicles with broken taillights, or sweep up low-level drug pushers. Whites engaged in the same behaviors would not be arrested because, in general, police are not patrolling their community streets. Empirical tests of this theory are limited. However, some support can be drawn from a study in Seattle, which reported that racial differences in drug arrests were largely attributable to differential police deployment (Engel et al., 2012).

Second, racial threat theory is rooted in group conflict theory (see Chapter 8). It argues that the level of social control exercised by the majority group, Whites, will increase as the number of minorities in an area, African Americans, grows. Thus, “as minority racial groups grow in size relative to Whites, they are likely to develop greater power, economic resources, and political influence in the community and are better able to compete with Whites for power” (Feldmeyer & Ulmer, 2011, p. 240). This presence and power are interpreted as a threat to White privilege, which may foster the specific perception that Blacks pose a special threat through crime. In response, Whites thus may direct more social control toward minorities—as manifested by more police being hired, more arrests being made, and more severe sanctions being handed out (including imprisonment and the death penalty). Racial threat also has been linked to the lynching of Blacks. In short, racial threat theory would predict that the degree of racial disparity in the criminal justice system would vary by ecological area—higher in places where minority populations are rising and lower where minority populations are small and stable. Although not all empirical tests are supportive (Feldmeyer & Ulmer, 2011), studies exist that are consistent with the racial threat thesis (Pickett & Chiricos, 2010).

Third, developed by Darrell Steffensmeier and colleagues, focal concerns theory proposes that criminal justice officials—especially judges—make decisions based on three main criteria: (1) blameworthiness, or how culpable and thus deserving of punishment offenders are; (2) protection of the community, or how likely it is that offenders are dangerous and will recidivate and thus in need of incarceration; and (3) practical constraints and consequences, or how much a given sentence will cost the state, will place a judge’s reputation at risk (e.g., an offender placed on probation commits a heinous crime), or will prove disruptive to others (e.g., imprisoning an offender will leave kids with no parent to support them) (Steffensmeier & Demuth, 2006; Steffensmeier, Painter-Davis, & Ulmer, 2014). These focal concerns serve as “cognitive filters—a perceptual shorthand—to manage the uncertainty and competing pressures that characterize the sentencing environment by utilizing stereotypes and typescripts linked to case and defendant characteristics” (Steffensmeier et al., 2014, p. 12; emphasis in original). Offenders’ current crime and past record—legal factors—affect the application of focal concerns to sentencing (e.g., an offender with a lengthy record who commits a serious violent crime is going to be seen as blameworthy, dangerous, and worth the cost of incarceration). However, discrimination can infuse the sentencing process through the focal concerns if judges’ cognitive filers are biased by racial, gender, and age stereotypes. For example, if young, Black males are perceived to be more dangerous and at a higher risk of recidivating than Whites, then they are likely to receive harsher penalties. In fact, research seems to confirm this discriminatory outcome (Steffensmeier & Demuth, 2006; Steffensmeier et al., 2014). This same research also reports a gender bias in favor of females, in all likelihood because they are seen as less of a threat

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to public safety and as needed in the community to care for their children (see also Corsaro, Pizarro, & Browning, 2015).

These three theoretical perspectives on societal reaction move labeling theory beyond the study of whether extralegal factors matter. At times, this research has descended into abstract empiricism, with investigators probing precisely how much statistical variation in a complex multivariate regression model might be explained by legal versus extralegal factors. The critical task, however, is not simply to examine whether discrimination exists but also to understand why and under what conditions this might occur. To address these concerns, empirical research needs to be theoretically informed. The three theories reviewed provide important conceptual frameworks to help to direct this next generation of research within the labeling tradition.

State Intervention Is Criminogenic Proposition.

Labeling theory’s second major proposition is that state intervention through the justice system causes stable or career criminality. Phrased in these terms, however, the proposition is difficult to sustain. As critics point out, many offenders become deeply involved in crime before coming to the attention of criminal justice officials (Mankoff, 1971). Chronic delinquency, for example, seems far more tied to the criminogenic effects of spending years growing up in a slum neighborhood than to being arrested and hauled into juvenile court as a teenager. Similarly, we know that offenders become extensively involved in illegalities such as corporate crime, political corruption, wife battering, and sexual abuse without ever being subjected to criminal sanctioning.

Over the last quarter of the 1900s, tests of labeling’s causal effects yielded mixed results (Bazemore, 1985; Klein, 1986; Kubrin et al., 2009; Morash, 1982; Palamara, Cullen, & Gersten, 1986; Shannon, 1982; Thomas & Bishop, 1984; Ward & Tittle, 1993). This resulted in two responses by criminologists. One involved rejecting labeling theory, the other extending the perspective.

The first response was to conclude that criminal justice labeling has “no effects” (Hirschi, 1975, p. 198), thus making the perspective irrelevant as a theory of criminal behavior. If this view is accurate, then it means that state intervention neither deepens criminality (as the labeling theorists have claimed) nor deters criminality (as advocates of punishment have asserted) (Thomas & Bishop, 1984). It also suggests that the sources of why people experiment with crime, become chronic offenders, or recidivate after incarceration are to be found not in the operation of the criminal justice system but rather in the social forces that impinge on offenders in their everyday lives (as traditional criminologists have argued). Phrased differently, people become criminals because they live in disorganized areas, lack controls, learn criminal values, and are under strain. Only after they become deeply involved in crime are they arrested and imprisoned. State intervention is thus a reaction to criminal involvement, not a cause of it. Labeling effects are negligible.

The second response was to suggest that the studies’ mixed results may occur because the effect of labeling varies under different circumstances. It may well be that labeling’s overall effect is unclear because researchers have yet to disentangle the conditions under which contact with the criminal justice system increases or

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diminishes commitment to crime (Palamara et al., 1986; Tittle, 1975a). At present, research has addressed in only a rudimentary way how vulnerability to criminal labels might vary by factors such as individual sociodemographic characteristics, stage in a criminal career, family strength, and neighborhood context. Until these empirical issues are settled more definitively, general statements about labeling effects remain premature (see also Nagin, Cullen, & Jonson, 2018; Paternoster & Iovanni, 1989).

Indeed, the complexity of labeling can be seen in experimental studies assessing how police officers’ mandatory arrest of batterers influences subsequent episodes of domestic violence (Sherman, 1992). Although the finding and its interpretation still must be viewed tentatively, the research suggests that the impact of arrest—or of labeling—varies according to whether batterers are employed. Perhaps because their economic well-being and “stake in conformity” are threatened, those who are working are less likely to recidivate after arrest. By contrast, arrest appears to escalate incidents of abuse among batterers who are unemployed and, therefore, have weak bonds to conventional society (Sherman, 1992).

Notably, these kinds of insights helped to move scholars to develop theories that explored the differential effects of labeling. In this regard, Braithwaite’s (1989) shaming theory and Sherman’s (1993) defiance theory are presented later in this chapter. They focus in particular on how the quality of the state intervention— whether it is reintegrative or stigmatizing and disrespectful—can evoke either conformity or greater criminality.

In recent years, it is notable that labeling theory is enjoying a resurgence of interest and growing empirical support (see Farrington & Murray, 2014). These works do not claim that state intervention is the major cause of crime, but they do propose that it is a criminogenic risk factor—that is, that it is one factor that contributes to continued criminal involvement.

Thus, in a meta-analysis of 29 experimental studies, Petrosino, Turpin-Petrosino, and Guckenburg (2010) calculated that juvenile justice processing has no crime control effect and that “almost all the results are in the negative direction” (p. 6). In short, arresting and processing juveniles, as opposed to diverting them out of the system or into services, increased delinquent involvement. Similar results have been found using data from the longitudinal Rochester Youth Development Study. Analyses revealed that official intervention (arrest, involvement in the juvenile justice system) results in greater delinquency in the short term (mainly by increasing involvement in deviant groups, such as gangs) and, in the longer term, in greater crime in early adulthood (mainly by decreasing educational achievement and employment) (Bernburg & Krohn, 2003; Bernburg, Krohn, & Rivera, 2006; Krohn et al., 2014). Similar iatrogenic results of juvenile justice processing were reported by Gatti, Tremblay, and Vitaro (2009) using a sample of 779 disadvantaged Montreal youths and by Liberman, Kirk, and Kim (2014) using a sample of 1,249 Chicago youths (see also Kirk & Sampson, 2013).

Chiricos, Barrick, Bales, and Bontrager (2007) examined the fate of more than 95,000 adult men and women convicted of a felony and facing probation. This is a unique study because the labeling condition was created by a Florida law that allows judges not to assign a formal felony label to guilty offenders. In essence, the felony label is withheld:

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The consequence of this unique labeling event is that offenders who are equivalent in terms of factual guilt can either be labeled a convicted felon or not. For those offenders who have adjudication withheld—about half of the felony probationers in Florida in recent years—no civil rights are lost and such individuals may legitimately say on employment applications and elsewhere that a felony conviction did not occur. For those offenders who are formally adjudicated, all of the structural impediments of being a convicted offender are possible. (Chiricos et al., 2007, p. 548, emphasis in original)

In support of labeling theory, Chiricos et al. found that “being adjudicated a felon significantly and substantially increases the likelihood of recidivism in comparison with those who have had adjudication withheld” (p. 570). Differential labeling effects also were detected, with Whites, women, and those with no prior conviction before age 30 most affected by the assignment of a felony status. As Chiricos et al. note, these groups typically are less at risk of recidivating. If so, then this result is consistent with the labeling theory notion that state intervention applied to “primary deviants” is likely to be especially criminogenic.

Research on the effects of imprisonment also lends support to labeling theory. It is a remarkable oversight by criminologists that, despite having an inmate population in the United States of more than 2.1 million, studies on how the prison experience affects recidivism are relatively few in number and often methodologically suspect (Mears, Cochran, & Cullen, 2014; Nagin, Cullen, & Jonson, 2009). Still, useful investigations have been undertaken in different nations and are becoming more common (see, e.g., Aizer & Doyle, 2015; Bales & Piquero, 2012; Chen & Shapiro, 2007; Cid, 2009; Cochran, Mears, & Bales, 2013; Listwan et al., 2013; Loeffler, 2013; Mears & Cochran, 2018; Mears, Cochran, Bales, & Bhati, 2016; Mitchell, Cochran, Mears, & Bales, 2017; Nieuwbeerta, Nagin, & Blokland, 2009; Petersilia & Turner, 1986; Sampson & Laub, 1993; Smith, 2006; Snodgrass, Blokland, Haviland, Nieuwbeerta, & Nagin, 2011; Spohn & Holleran, 2002). They allow for three general conclusions, the first of which is most firmly established and important (for summaries of research, see Cullen, Jonson, & Nagin, 2011; Gendreau, Goggin, Cullen, & Andrews, 2000; Jonson, 2010, 2013; Lipsey & Cullen, 2007; Nagin et al., 2009; Villetez, Gillieron, & Killias, 2015; Villettaz, Killias, & Zoder, 2006). Again, these conclusions are consistent with the core proposition of labeling theory that state intervention risks increasing, rather than decreasing, criminal involvement.

First, overall, a custodial sanction versus a noncustodial sanction either has a null effect or is criminogenic, especially for low-risk offenders. Second, length of time spent in prison is inconsistently related to recidivism; at most, its deterrent effects are weak, but longer terms also may increase criminal involvement under some conditions. Third, the harsher the prison living conditions are, the higher the rate of reoffending is likely to be. Notably, these findings are contrary to the predictions of conservative criminologists favoring “get tough” policies and of specific deterrence theorists (see Chapters 12 and 13). In both instances, these scholars link more punishment, especially imprisonment, with less recidivism—a conclusion the data do not support.

Again, showing that incarceration has an effect on recidivism is not the same as contending that it is the main factor in explaining stable involvement in crime; other factors matter and matter more than confinement. At the same time, given that millions of Americans spend some time in prison during their lives (Pattillo et al.,

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2004), even a modest criminogenic effect of the prison sanction could have a meaningful impact on public safety.

Beyond crime control policy, the recent research on labeling theory leads to two further points. First, the consistent findings favoring labeling theory suggest that the role of state intervention in causing crime cannot be dismissed. As it becomes more common to conduct longitudinal studies that follow offenders across their lives, it would be inexcusable to ignore the consequences of a key social experience of career offenders: arrest and incarceration. Life-course theories should thus strive to incorporate imprisonment into their models (for an example, see Sampson & Laub, 1993). Further, the challenge ahead for labeling theorists is to specify more carefully how different types of state intervention impact the lives of different types of offenders, especially those low and high in their risk of recidivating. Societal reaction is a complex process, and its effects have yet to be fully unpackaged so that it can be truly understood (Cullen & Jonson, 2014; Mears et al., 2014; Sherman, 2014). We return to this issue later in the chapter when we discuss contemporary extensions of labeling theory.

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Labeling Theory in Context

A central theme informing this book is that changes in society expose people to new experiences, which in turn prompt them to think differently about many issues, including crime. The 1960s were just such a period when social change gripped the United States and caused citizens and criminologists alike to take stock of their previous assumptions about criminal behavior (Sykes, 1974). We saw in Chapter 5, for example, that the tumultuous context of the 1960s sensitized some scholars to the importance of controls in constraining human conduct. In Chapter 8, we will see how that decade’s events radicalized other scholars and led them to assert that crime and criminal justice were intimately shaped by the conflict and inequities inherent in capitalism. More relevant to our present concerns, we can recall that the 1960s also proved to be fertile ground for the growth of labeling theory (Cole, 1975).

Why did many criminologists suddenly embrace the notion that state intervention through the criminal justice system was the principal cause of the crime problem? In the absence of strong empirical evidence, why did labeling propositions, voiced earlier by Tannenbaum (1938) and Lemert (1951), suddenly strike a chord and seem sensible to so many scholars?

The key to answering these questions, we believe, lies in understanding how the prevailing context led many people to lose trust or confidence in the government. During the early 1960s, optimism ran high. As noted in Chapter 4, the Kennedy administration instilled the expectation that a “New Frontier of equal opportunity” was within reach; a “Great Society” was possible that would eliminate poverty and its associated ills such as crime. Moreover, this agenda reaffirmed the Progressives’ belief that the government should play a central role through social programs in effecting this change. The state could be trusted to do good.

But as the 1960s unfolded, this optimism declined, eventually turning to despair as the bold promises made at the decade’s start went unfulfilled (Bayer, 1981; Empey, 1979). Thus, the civil rights movement not only laid bare the existence of pernicious patterns of racism, sexism, and class inequality but also revealed the inability, if not the unwillingness, of government officials to address these long-standing injustices. The war in Vietnam raised other concerns. Although the use of U.S. troops was justified as necessary to protect democracy, this policy lost its moral value as many citizens perceived the United States as merely propping up a corrupt regime. More disquieting, however, was the government’s response to political protest. The United States witnessed not only demonstrators being chased and beaten by police but also students being gunned down at Kent State University. The Attica riot, in which troopers storming the prison fatally wounded 29 inmates and 10 guards being held hostage, confirmed the state’s proclivity to abuse its power in the suppression of insurgency. The state’s moral bankruptcy seemed complete with the disclosure of the Watergate scandal, which showed that corruption not only penetrated but also pervaded the government’s highest echelons (Cullen & Gilbert, 1982).

In short, the state faced what commentators have called a “legitimacy crisis” (Friedrichs, 1979) or a “confidence gap” (Lipset & Schneider, 1983); citizens no longer trusted the motives or competence of government officials. Such feelings spread and intensified as the 1960s advanced and turned into the 1970s,

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and they created a context ripe for harvesting the ideas of labeling theorists who blamed the state for the crime problem. Due to their social experiences, it now made sense to many criminologists, policy makers, and members of the public that government officials would label the disadvantaged more than the advantaged and would operate prisons, such as Attica, that drove offenders deeper into crime. Accordingly, labeling theory won wide support and offered a stiff challenge to traditional theories of crime. The stage was set, moreover, for a reexamination of existing crime control policies.

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The Consequences of Theory: Policy Implications

Labeling theory, Empey (1982) observed, “had a profound impact on social policy” (p. 409). As the ranks of the perspective’s proponents swelled, an increasingly loud warning was sounded that pulling offenders into the criminal justice system only exacerbated the crime problem. The prescription for policy change was eminently logical and straightforward: If state intervention causes crime, then steps should be taken to limit it (Schur, 1973).

But how might this be accomplished? As Empey (1982) noted, labeling theorists embraced four policies that promised to reduce the intrusion of the state into offenders’ lives: decriminalization, diversion, due process, and deinstitutionalization. These four reforms were implemented to different degrees and with uneven consequences. Even so, the agenda identified by labeling theory to this day remains an important vision of the direction that criminal justice policy should take.

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Decriminalization

Labeling theorists insisted that the “overreach of the criminal law” constituted a critical public policy problem (Morris & Hawkins, 1970, p. 2; Schur, 1965; Schur & Bedeau, 1974). Thus, the criminal justice system traditionally has been used to control not only threats to life and property but also a range of “victimless crimes” (e.g., public drunkenness, drug use, gambling, pornography) and juvenile status offenses (e.g., truancy, promiscuity). The morality of these behaviors might be open to debate, theorists admitted, but using the criminal law as a means of control is an “unwarranted extension [that] is expensive, ineffective, and criminogenic” (Morris & Hawkins, 1970, p. 2).

Edwin Schur, for example, argued that the criminalization of victimless deviance, such as drug use, creates crime in various ways (Schur, 1965; Schur & Bedeau, 1974). First, the mere existence of the laws turns those who participate in the behavior into candidates for arrest and criminal justice processing. Second, it often drives them to commit related offenses, such as when drug addicts rob to support their habits. Third, by prohibiting the legal acquisition of desired goods and services, criminalization creates a lucrative illicit market, the operation of which fuels the coffers of organized crime. Finally, the existence of such illicit exchanges fosters strong incentives for the corruption of law enforcement officials, who are enticed through payoffs to “look the other way.”

Accordingly, labeling theorists argued for the prudent use of decriminalization—the removal of many forms of conduct from the scope of the criminal law. This policy might involve outright legalization or treating the acts much like traffic violations (e.g., speeding) for which penalties are limited to minor fines. In any case, the goal was to limit the law’s reach and thus to reduce the extent to which people were labeled and treated as criminals.

The policy of decriminalization evoked much debate and encouraged some significant legal changes. Abortion was legalized by a U.S. Supreme Court decision, possession of small amounts of marijuana frequently was reduced to a minor violation, the criminal status of pornographic material was left to local communities to decide, forms of gambling (e.g., state-run lotteries and casinos) were legalized, and status offenses were made the concern of social welfare agencies. These changes did not occur across all states, however, and other forms of behavior remained illegal. Especially noteworthy, the most controversial of the labeling theorists’ policy proposals—the call to decriminalize all forms of drug use—fell on deaf ears. Indeed, an enormous campaign— a “war”—was launched to stop the flow of drugs and to place those participating in this illicit market behind bars (Currie, 1993; Inciardi, 1986).

In the past decade, however, the wisdom of this policy has come under attack. Elected officials of both political parties have worried about the cost of incarcerating large numbers of drug offenders for years on end. They also have been increasingly troubled by the disproportionate impact of drug laws on African Americans, in terms of both arrests and imprisonment. Especially in the area of marijuana, efforts have been made to decriminalize drug use. In 29 states and the District of Columbia, marijuana is legal for medical usage. In 2012, two states—Colorado and Washington—legalized the drug for recreational purposes (Governing the

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States and Localities, 2014). By 2018, this number had grown to nine states, adding Alaska, California, Maine, Massachusetts, Nevada, Oregon, and Vermont (Robinson, Berke, & Gould, 2018).

Further legalization seems inevitable, even though in January 2018, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions reversed the policy of the Obama administration not to prosecute, in states where legalization had occurred, violations of federal law prohibiting the use and sale of cannabis. Sessions’s decision opened up the possibility that federal prosecutors “could crack down on marijuana-related offenses in their district as they see fit” (Wogan, 2018). Still, public opinion is clearly trending in the opposite direction. In 2013, a Gallup poll revealed for the first time that a clear majority of the American public (58%) favored legalizing marijuana, with two thirds (67%) of those 18 to 29 favoring legalization (Swift, 2013). These views now seem stable. Thus, a 2018 poll by the Pew Research Center reported that 61% of the respondents endorsed legalization, with this statistic reaching 70% among Millennials (Geiger, 2018). Whether support will materialize for decriminalizing other “harder” types of drugs seems unlikely at this time. Still, in 2001, about 2 in 3 Americans opposed the legalization of marijuana, suggesting that public opinion in this area is dynamic, not static (Swift, 2013). Accordingly, continuing to employ the criminal law to control illicit substances in general may be reexamined in the years ahead.

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Diversion

Given that laws exist and offenders come to the attention of law enforcement officials, how should the criminal justice system respond? Labeling theorists had a ready answer: diversion. For juveniles, as Empey (1982) indicated, this policy might entail taking youths from the province of the juvenile court and placing them under the auspices of “youth service bureaus, welfare agencies, or special schools” (p. 410). For adults, it might involve releasing them to privately run mental health agencies, community substance abuse programs, or government-sponsored job training classes. Diversion also might involve the substitution of a less severe intervention such as when offenders are “diverted” from prison and instead placed in the community under “intensive probation supervision” or under “home incarceration” (Ball, Huff, & Lilly, 1988; Binder & Geis, 1984; Latessa, 1987; Porter, 2011).

Diversion programs became widespread during the past several decades, a development that can be traced, at least in part, to the persuasive writings of labeling theorists (Klein, 1979). The current inmate crowding problem, moreover, is furnishing fresh incentives for jurisdictions to establish diversion programs that will help to empty their prisons and jails. The popularity of diversion, however, has given labeling theorists little cause for celebration.

Originally conceived as an alternative to involvement in the criminal justice system or to incarceration, it has been claimed that diversion programs most often have functioned as add-ons to the system. That is, participants in programs have not been those who would have stayed in the system or gone to jail but rather those who previously would have been released, fined, or perhaps given suspended sentences. Ironically, the very policy suggested by labeling theorists to lessen state intervention has had the effect of increasing that intervention: Diversion has “widened the net” of state control by creating a “system with an even greater reach” (Klein, 1979, p. 184; see also Binder & Geis, 1984; Frazier & Cochran, 1986).

One recent development, however, seems to hold some promise: drug and other specialty courts. To address the increasing numbers of drug offenders, the cost of their imprisonment, and the failure to cut their recidivism, more than 2,100 “drug courts” have been implemented in the United States. These courts divert drug offenders, typically without records of serious criminal involvement, into treatment programs, with the chance of having their current charges dismissed (Mitchell, 2011). Evaluation evidence exists that this intervention is successful in reducing recidivism, and thus of breaking the drug-imprisonment cycle (Cullen, 2013; Mitchell, 2011). Notably, specialty courts are now emerging to divert other types of offenders from the regular criminal justice system, including for the mentally ill, domestic partners engaged in violence, intoxicated drivers (DWI), the homeless, and military veterans (Cullen, 2013).

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Due Process

Labeling theorists also were quick to join the mounting due process movement, which sought to extend to offenders legal protections (e.g., right to an attorney, right not to be searched illegally). As Empey (1982) pointed out, although labeling theory did not prompt the concern for offender rights, the perspective and the concern for due process had a common source: “Both were part of the growing distrust of governmental and other institutions in the 1960s” (p. 410).

Labeling scholars’ call for expanding due process was tied up with their critique of the “rehabilitative ideal.” As noted in Chapters 2 and 3, reforms during the Progressive Era had provided criminal justice officials with enormous discretion to effect the individualized treatment of offenders. Such discretionary powers were unbridled in the juvenile court, where the state was trusted to “save children” by acting as a “kindly parent” (Platt, 1969; Rothman, 1978, 1980). Labeling theorists, however, accused state officials of abusing this trust. Individualized treatment, they claimed, was merely a euphemism for judicial decisions that discriminated against the powerless and for parole board decisions that denied release to inmates who dared to resist the coercive control of correctional officials.

The solution to this situation was clear. Schur (1973) urged that “individualized justice must give way to a return to the rule of law” (p. 169, emphasis in original). The worst abuses must be curbed by an extension of constitutional protections, particularly to juveniles who had been blindly left in the hands of the state. Labeling theorists, moreover, embraced what amounted to the principles of the classical school: Punishments should be prescribed by law, and sentences should be determinate. Accordingly, discretionary abuse would be eliminated: Judges would be forced to sentence according to written codes and not according to whim, and determinate sentences with set release dates would replace parole decision making.

Labeling theorists hoped that these policies would result in shorter and more equitable sentences and thus would reduce the extent and worst effects of state intervention. This blind faith in the rule of law, however, has proven to be a mixed blessing. On the one hand, due process has provided offenders with needed protections against state abuse of discretion. On the other hand, the corresponding attack on rehabilitation failed to create a system less committed to interventionist policies and more committed to humanistic ideals (Cullen, 2013; Cullen & Gilbert, 1982, 2013). As we will see in Chapter 12, a mean season in corrections gripped crime control policy since the 1970s leading to mass incarceration in the United States—an era that is just now showing signs of abating.

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Deinstitutionalization

Finally, labeling theorists took special pains to detail the criminogenic effects of incarceration and to vigorously advocate the policy of lessening prison populations through deinstitutionalization. The time had come, they insisted, for a moratorium on prison construction and for the move to a system that corrected its wayward members in the community.

This proposal received a stunning test in 1972 when Jerome Miller, commissioner of Massachusetts’s Department of Youth Services, took the bold action of closing the state’s major juvenile facilities and placing youths in community programs (Empey, 1982; Miller, 1991). Only a small number of youths remained in secure detention (Klein, 1979). Significantly, a subsequent evaluation revealed that recidivism rates were only slightly higher after the institutions were emptied. More instructive, the researchers found that in those sections of the state where the reform was pursued enthusiastically through the creation of “a large number of diverse program options so that the special needs of each youth could be more nearly met,” the recidivism rates were lower than before Miller’s deinstitutionalization policy was implemented. The researchers termed these results “dramatic” (Miller & Ohlin, 1985, p. 70; see also “Deinstitutionalization,” 1975).

One might have expected that these empirical results would cause policy makers in other states to consider the wisdom of making a community response to crime rather than an institutional one. But as we have noted, policy decisions are based less on research and more on what seems sensible and politically feasible. Starting in the last quarter of the 20th century, the tenor of American society changed and new ways of thinking emerged emphasizing increased punitive interventions with offenders (Wilson, 1975). Not surprisingly, policies reflected this change in thinking, which led policy makers to abandon the idea of deinstitutionalization and instead to incarcerate offenders in unprecedented numbers.

Importantly, in part fueled by shrinking government revenues during the Great Recession starting in 2008 (Aviram, 2015), the widespread use of “get tough” rhetoric among politicians of both political parties diminished and states implemented policies that rolled back prison populations or slowed their growth (Petersilia & Cullen, 2015). (We discuss these issues further in Chapter 12.) In fact, “downsizing” was now a word added to the correctional vocabulary, and decarceration policies earned popular support among the American public (see, e.g., Sundt, Cullen, Thielo, & Jonson, 2015; Thielo, Cullen, Cohen, & Chouhy, 2016).

Most instructive is the California experience with decarceration, a state that had embraced the policy of incarceration and had invested heavily in prisons (Simon, 2014). A 2011 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. Plata found the crowding in California’s prisons to violate the Eighth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution prohibiting cruel and unusual punishment and, in effect, mandated the release of tens of thousands of inmates. California subsequently embarked on a policy called “realignment,” which was evaluated by Jody Sundt and her colleagues. They noted that within 15 months, this policy had lowered prison populations by 27,527, with a cost savings of $453 million. But did such deinstitutionalization endanger public safety? Similar to the Massachusetts experience with juveniles four decades earlier, Sundt, Salisbury, and Harmon’s (2016) evaluation concluded that realignment had virtually no enduring effect on crime in

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California. Neither property nor violent offenses increased for the three years studied (2012–2014). When offenses were disaggregated, they could find only that auto theft initially rose, but even this increase decayed to original levels.

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Extending Labeling Theory

During recent decades, advocates of “get tough” criminal justice policies have shown remarkable hubris in making grand and typically unsupported claims for the ability of punishment to deter offenders. They have endorsed efforts to increase surveillance on offenders in the community (e.g., electronic monitoring, intensive supervision) and have endorsed efforts to increase the harshness of imprisonment (e.g., longer sentences, more ascetic living conditions) (Irwin, 2005; Irwin & Austin, 1994; Pattillo et al., 2004; Whitman, 2003). Of course, such attempts to heighten state intervention in the lives of offenders are antithetical to labeling theory, which would predict that these policies would only increase criminal behavior.

Contemporary criminologists often question the wisdom of this massive attempt to inflict more control and pain on offenders (Clear, 1994; Currie, 1998b; Pattillo et al., 2004). Other criminologists, however, recognize that under certain circumstances, criminal justice sanctions might reduce recidivism—a possibility fully discounted by labeling theory. At the same time, they also assert that such punishments, as typically applied in the criminal justice system, are likely either to have no effect or, consistent with labeling theory, to amplify criminal involvement. The key issue is not simply whether a sanction is applied but also the quality of the sanction—what actually happens to an offender during the criminal justice process. As Sherman (2000) noted, “The major failing of the science of sanction effects has been the assumption that all sanctions were alike in quality, varying only in quantity” (p. 6). Notably, three important attempts have been made to develop a theory of how the quality of sanctioning affects reoffending: Braithwaite’s (1989) theory of shame and reintegration, Sherman’s (1993) defiance theory, and Tyler’s (2003, 2009) procedural justice theory. These perspectives occupy our attention next.

In addition, Rose and Clear (1998) have called attention to the way in which mass incarceration can have macro-level or community-level effects on crime. In so doing, they extend labeling theory by showing how, beyond the effects on individuals, state sanctions can have the unanticipated consequences of creating criminogenic conditions within neighborhoods. Their coerced mobility theory is also presented below.

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Braithwaite’s Theory of Shaming and Crime

In Crime, Shame, and Reintegration, John Braithwaite took up the issue of the conditions under which societal reaction increases crime (as labeling theorists contend) or decreases crime (as advocates of punishment predict). Legal violations evoke formal attempts by the state and informal efforts by intimates and community members to control the misconduct. Central to social control is what Braithwaite (1989) called shaming, which he defined as “all processes of expressing disapproval which have the intention or effect of invoking remorse in the person being shamed and/or condemnation by others who become aware of the shaming” (p. 9).

Shaming comes in two varieties—reintegrative and disintegrative—and each has a different impact on recidivism. Consistent with labeling theory, Braithwaite (1989) argued that disintegrative shaming stigmatizes and excludes, thereby creating a “class of outcasts” (p. 55). The offender not only is castigated for his or her wrongdoing but also is branded as a criminal who is beyond forgiveness and unworthy of restoration to membership in the community. As labeling theory warns, the result is further entrenchment in crime. The offender is denied employment and other legitimate opportunities to bond with conventional society and, consequently, joins with other outcasts in creating and participating in criminal subcultures.

But shaming also can be reintegrative. In these instances, an illegal act initially evokes community disapproval but then is followed by attempts “to reintegrate the offender back into the community of law-abiding or respectable citizens through words or gestures of forgiveness or ceremonies to decertify the offender as deviant” (Braithwaite, 1989, pp. 100–101). There is a stick followed by a carrot—condemnation followed by community responses aimed at binding the offender to the social order. In this case, shaming has two faces: It makes certain that the inappropriateness of the misconduct is known to the offender and all observers, and it presents an opportunity to restore the offender to membership in the group. This combination, Braithwaite argued, reduces crime by exerting greater control over offenders and by not setting in motion the criminogenic processes caused by stigmatization and social exclusion.

Braithwaite (1989) extended labeling theory not only by delineating types of shaming or societal reaction but also by observing that the underlying social context determines the degree to which shaming will be reintegrative or disintegrative. In communitarian societies such as Japan, “individuals are densely enmeshed in interdependencies which have the special qualities of mutual help and trust” (p. 100). As might be expected, in this context shaming is reintegrative and produces low crime rates.

In the United States, however, communitarianism is weakened by urbanization, racial and ethnic heterogeneity, extensive residential mobility, and a strong ideology of individualism. As a consequence, America lacks the cultural and institutional basis that would encourage seeing offenders as part of an interdependent community. Thus, social control has a strong disintegrative quality: Lawbreakers are marked indelibly as ex-offenders and are provided with few avenues to reestablish full societal membership. This stigmatization creates a class of outcasts who individually turn to crime and who collectively develop criminal subcultures and illegal opportunity structures. The result, Braithwaite claimed, is that America is burdened

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with a high rate of lawlessness.

In summary, Braithwaite enriched labeling theory by illuminating not only that shaming (or labeling) varies in its nature and effects but also why this variation ultimately is contingent on the society in which shaming takes place. The empirical adequacy of Braithwaite’s contentions remains to be convincingly demonstrated. Braithwaite, Ahmed, and Braithwaite (2006) have marshaled evidence from an array of quantitative and qualitative sources that is consistent with the theory (e.g., studies of parenting, corporate regulation, and restorative justice programs) (see also Braithwaite, 2002; Makkai & Braithwaite, 1991). Studies that employ surveys to measure reintegrative shaming and then assess its impact on self-reported delinquency—the methodological approach most often used to test criminological theories—are still in short supply (Ahmed & Braithwaite, 2004; Hay, 2001; Tittle, Bratton, & Gertz, 2003). This research has yielded promising but mixed results. One finding of potential consequence is that measures of reintegration and of shaming tend to have main (or independent) effects on outcomes. As Braithwaite et al. (2006) have observed, the “need to break down different elements of reintegrative shaming to see which are theoretically crucial and which are not should be an exciting challenge to criminologists in the survey research tradition” (p. 410).

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Sherman’s Defiance Theory

Sherman (1993) began with the observation that labeling theory “does not account for the many examples of sanctions reducing crime” (p. 457). At the same time, he realized that there also are many examples in which sanctions increase crime. Given these seemingly opposed realities, Sherman noted that there is a pressing need for a theory of the criminal sanction that will address the question, “Under what conditions does each type of criminal sanction reduce, increase, or have no effect on future crimes?” (p. 445; for a broader statement of the theory, see Sherman, 2010).

Sherman’s (1993) central concept is that of defiance, which he defined as the “net increase in the prevalence, incidence, or seriousness of future offending against a sanctioning community caused by a proud, shameless reaction to the administration of a criminal sanction” (p. 459). A key insight is that when offenders are treated unfairly or with disrespect by police officers and/or the court, or when they perceive such mistreatment, they are likely to act defiantly. In such cases, criminal sanctions are not given legitimacy by offenders and are incapable of bringing about their intended effect of reducing crime. If anything, by provoking defiance, they cause offenders to assert their anger and autonomy by flouting the law and recidivating. There is some empirical evidence to support this thesis (Paternoster, Brame, Bachman, & Sherman, 1997; Sherman, 2000).

But Sherman understood that defiance does not inevitably follow from unjust treatment—or from what Braithwaite would call stigmatizing shaming. Three factors, in particular, are seen as increasing the risk that disrespect and unfairness will prompt increased offending. First, when offenders have few social bonds to the community, there is little to restrain their defiance and arising criminal inclinations. Second, consistent with Braithwaite, offenders are more likely to be defiant when they perceive the sanction as stigmatizing not their actions but rather the offenders personally. Third, when offenders deny or refuse to acknowledge the stigmatizing shame that has been imposed on them, they are more likely to respond with pride and use crime to exact revenge on conventional society. Empirical tests of these propositions remain in short supply. The dearth of research is likely because existing data sets do not contain measures of the theory’s key components. The studies that have been undertaken show mixed support for the perspective (Bouffard & Piquero, 2010; see also Sherman, 2014).

Regardless, the value of Sherman’s work is that it shows that criminal sanctions can backfire and, through processes such as defiance, create the kind of self-fulfilling prophecy first identified by labeling theorists. The theory’s implications are especially disquieting because many offenders targeted for searches and arrest by police are youths who come from “street families” (recall Anderson’s [1999] “code of the street” discussed in Chapter 3). As Sherman (2000) noted, these adolescents are likely to be treated with little respect and might act in ways that will provoke harsh responses from police officers. They also are likely to have weak social bonds and a “code” that accords little legitimacy to conventional attempts to “disrespect” them. This might be one reason why police interactions with inner-city minority youths are potentially volatile: The conditions are conducive to defiance. More generally, Sherman’s theory would predict that unless considerable attention is paid to the quality of relationships between inner-city youths and criminal justice representatives (e.g., police, judges, probation officers), attempts to sanction these youngsters might well prove to be counterproductive,

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fostering defiance and not deterrence.

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Tyler’s Procedural Justice Theory

As Tyler (2003) notes, police and court officials have two concerns in their work. First, when in the midst of exercising their authority—such as a domestic violence incident—they want those with whom they are interacting to comply with their directives (e.g., stop beating spouse) and not to engage in this behavior in the future. Second, they want the public in general both to obey the law that “tells people not to speed, not to run red lights, and not to murder their neighbor” and to cooperate with police to fight crime (e.g., informing on known offenders) (Tyler, 2003, p. 284). Tyler (2009) rejects deterrence as a largely ineffective and costly way of trying to have people follow and support the law. This approach depends on coercion and fear. A preferable alternative is to have individuals engage in “self-regulations” and display a “willingness to accept the constraints of the law and legal authorities” (2003, p. 284).

Why would people voluntarily comply with criminal justice authorities and legal mandates? Similar to what Hirschi (1969) argued with the social bond of belief, they would have to see the law as legitimate. If they considered the criminal justice system to be oppressive, unjust, and unresponsive, they would lose faith in the law and descend into what scholars (see Chapter 3) have called “legal cynicism” (Kirk & Papachristos, 2015). For Tyler (2003, p. 284), belief in the legitimacy of the system is produced by the quality of the actions experienced directly or vicariously by police and court officials. Allocating legitimacy is thus a subjective judgment based on how people evaluate the actions taken by state agents of social control. In essence, then, Tyler’s model argues that criminal justice intervention, through its impact on perceived legitimacy, can lead to more or less compliance with the law.

For Tyler, the key quality that determines whether state intervention will increase or decrease legal compliance—that is, crime—is whether the actions of police and court officials manifest “procedural justice.” Essentially, if officials are fair and respectful when making decisions, people will see the actions as legitimate and comply with the law. But if officials are “jerks”—yell, demand silence, assume an aggressive posture, act arbitrarily, and are condescending—then people will tend to become uncooperative and will attenuate their belief in the law (see Sherman, 1993). Tyler (2009) describes the issue thusly:

Procedural justice includes two issues: fair decision making (voice, neutrality)—i.e., participatory, neutral, transparent, rule based, consistent decision-making—and fair interpersonal treatment (treatment with dignity/respect; trust in authorities)—i.e., treatment involving respect for people; respect for their rights; treatment with dignity and courtesy; care and concern from authorities. (p. 319, emphasis added)

The issue of procedural justice has emerged as a central theory and reform effort within contemporary policing. Starting in the 1980s and 1990s, law enforcement agencies increasingly abandoned reactive in favor of proactive policing strategies (McManus, Schafer, & Graham, 2019). Crime mapping revealed that offenses were concentrated disproportionately at certain places within inner-city areas, sometimes referred to as “hot spots” (Sherman, Gartin, & Buerger, 1989). In response, departments allocated resources to work proactively

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to prevent crime from occurring in these locations (Weisburd & Braga, 2006). Under names such as “broken windows policing” and “focused deterrence,” officers policed aggressively so as to decrease social disorder and deter the wayward. These strategies arguably had positive effects (see Zimring, 2012) but came at a cost of differentially policing minorities, especially young, Black males subjected to racial profiling and stop-and-frisk actions. As noted, videos of unarmed African Americans being shot or roughed up have exacerbated complaints about police bias and precipitated the Black Lives Matter movement (McManus et al., 2019).

In response, police scholars and leaders have advocated the use of procedural justice as a means of tempering the negative labeling effects of proactive policing in high-crime areas (McManus et al., 2019). Although still a growing area of research, existing studies suggest that procedural justice is effective in increasing perceived legitimacy and positive views of the police (Donner, Maskaly, Fridell, & Jennings, 2015; McManus et al., 2019; Mazerolle, Bennett, Davis, Sargeant, & Manning, 2013). It remains to be seen, however, if procedural justice has a meaningful impact on individual recidivism or crime in minority communities, though some promising results have appeared (see, e.g., McLean & Wolfe, 2016; Paternoster et al., 1997; Penner, Viljoen, Douglas, & Roesch, 2014; Reisig & Mesko, 2009).

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Rose and Clear’s Coerced Mobility Theory

Labeling theory has been primarily a theory of how state punishment has the unanticipated consequence of increasing, if not stabilizing, the criminality of individuals. Dina Rose and Todd Clear (1998), however, elevate the perspective from individuals to the community (for a more complete discussion, see Clear, 2007). Their project is to explore what happens when the government adopts a policy of mass incarceration that disproportionately removes young, minority males from inner cities. As Rose and Clear (1998, pp. 450–451) point out, it is estimated that nearly 1 in 10 African American, underclass males between the ages of 26 and 30 are currently imprisoned and that nearly 3 in 10 Black men will spend time in a state or federal prison during their lifetime (see also Mauer, 1999; Tonry, 1995). They conceptualize this incarceration as a form of coerced mobility—a practice that regularly takes large numbers of males out of inner-city communities for prolonged absences (see also Clear, 2002).

As noted, labeling theory is counterintuitive because it suggests that efforts to achieve social control can backfire in unexpected ways (Hagan, 1973). In this case, Rose and Clear theorize that the mass coerced mobility of minority males may well have the unanticipated consequence of increasing, rather than decreasing, a community’s crime rate. This thesis is counterintuitive because it would seem that locking up predatory criminals would make inner-city neighborhoods safer. In fact, DiIulio (1994, p. 23) has claimed that incarcerating such offenders is, in essence, a form of social justice that would “save Black lives.” Rose and Clear (1998, p. 441) are not naïve to this reality; they realize that it is hard to comprehend how it can “be bad for neighborhood life to remove people who are committing crimes in those very neighborhoods.” Still, when the incarceration is massive and concentrated in vulnerable communities, then it may become a macro-level force that undermines existing social institutions in such a way as to produce more, rather than less, social disorganization and conditions conducive to crime. Theoretically, they are suggesting that incarceration might have a feedback loop that causes disorganization; if so, then their thesis is a notable extension of social disorganization theory, calling attention to an important source of a neighborhood’s ability to achieve organization and social control.

For Rose and Clear (1998), offenders are community liabilities (e.g., victimizers, often less than ideal parents), but they also are community assets (e.g., producers of income, supporters of families, parents, members of social networks). Their incarceration thus lessens liabilities (as is often recognized), but it also depletes the community of assets (as is often not recognized). The impact on neighborhoods will differ by the area’s affluence and existing level of social organization. In stable working-class and middle-class communities, the incarceration of a limited number of resident-offenders is likely a social benefit. But in underclass neighborhoods, the overuse of prisons—high levels of incarceration year after year after year—risks depleting the area of resources it desperately needs and of weakening core social institutions. Incarceration thus has differential impacts depending on its magnitude and on the nature of the neighborhood.

Consider, for example, the impact of incarceration on family stability. Offenders typically earn money both legally and illegally and, although not always reliable providers, are a source of income for their partners and children. When they are incarcerated, family life is often disrupted, which contributes to social

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disorganization. Lacking income, families frequently change addresses, move into different school districts, and go on public assistance. Mothers have less time to supervise their children. And new males, not the children’s fathers, may enter the household, creating more instability. On a broader level, the coerced mobility of offenders to prison means that a substantial portion of the community’s male population spends years out of the labor market and builds little human capital. Their job prospects upon reentry are limited (Holzer, Raphael, & Stoll, 2004). As a result, the “marriage pool” of males in the area—consisting of ex-prisoners with few marketable skills—is unattractive, leading women to forgo marriage but not necessarily motherhood (Wilson, 1987). A high concentration of single-headed households thus prevails, a condition that fosters social disorganization and crime (Sampson & Groves, 1989; Wilson, 1987).

After the coerced mobility of prison, the offenders tend to return to their neighborhoods more of a liability than when they left. Not only do they face limited opportunities to secure legitimate work, but also they import from prison cultural values and networks supportive of crime; these challenge the ability of a community to socialize its youth into a common, prosocial value system. Because it is so common among young males in the area, being sent to prison might, in fact, lose its stigma. The legitimacy of the government, especially the criminal justice system, is thus called into question. Again, these countervailing forces, all nourished by mass imprisonment, serve to weaken convention institutions.

Rose and Clear thus offer a potentially important advance of labeling theory, exploring how formal control can produce crime by undermining informal control. In their words:

We argue that state social controls, which typically are directed at individual behavior, have important secondary effects on family and neighborhood structures. These, in turn, impede the neighborhood’s capacity for social control. Thus, at the ecological level, the side effects of policies intended to fight crime by controlling individual criminals may exacerbate problems that lead to crime in the first place. (Rose & Clear, 1998, p. 441)

Thus far, empirical research on their theory of coerced mobility is in short supply and has yielded supportive but inconsistent results (Clear, Rose, Waring, & Scully, 2003; Frost & Clear, 2013; Lynch & Sabol, 2004). The most formidable challenge to the theory is research showing that, due mostly to the effects of incapacitation, incarceration is inversely related to crime rates (Lynch & Sabol, 2004; Pratt & Cullen, 2005; Spelman, 2000). These findings, however, may be misleading. They do not show, for example, whether greater crime savings might be achieved if money devoted to mass imprisonment were allocated to criminal justice sanctions that were community-based and strategically oriented to building human capital in offenders. Further, although imprisonment might achieve contemporaneous or short-term reductions in crime rates, this does not mean that its overuse might not still be a factor in worsening levels of social disorganization and contributing to the emergence of the next generation of offenders—youngsters who will eventually follow their fathers and brothers into prison.

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Policy Implications: Restorative Justice and Prisoner Reentry

Consistent with labeling theory, the four contemporary perspectives reviewed above call attention to the way in which the quality of the societal reaction to offenders—including their arrest, sanctioning (especially imprisonment), and stigmatizing social exclusion—may have the unanticipated consequence of deepening people’s criminality. From the viewpoint of Braithwaite, Sherman, and Rose and Clear, the challenge is to find ways to blunt the negative, criminogenic effects of the sanctions typically imposed on offenders. Two recent policy developments are informed by this line of theorizing: restorative justice and prison reentry programs.

Restorative Justice.

Perhaps the most significant recent development in criminal justice in the United States and other nations is “restorative justice” (Bazemore & Walgrave, 1999; Braithwaite, 1998, 1999, 2002; Hahn, 1998; Harris, 1998; Sullivan & Tifft, 2006; Van Ness & Strong, 1997). In traditional criminal justice, the state acts—presumably on the victim’s behalf—to sanction offenders. The intent of the sanction often is to exact a measure of “just deserts” for the victim and larger community by inflicting some sort of discomfort on the offender. Restorative justice, however, rejects the logic that equates the state’s harming of an offender with victims’ receiving any meaningful sense of justice. In fact, the risk is that the state’s action will only increase the overall amount of harm being inflicted without achieving anything of value.

As an alternative, advocates of restorative justice suggest that the guiding principle of the criminal sanction should be to decrease harm by restoring (1) the victim to his or her prior unharmed status and (2) the offender to the community. Instead of a traditional trial in which the state is an adversary prosecuting defendants, such advocates favor a victim–offender conference in which the state functions more as a mediator. In such a conference, which often is attended by family members and interested members of the community, the actions of the offender are condemned or shamed, and the offender is encouraged to take responsibility, express remorse, and apologize to the victim. Offender accountability is integral to the proceedings. Thus, efforts are made to design plans for how the offender will compensate the victim, thereby restoring the victim by undoing the harm that was experienced (e.g., restitution). Community service also might be required. In exchange, the goal is to reintegrate the offender into the community, providing the supports that are necessary to accomplish this end. Throughout this process, the offender is treated fairly and is respected; the offender’s actions, but not him or her personally, are shamed; and the offender is brought into a context where it is possible to be restored to society without facing the continuing stigma of being an “ex-con.”

The restorative justice movement has gained strength from a number of sources, ranging from evangelical Christians and victim rights advocates to peacemaking and feminist criminologists (Immarigeon & Daly, 1997). Still, Braithwaite’s (1998, 1999, 2002) shaming theory has furnished a significant intellectual justification for restorative justice. In Braithwaite’s terms, restorative justice is built on the premise of “reintegrative” shaming rather than “stigmatizing” shaming. His perspective is critical of state-centered punishment because its quality typically is disintegrative and crime inducing. By contrast, Braithwaite’s

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reintegrative approach seeks to shame the crime but not the criminal and to find ways of reattaching the offender to conventional society. In a similar way, Sherman’s defiance theory would be receptive to restorative justice. Because offenders are treated with respect and fairness, his model would predict that restorative justice would be far less likely than traditional criminal justice sanctions to foster defiance and increased criminality.

It remains to be seen, however, whether restorative justice is an approach capable not only of increasing justice but also of reducing offenders’ criminal involvement (compare Braithwaite, 2002, with Levrant, Cullen, Fulton, & Wozniak, 1999; for an assessment of the existing research, see Cullen & Jonson, 2017). Because restorative justice programs are mostly directed toward minor offenders, their impact on serious chronic offenders is open to question. Studies assessing these interventions, especially randomized experimental program evaluations, are in short supply. There are some very promising results but also conflicting findings (Braithwaite, 2002; Kurki, 2000; McGarrell & Hipple, 2007; Schiff, 1999; Shapland et al., 2008; Sherman & Strang, 2007; Strang & Sherman, 2006). Furthermore, when positive findings are forthcoming, it is often difficult to determine whether reductions in recidivism are due to the restorative features of the program or to other services, such as counseling, that were provided to offenders (Bonta, Wallace-Capretta, & Rooney, 1998).

One of the most systematic assessments of the effectiveness of restorative justice programs has been provided by Bonta, Jesseman, Rugge, and Cormier (2006; see also Gendreau & Goggin, 2000; Latimer, Dowden, & Muise, 2005; Lipsey, 2009). They conducted a meta-analysis of 39 studies evaluating the impact on recidivism of restorative justice interventions (hereinafter referred to as RJIs). They reached three conclusions (all quotes to follow are from Bonta et al., 2006, p. 117).

First, the effects of RJIs are “relatively small, but they are significant” and larger in more recent studies (see also Lipsey, 2009). Second, when RJIs are court-ordered, they have no effect on recidivism; those that are conducted in a “non-coercive environment and that attempt to involve victims and community members in a collaborative manner” achieve the largest reductions in reoffending. Consistent with the work of Braithwaite (2002) and Sherman (1993), this finding indicates that a less stigmatizing sanctioning process may be more effective with offenders.

Third, RJIs “appear to be more effective with low-risk offenders” than with “high-risk offenders.” When focused on high-risk offenders—that is, those with a high probability of recidivating—it appears that RJIs may not be sufficient, by themselves, to counteract the strong criminal tendencies of these individuals. For this group, it might be necessary to combine an RJI with rehabilitation programs that target known criminogenic risk factors for change and that have been shown to decrease reoffending among high-risk criminals (Bonta, Wallace-Capretta, Rooney, & McAnoy, 2002; see also Cullen & Gendreau, 2000; Gendreau, Smith, & French, 2006; Levrant et al., 1999). It should be noted, however, that Sherman and Strang (2007) dispute this finding. Their review of studies leads them to conclude that restorative justice “seems to reduce crime more effectively with more rather than less serious crimes” (p. 8, emphasis in original). Future research on the differential effects of RJIs by risk level thus seems in order.

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Prisoner Reentry Programs.

In the first half of the 1900s, inmates were allowed to leave an institution on parole only if they had a place to live (usually with their family) and a job awaiting them. As Simon (1993) notes, this system of “industrial parole” broke down due to the confluence of two factors: rising prison populations and the deterioration of the economies in the nation’s inner cities that made the guarantee of a job implausible. In “postindustrial parole,” the goal became more to manage offender reentry—whether that was through a treatment model that emphasized the provision of services or, more recently, through a policing model that emphasized surveillance and the threat of reincarceration.

For several decades, most correctional observers did not give priority to the disquieting reality that offenders reentering society face an array of daunting barriers (Irwin, 2005)—which predictably lead to high recidivism rates. As Petersilia (2003) points out, “More than two-thirds of those released from prison will be rearrested; nearly half will be returned to jail or prison for a new crime or technical violation; and about a quarter will be returned to prison for a new crime conviction in the three years following their release” (p. 153). These figures are not new; they have remained fairly stable since the mid-1960s (Petersilia, 2003). Still, as prison populations jumped sevenfold since the early 1970s, it became increasingly difficult to ignore the sheer number of inmates “coming home” each year. As Travis (2005, p. xx) notes, the “reality of mass incarceration translates into a reality of reentry.” It is estimated that each year in the United States, well over 600,000 offenders leave prison and return to society (see also Jonson & Cullen, 2015; Mears & Cochran, 2015).

As scholars shifted their attention to this issue, they soon detailed a correctional situation that, as labeling and related theories would predict, almost certainly stabilized, rather than “knifed off,” criminal behavior. Mears and Cochran (2015, p. 125) refer to these as “reentry challenges” (see also Turner, 2017). Thus, many offenders leave prison with their criminogenic needs untreated or worsened by their stay behind bars, with tenuous ties to their families, with no place to live, and with no driver’s license or identification. Their job prospects are dismal, given that they have learned few marketable job skills while institutionalized and, as ex- offenders, will have difficulty being hired; if employed, they will earn low wages and work in unpleasant settings (Bushway, Stoll, & Weiman, 2007; Pager, 2007). In the age of the Internet and near-universal access to legal histories online, Jacobs (2015) has referred to this stigma as “the eternal criminal record.” In this context, legal reform efforts have been undertaken to expand the ability of offenders who have not committed serious felonies to expunge their records (Love, Gaines, & Osborne, 2018). Another option is to create “rehabilitation” or “redemption” ceremonies where offenders who have stayed crime free, are leading an upstanding life, and perhaps have contributed community service are publicly proclaimed to be cured or redeemed and have their criminal record wiped clean (Cullen, 2013; Maruna, 2011a, b). A 2017 national survey showed that the public is generally supportive of these initiatives (Thielo, 2017).

They also are stripped of many civil rights, including the right to vote. In the 1990s, federal and state legislatures moved to impose more restrictions on offenders, especially those convicted of drug and violent crimes. Enacting “legislation to cut offenders off from the remnants of the welfare state” (Travis, 2002, p. 23), they barred offenders from welfare assistance and food stamps, living in public housing, receiving loans for

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higher education, and the right to hold a driver’s license (see Chen, 2012; Irwin, 2005; Manza & Uggen, 2006; Mauer & Chesney-Lind, 2002; Pager, 2003; Pager & Quillian, 2005; Pattillo et al., 2004; Petersilia, 2003; Travis, 2005). Michelle Alexander (2010) has called these collateral consequences of conviction “the New Jim Crow.” During the Jim Crow era in the United States (roughly after Reconstruction, 1876, until 1965), African Americans were excluded from voting in the South and from full participation in American life through an array of poll taxes, legalized segregation, and violent threats. Now, with so many Blacks pulled into the criminal justice system and having criminal convictions, African Americans in particular experience legalized exclusion in voting, government benefits, and employment requiring state licensure. According to Alexander (2010):

One might imagine that a criminal defendant, when brought before the judge—or when meeting with his attorney for the first time—would be told of the consequences of a guilty plea or convictions. . . . Not so. When a defendant pleads guilty to a minor drug offense, nobody will tell him that he may be permanently forfeiting his right to vote as well as his right to serve on a jury— two of the most fundamental rights in any modern democracy. He will also be told little or nothing about the parallel universe he is about to enter, one that promises a form of punishment that is often more difficult to bear than prison time: a lifetime of shame, contempt, scorn, and exclusion. In this hidden world, discrimination is perfectly legal. (p. 139)

Within the last decade or so, there has been a new realization that failing to address prisoner reentry and pursuing a policy of stigmatizing reintegration exacerbate recidivism and pose a threat to public safety (Taxman, Young, Byrne, Holsinger, & Anspach, 2002; Travis, 2005; Western, 2006). During this time, reentry has emerged as a major policy initiative, and programs facilitating inmates’ return to society have flourished nationwide (Crow & Smykla, 2014; Gunnison & Helfgott, 2013; Jonson & Cullen, 2015; Petersilia, 2011; Rhine & Thompson, 2011). Models or principles of how to develop an effective reentry program also are emerging, generally emphasizing the need (1) to start reentry preparation while offenders are in prison, (2) to focus on the challenges and crises that are faced immediately upon release (e.g., food, shelter, job), and (3) to provide treatment services and support to facilitate long-term community reintegration (Jonson & Cullen, 2015; Petersilia, 2003; Taxman et al., 2002; Travis, 2005; Turner, 2017). Still, it remains to be seen if reentry programs will be well designed and be capable of reducing recidivism—of meeting what Jonson and Cullen (2015, p. 537) call “the challenge of effectiveness.” Some promising results have been found, but reducing recidivism seems contingent on the use of high-quality programs that conform to what is known about effective correctional intervention (Jonson & Cullen, 2015; Listwan, Cullen, & Latessa, 2006; Ndrecka, 2014; Petersilia, 2011). Regardless, prisoner reentry has emerged from the shadows and promises to be an important correctional policy issue for the foreseeable future.

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Conclusion

Labeling theory’s distinctive focus on societal reaction succeeded in sensitizing criminologists to the important insights that the criminal nature of behavior is socially constructed by the response to it and that a variety of factors can shape who comes to bear a criminal label. The perspective also forced consideration of the possibility that state intervention can have the ironic, unanticipated consequence of causing the very conduct —lawlessness—that it is meant to suppress. In light of conflicting findings, empirical research has yet to definitively confirm this causal thesis. But recent research is increasingly showing that state intervention, especially the use of imprisonment, contributes to entrenching certain kinds of offenders in criminal careers. At the least, labeling theory provides an important reminder that the effects of criminal justice sanctions are complex and may contradict what common sense would dictate. As contemporary criminologists in this tradition remind us, the quality of the sanction that is imposed—what we do to and with offenders—is potentially consequential. This warning assumes significance when we consider policy makers’ repeated assurances that the panacea for the crime problem can be found in widening the reach of the criminal law and in the enormous expansion of prison populations.

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Further Readings

Source: F. T. Cullen, & P. Wilcox. (Eds.). (2010). Encyclopedia of Criminological Theory. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Readings are available online at www.study.sagepub.com/lilly7e.

1. Braithwaite, John: Reintegrative Shaming Theory 2. Chambliss, William J.: The Saints and the Roughnecks 3. Lemert, Edwin M.: Primary and Secondary Deviance 4. Sherman, Lawrence W.: Defiance Theory

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http://www.study.sagepub.com/lilly7e

Chapter Eight Social Power and the Construction of Crime Conflict Theory

William J. Chambliss 1933–2014 George Washington University Author of Conflict Theory

Courtesy of William J. Chambliss

As Chapter 7 showed, theories purporting to explain crime by locating its sources in biological, psychological, or social factors associated with the offender have tended to ignore the way in which “crime” is produced and aggravated by the reaction to the real or imagined attributes or behavior of those who are being labeled offenders. Labeling theory tried to correct this oversight, going into great detail in an effort to explain the labeling process and its consequences. But as the previous chapter also indicated, some criminological theorists did not believe that labeling theory went far enough. The labeling theorists showed some appreciation for the way in which political interests and political power affected social reaction, but they did little to explore these deeper issues.

What determines whether a label will stick? What determines the extent to which those labeled are punished? The nature of the labeling may depend on differences between those labeled and those doing the labeling. Whether labels can be made to stick and the extent to which those labeled can be punished may essentially depend on who has power. Theories that focus attention on struggles between individuals and/or groups in terms of power differentials fall into the general category of conflict theory.

Some conflict theories try to search for the sources of the apparent conflicts. Some seek to elucidate the basic principles by which conflict evolves. Others try to develop a theoretical foundation for eliminating the conflict. Still others try to do all of this and more.

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In this chapter, we examine some of the leading criminological conflict theories, beginning with conflict theory in general as found in the pioneering work of Marx and Engels and in the later work of Simmel. Then we examine Bonger’s attempt to develop a Marxist theory of crime, Sutherland’s and Sellin’s focus on the relationship between culture conflict and crime, and Vold’s effort to build a criminological conflict theory on the tradition exemplified by Simmel. Because contemporary American criminological conflict theory, like other criminological control theories, drew much of its inspiration from the turmoil of the 1960s, it is necessary to reexamine the 1960s from another point of view before proceeding to a consideration of influential conflict theories such as those of Austin Turk, William Chambliss, and Richard Quinney. Finally, we consider some of the consequences within criminology as well as the policy implications of conflict theory.

We would be remiss if we did not note at this point the deaths in 2014 of Austin Turk and William Chambliss. By bringing concepts such as conflict, power, and criminalization into criminology, they had a transformative effect on the field. Their passing signals, in a sense, that the generation of scholars who redefined criminology in the 1960s and thereafter is nearing its conclusion. This generation’s work will have an enduring effect, but the personal contributions of its members either have already ended or will be increasingly limited. We all have seen farther because, as the saying goes, they are the intellectual giants upon whose shoulders we have been fortunate to stand. They are missed but hopefully not soon forgotten.

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Forerunners of Conflict Theory

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Marx and Engels: Capitalism and Crime

As indicated in Chapter 5, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels already were expressing concern over the apparent decline in social solidarity by the middle of the 1800s, preceding Durkheim by several decades. For Marx and Engels, as well as for Durkheim, crime was to some extent a symptom of this decline and would diminish (although Durkheim made it clear that it never would disappear) if social solidarity could be regained. They differed in their analyses of the source of the erosion of solidarity and their prescription for its restoration.

Durkheim saw the situation as a moral problem and argued that the social solidarity of the future would depend on an effective combination of controls through modes of social integration and social regulation that could operate in tune with the new division of labor that had been created by industrialization. Marx and Engels saw the problem in economic terms, denounced the new division of labor as the unjust exploitation of one social class by another, and insisted that social solidarity could be regained only with the overthrow of capitalism itself. They advocated undertaking a revolution followed by a period of socialism. Because in their view the political state existed essentially as a mechanism for the perpetuation of capitalism, it was deemed historically inevitable that the state would then “wither away,” leaving a society based on the true brotherhood and sisterhood of communism (Marx & Engels, 1848/1992).

Marx himself had very little to say about crime. Those criminological theorists who cite him as a major forerunner tend to extrapolate from his general approach, to cite his collaborator Engels’s more directly relevant writings on the assumption that Marx agreed, or to do both by citing Marx in general with specific quotations from Engels to nail down the point. Certainly, Marx and Engels stressed differences in interests and in power much more than did Durkheim. For them, conflict was inherent in the nature of social arrangements under capitalism, for it was capitalism that generated the vast differences in interests and capitalism that gave the few at the top so much power over the many at the bottom. Above all, their theoretical approach was action oriented; they were less concerned with the pure understanding of social problems than with changing things for what they considered the better.

Although the work of Marx and Engels was extremely complex, certain basic propositions stand out (Turner, 1978). First there was the proposition that conflict of interests between different groups will be increased by inequality in the distribution of scarce resources (e.g., food, clothing, shelter). A second proposition was that those receiving less of the needed resources would question the legitimacy of the arrangement as they became aware of the nature of the “raw deal” they were getting. The third proposition was that these groups then would be more likely to organize and to bring the conflict out into the open, after which there would be polarization and violence leading to the redistribution of the scarce resources in such a way that they would be shared by everyone. Capitalism was considered to be at the root of the conflict because it was taken to be the source of the unjust inequality. In this view, greater integration and regulation simply would tend to perpetuate an unjust economic system. The way in which to solve the problem of collapsing social solidarity was not to find some new sources of faith in the social order or some more effective means of regulating its members but rather to destroy capitalism and build toward the one just form of social solidarity— communism.

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Simmel: Forms of Conflict

Like Marx, Georg Simmel was a German intellectual with a deep interest in social theory. On the other hand, Simmel was a contemporary of Durkheim, doing his theoretical work a few decades later than Marx and concerning himself with a search for precise intellectual understanding of abstract laws governing human interaction rather than with changing the world. Simmel was an exponent of “sociological formalism” (Martindale, 1960, p. 233). He was concerned not so much with the changing content of social life as with its recurring forms or patterns. Speaking of Simmel, Wolff (1964) remarked that his approach represented a “preponderance of the logical over the normative” (p. xviii). Simmel’s interest was not in particular conflicts but rather in conflict in general, and he was less concerned with normative questions such as the justice of a particular outcome than with the abstract logic of conflict itself.

Although Simmel was deeply interested in conflict as a form common in social life, he was not as preoccupied with it as was Marx, seeing it as a normal part of life and as one form of interaction among others, some of which were operating in different and even opposite directions in an integrated social system (Turner, 1978). Conflict was regarded not as a problem necessarily calling for solutions or even leading to change but rather as a typical aspect of social order that often actually contributed to that order. Of equal importance is that whereas Marx focused on the causes of conflict and sought to find means for their elimination, Simmel focused on the consequences of conflict, with little interest in its sources and great interest in the complex formal patterns through which it developed.

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Bonger: Capitalism and Crime

Early during the 20th century, the conflict perspective of Marx and Engels was applied specifically to criminological theory by the Dutch criminologist Willem Bonger. As we will see later, the turbulence of the 1960s brought renewed interest in Marxist theory and in the work of Bonger (1916/1969). In the introduction to an abridged edition of Bonger’s major work published near the end of the 1960s, the American criminologist and conflict theorist Austin T. Turk spoke of him appreciatively as a man who “combined a passion to alleviate human misery with an equal passion for scientific research” (Turk, 1969b, p. 3). Like Marx and Engels, and unlike Freud and Durkheim, Bonger believed that the human was innately social. If so, then crime would have to be traced to an unfavorable environment that distorted human nature. Bonger held that just such an unfavorable environment had been generated by the rise of capitalism.

Under capitalism, according to Bonger, there had arisen a sharp division between the rulers and the ruled that originated not in innate differences between them but rather in the economic system itself. In such an unfavorable environment in which people were pitted against each other in the economic struggle, in which the individual was encouraged to seek pleasure by any means possible without regard for others, and in which the search required money, human nature was distorted into an intense “egoism” that made people more capable of committing crimes against one another. Thus, like the control theorists as far back as Durkheim, Bonger traced crime in part to individual egoism. Unlike them, however, Bonger took the Marxist position that the decline of social integration and the rise of extremely disruptive individualism could be traced to capitalism. Such egoism never could be reduced by social controls that bound the individual more closely to society, for society under capitalism was itself the very source of the egoism.

Bonger traced much crime to the poverty generated by capitalism, both directly because crime among the subordinate class sometimes was necessary for survival and indirectly because the sense of injustice in a world where many had next to nothing while a few had nearly everything was held to demoralize the individual and to stifle social instincts. At the same time, however, he recognized that the more powerful bourgeoisie also committed crimes. He traced this to the opportunities that came with power and the decline of morality that came with capitalism. Crime was seen as a product of an economic system that fostered a greedy, egoistic, “look out for number one” mentality while at the same time making the rich richer and the poor poorer.

Long before the labeling theorists, Bonger stressed that although it certainly was true that crime fell into the category of immoral actions, definitions of morality varied. Indeed, he went further, insisting that the source of the prevailing definitions and of their variations could be found in the interests of the powerful. In Bonger’s view, behaviors were defined as crimes when they significantly threatened the interests of the powerful, and “hardly any act is punished if it does not injure the interests of the dominant class” (Turk, 1969b, p. 9). Thus, Bonger took note of the statistics showing a lower crime rate among the bourgeoisie and traced this to the fact that the legal system “tends to legalize the egoistic actions of the bourgeoisie and to penalize those of the proletariat” (p. 10). Given Bonger’s theory of the causes of crime, his conclusion that the abolition of capitalism and the redistribution of wealth and power would restore a favorable environment and eliminate crime followed almost entirely as a matter of political logic.

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Sutherland and Sellin: Culture Conflict and Crime

In criminological theory, Edwin H. Sutherland is best known for his differential association theory discussed in Chapter 3. As indicated in that chapter, the concept of differential association was built on the concept of differential social organization, which was itself an attempt to move away from the value judgments entailed in describing situations organized differently as representing social disorganization. The concept of differential social organization represented one type of conflict perspective. Inherent in the notion was the assumption that society did not rest on complete consensus but rather was made up of different segments with conflicting cultural patterns. Individual criminal activity could be explained by assuming that a person whose associations were dominated by relationships with those in a less law-abiding segment of society would tend to learn criminal techniques and develop criminal orientations.

Sutherland already had begun systematic research into the crimes of the wealthy and powerful by the mid- 1920s. During the 1930s, he pioneered the study of white-collar criminality, publishing a groundbreaking article at the beginning of the 1940s (Sutherland, 1940) and a widely cited book on the subject by the end of the decade (Sutherland, 1949). In these works, he called attention to the fact that powerful economic interests such as the huge corporations that had arisen during the 20th century represented a segment of society whose organization and policy made them “habitual criminals,” although their wealth and political power protected them from prosecution in the criminal courts. As was pointed out in Chapter 3, he explained the participation of individuals in the white-collar crimes of these corporations in terms of their differential association by way of immersion in the criminal patterns of the business.

During the depression of the 1930s, another criminologist, Thorsten Sellin, best known today for his studies of capital punishment and his efforts at developing crime indexes, argued for a broader definition of crime and a less conventional approach to criminological theory. Sellin (1938) stressed the problem of “culture conflict” as a source of crime, maintaining that different groups learn different “conduct norms” and that the conduct norms of one group might clash with those of another. As for which conduct norms would become a part of the criminal law, Sellin held that

the conduct which the state denotes as criminal is, of course, that deemed injurious to society or, in the last analysis, to those who wield the political power within that society and therefore control the legislative, judicial, and executive functions which are the external manifestations of authority. (p. 3)

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Vold: Conflict and Crime

Near the close of the 1950s, George B. Vold set forth the most extensive and detailed treatment of criminological theory from a conflict perspective yet seen in criminology. Citing Simmel, Vold (1958) agreed that conflict should be regarded not as abnormal but rather as a fundamental social form characteristic of social life in general. He argued, “As social interaction processes grind their way through varying kinds of uneasy adjustment to a more or less stable equilibrium of balanced forces in opposition, the resulting condition of relative stability is what is usually called social order or social organization” (p. 204, emphasis added). In this perspective, social order was not presumed to rest entirely on consensus; rather, it was presumed to rest in part on the stability resulting from a balance of power among the various conflicting forces that compose society. The conflict between groups was analyzed in Simmelian terms as potentially making a positive contribution to the strengthening of the different groups because participation in the struggle resulted in group esprit de corps and in-group solidarity. According to this analysis, it was perfectly normal for groups in a complex society to come into conflict as their interests clashed, and “politics, as it flourishes in a democracy, is primarily a matter of finding practical compromises between antagonistic groups in the community at large” (p. 208).

As to the nature of legal compromises, Vold (1958) cited Sutherland’s work from the 1920s, noting that “those who produce legislative majorities win control over the police power and dominate the policies that decide who is likely to be involved in violation of the law” (p. 209). Vold considered politics to be the art of compromise and insisted that “the principle of compromise from positions of strength operates at every stage of this conflict process” (p. 209). His own theoretical interest in the forms rather than the content of such conflict may be seen in his comparison of the delinquent gangs’ patterns to those formed by conscientious objectors during time of war. Both were analyzed as identical patterns or social forms in which group ideology existed in conflict with established authority. Like Simmel, Vold was concerned with the similarity of the forms of conflict rather than with normative distinctions such as the nature of the morality involved.

Vold (1958) pointed out that much crime was of an obviously political nature. He included crimes resulting from protest movements aimed at political reform, noting that “a successful revolution makes criminals out of the government officials previously in power, and an unsuccessful revolution makes its leaders into traitors subject to immediate execution” (p. 214). His formal analysis avoided the normative and stuck to the logical. Regardless of who was “right” and who was “wrong,” those who lost were the “criminals.” In this sense, their (formal) “crime” consisted of losing.

Vold (1958) also gave attention to crimes involving conflicts between unions and management and between different unions themselves. In a statement portending what was to come in the civil rights movement in the United States during the 1960s and elsewhere in the world during the 1980s, he pointed out that “numerous kinds of crimes result from the clashes incidental to attempts to change or to upset the caste system of racial segregation in various parts of the world, notably in the United States and in the Union of South Africa” (p. 217). Vold undertook an intensive analysis of organized crime and white-collar crime as examples of groups organizing themselves in the pursuit of their interests, examining the strategies and tactics employed in the conflict.

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Theory in Context: The Turmoil of the 1960s

Although the various forerunners of conflict theory discussed previously had anticipated much of what was to follow, it was not until the social upheavals of the 1960s that criminological conflict theory came into its own. The 1960s represented a major turning point for criminology. As we have seen already, it was within the context of those times that both control theory and labeling theory developed from theoretical seeds planted earlier. The same was true for conflict theory. Although control theory reacted by stressing the tenuous nature of complex society under conditions of rapid social change and insisted that crime and delinquency tended to spread with any significant weakening of forces containing the individual, conflict theory highlighted the newly revealed patterns of social division and questioned the legitimacy of the motives, strategies, and tactics of those in power. Although labeling theory exposed the way in which crime was a social construction of moral entrepreneurs and others in a position to influence the definitions developed by the political state and sometimes pointed to class bias in the labeling process, conflict theory was much more explicit about the connection between the criminal justice system and the underlying economic order, sometimes condemning the state itself.

Seeking to explain the rise of criminological conflict theory (which he termed critical theory) during the 1960s, Sykes (1974) pointed to three factors of special importance. First, there was the impact of the war in Vietnam on American society. Second, there was the growth of the counterculture. Third, there was the rising political protest over discrimination, particularly racial discrimination, and the use of the police power of the state to suppress political dissent—associated issues that had been smoldering and threatening to break into the open since World War II.

As the war in Vietnam escalated, doubts deepened not only about the wisdom of governmental policy but also about the fundamental motives and credibility of those in power. Reasons given for the escalating involvement seemed to many to be rather far-fetched, and doubts were increased by discoveries of disinformation—a bureaucratic term for governmental lies. Protest marches spread. Armed troops fired on and killed apparently peaceful protesters on college campuses. The conscientious objectors about whom Vold had written so coolly were everywhere, voluntarily choosing to become “criminals” by leaving for Canada or burning their draft cards in heated public protests.

As indicated in Chapter 5, the developing counterculture represented in large part a repudiation of middle- class standards. Countercultural behavior dramatized a fundamental conflict in values. Millions were engaging in a variety of activities that they considered harmless but that the legal system regarded as criminal offenses— so-called victimless crimes such as fornication, vagrancy, and illegal drug use. The latter had in fact become not only a way of “getting high” but also a symbolic political protest.

As Chapter 5 emphasized, along with the impact of the war in Vietnam and the growth of the counterculture came the rise of social movements aimed at eliminating discrimination and demanding an end to the suppression of political dissent. The feminist movement spoke more and more radically in terms of the political, economic, and sexual oppression of women. The gay community became more politicized,

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organizing to resist labeling and discrimination. Underlying social conflict came more and more into the open as the civil rights movement seemed to make it clear that African Americans were not going to gain social equality without civil disobedience and that the only way of dealing with the unjust laws enforcing segregation was to violate them en masse—for the protesters to become “criminals” and spend some time in jail as the price for their beliefs.

At the same time, a society that had tolerated the McCarthyism of the 1950s was upset to learn that some of its most revered symbols of law and order, such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation, had become involved in the dissemination of internal disinformation aimed at destroying political opposition and had fallen into the use of illegal tactics in dealing with citizens seeking to express legitimate grievances. It often appeared that the agents of the political state, whether southern sheriffs threatening African American schoolchildren with police dogs or members of Congress harassing as radicals or Communists those who seriously questioned the political order, really were moral criminals disguised as legally constituted authorities. The impression of society as composed of groups in conflict, with the legal system tending to brand as criminal significant threats to the interests of the powerful, became more and more prevalent, providing fertile ground for the development of conflict theory.

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Advancing Conflict Theory: Turk, Chambliss, and Quinney

The new criminological conflict theory went much further than criminologists had taken it before, appealing to Marx and Bonger as well as to Simmel. As Gibbons and Garabedian (1974) pointed out in their own examination of the conflict theory movement (there termed radical criminology), “Sutherland certainly did not characterize the seventy corporations that he studied as ‘exploiters of the people’; instead, he stopped far short of that sort of condemnation” (p. 51). Similarly, Sellin may have noted that the law is defined and applied in the interests of dominant groups, but he did not denounce them in the manner of Marx. As for Vold’s analysis of the state of affairs, what had seemed like a bold outline of the conflict perspective during the late 1950s now struck some as in need of much more elaboration and others as far too abstract, academic, and aloof from the injustices that so angered them.

Sykes (1974) listed four major factors behind the shift. First, there was now a profound skepticism toward any theory that traced crime to something about the individual, including not only the biological and psychological theories but also sociological theories referring to inadequate socialization and the like. Second, there was a marked shift from the assumption that the inadequacies of the criminal justice system were to be traced to incompetent or corrupt individuals or minor organizational flaws to the conclusion that these problems were inherent in the system, either because it was fundamentally out of control or because it had been so designed by powerful interests. Third, the older assumptions that criminal law represented the collective will of the people and that the job of the criminologist was to do theoretical analysis and empirical research and not to deal in normative issues of right and wrong increasingly were rejected as fallacies that made it impossible to ask the basic questions. Finally, as discussed in Chapter 7, it had become clear not only that official crime rate figures did not reflect the amount of criminal behavior actually present in society but also that what they did reflect more often was the labeling behavior of the authorities.

During the 1960s, several scholars, influenced by a blending of labeling theory with political theory, began to develop their own brand of criminological conflict theory. It is fair to characterize their work as part of a theoretical movement that further advanced the conflict perspective and contributed to its growing influence among criminologists at that time. Here we concentrate on the efforts of three of the leading conflict theorists: Austin Turk, William Chambliss, and Richard Quinney. As we will see, they were not working in isolation but rather working in close contact within a particular sociohistorical context. All of them presented the outlines of their own approaches in articles written during the 1960s, and all published book-length volumes in 1969. Their differences were to depend, to a considerable extent, on influences from the various theoretical forerunners discussed previously.

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Turk: The Criminalization Process

Completing his graduate work at the beginning of the 1960s, Austin T. Turk had come to be increasingly interested in the culture conflict perspective of criminologists such as Sellin and in the emerging labeling theory. As with any theorist, his perspective was influenced by his life experiences. Turk (1987) himself put it this way:

Growing up as a working class boy in a small segregated Georgia town, I learned early that life is neither easy nor just for most folks; that irrationality and contradiction are very much part (maybe the biggest part) of social reality; that access to resources and opportunities [has] no necessary association with ability or character; that the meaning of justice in theory is debatable and of justice in practice [is] manipulable; and that whatever degree[s] of freedom, equality, brotherhood, or security exist in a society are hard-won and tenuous. (p. 3)

By the end of the 1960s, Turk (1969a) had presented a complete statement of his own brand of conflict theory in Criminality and Legal Order, quoting at length from Sutherland in the introduction and citing the more recent efforts of Vold and Dahrendorf. It was this effort to build on Dahrendorf’s perspective, along with his Simmelian-Voldian approach that treated conflict not as some abnormality but rather as a fundamental social form, that distinguished Turk’s theoretical contribution. For Turk, recognition of social conflict as a basic fact of life represented simple realism rather than any particular tendency toward cynicism.

Although also a conflict theorist, Dahrendorf (1958, 1968) disagreed with Marx on the question of inequality. Instead of tracing inequality back to an unjust economic system, Dahrendorf located the source in power differences, more specifically in differences in authority or power that had been accepted as legitimate. Unlike Marx, who had argued for the abolition of inequality, Dahrendorf took the position that because cultural norms always exist and have to depend on sanctions for their enforcement, some people must have more power than others to make the sanctions stick. In Dahrendorf’s view, it was not the economic inequality resulting from capitalism that produced social inequality; rather, inequality was an inescapable fact because the basic units of society necessarily involved dominance-subjection relationships. Thus, the idea of eliminating inequality was treated as a utopian dream.

Turk (1969a) seemed to have been persuaded of the essential relativity of crime in much the same way as the labeling theorists. For him, the theoretical problem of explaining crime lay not in explaining varieties of behavior, for these may or may not be crimes depending on time and place. Instead, the problem lay in explaining “criminalization,” the process of “assignment of criminal status to individuals” (p. xi), which results in the production of “criminality” (p. 1). Dahrendorf’s influence was clear in Turk’s definition of the study of “criminality” as “the study of relations between the statuses and roles of legal authorities . . . and those subjects —acceptors or resisters but not makers of such law creating, interpreting, and enforcing decisions” (p. 1, emphasis in original).

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Such an approach was deemed necessary if the criminologist was to explain “facts” such as variations in crime rates or to develop better methods of dealing with “criminals.” Turk (1969a) stressed that assignment of criminal status to an individual may have less connection with the behavior of that person than with his or her relationship to the authorities. “Indeed, criminal status may be ascribed to persons because of real or fancied attributes, because of what they are rather than what they do, and justified by reference to real or imagined or fabricated behavior” (pp. 9–10, emphasis in original). From this point of view, even if the criminologist eventually could succeed in explaining the behavior of criminals, such an achievement would not help in accounting for their criminality, which had more to do with the behavior of the authorities in control of the criminalization process.

Central to the concept of authority is its accepted legitimacy; authority differs from raw power because it is regarded as legitimate power, the use of which is accepted by those subject to it. Any theorist concerned with the relationship between subjects and authorities must investigate the basis for such acceptance. Like some of the control theorists, Turk (1969a) rejected the argument that acceptance of authority must be the result of internalization. He maintained that acceptance could be explained as a consequence of people learning the roles assigned to the statuses they occupied and simply acquiescing and going along as a matter of routine. Some have the status of authorities; others play the part of subjects. “The legality of norms is defined solely by the words and behavior of authorities” to which subjects will tend to defer (p. 51).

Like Simmel and Vold, Turk (1969a) was concerned with the logical consequences of the fact that some people had authority over others, not with the sources of this authority or whether it was just or unjust according to some normative conception of justice. In fact, logical consistency might be expected to force anyone who was convinced that concepts such as crime were a matter of labeling relative to time and place to a similar position with respect to concepts such as justice. In any case, Turk focused on the logical consequences of authority relationships, holding that “how authorities come to be authorities is irrelevant” to such an analysis (p. 51).

Because of Turk’s (1969a) argument that the assignment of a criminal status would have to be justified by the authorities “by reference to real or imagined or fabricated behavior” (pp. 9–10) that was held to represent a violation of legal norms, he found it important to make a formal distinction between two types of legal norms: cultural norms and social norms. The first he defined as those set forth in symbolic terms such as words—as norms dealing with what is expected. The second he identified as those found in patterns of actual behavior— in terms of what is being done rather than what is being said. Turk pointed out that the cultural norms and social norms in a given situation may or may not correspond.

According to Turk (1969a), a satisfactory theory accounting for the assignment of criminal status would include

a statement of the conditions under which cultural and social differences between authorities and subjects will probably result in conflict, the conditions under which criminalization will probably occur in the course of conflict, and the conditions under which the degree of deprivation associated with becoming a criminal will probably be greater or lesser. (p. 53)

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Like Simmel, he proceeded to examine the nature of these conditions through a series of formal logical propositions.

Thus, Turk argued that, given that cultural and social norms might not agree, the existence of a difference between authorities and subjects in their evaluation of a particular attribute (e.g., past membership in a radical political organization) or a particular act (e.g., marijuana use) logically implies four situational possibilities. Each logical possibility carries a different conflict potential. The conflict probability would be highest, for example, in the “high-high” situation where there was (1) high congruence between the cultural norms preached by the authorities and their actual behavior patterns and (2) similarly high congruence between the cultural evaluation of a particular attribute or act and the actual possession of that attribute or commission of that act on the part of the subjects. If both sides not only hold different standards but also act in accordance with them, then there is no room for compromise. For example, in a situation where the authorities not only say “smoking marijuana is wrong” but also act to stop it, and marijuana users not only say “pot is okay” but also insist on using it in spite of the normative clash, the conflict potential would be logically greatest.

On the other hand, Turk’s logic suggested that the conflict potential would be lowest in situations where there was neither agreement between authorities’ stated cultural norms and their actual behavioral norms nor agreement between the cultural norms and the social norms of subjects. In such situations, the preachments would clash, but because neither side practices what it preaches in any case, the probability of conflict would be low. Why should they fight over words when neither side lives by them anyhow?

A third logical possibility was described as one in which authorities’ talk and behavior were highly congruent, although there was little, if any, agreement between the words and actions of subjects. Such a situation would fall somewhere in the middle in terms of Turk’s formal logic of conflict potential, but with a somewhat higher conflict potential than that logically inherent in the fourth and final possibility. The latter situation was described as one in which the attribute or act, as described in the announced cultural norm, happened to be in close agreement among subjects, whereas the cultural norm preached by the authorities actually had little relationship to their behavior. According to Turk, the third possibility would entail somewhat more conflict potential than would the fourth because the authorities would be less likely to tolerate norms different from their own when their cultural norms were reinforced by their social norms.

According to Turk’s analysis, the logic of the relationships between cultural and social norms is complicated by additional formal propositions. Under the assumption that an individual who has group support is going to be more resistant to efforts to change him or her, Turk concluded that the probability of conflict with authorities grows with the extent to which those having the illegal attributes or engaging in the illegal activities are organized. Under the assumption that the more sophisticated norm resisters would be better at avoiding open conflict through clever tactical maneuvers (e.g., pretending to submit while secretly continuing as before), he concluded that the probability of conflict increases as the authorities confront norm resisters who are less sophisticated. The logical possibilities resulting from the combination of the two variables of organization and sophistication were set forth as follows: (1) organized and unsophisticated, (2) unorganized and unsophisticated, (3) organized and sophisticated, and (4) unorganized and sophisticated. Conflict odds

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were attached to each combination.

Proceeding through formal analysis of the four formally distinct possibilities, Turk reached certain conclusions. First, he concluded that conflict between authorities and subjects is most probable where the latter are highly organized and relatively unsophisticated (e.g., delinquent gangs). He then concluded that the odds of such conflict declined to the extent that the subjects involved are unorganized and unsophisticated (e.g., skid row transients) and still further to the extent that they are organized and sophisticated (e.g., syndicate criminals). It followed logically that the lowest probability of conflict would be associated with a situation in which the norm-resisting subjects are unorganized and sophisticated (e.g., professional con artists). These formal deductions may or may not match empirical reality, but they have a certain logical consistency, and Turk encouraged research designed to assess their actual empirical validity.

As for the authorities themselves, Turk pointed out that they must be organized or, by definition, they would not be the authorities; instead, they would be some sort of illegitimate mob. He concluded that the probability of conflict between these authorities and subjects resisting their norms would be greatest where the authorities were least sophisticated in the use of power. Interestingly enough, Turk’s (1969a) logic carried him to the same conclusion as that reached by the control theorist Hirschi at the same time—that the probability of conflict was affected by the “nature of the bonds between authorities and subjects” (p. 61). He concluded that “where subjects are strongly identified with the authorities and generally agree in moral evaluations, an announced norm may be accepted in a ‘father knows best’ spirit” (p. 61). But where Hirschi stressed these bonds as central, Turk devoted much less attention to them, considering society to be less a matter of Durkheimian bonds and more a matter of constant Simmelian conflict working itself out over time. We must remember, of course, that Hirschi was focusing theoretical attention on juvenile delinquency, whereas Turk was devoting considerable attention to organized crime, political crime, and white-collar crime in general. Accordingly, the relative stress on bonds as compared to conflict potentials is hardly surprising.

For Turk (1969a), an analysis of conflict probabilities was only a first step. The key question was as follows: “Once conflict has begun, what are the conditions affecting the probability that members of the opposition will become criminals . . . , that they will be subjected to less or more severe deprivation?” (p. 64). Part of the answer was traced to the same factors outlined previously that would continue to affect probabilities throughout the criminalization process. Turk concluded, however, that additional variables tended to come into play with actual criminalization.

First, Turk admitted that although the crucial norms defining the conflict were those of the higher authorities, the major factor in the probability of criminalization was likely to be the extent to which the official legal norms agreed with both the cultural norms and the social norms of those specifically charged with enforcing the legal norms, especially the police but also prosecutors, judges, and the like. Because of the importance of police discretion and decisions on the spot, he concluded that the extent to which the police agreed with the legal norms they were expected to enforce would have a major effect on the odds of arrest and criminalization. Prosecutors, judges, juries, and others were expected to affect the probabilities somewhat, but ultimately it would be the police as the frontline enforcers who would determine the extent to which norm

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resisters actually would be defined as criminal.

In Turk’s analysis, the relative power of enforcers and resisters became still another variable affecting the odds of criminalization. He proposed that the greater the power difference in favor of norm enforcers over resisters, the greater would be the probability of criminalization. He asserted that the reluctance of the enforcers to move against very powerful resisters would keep the criminality of the very powerful low regardless of their behavior. He added the qualification, however, that some of the disapproved behavior of the least powerful also might be ignored if these individuals seemed to pose no threat and “weren’t worth the bother.”

The final set of variables to which Turk assigned special significance in determining the odds of criminalization had to do with the realism of conflict moves. Although in part a matter of the sophistication mentioned previously, success in avoiding or producing criminalization also was regarded as dependent on factors beyond the use of knowledge of others’ behavior patterns in manipulating them. Any move by resisters was considered to be unrealistic if it (1) increased the visibility of the offensive attribute or behavior, thereby increasing the risk that the authorities would be forced to act; (2) increased the offensiveness of the attribute or behavior (e.g., emphasizing it, calling attention to additional offensive attributes, violating an even more significant norm of the authorities); (3) increased consensus among the various levels of enforcers (e.g., moving from simple opposition to a particular norm or set of norms to a wholesale attack on the system with emphasis on stereotyping enforcers as being brutal, ignorant, and corrupt); or (4) increased the power difference in favor of the enforcers (e.g., upsetting the public in such a way that enforcers would be able to get significantly increased resources such as budget increases).

In Turk’s analysis, any move by the authorities was likely to be unrealistic if it (1) shifted the basis of their legitimacy away from consensus toward the “norm of deference” or obligation to obey despite disagreement, which would be likely in the case of power plays; (2) represented a departure from standard legal procedures, especially if the shifts were unofficial, sudden, or sharp; (3) generalized from a particular offensive attribute so that additional attributes of the opposition also became grounds for criminalization (e.g., if roundups of similar types were used in lieu of a systematic search for a particular offender); (4) increased the size and power of the opposition (e.g., by creating martyrs among them so that they gained sympathy and other resources from other segments of society); or (5) decreased consensus among the various levels of enforcers.

Turk went much further than this in pointing out additional factors that may be expected to alter the nature and outcome of social conflict. He attempted to provide a logical integration of his propositions to demonstrate how various combinations affect conflict probabilities differently and went into great detail in describing possible indicators that might be used to operationalize his propositions to facilitate research. Thus, he dealt with the means by which legal norms could be classified in practice; with the question of the best measures of key concepts such as normative-legal conflict, the significance of legal norms, relative power, and realism in conflict moves; and with other issues that would have to be solved if his theory were to be tested by data.

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Chambliss: Crime, Power, and Legal Process

Finishing his own graduate work in the same year (1962) as did Turk, William J. Chambliss had become interested in the development of criminal law, specifically in “sociologically relevant analyses of the relationship between particular laws and the social setting in which these laws emerge, are interpreted, and take form” (Chambliss, 1964, p. 67). Chambliss (1987) also has been candid about the relationship between his theoretical perspective and his life experiences:

After I graduated from UCLA [University of California, Los Angeles], I hitchhiked across the country again to see my father. It was 1955, and in short order I was drafted into the army and sent to Korea with the Counter Intelligence Corps (CIC). I learned a lot about crime during that period. American and Korean soldiers raped, stole, assaulted, intimidated, and generally terrorized the Koreans. Because they had the power, nothing was done about it. . . . How could crime be understood from the paradigms I learned in psychology and sociology? (pp. 5–6)

While at UCLA, Chambliss developed a mentoring relationship with Donald Cressey. After military service, he followed Cressey’s advice to pursue his doctorate in sociology at his alma mater, Indiana University, where Chambliss could study with Edwin Sutherland and Albert Cohen (Inderbitzen & Boyd, 2010). He went on to teach at the University of Washington and then to undertake postdoctoral studies at the University of Wisconsin. It is worth noting that (1) both Turk and Quinney, the third of the contemporary criminological conflict theorists to be examined in this chapter, completed their graduate work at the University of Wisconsin in the same year that Chambliss was completing his at Indiana and that (2) Turk himself joined the faculty at Indiana after completion of his graduate work at Wisconsin. The ties between these institutions were very close, and there was considerable mutual influence:

Our lives are far more dependent on chance occurrences than we ever want to acknowledge. A year after I arrived at Washington, the university hired Pierre van den Berghe, who was extremely knowledgeable about Marxism. I organized a faculty seminar on the sociology of law with Pierre, a philosopher, and two anthropologists. . . . About this time, the Russell Sage Foundation decided to support the resurrection of the sociology of law. I was awarded a fellowship to study law at the University of Wisconsin. (Chambliss, 1987, pp. 3, 7)

Like Turk, Chambliss was impressed by the relativity of crime and the way in which the criminal label seemed to be the product of social conflict. But whereas Turk’s work was influenced by a formal Simmelian approach, Chambliss was at first inspired less by the older European tradition of conflict theory than by the American tradition of legal realism, the pioneering work of the American legal scholar Jerome Hall, and the results of his own empirical research. Chambliss (1964) had undertaken a study of the development of vagrancy laws in England, concluding that these laws could be traced to vested interests: “There is little question that these statutes were designed for one express purpose: to force laborers . . . to accept employment at a low wage in

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order to insure the landowner an adequate supply of labor at a price he could afford to pay” (p. 69). Recall from Chapter 7 that Chambliss (1973) also went on to conduct a study of the impact of differential labeling and legal response to two sets of delinquent youths, the upper-middle-class “Saints” and the lower-class “Roughnecks.” Again, he showed how law in action diminished the life chances of poor kids by defining and policing them as troublemakers while failing to intervene with the precollege kids because they were “good boys” only “sowing their oats.”

Law in Action.

In the same year that Turk (1969a) published Criminality and the Legal Order, Chambliss (1969) published Crime and the Legal Process, an edited volume consisting of actual empirical research studies of the legal system, tying them together with his own theoretical framework. This soon was followed by a more elaborate presentation, Law, Order, and Power, in collaboration with Robert T. Seidman, a law professor at the University of Wisconsin (Chambliss & Seidman, 1971). In the earlier statement, Chambliss (1969) simply identified his position as representing an “interest group” perspective rather than a “value expression” perspective, a distinction that he compared with that seen in “the debate in social science theory between the ‘conflict’ and ‘functional’ theorists” (p. 8). His approach was influenced greatly by the American school of legal realism, which concerned itself with the distinction between the “law in the books” and the “law in action.” It insisted that the study of abstract legal theory must be complemented by the study of the law as it works itself out in actual practice. It is interesting to note that although the first of these had been the focus of the classical school discussed in Chapter 2, the new attention to the law in action represented the influence of positivism in legal studies. Chambliss hoped to develop a theory of the law in action—a theory based on empirical research.

Early in the second volume, Chambliss and Seidman (1971) sounded an almost Durkheimian theme, asserting that the “first variable in our theoretical model is the relative complexity of the society” (p. 31). They went on, however, to insist that (1) the complexity, which comes with technological development and necessitates more complicated, differentiated, and sophisticated social roles, actually operates to (2) put people at odds with one another, thereby (3) requiring formal institutions designed to sanction what some consider to be norm violations. This argument was reminiscent of Dahrendorf’s, with the major difference being that formal sanctioning institutions were regarded not as inherently necessary to society but rather as a contemporary necessity resulting from increasing social complexity. Their conflict perspective led them to a theory of legal development almost exactly opposite to that expounded in Durkheim’s (1893/1933) control theory approach, which maintained that increased societal complexity tended to lead society from an emphasis on “repressive” law to an emphasis on “restitutive” law. Instead, Chambliss and Seidman (1971) argued, “We may formulate, therefore, the following proposition: The lower the level of complexity of a society, the more emphasis will be placed in the dispute-settling process upon reconciliation; the more complex the society, the more emphasis will be placed on rule enforcement” (p. 32).

Chambliss and Seidman (1971) began by arguing that increasing social complexity itself tended to call for sanctioning institutions designed to keep order among the conflicting interests. Going further, they maintained that this sanctioning process would become even more pronounced to the degree that the social

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complexity became a matter of social stratification, with some groups having more wealth and power than others: “The more economically stratified a society becomes, the more it becomes necessary for the dominant groups in the society to enforce through coercion the norms of conduct which guarantee their supremacy” (p. 33). Here was something of a Marxian theme, although Chambliss and Seidman stopped short of a clear-cut Marxian position that traced the most serious problems of social stratification to polarization produced by capitalism.

Chambliss and Seidman (1971) also stressed the significance of the fact that the developing sanctions tended to be enforced through bureaucratic organizations. In their view, the basis of the sanctioning would be organized in the interests of the dominant groups, but the actual application of the sanctions tended to come through bureaucracies that had their own interests. In this sense, the law in action might be expected to reflect a combination of the interests of the powerful and the interests of the bureaucratic organizations created to enforce the rules.

Because the essence of Chambliss’s theory was aimed at explaining the law in action in contemporary, complex, industrial societies, we can concentrate on the second and third variables in the theory of the law in action—social stratification and bureaucracy. In Crime and the Legal Process, Chambliss (1969) stressed that “the single most important characteristic of contemporary Anglo-American society influential in shaping the legal order has been the emerging domination of the middle classes” along with “the attempt by [members of] the middle class to impose their own standards and their own view of proper behavior on people whose values differ” (pp. 10–11). In this view, the middle class was coming to represent the conventional morality, but Chambliss emphasized that behind the values lay self-interest.

In Law, Order, and Power, Chambliss and Seidman (1971) set forth five fundamental propositions with respect to the relationship between social stratification and the law, beginning with the proposition that (1) the conditions of one’s life affect one’s values and norms. They then asserted that (2) complex societies are composed of groups with widely different life conditions and that (3) complex societies, therefore, are composed of highly disparate and conflicting sets of norms. As for the relationship between these conflicting norms and the law itself, they maintained that (4) the probability of a given group’s having its particular normative system embodied in law is not distributed equally but rather is closely related to the political and economic position of that group. These propositions, taken together, led the authors to the final proposition that (5) the higher a group’s political or economic position, the greater is the probability that its views will be reflected in the laws (pp. 473–474).

Most of Chambliss and Seidman’s theoretical explanation for the law in action focused on the argument that although the law represents the values and interests of the more powerful elements in the stratification system of complex societies, it is specifically created and enforced by bureaucratic organizations with their own agendas. In Crime and the Legal Process, Chambliss (1969) insisted that “the most salient characteristic of organizational behavior is that the ongoing policies and activities are those designed to maximize rewards and minimize strains for the organization” (p. 84). Furthermore,

this general principle is reflected in the fact that in the administration of the criminal law, those

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persons are arrested, tried, and sentenced who can offer the fewest rewards for nonenforcement of the laws and who can be processed without creating any undue strain for the organizations which comprise the legal system. (pp. 84–85, emphasis in original)

In Chambliss’s view, the criminal justice bureaucracies tended to treat those of lower social class position more harshly for the same offenses committed by middle-class and upper-class people because lower social class people had little to offer in return for lenience and were in no position to fight the system. In addition, he insisted, these bureaucracies tended to ignore or deal leniently with the same offenses when committed by those higher in the stratification hierarchy.

The process by which the goals of bureaucratic efficiency and avoidance of trouble displace the official goal of impartial law enforcement has been termed goal displacement or goal substitution. According to Chambliss, a bureaucratic organization might be expected to take the easy way out—the path of least resistance—especially in contexts where (1) the members have little motivation to resist the easy way out, (2) they have a great deal of discretion in how they actually will behave, and (3) adherence to the official goals is not enforced. “It will maximize rewards and minimize strains for the organization to process those who are politically weak and powerless and to refrain from processing those who are politically powerful” (Chambliss & Seidman, 1971, p. 269). Thus,

the failure of the legal system to exploit the potential source of offenses that is offered by middle- and upper-class violators . . . derives instead from the very rational choice on the part of the legal system to pursue those violators who the community will reward them for pursuing and to ignore those violators who have the capability of causing trouble for the agencies. (Chambliss, 1969, p. 88)

Speaking of the police, Chambliss and Seidman (1971) presented evidence leading to the conclusion that the police, as a bureaucracy, “act illegally, breaching the norms of due process at every point: in committing brutality, in their searches and seizures, in arrests and interrogation” (p. 391). This illegality takes place not because the police are evil but rather because they are not committed to due process in the first place, they have enormous discretion, and there is little enforcement of due process norms by the public or other agencies of the criminal justice system. As for prosecution following an arrest, Chambliss and Seidman concluded that “how favorable a ‘bargain’ one can strike with the prosecutor in the pretrial confrontations is a direct function of how politically and economically powerful the defendant is” (p. 412). The alleged safeguards provided by the right to trial by jury were taken to be largely a matter of myth because of the “built-in hazards of the jury trial . . . which exert the greatest pressure on accused persons to plead guilty,” leading the powerless to surrender this so-called right in 9 out of 10 cases (p.