Theoretical Analysis
TropJ
CRiminologicaltheorymodeolonline1.pptxCRIMINOLOGICAL THEORY
A MODEL
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This model will become useful as you start to go through the theories. It is primarily designed to help you answer some questions. Your job is wrestle with these theories and come to your conclusions about the causes of crime. Crime policy should be linked to what as a society we conclude the causes of crime to be.
Answer each of these three questions and it will help guide you in deciding what theories to apply to the criminal you study.
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Theories are not facts. They are guides to help us illuminate. Human behavior is elusive and perhaps, even somewhat, mysterious. Humanity will perhaps never fully be able to delineate the causes of human behavior, especially criminal behavior that is particularly heinous. Nevertheless, the question is important. Perhaps, the more we understand about the causes of crime, the more we can effectively design crime policy that will decrease crime.
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ETIOLOGICAL ISSUE (OR ISSUE OF ETIOLOGY): WHY DO INDIVIDUALS COMMIT CRIME?
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1) ARE HUMAN BEINGS FREE WILL ACTORS OR PRODUCTS OF DETERMINISM?
Free will – intelligence and rationality are fundamental human characteristics and the basis for explaining human behavior. Humans can understand themselves and act to promote their own best interests. Each person is the master of their own fate; their own free will. Crime then is the free choice of an individual who assesses benefits and costs.
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Classical (Cesare Beccaria, 1764, An Essay on Crime and Punishment, predates criminology)
Rational choice theory (the revival of classical theory)
Free will: basis for classical, choice and rational choice theories
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Are humans free will actors?
In the poem, Invictus, Henley wrote, “I am the captain of my fate, I am the master of my soul.”
Do you agree?
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For example, why is a student in college today?
You might argue free will. They have weighed the benefits (i.e., around a million dollars over the course of a life that differentiates the average college graduate and high school graduate) against the consequences (i.e., for a traditional college student, four years of focusing on studies and not earning full salaries).
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Or, would you argue that the student is shaped by factors such as:
A) their own internal ability to focus
B) the expectations of family members and high school teachers
C) a society that increasingly differentiates the professions (and salaries) available to college graduates and high school graduates in a postindustrial society (with fewer high paid manufacturing jobs).
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Free will—individual chooses to commit crime after having weighed the benefits and consequences
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Determinism—Criminal behavior is the result of factors beyond the control of the individual. Humans are not free will actors. People behave as they have already been determined to behave. They are molded and shaped. Thinking and reasoning are just processes of rationalization by which individuals justify their predetermined course of action, rather than processes by which individuals freely and intelligently choose what they do.
2) If human beings are the products of determinism, what level of molding shapes humans?
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Or, are humans, shaped by the forces in their life.
In the poem, Ulysses, Tennyson wrote, “I am a part of all that I have met.”
Which matches your view of humanity: free will or determinism?
Hard (total determinism)—individual almost completely molded; little free will
Soft (partial determinism)—individual partially shaped; partially free will
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Descending order from macro to micro (not the order of the chapters in the book)
Does society shape us in ways that are powerful?
Macro level: society, social structure, culture shapes us
Robert K. Merton (1938) and anomie or strain theory
Level of Determinism
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Do the groups of which we are a part shape us?
Examples
Edwin Sutherland and Differential Association theory – 1924
Walter Reckless and Containment (a social control theory) - 1961
Social psychological, groups, or the interaction between individual and society
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Do our own individual traits shape us?
Biological
Lombroso – The Criminal Man 1876
Psychological
E.g., Personality traits – 1950s - Gluecks
Individual (Biological or Psychological)
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For example, if there is unfairness in the criminal justice system and criminals in the corporate street are treated more leniently than criminals in the street, is the etiological question even the most appropriate focus of criminological attention?
3) Is the etiological question the right question?
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Labeling theorists: do not focus primarily on the issue of the initial etiological issue. Instead, labeling theorists focus on how labels (e.g., ex-convict) impact repeat crimes.
Other labels (e.g., bad kid, stupid kid) may shape the initial etiology, however.
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Conflict theorists say that the etiological question may be interesting but not fundamentally important. Conflict theorists focus on the unfairness of the criminal justice system. If the criminal justice system is a funnel that retains the powerless and weeds out the powerful, then the etiological question is not the most important question. Instead, the central issue should be focusing on the unfairness in the system.
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As you review the next several chapters on criminological theory, these are some overarching questions for you to consider.
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