EXPLAINING CRIME 

A PRIMER IN CRIMINOLOGICAL THEORY

HUGH D. BARLOW & DAVID KAUZLARICH 

Explaining Crime 

Explaining Crime 

A Primer in 

Criminological Theory

Hugh D. Barlow and David Kauzlarich

ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD PUBLISHERS, INC. 

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data 

Barlow, Hugh D. 

Explaining crime : a primer in criminological theory / Hugh Barlow and David 

Kauzlarich. 

p. cm. 

Includes bibliographical references and index. 

ISBN 978-0-7425-6509-8 (cloth : alk. paper) -- ISBN 978-0-7425-6510-4 (pbk. : 

alk. paper) -- ISBN 978-0-7425-6511-1 (electronic) 

1. Criminology. 2. Crime. I. Kauzlarich, David. II. Title. 

HV6018.B367 2010 

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Contents

Preface vii

1 The Basics of Criminological Theory 1 

2 Classical and Rational Choice Theories 17 

3 Biological, Psychological, and Evolutionary Theories 35 

4 Social Structural Theories 51 

5 Social Process Theories 73 

6 Critical Theories 101 

7 General and Integrated Theories 131

Epilogue: Tools for Using Criminological Theory 163 

References 173 

Index 193 

About the Authors 197

v 

Preface

This short book is derived from our larger work, Introduction to Criminology, 

9th edition (Rowman & Littlefield, 2009). We have organized and written 

this text with one goal in mind: to provide readers with a concise and highly 

accessible review of major criminological theories. Designed primarily for 

use in undergraduate courses on crime and deviance theory, we have tried 

to keep students at the forefront of the writing process. Thus, we have devel- 

oped both discussion questions and suggested activities for each chapter in 

the hope of raising the level of student engagement with the material. Fur- 

ther, as in our main criminology text, we have included several references to 

popular music and film to animate some of the theoretical concepts found 

throughout the book. We have also included an epilogue that provides stu- 

dents with concrete concepts to facilitate the application of criminological 

theory to a variety of crimes. 

We are indebted to many colleagues, students, reviewers, and the staff at 

Rowman & Littlefield for providing the support necessary to produce this 

text. Chief among these helping hands are Alan McClare, our editor, Karen 

Ackermann, production editor, and Evan Wiig, editorial assistant. Many 

colleagues have also directly or indirectly aided in our efforts. We especially 

thank Jeff Ferrell, Ron Kramer, David Friedrichs, and Dawn Rothe, whose 

intellectual insights made this a better book. Graduate sociology students 

Josh Lucker, Michael Leber, and Eva-Sophia Clark also lended assistance to 

this book. 

This book is dedicated to our partners, Sandy and Lavender, and to our 

children, a constant source of love and inspiration.

vii 

1 

The Basics of 

Criminological Theory

Criminologists study how, why, when, where, and under what conditions 

crime, criminality, and victimization occur. Like any academic discipline, 

there are a variety of ways criminologists think about and research causal- 

ity. Some scholars of crime seek to map out crime in its relationship to 

social environments, such as the economy, in institutions such as schools 

and families, and in group dynamics, while others focus on individual 

decision-making processes. Criminologists have created and tested dozens 

of theories (and many more variants of formal theories) in order to better 

understand, explain, and hopefully do something about crime in the real 

world. Such study and theorizing is not as straightforward and simple as it 

may sound. The truth is that there is a lot going on with crime, and crimi- 

nological theories try to find out what exactly these things are. 

Let's start with a classroom example. Occasionally we ask our students 

at the beginning of our criminology classes the difficult question "What 

causes crime?" In response, it is not uncommon for students to identify 

things such as poverty, dysfunctional families, racism, peer pressure, lazi- 

ness, and the lack of good jobs. When probed to elaborate, some argue that 

if people can't find a good job, they can't make the bills, and so they decide 

to commit crimes (for example, steal money or sell drugs) to get by. Other 

students say that when parents fail to provide rules and guidelines for their 

children's behavior, there can be no accountability, let alone discipline, and 

therefore kids will be more likely to get into trouble because they do not 

fear punishment. Criminologists have found that while both of these lines 

of reasoning have merit, they do not capture the real working dynamics or 

root causes of crime commission. Because crime is complicated, there are

1 

2 Chapter 1

no easy answers. In the explanation of crime, as in real life, things are often 

easier said than done. 

Attempts to explain why people violate rules is not new, and what we 

now call criminology dates back to the middle of the eighteenth century. 

The pioneers in the area of theoretical criminology were trained in a va- 

riety of disciplines. Cesare Beccaria (1738­1794) and Jeremy Bentham 

(1748­1832) were philosophers and students of law; Cesare Lombroso 

(1835­1909), regarded as the founder of criminology, was a physician 

and surgeon; Raffaele Garofalo (1851­1934) was a professor of law and a 

magistrate; Enrico Ferri (1856­1929) was a criminal lawyer and member of 

the Italian parliament. Although people from many disciplines continued 

to make important contributions to the field over the years, theoretical 

criminology found its primary academic home in departments of sociology, 

although it is ever more closely associated with criminal justice depart- 

ments as well. 

The basic goal of theory is explanation. Explanations are important be- 

cause they help us figure out why things are the way they are, and they 

suggest what might be done to change things. In this sense, criminological 

theory's main job is to render crime more understandable. This simple way 

of conceptualizing theory reflects the diversity of applications that theories 

have in criminology. Every academic discipline has theory, for it drives ba- 

sic questions about the subject matter. Indeed, theory is inescapable in vir- 

tually all aspects of life and human activity. Without it "we would be lost in 

space and time" (Pfohl, 1985: 10). Sometimes theories are found in places 

not obvious to the casual observer. For example, when preparing to cross a 

busy street one considers how best to do so by evaluating the flow of traffic 

versus the distance needing to be traveled. When parenting, decisions are 

made about the proper balance to strike between the discipline and support 

of a child. When you made your decision to enroll in college, your under- 

standing of the value of education in the marketplace and in your vision of 

the future helped determine your course of conduct. In all of these cases, 

theories have instructed the decision making by helping to make sense out 

of a situation and to provide options and rationales for action. Theories 

exist in a wide range of popular culture contexts, such as sports (there is 

plenty of theory behind baseball, football, golf, hockey, basketball, run- 

ning, and almost every other sport) and theories of music instruction (how 

notes, rhythms, chords, and harmonies can be meaningfully organized). 

Card and casino games have plenty of mathematical theories that apply to 

player strategies (e.g., card counting in blackjack, probability play in poker); 

and there are even theories about theories, known as metatheories. 

Criminology, the study of lawmaking, lawbreaking, and the reactions 

to crime, is a rich field of study with many ideological, intellectual, and 

methodological disagreements. This partially explains why there are several 

The Basics of Criminological Theory 3

dozen theories in the field, all of which will be reviewed in this text. Many 

of the theories attempt to explain why certain people commit crime. Other 

theories attempt to explain why some places have higher crime rates than 

others, or the social conditions under which crime rates rise and fall. There 

is also a group of theories in criminology that endeavor to explain lawmak- 

ing, the process by which certain behaviors or people are labeled criminal. 

Still other criminological theories attempt to shed light on the purpose of 

criminal justice itself, victimology, and the politics of crime and justice. 

If the purpose of criminological theory is to explain crime, how do crimi- 

nologists judge its success and value? Surely a theory should be logical, test- 

able by research, and defensible in the face of criticism, but let's consider 

some less obvious criteria for evaluating the quality of a theory: 

The theory should shed light on the topic under study. Imagine yourself in 

a dark room. What do you see? Now flip on the light switch. Can you see 

things more clearly? Are things that were otherwise not in view now visible? 

A good theory should function like a light switch. Of course, the brighter 

the light it triggers the better. As you will see in later chapters, some theories 

cast more light than others. 

Theory should specifically point out the relationships between variables. 

A variable is anything that changes or can have different values. Theories 

specify how relevant variables are logically linked to the problem in need of 

explanation. For example, a few theories of crime hold that economic status 

is linked to crime because of shifts and changes in the unemployment rate. 

A theorist adopting this approach would have to specify how changes in the 

independent variable (unemployment rates) impact the frequency and dis- 

tribution of crime (the dependent variable). More generally, a good theory 

correctly predicts the outcomes produced by changing circumstances. 

Theory should be helpful in guiding research and future theoretical develop- 

ments. To some, theory for itself is surely a stimulating intellectual exercise, 

but theory is especially meaningful when it can be articulated and applied 

in the real world. Although it is true that theories have an indirect influence 

on many aspects of criminal justice policy and practice, often the actors 

(lawmakers, police officers, judges, etc.) are not cognizant of the academic 

versions of theory and therefore not necessarily informed of the potential 

or substantiated drawbacks discovered in the academic community. Alter- 

natively, some theorists we have talked to care little about the "practical" 

side of their work, choosing to instead leave those matters to others. Yet, 

putting theory to work in the real world is, overall, a vitally important part 

of criminology (Barlow, 1995). 

Theories should hold up under empirical scrutiny. Flip through any major 

criminology journal and you'll likely find articles that in some way attempt 

to gauge the veracity and explanatory power of a theory. Such tests are im- 

portant in any academic discipline, as theories that have been consistently 

4 Chapter 1

shown to be weak should be reworked or eschewed in favor of better expla- 

nations. However, caution should be used when discussing whether or not 

a study or group of studies has actually "proven" or "disproved" a theory. In 

the social sciences, such absolutism is difficult to achieve, and instead, stud- 

ies can either be said to have "supported" or "not supported" a theory. 

Theories should be parsimonious. Anything said in wordy or complicated 

ways is typically less useful than things said in a straightforward and simple 

manner. One of the reasons undergraduate students often dislike theory is 

because it seems unclear and abstract. The effort to explain many variables 

and their relationships, thereby increasing the scope of a theory, often 

comes at the sacrifice of parsimony. As we shall see, theories differ consider- 

ably in how well they balance the tension between parsimony and scope, 

In addition to considering how we can judge the quality and usefulness 

of theories, we also need to think about the goals of theory more generally. 

One of these is that a new theory should be able to shed a different sort of 

light on the topic under study than those previously applied. In this vein, 

several criminological theories are oppositional. Such theories develop from 

an explicit critique of existing modes of explanation. In the late eighteenth 

century, for example, Classical theory (reviewed in chapter 2) introduced 

the notion of rational choice and, in the process, rebuked supernatural 

explanations of crime. In like manner, Edwin Sutherland introduced his 

theory of differential association through a critique of earlier theories that 

held that poverty was a major cause of crime. More recent theories reviewed 

in this book, such as postmodernism and feminism, are also oppositional, 

for they include fundamental critiques of other explanations of crime as a 

central step in advancing their own arguments. 

Another function of theory is to guide social and criminal justice policy. 

If there is a need to convince anyone that crime is a highly significant social 

problem, consider that in the United States alone billions of dollars are 

spent each year on governmental crime and criminal justice programs and 

institutions. Moreover, each year there are millions of victims of crime and 

the fear of crime can be paralyzing for people whether they have been vic- 

timized or not. The large amount of films and televisions shows based on 

crime and criminal justice themes also suggests that there is a long-standing 

and significant interest in crime (see box 1.1). Perhaps the most compel- 

ling--and to some extent controversial--film on crime in recent years is 

Michael Moore's Bowling for Columbine, which is summarized in box 1.2.

CHARACTERISTICS OF THEORY

Before we examine particular theories of crime and criminality, it is helpful 

to consider how they differ. There are four main ways to classify theory: 

The Basics of Criminological Theory 5

Box 1.1. Crime in Film 

For many years the American public has been fascinated with crime. Some 

of this interest may be because the fear of crime is so widespread. It may 

also be because people enjoy thinking about others taking chances that they 

themselves would never consider. Strong interest in crime is also reflected in 

popular culture, as there are literally thousands of television shows, films, and 

songs that in one way or another relate to crime or criminal justice. 

Regarding crime films, Nicole Rafter (2000: 141) writes in Shots in the Mir- 

ror: Crime Films and Society that the reason for their popularity is often tied to 

the nature of the heroes:

Viewers delight in watching characters who can escape from tight spots and out- 

smart their enemies, all the while tossing down scotch and flibbing jibes. Good- 

guy heroes please us by out-tricking the tricky, tracking down the psychos, solving 

impossible mysteries. Bad-guy heroes appeal by being bolder, nastier, crueler, 

and tougher than we dare to be by saying what they want, taking what they want, 

despising weaklings, and breaking the law with impunity.

Our examination of the all-time highest grossing films in the United States 

reveals that at least a quarter of them contain some kind of crime theme. The 

same is true with the American Film Institute's Top 100 Films of the American 

century. Organized crime films seem especially popular, as movies such as 

GoodFellas, Scarface, and The Godfather series rank high in both popular and 

critics' lists. 

Rafter (2000) proposes that crime films not only reflect society's interest in 

rule breaking but that they also provide a way to frame the causes of crime as 

well. For example, if films depict someone committing a crime because of an 

addiction to hard drugs, viewers may come to believe that this is a cause of 

crime in the real world. As you read through the following chapters, keep a 

crime movie or two in mind and see if any of the academic explanations are 

similar to those provided in the films.

(1) by level of analysis, (2) paradigmatic structure, (3) range of explana- 

tion, and (4) by causal locus. We shall review each of these classifications 

in turn. 

Levels of Analysis. Some theories deal mainly with large-scale social pat- 

terns such as social change or the social, economic, and political organiza- 

tion of society. Crime is viewed as a property of whole groups of people 

rather than as a property of individuals. Because they focus on how societ- 

ies are organized, these theories usually relate crime to social structure. They 

are called macro level theories, but this does not mean they lack relevance 

for the everyday lives of individuals. Rather, such theories attempt to make 

sense of the everyday behavior of people in relation to conditions and trends 

6 Chapter 1

Box 1.2. Bowling for Columbine as Pop Criminology 

Michael Moore's Oscar-winning film, Bowling for Columbine, is regarded by 

many as one of the most powerful nonacademic treatments of real-world 

crime to date. In the film, Moore raises fundamental questions about the 

relationship between social inequality, opportunity, and violence in the 

United States by exploring destructive individual, corporate, state, and spe- 

cial-interest-group practices and how they contribute to both interpersonal 

and social injury. Moore frames crime, especially gun violence, as the result 

of many factors, including youth alienation, racism, and poverty. He draws 

attention to the high level of gun violence in the United States by providing 

a series of powerful images, interviews, stories, and biographies. Among the 

more poignant of these are:

· An interview with musician Marilyn Manson about those who blame 

him for the Columbine shootings and similar forms of violence. 

· Chilling video that until recently had only been viewed by the parents 

of children killed or injured at Columbine. The video shows dozens of 

students panicked during the assault by Klebold and Harris. 

· Juxtaposing the U.S. government's bombing of an aspirin factory in Kos- 

ovo on the same morning that Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold slaughtered 

thirteen people at Columbine High School. Predictably, Moore argues, 

then-President Clinton only defined one of those actions as violent. 

· Taking two young men--one in a wheelchair and the other with a bullet 

still embedded in his chest, who were shot by Klebold and Harris--to 

Kmart corporate headquarters to demand that the company stop selling 

handgun ammunition. After the predictable corporate neutralization of 

the situation, Moore and the two young men return a few days later with 

the media in tow to again demand some action. Several days later Kmart 

announces the phasing out of the selling of such ammunition. 

· The story of a woman who left her son to live with her brother because 

she was forced to work two jobs under Michigan's "welfare to work" 

program. Her son took a loaded handgun from his uncle's dwelling and 

then shot and killed one of his first-grade classmates. 

· Moore implies that if the state of Michigan's policy was not so strict, the 

boy would have been with his mother and unable to access a firearm. 

· Media obsession with the reporting of violent crime. Using the case of 

the first-grader shooting, Moore shows how media agents frame stories 

without consideration of the effects of poverty on individual decision 

making and behavior. In another instance, Moore asks a field reporter 

what would be more attractive: covering a "guy with a gun" or a "baby 

that is drowning." The reporter picked the former. 

· A friendly Moore randomly opening the doors of homes in Toronto and 

asking the residents why they really weren't scared when he appeared. 

The Basics of Criminological Theory 7

· Moore and sociologist Barry Glassner comfortably standing at the cor- 

ner of Normandy and Florence in Los Angeles. They are unable to see 

the famous "Hollywood" sign because of massively thick air pollution. 

Moore asks a cop standing by if he could arrest the people responsible 

for poisoning his lungs. After a mumble or two, the cop walks away.

While Moore's film does not represent anything close to an academic 

breakthrough in the study of crime, it does present a number of compelling 

visual portraits of victims and offenders that encourages viewers to think 

about the causes and consequences of crime and violence. And while Moore 

has come under fire for the film's political slant, there are those in criminol- 

ogy who see this as unproblematic, as many theories of crime reflect ideologi- 

cal beliefs, as we explore later in box 1.3.

that transcend the individual, and even the individual's neighborhood and 

community. A macro level analysis might also include the study of the so- 

cial origins of criminal definitions as well as how their enforcement affects 

group life, including crime itself. Some macro level theorists are interested 

in why certain events and people are labeled criminal and others not; other 

scholars look into the process of constructing criminal definitions itself-- 

among scientists, perhaps, or on the street or in the courtroom. 

Some other theories focus on the ways individuals interact with others 

and with the groups to which they belong. These are called micro level 

theories, and most share an interest in the way social interaction creates 

and transmits meanings. They emphasize the social processes by which 

people and events become criminal. For example, as people move from 

situation to situation, they are confronted with all sorts of messages, rules, 

and expectations, some of which are not obvious. Through a process of 

sending, receiving, and interpreting messages, individuals help construct 

the social reality of which they are a part. 

Figure 1.1 provides one way to think about levels of analysis through 

concentric circles. Criminality is at the center, and around it are some of its 

influences, such as peer group associations and broader social forces such 

as the economy. 

In reality, some theories do not neatly fit into these categories, while oth- 

ers seem to bridge the two levels. Laub and Sampson (1988), for example, 

predict that structural factors such as household crowding, economic 

dependence, residential mobility, and parental crime influence the delin- 

quent behavior of children through their effects on the way parents relate 

to their children day by day. Sociological theories that attempt to explain 

8 Chapter 1

Figure 1.1. Levels of Analysis, Crime, and Criminality

"micro-macro" dynamics between individuals and society often take this 

approach. Indeed, it is a daunting but important task to explain how larger 

social forces shape institutions and groups and ultimately find expression 

in the interactions of everyday life. 

Paradigms and Criminological Theory. Paradigms are broad assumptions 

and presuppositions about the nature of social life (ontology) and how knowl- 

edge is to be gained about social life (epistemology). Paradigms are far more 

fundamental than theories or perspectives--they are indeed the foundation 

upon which theories are built. There are two basic paradigms in criminology: 

the positivist paradigm and the social constructionist paradigm. While 

some have argued that there are also Marxist, postmodernist, and feminist 

paradigms, we see these approaches as multidimensional. That is, they com- 

bine elements of both the positivist and constructionist paradigms. 

The Basics of Criminological Theory 9

The positivist paradigm holds that crime can be known and explained 

through the scientific method. Crime is considered an objective condition, 

or social fact, that can be analyzed and understood as an independent 

phenomenon, regardless of differing ideas about its development and con- 

stitution (Michalowski, 1985). A positivist theory of crime asks questions 

such as "What are the concrete cause(s) of crime?" and "How can crime be 

controlled or reduced?" 

In contrast, the social constructionist paradigm does not assume the 

objective existence of crime. It emphasizes instead how crime, law, and 

criminal justice are differently defined and conceptualized by social actors. 

Thus, the term social constructionist. To these theorists, crime is not an objec- 

tive condition, nor is the law, the criminal, or the criminal justice system. 

Criminologists operating from the social constructionist paradigm might 

build theories to explore questions such as "Who defines crime and for 

what purpose?," "How and why are labels attached to certain people and 

to certain acts at particular moments in time?," and "What are the conse- 

quences of the application of labels to people and groups over time?" 

General and Restricted Theories. Another important way that theories 

differ is in the range of phenomena they try to explain. General theories 

are meant to explain a broad range of facts. They are also not restricted to 

any one place or time. A general theory of crime, for example, is one that 

explains many (if not all) types of crime and can be applied to a variety of 

social and historical settings. 

Although some theories in criminology purport to explain all or most 

crime, few really do meet a sufficiently generalizable level of analysis to 

satisfy crucial questions of causality or correlation. Sometimes this results 

in the production of restricted theories, explanations designed to apply to 

a narrower range of facts. A restricted theory of crime might apply to one 

type of crime or to various types under a limited set of circumstances. Most 

modern theories in criminology are regarded as restricted, but the develop- 

ment of general theory remains an important goal, and some recent efforts 

are promising. 

Distant and Proximate Causes. Causation is not a simple concept, espe- 

cially in the social and behavioral sciences. Think about your own behavior 

for a moment. Right now you are reading this book. How and why you 

are reading could probably be explained in many different ways; in other 

words, various causes might be at work. Some of the causes are closer or 

more immediate--called proximate causes--while others are more distant, 

or background, causes. A proximate cause might be that your professor just 

assigned this chapter to be read before your next class, which is tomorrow. 

An even more proximate (and perhaps more powerful!) cause might be that 

your parents just told you that they would buy you a new car if you got an 

"A" in your criminology class. A more distant cause is the expectation that 

10 Chapter 1

you will follow your mother's footsteps and become a lawyer. An even more 

distant cause may lie in the fact that a university education is a requirement 

for many professional careers and increasingly for other jobs as well. 

You look out the window and notice that a friend is not cracking the 

books like you. No surprise, since she's not a college student. But then you 

wonder why not. Because you know her you comfortably reject personal 

explanations based on her intelligence, her drive, and her commitment to 

getting ahead, and start thinking about background factors. You remember 

that neither of her parents has a university education; you recall that she has 

four brothers and sisters and that only her father works outside the home, 

as a house painter. You remember that one of her brothers is disabled and 

that a few years ago the father had an accident and was out of work for two 

years. You start thinking about other university students you know and 

about high school friends who never went to college or dropped out. 

Even though it is only a small sample of people, you begin to see pat- 

terns. You realize that a university education is explained by a combination 

of proximate and distant causes, some of which relate to the individual, 

some to the community and larger society, and some to the social situa- 

tions people move in and out of in the course of their lives. You recognize, 

as well, that some causes seem to have a direct impact while the effect of 

others is more indirect, working through their impact on something else. 

Some causes are both direct and indirect. For example, the impact of pov- 

erty on behavior may be indirect through its effects on family relationships 

and direct through its impact on opportunities and access to them.

IDEOLOGY AND CRIMINOLOGICAL THEORY

The way criminologists visualize their field and its subject matter reflects 

their particular set of beliefs and values. These beliefs and values--called 

ideology--affect decisions about what to investigate, what questions to 

ask, and what to do with the knowledge gained. The intrusion of ideology 

is a normal aspect of the academic enterprise, and the study of crime is no 

exception. There are a number of competing ideological perspectives in 

criminology: conservative, liberal, and critical. The latter approach includes 

feminist, Marxist, postmodernist, cultural, and peacemaking theories, 

which we review more fully in chapter 6. 

Conservative Criminology. Conservative criminology is identified with 

the view that criminal law is a codification of moral precepts and that 

people who break the law are somehow psychologically or morally defec- 

tive. Crimes are seen as threats to law-abiding members of society and to 

the social order on which their safety and security depend. The "right" 

questions to ask about crime include: "How are morally defective persons 

The Basics of Criminological Theory 11

produced?" and "How can society protect itself against them?" The causes 

of crime are located in the characteristics of individuals. The solution to 

the crime problem is couched in terms of a return to basic values wherein 

good wins over evil. For example, consider Gottfredson and Hirschi's 

(1990) self-control theory, a moderately conservative explanation of crime 

discussed later in this text. According to this theory, individuals with low 

self-control are most likely to commit crimes. The traits associated with 

low self-control include: short-time perspective; low diligence, persistence, 

and tenacity; a tendency to be "adventuresome, active, and physical"; a 

tendency to be "self-centered, indifferent, or insensitive to the suffering and 

needs of others"; and a tendency to have "unstable marriages, friendships, 

and job profiles" (Gottfredson and Hirschi, 1990: 91). The major cause of 

low self-control, according to the authors, is "ineffective parenting," a claim 

that has much more support in conservative than liberal circles. Until well 

into the twentieth century, most criminological thinking was conservative. 

In lay circles, the conservative view enjoyed a considerable boost during the 

Reagan and Bush years, and to some extent continued to enjoy popularity 

throughout the Clinton and Bush administrations. 

Liberal Criminology. Liberal criminology began to emerge as a force 

during the late 1930s and early 1940s, and it has remained dominant 

ever since. The most influential versions of liberal criminology explain 

criminal behavior either in terms of the way society is organized (social 

structure) or in terms of the way people acquire social attributes (social 

process). Social structure theories include strain theory, cultural transmis- 

sion theory, and conflict theory. Strain theory argues that when people 

find they cannot achieve valued goals through socially approved means, 

they experience stress and frustration, which in turn may lead to crime. 

Cultural transmission theory draws attention to the impact on individuals 

of the values, norms, and lifestyles to which they are exposed day to day. 

Delinquency and crime are learned through exposure to a criminogenic 

culture, a culture that encourages crime. According to conflict theory, soci- 

ety is characterized by conflict, and criminality is a product of differences 

in power exercised when people compete for scarce resources or clash over 

conflicting interests. 

Social process theories include associational theory, control theory, and 

labeling theory. Associational theories assert that people become criminal 

through close association with others (family members, friends, coworkers) 

who are criminal. Control theory asserts that crime and delinquency result 

"when an individual's bond to society is weak or broken" (Hirschi, 1971: 

16). More room is allowed for individual deviance when social controls 

are weak. Labeling theory suggests that some people become criminals 

because they are influenced by the way other people react to them. People 

who are repeatedly punished for "bad" behavior may eventually accept the 

12 Chapter 1

idea that they are bad, and their subsequent behavior is consistent with 

that identity. 

Critical Criminology. Liberal criminologists locate criminogenic forces in 

the organizational and routine social processes of society, yet they do not 

call for any change in its basic economic, cultural, or political structure. 

Critical criminologists (sometimes called radical criminologists) generally 

do. From a Marxist theoretical perspective, crime and criminal justice have 

reinforced and strengthened the power of the state and the wealthy over 

the poor, working class, and developing world. To some Marxists, crime 

and criminality are the products of the exploitative character of monopoly 

capitalism, and efforts to control crime are poorly disguised attempts to 

divert attention from the crimes committed by the state, corporations, 

and capitalists. While Marxism is but one school of thought within critical 

criminology, the overall approach has largely been shaped by Marx's ideas, 

such as his call to work for social justice, encapsulated in his dictum: "The 

philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point, 

however, is to change it" (quoted in Tucker, 1978: 143). 

Feminist theories in criminology focus on how gender relations and 

patriarchy constitute and impact the nature, extent, and distribution of 

crime, responses to crime, and victimization. Theoretical criminology, like 

most academic areas, has historically been male-centered, sexist, and either 

ignorant or dismissive of issues related to gender inequality and discrimi- 

nation. Since the 1970s, however, there has been a substantial increase in 

the study of the gendered nature of the causes and consequences of crime, 

although the extent to which more radical forms of feminist criminology 

have impacted mainstream criminology is considerably less than that of 

liberal forms of feminism. 

Another critical criminological approach is postmodernism, which em- 

ploys notions of chaos and unpredictability in the understanding of crime 

and questions conventional ideas about the value of science in explaining 

crime (Ferrell, 2003; Henry and Milovanovic, 2003). Postmodernism is 

clearly an oppositional theory and is really a loose collection of "themes 

and tendencies" that include the rejection of scientific methods, the notion 

of Truth, and the legitimacy of the state (Schwartz and Friedrichs, 1994). 

Criminological postmodernism also sensitizes us to the power of words, es- 

pecially the so-called crime speak, which is how through language we think 

about and define the "reality" of crime and justice (Arrigo, 1998; Borkin, 

Henry, and Milovanovic, 2006; Henry and Milovanovic, 1996; 1999). For 

example, the phrase "war on crime" suggests more a more militaristic than 

humanist strategy to reduce crime. 

Critical criminology has also given rise to what is known as peacemak- 

ing criminology. Peacemaking criminologists theorize on how to bring 

victims, offenders, and communities together in the harmonious resolution 

The Basics of Criminological Theory 13

of conflict. Borrowing heavily from the ideas of humanist thinkers such as 

Jane Addams and Mohandas Gandhi, this perspective holds substantial ap- 

plicability to crime and criminal justice policy, most notably in the form of 

restorative justice. 

All of these ideological positions--conservative, liberal, and radical/ 

critical--can be found in the various theories reviewed in the next several 

chapters. As you can see, there is much variety within theories of crime, and 

in the real world of criminology, political ideology is partly responsible for 

this (see box 1.3). But, there is much variety in lots of things. Consider, for 

example, tactics used in sports. Just as there are different ways to catch fish, 

pitch a baseball, or hit a golf ball, there are different ways to approach the 

study of crime. Further, not all theories of crime (like baseball pitches) are 

suitable at all times or in all places. What pitcher would only have one pitch 

in his repertoire? What angler would only have one lure? And what golfer 

would use a putter on the tee? The same holds true with theories of crime,

Box 1.3. Political Ideology and Criminologists' Theoretical Preferences 

A survey of criminologists lends considerable support to the notion that 

political ideology is related to theoretical preferences. In Walsh and Ellis's 

(1999) survey of 138 scholars of crime, 70 identified themselves as liberal, 35 

as moderates, 23 as conservative, and 10 as radical. 

The study found that criminologists who regarded themselves as more po- 

litically conservative or moderate were more likely to favor theories that focus 

on low self-control and poor disciplinary practices as important causes of 

crime. Liberals were more likely to favor theories that focus on environmental 

factors that lead to crime, such as economic and educational inequality. Criti- 

cal/radical criminologists were even stronger in their belief that these factors 

are important in the understanding of crime. Moreover, while radicals sup- 

ported mostly Marxist and conflict theories, conservatives supported theories 

that do not implicate larger social factors in the causes of crime. Not surpris- 

ingly, those claiming to be liberal or moderate "fall in between" radical and 

conservatives (Walsh and Ellis, 1999: 14). 

The authors indicate that it is unclear whether political ideology causes 

theoretical preference or whether theory influences a person's ideology. This 

is an interesting question, for if only ideology causes theoretical preference, to 

what degree can criminology be "scientific"? If, however, certain theories are 

found to be supported in the research and this causes a change in ideology, 

does this mean that the discipline is more "objective" and committed only 

to the searching of truth? Unfortunately, the answers to these questions are 

not easy, but what this study points out is that indeed criminology is (and 

perhaps has always been) "highly fragmented" by political ideology (Walsh 

and Ellis, 1999: 14). 

14 Chapter 1

as criminologists have devised a number of different theories to explain 

what causes crime. But as you will discover, the large number of theories 

in criminology is not necessarily negative, as crime itself is widely variable, 

changing both in time and space. 

Another reason that there are so many criminological theories is that 

crime is an immensely variant phenomenon. From a strictly legalistic 

standpoint, crime includes a huge range of offenses, from property crimes 

like burglary and theft to violent crimes such as murder, rape, and assault. 

Criminologists also study white-collar crimes, which involve the violation 

of trust in the context of work. Examples of such crimes include embezzle- 

ment, environmental contamination, violations of worker safety laws, and 

genocide. With such a variety of behaviors that fall under the label "crime," 

you can see that it is a daunting task to try to intelligently explain the causes 

and correlates of these various behaviors. But this is exactly what many 

criminologists attempt to do. 

The fact that there are numerous criminological theories is also reflected 

in the sheer complexity of the behaviors and actions under study by crimi- 

nologists. If it is criminal behavior to be explained, must behavior more 

generally also be explained? If so, we are asking ourselves to accomplish a 

feat that scholars in all sorts of disciplines (e.g., biology, psychology, sociol- 

ogy, philosophy) have studied for centuries. It should come as no surprise 

that many theories of crime do in fact owe intellectual debts to other fields 

of study, since criminology is perhaps one of the more interdisciplinary 

fields of academic inquiry today. Yet the goal of explaining why humans 

behave the way they do is still elusive. This is in part due to the fact that 

there are so many different aspects of the human and social condition that 

need to be considered as potential factors that contribute to behavior and 

whether or not there are unique causes of criminal behavior.

CHAPTER SUMMARY

The main purpose of theory is explanation. Criminologists create, test, 

and apply theories in order to understand the nature, extent, definition, 

and consequences of crime. Theories should be able to shed light on an 

understudied or poorly understood problem, specify the relationship be- 

tween variables, guide criminal justice policy, be economical, and hold 

up to empirical scrutiny. Theories are classified by their level of analysis, 

paradigmatic assumptions, causal focus, and scope. Macro theories deal 

with large-scale social patterns; micro theories focus on the interaction of 

individuals and on the manner in which meanings are created and trans- 

mitted in social situations. General theories explain a broad range of facts; 

restricted theories apply to a narrower range of facts. A general theory thus 

The Basics of Criminological Theory 15

subsumes more restricted theories. However, the development of general 

theory is extremely difficult, and most modern theories in criminology are 

regarded as restricted. Paradigms structure how theorists go about viewing 

the world in a fundamental way. The social fact paradigm assumes the 

objective existence of social phenomena, while the social constructionist 

perspective guides the investigation of subjective, interactive, and defini- 

tional processes. 

Theories reflect the values, beliefs, and academic disciplines of those 

who propose them. Conservative criminological theories explain crime in 

terms of the moral or psychological defectiveness of individuals. Liberal 

theories explain crime in terms of normal social conditions and processes 

that characterize group life. Critical theories explain crime in terms of the 

exploitative character of capitalist society, patriarchy, or modernism. Crime 

is an immensely complex and variant phenomenon, and there are equally 

complex and variant attempts to explain it.

KEY TERMS

critical criminologists 

conservative criminology 

distant causes 

general theories 

liberal criminology 

macro level theories 

micro level theories 

paradigms 

positivist paradigm 

proximate causes 

restricted theories 

social constructionist paradigm 

theory

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

1. Scholars treasure the function and importance of theory, but this 

word is generally not considered to be exciting or valuable outside of 

academic circles. Why might this be and how can the perception be 

changed? 

2. Why is the concept of "levels of analysis" crucial to theorizing about 

crime? Do you think that one level of analysis is more popular than 

others in the general public's thinking about the causes of crime? 

16 Chapter 1

3. Paradigms represent fundamental starting points for the understand- 

ing of any social scientific phenomenon, including crime. To what 

extent do you see either of the paradigms being more helpful and 

accurate than the other? 

4. Some scholars believe that crime is political in all sorts of ways. Given 

the role of ideology discussed in this chapter, how do you see politics 

framing or entering into discussions of the causes of crime and crime 

control policy?

ACTIVITIES

1. Search the Republican, Democratic, and Green Party websites for the 

word "crime." Compare and contrast the different policies and ap- 

proaches on these websites to the liberal, conservative, and radical 

theoretical perspectives on crime. 

2. Watch Michael Moore's film Bowling for Columbine and identify the 

ideological components of the film as well as the extent to which at- 

tention is given to the three levels of analysis. Is Moore's analysis of 

crime more political than scientific? 

3. Conduct an informal poll and ask people about their opinion on the 

causes of crime. Analyze their responses, looking for the presence of 

ideological assumptions and bias. 

2 

Classical and Rational 

Choice Theories

Perry Ferrell, former lead vocalist of the band Jane's Addiction, sings of a 

simple rationale for shoplifting in the song "Been Caught Stealing": Why 

pay for something if you can just take it? Indeed, why not do things that 

give you pleasure as long as you won't get in too much trouble for it? This 

kind of reasoning has intrigued criminologists, and whole theories of crime 

have been developed around the idea that people are rational because 

their behavior is a result of their quest to maximize pleasure and minimize 

pain. This is a fairly popular way of thinking about crime, as the phrase "it 

comes down to individual choice" is a comment we have heard many times 

from our criminology students. The logic behind this statement is that al- 

though environmental conditions can affect a person's views and behavior, 

ultimately an individual makes a choice to act, including in ways that are 

criminal. Therefore, the individual should be at the center of attention 

when attempting to explain the causes of crime. Modern criminological 

theory is no stranger to this line of reasoning, although it is not simply a 

matter of focusing on the person to the exclusion of all background factors. 

The rational choice theory of decision making predicts that individuals 

think about the expected rewards, costs, and risks of alternative actions and 

choose actions best suited to their goals. If such an explanation has merit, it 

should be revealed not only in the choice to commit crime but also in the 

choice to commit one kind of crime rather than another and in the decision 

to direct crime against one victim rather than another. Before we discuss the 

foundations of rational choice theories, read box 2.1 and consider the idea 

of rationality as it applies to attending a college class.

17 

18 Chapter 2

Box 2.1. How Rational Is Coming to Class? 

Think for a moment about your decision to attend a particular class meeting. 

Using rational choice theory, we would expect that this decision was based on 

your perception of the rewards and costs of doing so. What are some of the 

more immediate factors you might consider? Surely it would seem beneficial 

to come to class if the instructor rewards attendance, bases exams on lectures, 

or makes the class interesting. Some costs might be that you are tired and 

could use the sleep, you don't find the class interesting, or you think that the 

material to be covered in a particular class won't make much of a difference 

in your grade. 

As college professors, we have noticed that attendance in our classes fol- 

lows an interesting pattern. The first few weeks of class tend to have better 

attendance rates than those weeks in the middle of the semester. We also find 

that attendance peaks in a class right before an exam, while it decreases the 

class session immediately after the exam. Friday classes are almost always the 

most poorly attended unless an exam is being given. From your experience, 

how do you think such patterns can be explained through rational choice 

theory? 

There may be larger, less immediate costs and benefits that enter into the 

equation as well. Perhaps you are so committed to the goal of graduating 

from college that you are willing to sacrifice being understimulated or poorly 

rewarded in a particular class. Even though you might have little to gain from 

attending the class, you might think that not doing so would increase the 

risk of failure in some way. On the other hand, a person may not be all that 

committed to school and so the thought of missing an important class is not 

that big of a deal. Further consider that many college students work outside of 

class and have dependent family members, and that on some days work and 

family may have to take precedence over school. Consider further that every 

hour you spend in the classroom is an hour you are not earning a wage. Stu- 

dents seem to be willing to justify that cost by thinking that in the long run, 

a college education will help them make more money. These are only a few 

things that could enter into the decision-making process involved in coming 

to class. Can you think of others? 

Also, rare is the person who actually sits down with pencil and paper and 

meticulously calculates the overall costs and benefits of going to a class, or 

of engaging in criminal behavior for that matter. Further, costs and benefits 

are bounded by space and time, and their relativity only underscores the 

fact that their salience can vary from individual to individual and context 

to context. 

For further reading on the relativity of rationality in criminal decision 

making, consult Greg Pogarsky's (2002) "Identifying 'Deterrable' Offenders: 

Implications for Research on Deterrence," Justice Quarterly 19(3): 431­532. 

Classical and Rational Choice Theories 19

CLASSICAL THEORY

The end of the eighteenth century in Europe was a time of great transforma- 

tion. As the Industrial Revolution motored on, populations swelled; people 

moved from the country to the city; worked for wages rather than for them- 

selves or rent; and a new political economy, capitalism, acted to fundamen- 

tally restructure the more simplified arrangements of barter exchange and 

feudalist social organization. On the political level, the traditional author- 

ity of monarchies was under attack as political radicals, some of whom 

were philosophers and scholars involved in the Enlightenment intellectual 

movement, championed the ideas of democracy, rationality, and free will. 

Intellectuals began to view people's behavior as motivated by their rational 

choice, not as a result of some supernatural or demonological force. The 

view of human nature was that people possessed free will and were guided 

by a sort of cost/benefit analysis; thus, it was proposed that people choose 

their own destiny rather than being forced by circumstance or demons into 

action. Previously popular supernatural explanations of behavior lost their 

popularity rather quickly in the wake of the Enlightenment (Pfohl, 1985). 

Cesare Beccaria and Jeremy Bentham, both products of this new intellec- 

tual movement, were among the first European scholars to write on issues 

pertaining to crime and criminal justice. Their writings were not only di- 

rected toward explaining crime but also on how a rational, fair, and demo- 

cratic criminal justice system could be designed. The so-called Classical 

School had two main foci: (1) a program for changes in the administration 

of justice, and (2) a limited theory of crime causation. 

Regarding the relationship between the state and the control of its citizens, 

Beccaria (1993: 9) wrote that: ". . . every act of authority of one man (sic) over 

another, for which there is not an absolute necessity, is tyrannical. It is upon 

this then that the sovereign's right to punish crimes is founded." Essentially, 

Beccaria and Bentham subscribed to the philosophy of utilitarianism, which 

holds that policies and deeds, particularly those associated with the govern- 

ment, should provide the greatest good for the greatest number of people. 

Applying this reasoning to law, Bentham (1973: 162) wrote:

The end of law is, to augment happiness. The general object which all laws have, 

or ought have, in common, is to augment the total happiness of the community; 

and therefore, in the first place, to exclude, as far as may be, every thing that 

tends to subtract from that happiness: in other words, to exclude mischief.

The reasoning of Becarria and Bentham is compatible with common-day 

notions as the presumption of innocence, judicial neutrality, and propor- 

tionality in sentencing. They were opposed to the torture of prisoners and 

20 Chapter 2

capital punishment. Further, Classical School scholars emphasized that 

punishment was a "necessary evil" and only justifiable if based on reason- 

able, humane, and rational processes. More specifically, Bentham (1973: 

162) believed that punishment should not be given when it is:

1. Groundless (the act is not really mischievous) 

2. Inefficacious (ineffective as a deterrent) 

3. Too expensive (where the trouble it causes exceeds the benefits) 

4. Needless (where the crime may be prevented or dissolved in some 

other way)

Bentham and Becarria also emphasized that punishment should be 

proportional to the harm caused to society, not tailored to the individual 

victim's preferences or the particular qualities of the individual offender. 

This approach is encapsulated in the commonly used phrase "let the pun- 

ishment fit the crime." In this way, Classical theory's main focus is on the 

crime, not the offender. All persons were assumed to be operating under 

the same kind of rationality. 

Classical School scholars also provided a rough theory of crime cau- 

sation. They believed that criminal behavior resulted from the rational 

calculation of costs and benefits associated with the criminal act. The idea 

that people are hedonistic (pleasure seeking) guided their work. A central 

prediction stemming from this idea is that people would be more likely to 

commit a crime if the pleasure (perceived benefits) from the behavior out- 

weighed the pain (perceived costs). Classical School thinkers thought that 

the most likely "cost" in the equation would be detection, apprehension, 

and punishment. 

Not just any old punishment will do, they said. The threatened pun- 

ishment for criminal behavior was thought to work best as a deterrent 

if it was (a) certain, (b) proportionate to the harm caused by the crime, 

and (c) swiftly imposed. If these conditions were met, it would mean an 

individual would be less likely to commit a crime if s/he knew that they 

would be caught and punished (certainty) soon after committing the 

crime (swiftness), and if the punishment mirrored the seriousness of the 

crime. Beccaria and Bentham considered severity to be the least important 

deterrent. 

It is conventional to distinguish between two classes of potential offend- 

ers who may refrain from crime because they fear punishment:

1. People who have directly experienced punishment for something they 

did in the past. If these people refrain from future criminal activity 

because they fear being punished again, this is specific deterrence. 

Classical and Rational Choice Theories 21

2. People who have not experienced punishment themselves but are de- 

terred from crime by the fear that they might get the same punishment 

experienced by others. This is general deterrence.

The distinction is important because the deterrent effect of experienced 

punishments may be quite different from that of threatened punishments. 

When a judge hands down a sentence and tells the offender, "This ought to 

make you think twice next time," the judge is thinking of the penalty as a 

specific deterrent; if the judge says, "I intend to make an example of you," 

the penalty's general deterrent value is being emphasized. Box 2.2 explores 

some modern-day research on the topic of deterrence.

Box 2.2. Modern-day Research on Deterrence 

Over two hundred years have passed since Bentham and Beccaria laid the 

foundation of the deterrence theory of punishment, and their ideas are still 

relevant today. During that time a conventional wisdom emerged that pun- 

ishment deters if it is certain, swift, and reasonably severe, but modern science 

has not confirmed that wisdom. 

The inability of the scientific community to substantiate--or reject--the 

conventional wisdom (and political belief) that punishment deters crime 

must be difficult for many people to understand. Most of us can think of 

anecdotal illustrations of deterrence, from our own personal experience 

perhaps or from hearing about other people who refrained from commit- 

ting a crime because they were fearful of the consequences. But serious 

researchers find that the complexities of the subject present formidable 

obstacles to developing conclusive answers (Cohen-Cole, Durlauf, Fagan, 

and Nagin, 2006; Gibbs and Firebaugh, 1990; Pratt, Cullen, Blevins, Daigle, 

and Madenson, 2006; Stafford and Warr, 1993). This is not to say that there 

has been absolutely no support in the literature of deterrence theory. Limited 

support of deterrence has been found in the areas of auto theft (Di Tella 

and Schardrodsky, 2004), drunk driving (Davey, Freeman, Palk, Lavelle, and 

Rowland, 2008; Piquero and Paternoster, 1998; Walker, 1998), luggage theft 

(Trivizas and Smith, 1997), and crime trends more generally (D'Alessio and 

Stolzenberg, 1998). 

Most surprising, perhaps, is the fact that more than fifty years of research 

has yet to uncover a deterrent effect for capital punishment (Archer and 

Gartner, 1984; Bailey, 1998; Cochran, Chamlin, Mitchell, and Smith, 1994; 

Peterson and Bailey, 1991). There is no good research that supports the oft- 

heard claim that there would be fewer murders if more killers were executed 

rather than sent to prison. Murders are often unplanned, spur-of-the-moment 

attacks, and alcohol is usually a factor in them. But even among hardened 

criminals who may think about risks in planning their crimes (Horney and 

22 Chapter 2

Marshall, 1992), fear of punishment does not seem to be a major factor in 

their decisions (Cromwell, 1999; Shover, 1999; Wright and Decker, 1994; 

1997). 

On balance, the threat of formal punishments is much less worrisome to 

potential offenders than the threat of informal punishments imposed by rela- 

tives, friends, coworkers, or other close acquaintances (Cullen, 1994; Tittle, 

1980; Paternoster, Saltzman, Waldo, and Chiricos, 1983 and 1985; Braith- 

waite, 1989). The average law-abiding citizen is probably more concerned 

about losing a good job, being ostracized by friends and coworkers, and 

alienating family members (Shoham, 1970). Pogarsky (2002: 432) reminds 

us that some people are acute conformists, so that moral inhibition or worries 

over social isolation "may so effectively inhibit conduct that considerations of 

cost and benefit are not even brought into play." 

One criminologist has argued that punishment may backfire under certain 

circumstances, and this may explain the lack of a deterrent relationship be- 

tween crime rates and punishment (Sherman, 1993). Sherman suggests that 

if punishment is seen as unfair or excessive, an attitude of "defiance" emerges. 

This defiance undermines any deterrent effect the threat of punishment might 

have had. It can also undermine any lingering respect for the law--a consid- 

eration in the sentencing of youthful and first-time offenders. Such a reaction 

has also been noted by Gilligan (1996) in his research on incarcerated mur- 

derers, and to some extent by Tittle (1995). 

To summarize, deterrence clearly does not score high marks as the basis for 

a sentencing policy and crime control. Yet the lack of strong evidence does 

not mean that deterrence theory is disproved. The prospect of swift, certain, 

and relatively severe punishment may deter some individuals from commit- 

ting crimes under some circumstances. The difficulty is figuring out who those 

individuals are and which circumstances count. Still, rather than reject the 

deterrence doctrine, more research on these complex issues would seem the 

more prudent course. It would also seem appropriate for politicians, judges, 

and other court officials to refrain from claiming that harsher punishments 

will deter crime. The bulk of deterrence research simply does not support this 

claim.

Beccaria and Bentham's ideas have greatly influenced criminal justice 

policy both in the United States and abroad. Some of their views on the 

causes of crime and the criminal justice system have in a sense "stood the 

test of time," as deterrence and rational choice models of decision making 

are popular with the general public and many people working within the 

criminal justice system. But while seemingly related policies like "three 

strikes and you're out" and long mandatory minimums for minor offenses 

are often said to be guided by Classical theory, they in actuality may be 

inconsistent with the original theory, especially if the punishment is too 

Classical and Rational Choice Theories 23

harsh for the crime. Ironically, the Classical School's emphasis on due 

process (such as fair trials and the right to appeal) is not as popularly sup- 

ported in the United States.

THE ECONOMIC MODEL OF CRIME

Economists have advanced more contemporary formulations of the classi- 

cal view (Cherry and List, 2002; Cornwell and Trumbull, 1994), and chief 

among them is Gary Becker's (1968) work on crime, which was cited when 

he received the Nobel Prize for Economics in 1993. Many complicated mod- 

els have been developed (Baltagi, 2006), but they all share certain key ideas. 

First, the approach assumes that individuals choose to commit crimes. Second, 

it is assumed that people choose the same course of action when confronted 

by the same alternatives. This is rationality as economists use the term. The 

choice itself is guided by maximization of satisfactions, or "utility." 

Individuals evaluate possible activities according to utility. The utility of 

a crime is the expected gain weighed against the probability of being caught 

and convicted and the monetary costs, real and foregone, if convicted. 

When the expected utility of a criminal act is greater than the utility of a 

noncriminal alternative, the economic model predicts that the crime will 

be selected. 

The classical model of criminal behavior assumes that crime follows a 

calculation in which the perceived rewards, costs, and risks of alternative 

actions are compared. In itself this is a bold assumption because it not only 

implies that people are capable of making such calculations but also that 

they have the information necessary to do so. 

Economists who develop models of criminal behavior often ignore 

noncriminal alternatives, concentrating instead on variations of estimated 

costs and benefits associated with crimes. The likelihood of a particular 

crime (robbery, for instance) is then calculated in terms of variations in the 

probabilities of arrest, conviction, and imprisonment and in the economic 

losses (offenders' gains) for robbery, compared with other predatory prop- 

erty crimes. If the gains from robbery are small compared to the risks and 

costs, but the gains from burglary are greater, then a person acting rationally 

and voluntarily would choose to commit burglary. 

Some authors who believe in a more limited rationality temper the as- 

sumption that choice making is a fully rational exercise--a key assumption 

of the economic model and also implied in the writings of Beccaria and 

Bentham. It is argued, for example, that most people cannot know all the 

information necessary to evaluate all possible actions, but rather they re- 

flexively react to opportunities that arise in ordinary situations (Pratt, 2008; 

Trasler, 1986: 20). 

24 Chapter 2

The limited rationality view holds that behavioral choices arise in peo- 

ple's lives routinely, and some involve decisions to commit crime. These 

choices are structured by several factors, including the social distribution 

of opportunities and access to them; the knowledge, past experiences, and 

capabilities of individuals; the conditions that characterize and are created 

by the social situations in which individuals find themselves; and the mea- 

sures taken by victims and authorities to prevent them. Individuals within 

the boundaries created by these factors make behavioral decisions. The 

chosen actions are rational to the extent that they are purposive (conscious 

and goal-oriented) and reasonable (efficient, economical) in light of goals 

and alternatives. It is not necessary to assume that criminals carefully plan 

and execute their crimes or use the most sophisticated techniques (Ward, 

Stafford, and Gray, 2006). Rational choice theories need only assume that 

some minimal level of planning or foresight occurs (Clark and Felson, 

2004; Hirschi, 1983; Wright, Caspi, and Moffitt, 2004). Of course, whether 

or not an offender fears arrest or prosecution is crucial to the decision- 

making process. Box 2.3 reviews some research on this subject.

Box 2.3. The Possibility of Arrest 

Many who violate the law may actually spend little time contemplating the 

risks of crime. Several studies have found strong evidence of the insignificance 

of arrest and punishment in criminal decision making (Shover and Honaker, 

1992; Tunnell, 1992, 2000; Wright and Decker, 1994, 1997). Interviews with 

forty-six persistent property offenders found that the majority gave little or no 

thought to the possibility of arrest and confinement. Here are some typical 

comments:

Q. Did you think about getting caught? 

A. No. 

Q. How did you manage to put that out of your mind? 

A. [I]t never did come into it. . . . It didn't bother me.

Another subject said:

A. I wasn't worried about getting caught or anything, you know. I didn't have no 

negative thoughts about it whatever.

And another said:

A. When I went out to steal, I didn't think about negative things. 'Cause if you 

think negative, negative things are going to happen. . . . You just, you just put [the 

thought of arrest] out of your mind, you know (Shover and Honaker, 1992: 5). 

Classical and Rational Choice Theories 25

Another study found evidence of a similar line of reasoning:

Q: As you did the burglaries, what came first--the crime or thinking about getting 

caught for the crime? 

A: The crime comes first because it's enough to worry about doing the actual 

crime itself without worrying about what's going to happen to you if you get 

caught (Tunnell, 1990: 37).

Retrospective interviews are not without drawbacks, not least among which 

is the validity of reconstructions of events long past (Shover and Thompson, 

1992). It remains to be seen whether more proximal memories confirm the 

lack of a negative relationship between perceptions of risk and criminal activ- 

ity among able offenders. 

Studying active offenders (those not imprisoned) has several obvious ad- 

vantages over studies of incarcerated persons. However, several recent studies 

of active burglars, robbers, and drug dealers have found that most crimes are 

not well planned out, but there is a tendency for incarcerated offenders to 

make it sound as though they are (Wright and Decker, 1994). 

Criminal justice policy is often misplaced in its assumption that active 

criminals seriously weigh the costs and benefits of committing a crime in a 

way envisioned by the average American. Just like any behavior, illegal behav- 

ior surfaces within a social context. This has been called the socially bounded 

decision-making process. As Shover and Honaker (1999: 20) state:

The lesson here for theories of criminal decision making is that while utilities 

and risk assessment may be properties of individuals, they are also shaped by 

the social and personal contexts in which decisions are made. Whether their 

pursuit of life as party is interpreted theoretically as the product of structural 

strain, choice, or even happenstance is of limited importance. . . . If nothing else, 

this means that some situations more than others make it possible to discount 

or ignore risk.

RATIONALITY AND CRIME: TWO EXAMPLES

Two examples of research on decisions by property offenders are Thomas 

Reppetto's (1974) study of residential burglary and robbery and Wright and 

Decker's (1994) study of burglars. Both studies show that offenders do have 

target preferences and that this was taken into account when they contem- 

plated committing crimes. Burglars looked for unoccupied single-family 

homes (thus reducing the risk of being seen or heard), with easy access 

(thus reducing the amount of skill needed to gain entry), which appeared 

affluent (thus increasing the possible reward), and which were located in 

neighborhoods where offenders felt they "fit in" (another way to reduce 

26 Chapter 2

the risk of being noticed) (Reppetto, 1974). At the very least, most burglars 

want to know something about the people who live in the house and the 

types of things the house contains (Mullins and Wright, 2003; Wright and 

Decker, 1994). This finding, as we shall see, is supported by research in the 

United States and abroad (Bernasco and Luykx, 2003). 

The rationality model receives additional support from studies in England 

and Holland. Walsh's (1980) study of Exeter burglars found that although 

few burglars admitted doing much preplanning or "casing" of targets, most 

were very concerned about being seen and avoided entering houses likely to 

be occupied. A second study of English burglars is more detailed and lends 

further support to the rationality model while pointing to the importance 

of situational cues in decision making. Using videotapes of thirty-six houses 

seen from a passing van, Bennett and Wright (1981, 1984) asked fifty-eight 

convicted burglars to evaluate the houses as potential burglary targets. Most 

of the burglars were very experienced, so there is no indication whether the 

findings would apply to occasional thieves or beginners. Although there was 

considerable variation in target choice, the burglars strongly agreed about 

certain blocks of houses or about one or two specific homes. When the au- 

thors grouped evaluations according to risk, reward, or skill factors, the au- 

thors found that the burglars most frequently mentioned risk of being seen 

or heard as the decisive consideration. Reward factors became more impor- 

tant than those connected with skill only when given as reasons to disregard 

a target. A house may not be worth burglarizing regardless of how easy it is 

to enter. Interestingly, a more recent study found that decision making may 

be significantly different in the daytime versus the night (Coupe and Blake, 

2006). The authors found that more affluent targets with less security were 

more likely to be targeted in the day while lesser valued but well-guarded 

areas were more attractive to burglars at night. 

Some of the above studies did not investigate actual criminal behavior, 

only what offenders said about it. For that reason they give only inferential 

support for the rationality model. However, a study of actual robberies of 

convenience stores and the crime prevention effectiveness of various secu- 

rity measures found that only six of eighteen measures were significantly 

related to the frequency of being robbed, and only two of these in the ex- 

pected direction: stores with space around them and those with only one 

employee on duty were robbed more often (Calder and Bauer, 1992). It is 

also true that criminals might not evaluate situational cues about ease of 

access and neighborhood surveillance all the time, especially when they are 

"desperate for money, feeling impulsive or bloody-minded, or simply too 

lazy" (Bennett and Wright, 1981: 16; Shover and Honaker, 1992; Wright, 

Caspi, and Moffitt, 2004). 

It is important to remember that a full-fledged theory of criminal deci- 

sion making needs to address not just the crime itself, but also the of- 

Classical and Rational Choice Theories 27

fender's initial involvement in crime. Such a theory must also account 

for decisions to continue and to terminate criminal activity (Cornish and 

Clarke, 1986a, 1987; Matsueda, Kreager, and Huizinga, 2006). Tradition- 

ally criminology has been more concerned with background influences 

such as social structure and prior experience and less with situational and 

transitory influences, which may influence certain types of criminal activity 

even more significantly.

CRIME DISPLACEMENT

Whenever criminally motivated persons decide not to commit a crime 

or avoid certain victims in favor of others, the substitution is commonly 

referred to as crime displacement. Five types of displacement have been 

identified:

· Temporal displacement. Here, an offender substitutes one time of day, 

week, or even season for another. 

· Spatial displacement. An offender substitutes one street, neighborhood, 

area, or region for another. 

· Target displacement. An offender substitutes an easier, less risky, or 

more rewarding target in the same location. 

· Tactical displacement. An offender substitutes one modus operandi 

(method of operation) for another. 

· Type of crime displacement. One type of crime is substituted for another, 

usually one that is less risky or more easily performed (Hakim and 

Rengert, 1981).

Displacement is important for two reasons. First, the rationality model 

predicts its occurrence. The idea is that criminals generally take advantage 

of or seek the best criminal opportunities--those with the greatest rewards 

at the least risk and cost. Second, displacement is important because it 

is one of the potential costs of crime prevention efforts. For example, 

when criminal opportunities are reduced by police surveillance or other 

"target-hardening" measures, the net result may be an increase in crime in 

another place. Criminally motivated individuals simply move to the "safer" 

areas to commit crime. Therefore, one community may benefit from crime 

prevention efforts while another may suffer because of them. It should be 

kept in mind, however, that oftentimes offenders take big risks for very 

small gains (Wright, 2000). This is partially explainable by the need to 

support a drug habit or a strong desire to continue "partying." It can also 

be understood as an irrational, sensual, or thrill-seeking activity not readily 

understandable to the outside viewer (Katz, 1988). 

28 Chapter 2

Research on crime displacement is sparse because it is extremely diffi- 

cult to measure substitution behavior as it occurs. At the least, one would 

need to show that one criminal event occurred and some other did not 

because the offender changed his or her mind after evaluating the situation. 

Criminologists often infer displacement from studies of spatial or temporal 

changes in the volume of crime or by asking offenders if, when, and why 

they made substitutions. Most studies are further limited because they focus 

only on temporal or spatial displacement. 

Spatial displacement is probably quite limited because "criminals prefer 

to operate in known territory" (Bernasco and Luykx, 2003; McIver, 1981: 

32). This in itself is a sign of rationality, for familiarity reduces an of- 

fender's risk of being caught and may contribute to successful completion 

of the crime (Wright and Decker, 1994). Nevertheless, some studies show 

that police crime prevention efforts resulted in "spillover" effects: Crime 

rates increased in neighborhoods adjacent to areas with more concentrated 

police enforcement. However, displacement is more likely to occur with 

property crimes, not with crimes of violence. The latter may be relatively 

impervious to displacement pressures because they are more likely to be 

spur-of-the-moment and tend to occur at the criminals' homes, near local 

bars, and so forth. 

English studies lend tentative support to the displacement argument, at 

least for some crimes. When steering locks were introduced in new British 

cars as a target-hardening measure, the rates of auto crime did not drop 

significantly. Apparently many thieves turned their attention to the abun- 

dant older cars that did not have steering locks. In addition, determined 

thieves could quickly learn how to overcome the devices. This suggests that 

displacement brought about by changes in skill factors is probably limited 

to amateur and opportunistic thieves. However, a similar program in West 

Germany had the effect of dropping the overall rate of car theft because all 

cars were equipped with the device (Felson, 1998; Mayhew, Clarke, and 

Hough, 1992). 

A third British study surveyed the impact of installing closed-circuit tele- 

vision in some London subway stations (Mayhew et al., 1979). Generally, 

stations with the greatest volume of traffic experienced more robberies 

and other property crimes. After authorities installed television cameras in 

high-traffic stations, the volume of robberies declined there but increased 

dramatically in stations without TV surveillance. On the other hand, other 

thefts declined throughout the subway system during the three-year test 

period. This finding suggests that an offense-specific spatial displacement 

took place rather than any general displacement. Apparently robbers took 

the new surveillance into consideration, merely changing location. Other, 

perhaps less committed or less experienced thieves, were apparently more 

likely to view the TV cameras as evidence of a more concerted law-enforce- 

Classical and Rational Choice Theories 29

ment effort. Reacting to this perception, offenders reduced their activity, at 

least for a time. 

Displacement is thus not an inevitable result of crime-prevention efforts 

such as target hardening (Clarke and Felson, 1993; Weisburd, Wyckoff, 

Ready, Eck, and Hinkle, 2006; Welsh and Farrington, 1999). Prostitution 

is another case in point. A study showed that increased police enforcement 

in a North London suburb did not cause prostitutes to move elsewhere 

(Matthews, 1986). Studies by Clarke and Mayhew (1988) of the effects of 

detoxification of the British gas supply on suicide rates showed marked 

decreases in suicides and no evidence that suicide-prone individuals were 

shifting to other means. Finally, the introduction of motorcycle helmets in 

various countries has apparently had the unintended consequence of reduc- 

ing motorcycle thefts (presumably because thieves must carry a helmet with 

them), but there is no evidence that similar forms of crime, for example, 

auto theft, have increased as a result (Mayhew, Clarke, and Elliott, 1989). 

It is unlikely that many offenders substitute new crimes for old when the 

calculus of risks, costs, and benefits changes. Income tax evaders, shoplift- 

ers, and employee thieves will not become burglars, con artists, and rob- 

bers. Some professional or habitual criminals may respond to such changes 

by increasing their skills and directing their energies only toward the most 

lucrative targets. They may become better criminals in the process, and they 

may also become more dangerous--willing to take greater risks, combining 

into more formidable groups, or increasing their willingness to use deadly 

force when confronted. 

Those criminals most likely to shift from one crime to another, and least 

likely to continue a given line of crime in the face of increased risks and 

costs, are the less skilled but more experienced opportunistic offenders. 

They take advantage of easily accessible opportunities. They are unlikely to 

increase their efforts and risks in search of less hardened targets with which 

they may be unfamiliar or which may be too far from home. These are 

speculations, although a study of decision making among property offend- 

ers lends them credence (Tunnell, 1992: 149). Considerably more work 

must be done in both theory and research to untangle the complexities of 

displacement.

OPPORTUNITY AND ROUTINE ACTIVITY THEORY

Let us now consider how the nature and distribution of opportunities for 

crime influence criminal activity and shape the contours of crime for spe- 

cific groups of people. 

It will help to think of crime as an event. Crime is not an event until it 

has occurred, for an event is an occurrence or happening. A criminal event 

30 Chapter 2

occurs when a situation fortuitously brings together factors that facilitate it. 

Advocates of a situational approach look at crimes that have occurred and 

ask what things came together to make them happen. 

Crimes differ in so many ways that any attempt to identify basic elements 

that all criminal events share would probably be doomed from the start. 

The situational crime prevention approach, sometimes referred to as crime 

opportunity theory, is based on ten principles:

1. Opportunities play a role in causing all crime. 

2. Crime opportunities are highly specific. 

3. Crime opportunities are concentrated in time and space. 

4. Crime opportunities depend on everyday movements of activity. 

5. One crime produces opportunities for another. 

6. Some products offer more tempting crime opportunities. 

7. Social and technological changes produce new crime opportunities. 

8. Crime can be prevented by reducing opportunities. 

9. Reducing opportunities does not usually displace crime. 

10. Focused opportunity can produce wider declines in crime (Clarke 

and Felson, 1993; Felson and Clarke, 1998: v­vi).

If there is a common element in all events, criminal or not, it is oppor- 

tunity. An opportunity makes an event possible; a criminal opportunity 

makes a crime possible. One cannot rob a bank without the opportunity to 

do so--without the existence of banks. Notice, however, that banks provide 

not only criminal opportunities, but noncriminal ones as well. In fact, the 

purpose of most things is not crime, but their existence creates criminal op- 

portunities. A functionalist would say that the above principle is a "latent 

dysfunction" of otherwise useful objects and institutions. 

One version of opportunity theory is known as routine activities theory, 

which holds that there are three essential elements of a crime: (1) a moti- 

vated offender, (2) a suitable target, and (3) the absence of a capable guard- 

ian (Clarke and Felson, 1993; Felson, 1998). Therefore, the basic proposition 

of the theory is that "the probability that a violation will occur at any specific 

time and place . . . is . . . a function of the convergence of likely offenders and 

suitable targets in the absence of capable guardians" (Cohen and Felson, 

1979: 590). If any one of these elements is lacking, a criminal event will not 

occur. A routine activity is any recurring and prevalent goal-seeking activity. 

Work is a routine activity, but so are sex, child rearing, eating, going to the 

movies, and vacationing. Much crime is also routine activity. 

Notice above that no mention is made of "capable" offenders, those 

able to "pull crimes off" (though they may later be caught). In fact, much 

crime is unsuccessful, making the distinction between completed and un- 

Classical and Rational Choice Theories 31

completed crime an important one for theory and research. Indeed, the law 

has long recognized the distinction, treating attempted crimes less severely 

than completed ones. From the situational point of view the distinction is 

interesting, because it prompts one to compare attempted and completed 

crimes in order to establish the differences and to establish which elements 

account for the outcomes. 

Technological change makes new activities possible, and some will be 

labeled criminal if those in authority accept that they should be (see Mi- 

chalowski and Pfuhl, 1991). The U.S. government is obviously concerned: 

It has changed many of its money bills now that advanced computers, soft- 

ware, and copying machines have made counterfeiting easier, and all bills 

now contain a metal strip embedded within the paper. 

Consider what many people now take for granted: electronic fund trans- 

fer. Not long ago this computer-based service was known and used only by 

banks and large corporations. Now the automatic teller machine (ATM) is 

familiar to virtually everyone. Those with personal computers may also take 

advantage of home banking services. With the spread of electronic fund 

transfer has come growth in criminal abuse. Some types of crimes resulting 

from this newer technology include unauthorized use and fraud. Of course, 

the growth of personal computers has opened up many opportunities for 

crime as well. Such crimes include identity theft, fraud, embezzlement, 

and blackmail. It is also true that contacts between people have become 

easier via chat rooms, instant messaging, social networking sites, and email. 

Thousands of arrests, for example, are made each year of adults soliciting 

sex from minors and running or viewing child pornography websites. 

Felson (2002) offers a more detailed description of the impact of social 

change on crime in his book Crime and Everyday Life. He shows why it is 

that the United States maintains high crime rates by focusing on crime as 

an event rather than on the number and motivations of criminals. He con- 

cludes that crime has changed, as there have been changes in where people 

live and work, where and when they interact, the type and storage of goods 

and services that are available, and the movement of goods and people. 

For example, as cities became more dispersed, with more and more people 

living in single-family homes and in the suburbs, and more and more 

property being spread over large and larger space, it also became more dif- 

ficult for people to control their environment and prevent crime. Cities that 

had previously been "convergent," bringing people and property together, 

became "divergent," spreading them apart. Work organizations and schools 

also became bigger, drawing thousands, often from miles away. People can 

less readily monitor their own families under such circumstances, let alone 

the activities of strangers. Both informal and formal social control, it can be 

argued, is therefore hampered. 

32 Chapter 2

Another way of looking at routine activities is to think of the locations 

where crimes are likely to occur. Where would you expect handgun crimes 

to occur most often? Your answer will depend on the routine activities of 

typical offenders and victims and on the relationship between the two. 

Thus, handgun crimes involving relatives are most likely to occur in the 

home; those involving strangers are most likely to occur on the street. 

Urban structure has an impact on violent crime, and within that context 

the kinds of lifestyles (routines) people follow significantly affect their 

chances of being assaulted, robbed, or raped: people who go to bars, work, 

go to class, or go for a walk or drive at night are more likely to be victim- 

ized (Kennedy and Forde, 1990). Similar findings have been discovered in 

studies of elderly theft-homicide victimization (Nelsen and Huff-Corzine, 

1998), homicide more generally (Caywood, 1998), sex worker victimiza- 

tion (Surratt, Inciardi, Kurtz, and Kiley, 2004), burglary victimization 

(Tseloni, Wittebrood, Farrell, and Pease, 2004), and gender differences in 

all forms of criminal victimization (Felson, 2002).

CHAPTER SUMMARY

Classical theorists created a theory of justice and a simplified theory of the 

causes of criminal behavior. The theory of justice was based on utilitarian 

philosophy that prized a democratic and rationally designed system of 

punishment and deterrence. The primitive theory of crime causation held 

that individuals are fundamentally hedonistic and that they will pursue a 

course of action if the outcome is perceived to offer more pleasure than 

pain. Many of Beccaria and Bentham's ideas remain quite popular today. 

Modern-day rational choice theories of crime assume that criminals 

think about their crimes before doing them. Much research supports this 

basic contention, although the extent to which offenders are actually weigh- 

ing all or even most pertinent factors involved in a crime is probably small. 

The central message of opportunity-rationality theories is, first, that crime 

cannot be understood apart from the nature and distribution of opportuni- 

ties for both criminal and noncriminal behavior. Second, when criminals 

find themselves in situations in which they have opportunities to commit 

crime, the decision to do so or not to do so is a rational one. 

The routine activity approach brings rationality and opportunities to- 

gether to explain the distribution of crime in time and space. Advocates 

of the approach argue that the everyday activities of people influence 

the convergence of criminally motivated individuals and suitable, un- 

guarded, criminal targets. In this vein, social and technological changes 

can dramatically affect the nature, extent, and distribution of crime and 

victimization. 

Classical and Rational Choice Theories 33

KEY TERMS

Classical School 

crime displacement 

rational choice theory 

routine activities theory 

situational crime prevention 

utilitarianism

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

1. To what extent do you think people actually think through the costs 

and benefits of a behavior or action before doing it? In other words, 

is there always, or even mostly, a rational reason for why people make 

the decisions they do? 

2. Do you agree with the basic idea of Bentham and Becarria that pun- 

ishment is a necessary evil? In what situations do you see punishment 

being effective for certain types of crimes and not others? 

3. What are some examples of public policy or policing activities that 

could cause a large degree of crime displacement? 

4. Just how important do you think opportunity is compared to offender 

motivation and the absence of a capable guardian when crime occurs? 

In what situations can you think of in which crime results without 

these three variables present?

ACTIVITIES

1. Write down all the costs and benefits of your attendance at the next 

meeting of your criminology class. Does this list bear any resemblance 

to why you may or may not come to a class without writing up such 

a list? 

2. Listen to the song "Been Caught Stealing" by Jane's Addiction. Ana- 

lyze the lyrics and report on the extent to which they are consistent 

with the overall approach of Classical or rational choice theory. 

3. Develop a list of all the "target hardening" or crime prevention strate- 

gies and tactics you use to protect yourself and your property from 

victimization. To what extent do they really limit the opportunity to 

become victimized in the face of a motivated offender and the lack of 

a capable guardian? 

3 

Biological, Psychological, and 

Evolutionary Theories

It is not uncommon for consumers of popular television shows to get the 

impression that crimes, especially those that are violent, are committed by 

individuals with psychological, neurological, or biological abnormalities. 

However, the disproportionate emphasis placed by the media on strange 

and morbid crimes such as serial murder does not reflect the reality that rel- 

atively few crimes are gruesome, let alone violent. Criminal homicide, for 

example, makes up less than 1 percent of all reported crime, and serial mur- 

der but a fraction of all homicides. Yet, as one watches the latest example of 

serial murder in the news, it is tempting to say that the killer was someone 

"going mental," or as rock legend Ozzy Osbourne sings in the song "Crazy 

Train," "crazy." While most criminologists look to environmental factors to 

explain crime, there is a tradition within the field that has focused on the 

biological and psychological causes and correlates of crime. This chapter 

reviews several of these classical and contemporary theories. 

The birth of criminology as science is usually traced to nineteenth-century 

Europe. By the latter half of that century the scientific revolution was well 

under way. The armchair philosophizing of the Classical theorists was 

grudgingly giving way to the logic and methodology of science. Observa- 

tion, measurement, and experimentation are the basic tools of the scien- 

tific method, and their use in the study of human behavior heralded the 

development of disciplines now taken for granted--biology, anthropology, 

psychology, sociology, political science, and statistics. Thus was born the 

age of positivism, and crime was placed under the microscope of science. 

Theories now had to be spelled out, quantified, and falsifiable.

35 

36 Chapter 3

In this chapter we examine classic and contemporary theories of crime 

that have been influenced by the positivism of natural science. While most 

criminologists are not formally trained in the hard sciences, important con- 

tributions to theories of crime have come from physical anthropologists, 

biologists, behavioral psychologists, and evolutionary theorists.

POSITIVISM AND EARLY CRIMINOLOGY

The notion that crime could be studied through the methods of science 

was established early in the nineteenth century by two authors whose 

work earned them an honored place in the annals of criminology. Work- 

ing independently, Adolphe Quetelet (1796­1874) and Andre'-Michel 

Guerry (1802­1866) compiled the first criminal statistics and used them 

to make predictions and comparisons about crime. Others soon followed 

suit, and these early ventures into social statistics became a model for 

the later work of Emile Durkheim. "For the first time in history," Leon 

Radzinowicz (1966: 35) has observed, "crime became thought of as a 

social fact molded by the very environment of which it was an integral 

part." This was an important break with the Classical theorists, who 

viewed criminal behavior as stemming from the exercise of free will in 

the pursuit of pleasure. 

A major impetus to the rise of positivism was Charles Darwin's work on 

animal evolution. Darwin's followers argued that human behavior is largely 

determined by Homo sapiens' position on the evolutionary scale and by 

the ongoing battle for survival. However, the specific impact of these forces 

on an individual was considered a matter for empirical investigation. 

Positivism is not without its critics. The objections to positivism are var- 

ied, but primarily they consist of the argument that the so-called objective 

depiction of "concrete facts" in the world obscures a reality that is socially 

constructed by the participants in it. The facts are "constructed meanings 

produced within specific cultural, political, and economic contexts" (Mi- 

chalowski, 1988: 18). Even the nature of crime itself cannot be taken for 

granted. 

The debate about positivism versus social constructionism is unlikely 

to be resolved in the near future, and it is certainly possible for both to 

live side by side and for criminology to profit from their contributions 

to our knowledge and thinking about crime. Gibbs (1988: 4) makes an 

important point, however: How else are scientific theories about crime to 

be assessed, if not by testing their predictions against a body of empirical 

data? This was the great insight of the early positivists, although there was 

actually very little research going on during this period (Garland, 1985b: 

128). 

Biological, Psychological, and Evolutionary Theories 37

BIOLOGY AND THE SEARCH FOR THE CRIMINAL TYPE

Influenced by positivism, early criminologists were convinced that they 

could uncover the causes of criminal behavior if they could apply the 

methods of science to the study of human beings. Deviance, they believed, 

was caused rather than chosen (Pfohl, 1985). The major figure was Italian 

physician Cesare Lombroso. Like many of his contemporaries, Lombroso 

believed that criminals must be different from law-abiding people in some 

important way. The problem was to find out how they differed, and the 

search for the criminal type consumed much of his career. 

As a physician attached to the army and later to prisons and asylums, 

Lombroso examined thousands of individuals. Profoundly influenced by 

the evolutionary doctrine, he searched for physiological evidence of the 

link between deviant behavior and biological forces. In 1870 he claimed 

a triumphant discovery: In his view, many of the criminals he had studied 

were atavistic--biological throwbacks to a more primitive evolutionary 

state. Such "born criminals" could be identified by five or more physical 

stigmata, or anomalies: an asymmetrical cranium, a receding chin, a low 

forehead, large ears, too many fingers, a sparse beard, protruding lips, low 

sensitivity to pain, and deformities of the eye. 

But the born criminal was not the only type Lombroso identified, nor did 

he argue that criminal behavior was solely the result of biological forces. 

He distinguished other categories of criminals, including insane crimi- 

nals (idiots, imbeciles, alcoholics, degenerates), criminaloids (those with 

less-pronounced physical stigmata and degeneracy, but pulled into crime 

by situation or environment), and criminals by passion (those who were 

neither atavistic nor degenerate, but drawn into crime by love, politics, of- 

fended honor, or other intense emotions). 

Though the core of his theory was biological, Lombroso recognized 

the importance of precipitating situational and environmental factors. He 

mentioned poverty, emigration, high food prices, police corruption, and 

changes in the law as nonbiological determinants of criminal behavior 

(Wolfgang, 1961: 207). However, it remained for one of his followers, 

Enrico Ferri, to undertake serious investigation of the impact of environ- 

mental factors (see Sellin, 1937). 

Lombroso and his followers had a tremendous impact on the emerging 

field of criminology. Especially important was the impetus their work gave 

to research on the individual criminal offender. For more than fifty years, 

scholars concentrated their efforts on describing and classifying criminals 

and on distinguishing them from noncriminals (for a critical analysis of 

this movement, see Garland, 1985b). 

Many felt that such research would identify traits and characteristics pe- 

culiar to criminals. Anthropologist Earnest A. Hooton did one monumental 

38 Chapter 3

study (1939). He studied 13,873 male criminals from ten different states, 

as well as 3,023 individuals regarded to be noncriminals. His study claimed 

to show that criminals are organically inferior to noncriminals, though 

Hooton did not admit that environmental factors could be precipitating 

influences. Most controversial was his claim that certain types of crimes 

are committed by certain physical types of individuals: Tall, thin men tend 

to commit murder and robbery; short, heavyset men are prone to commit 

assault and sexual crimes; and men of small frame commit theft and bur- 

glary. It sounds ridiculous now, especially as one recognizes that the main 

differences between most assaults and most murders is the presence of a 

corpse, and a major difference between one type of stealing and another is 

the presence of an appropriate opportunity. 

William H. Sheldon conducted another major study of the relationship 

between body type and criminality in the early and mid-1940s. Sheldon 

(1949) studied a sample of 200 young men, many of whom had previous 

involvement in juvenile delinquency. Sheldon examined each subject in 

great detail, noting each person's body type, temperament, recorded or re- 

ported delinquency, basic family history, and mental and physical health. 

In his book Varieties of Delinquent Youth, three pictures are presented of 

each of the men from back, front, and side views along with capsule sum- 

maries of their life history. Sheldon categorized the young men's body 

forms into three basic types: endomorphic (soft and round), mesomorphic 

(muscular and athletic), and ectomorphic (slender and fragile). While 

many of his subjects' physiques were not entirely classifiable into one of 

the above categories, Sheldon concluded that, overall, mesomorphs have 

a higher likelihood of being involved in crime because of their higher level 

of physical power and aggressiveness. Although Sheldon's research, like 

Hooton's, is now dismissed by most criminologists because of its ques- 

tionable methodology and logical contradictions, Sheldon and Eleanor 

Glueck (1955) found some support for Sheldon's findings in their com- 

parison study of 500 delinquents and 500 nondelinquents. Despite the 

shortcomings of the biological approach represented in the above studies, 

there are still serious scholars who argue that biological characteristics 

such as body type predisposes individuals to commit crimes (see Wilson 

and Herrnstein, 1985). 

The search for biological correlates of criminal behavior was largely dis- 

continued in the United States during the 1950s and 1960s, partly because 

studies of human behavior in general were increasingly coming under the 

influence of the social and behavioral sciences, but also because the neces- 

sary research became too costly. There were also many people who simply 

believed that its focus on pathology was inaccurate (Pfohl, 1985). Although 

a few Scandinavian scholars (e.g., Christiansen, 1977a) organized their 

Biological, Psychological, and Evolutionary Theories 39

Box 3.1. Physical Appearances and Criminality 

Modern-day criminologists have little use for the idea that criminals share 

similar physical attributes. The exception to this is that it is well known that 

in many Western societies people of color are more likely to be portrayed 

as criminal by the media. Numerous scholars, such as Barlow, Barlow, and 

Chiricos (1995), Greer and Jewkes (2005), and Weitzer and Kubrin (2004) 

have shown that media images often imply that criminals "look a certain 

way." As professors with many years of experience in college classrooms, we 

have heard similar suggestions from students. For example, we have heard 

that someone "looked like a child molester or serial murderer." We have even 

been told by a student that her former professor at a different university went 

to the Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI) website containing pictures of 

"The Ten Most Wanted" so that students in his class could compare the sus- 

pects' physical similarities and differences. Modern-day criminologists have 

all but abandoned the search for physiological signs of criminality, but that 

doesn't seem to stop the media or popular belief that some people "look like 

criminals."

studies around biology, U.S. criminologists essentially lost interest in it 

until the 1980s. 

The biological perspective in criminology is by no means a unified ap- 

proach. Its advocates draw on research from a variety of behavioral sci- 

ences, including genetics, physiological psychology, psychopharmocology, 

and endocrinology. Among the theoretical perspectives found within the 

biological camp are (1) evolutionary theories, which examine changing 

environmental conditions, (2) genetic theories, which focus on inherited 

traits, defects, or deficiencies, and (3) biochemical theories that focus on 

hormonal or chemical imbalances. 

One example of the third perspective is found in Ellis's (1991) review of 

research on monoamine (MAO) and its relationship to criminal behavior. 

MAO is an enzyme that is believed to effect the transmission of impulses 

from one nerve to another. MAO is heavily concentrated in the brain stem, 

and its activity is believed to be influenced by both genes and hormones. 

The importance of MAO for brain functioning is well documented, and 

low MAO activity is thought to be associated with aggressiveness, feelings 

or anger and frustration, and various correlates of antisocial behavior such 

as defiance, poor academic performance, childhood hyperactivity, extrover- 

sion, and sensation seeking (Ellis and Walsh, 1997). These associations are 

modest, but Ellis believes that low MAO may be an important biological 

marker for criminality. 

40 Chapter 3

EVOLUTIONARY THEORIES

Some biologists believe that people are instinctively aggressive, basing their 

claim on studies of animal behavior. According to Konrad Lorenz (1971), 

nature gave animals an instinct for aggression for three reasons: (1) to 

ensure that the strongest males succeed in mating with the most desirable 

females, thus ensuring a kind of genetic quality control; (2) to protect the 

physical space, or territory, necessary for raising the young, securing food, 

and the like; and (3) to maintain hierarchies of dominance and through 

them a stable, well-policed society. 

Following Lorenz and Desmond Morris--the author of The Naked Ape-- 

Pierre van den Berghe (1974: 777) believes that human behavior is not 

"radically discontinuous from that of other species," and he advocates a 

biosocial approach to understanding human violence. Essentially, the argu- 

ment is that humans, like animals, have predispositions to violence that are 

innate--that is, biologically grounded. Though conclusive proof of this is 

still unavailable, one promising indication is that aggression is a universal 

behavior pattern for a species: In humans, aggression has been observed ev- 

erywhere, despite widely differing habitats, cultures, and technologies. The 

viewpoint receives additional support from the documented relationship 

between aggression and the male hormone testosterone and the discovery 

of "aggression centers" in the brain (van den Berghe, 1974; Bailey, 1976; 

Wilson and Herrnstein, 1985). 

Robert L. Burgess (1979; Burgess and Draper, 1989) has drawn on evo- 

lutionary theory to explain variations in child abuse and family violence. 

Burgess argues that mature humans have two related problems. The first 

is to pass on their genes through successive generations, and the second 

is to protect their offspring despite limited resources. The solution is for 

parents to invest most in those genetic offspring who show the best pros- 

pects for surviving and reproducing and least in nongenetic relatives and/ 

or those genetic offspring who show the worst prospects of surviving and 

reproducing. 

The problems and their solutions will produce greater risks of abuse and 

neglect in families with stepchildren, in poorer families, in those with less 

education, in families with many children, in single-parent families, and in 

families whose children have mental or physical impairments. Burgess and 

Ellis and Walsh (1997) cite studies both in the United States and abroad 

that support these predictions (see also Daly and Wilson, 1988b). How- 

ever, it should be emphasized that child abuse is not inevitable in families 

with these characteristics, and it is found in many families without them 

(Ellis and Walsh, 1997). 

Daly and Wilson (1988a: 520) make the following observation on 

step-relationships and violence: 

Biological, Psychological, and Evolutionary Theories 41

In view of the costs of prolonged "parental" investment in nonrelatives, it may 

seem remarkable that step-relationships are ever peaceful, let alone genuinely 

affectionate. However, violent hostility is rarer than friendly relations even 

among nonrelatives; people thrive by the maintenance of networks of social 

reciprocity that will make them attractive exchange partners. . . . The fact re- 

mains, however, that step-relationships lack the deep commonality of interest 

of the natural parent-offspring relationships, and feelings of affection and 

commitment are correspondingly shallower. Differential rates of violence are 

one result.

On a broader plane, Daly and Wilson's evolutionary psychological per- 

spective (1988a; see also 1998) explains the male propensity for violence as 

the result of the ubiquitous struggle over control and propagation. As Green 

(1993: 32) explains it:

Wife-murder and wife-abuse represent the striving for control over the repro- 

ductive capacities of women. Killings arising out of trivial altercations aim to 

deter rivals from threatening one's interests; they give tangible proof that any 

such attempt will be met with severe punishment. The predominance of males 

is due to the greater need of men for additional resources with which to check 

rivals and attract women.

Ellis and Walsh (1997) have summarized the key points made by evo- 

lutionary theorists of crime that lead to the following claims about sexual 

assault:

· Males should be far more likely to engage in sexual assault (logic: 

males have more to gain because they do not become pregnant and in 

general have less commitment to their offspring). 

· Rape and sexual assault is found in both human and nonhuman spe- 

cies (logic: genes contributing to rape are suspected to be present in 

many animal types). 

· Victims of rape resist sexual attacks because it does not allow them the 

choice to select a mate that will help with child rearing (logic: some 

research supports the idea that females are far more choosier about 

their mates than males). 

· Victims of rape should be females in their child-bearing years (logic: 

while the goal of rape is not to exactly reproduce, it approximates such 

a drive).

Theory is about explanation, and as you can see, at issue here is why we 

see these patterns in sexual assault. Research does indeed support the age/ 

rape, resistance, and gendered nature of sexual assault patterns noted in the 

points above, but the question is how to explain these facts. As we will see in 

future chapters, sociological theories have very different explanations. 

42 Chapter 3

We should also note that genetic, evolutionary, and neurological ex- 

planations of crime continue to play some role in the modern-day search 

for the causes of crime (Janssen, Nicholls, Kumar, Stefankis, et al., 2005). 

Most theorists working in these areas agree that crime is best explained by 

studying how the social environment and internal physiological systems 

interact with one another to produce behavior (Ellis and Walsh, 1997; Jef- 

fery, 1994). For example, it is quite true that the brain develops in concert 

with environment. Any changes in the functioning of the brain, then, may 

be related to behavior, including criminal behavior. This means that the 

nutritional content of food, adverse chemical interactions caused by drug 

use, and brain trauma or disease may be involved in criminal decision mak- 

ing (Jeffery, 1994). Additionally, some recent genetic studies of twins and 

adoptees have found some evidence of a hereditary element of criminality, 

although the correlations are small and many of the studies have major 

methodological limitations (Gottfredson and Hirschi, 1990; although see 

Ellis and Walsh, 1997). In sum, however, even biological and evolution- 

ary theorists of crime understand that it is a serious mistake to ignore the 

role of the social environment in providing the context, opportunity, and 

motivation for much crime.

BIOSOCIAL THEORIES

Advocates of the biological perspective in criminology have been swim- 

ming against the tide for many years. However, James Q. Wilson and Rich- 

ard Herrnstein (1985) helped spark renewed interest in the relationship 

between biology and criminal behavior. The tide hasn't turned, by any 

means, but a healthy interest in biological correlates of crime has emerged 

(Linns, 2004; Fishbein, 1990). Studies of chronic delinquents have found 

that, when compared with less delinquent youths, the chronic offenders are 

more likely to suffer from minor birth defects, to have abnormal electrical 

activity in the brain, or to suffer from various other neurological defects 

(Buikhuisen, 1988). These correlates of chronic delinquency are believed to 

influence behavior through their impact on the socialization process. They 

impede a child's ability to learn and to develop attitudes consistent with 

self-control, deferred gratification, and restraint. The interaction between 

biology and social environment lies at the heart of the biosocial perspec- 

tive. 

Biology and Environment. Wilson and Herrnstein take a biosocial ap- 

proach. They argue that certain constitutional factors, some of which are 

genetic, predispose people to commit crimes, but also that these predisposi- 

tions are influenced by social forces as well as by the individual's own per- 

sonality. In their view, neither biology nor environment alone is sufficient 

Biological, Psychological, and Evolutionary Theories 43

to explain why some people commit crimes and others do not, or why 

some people commit more crime than others. There is certainly no "crime 

gene," which means there is no "born criminal" (1985: 69; Ellis and Walsh, 

1997). However, Wilson and Herrnstein (1985: 103) emphasize that bio- 

logical factors cannot be overlooked:

The existence of biological predispositions mean that circumstances that ac- 

tivate criminal behavior in one person will not do so in another, that social 

forces cannot deter criminal behavior in 100 percent of the population, and 

that the distribution of crime within and across societies may, to some extent, 

reflect underlying distributions of constitutional factors. . . . [C]rime cannot be 

understood without taking into account individual predispositions and their 

biological roots.

These theorists infer the existence of biological influences from two 

observations. First, Wilson and Herrnstein's reading of the research shows 

that street crimes such as murder, robbery, and burglary are committed by 

young males who are disproportionately African American and possibly of 

lower intelligence. The most striking difference is observed for sex: Males 

are up to fifty times more likely to commit crimes than are females. Second, 

there is a large body of research suggesting something biologically distinc- 

tive about the "average offender." The typical male offender, in their view, 

is more muscular than other people and is likely to have biological parents 

who are (or were) themselves criminal. 

Wilson and Herrnstein review a vast amount of research to help substan- 

tiate their claims, but how exactly are biological forces thought to influence 

criminal behavior? The authors are more cautious on this point, as well 

they might be, since many of the findings they review can be explained by 

other theories. However, their answer seems to rest in the impact biologi- 

cal factors have on (1) the things people consider rewarding; (2) the ability 

(or desire) of people to think about rewards and punishments that might 

come in the future; and (3) the ability of people to develop internal, moral 

constraints--the "bite of conscience." Aggressive drives and needs are 

dominant in males; younger and less intelligent people are more inclined 

to be impulsive, to want rewards now rather than later; and the cognitive 

skills involved in the development of conscience grow with age and are 

positively related to intelligence. People who are aggressive, impulsive, op- 

portunistic, and less constrained by conscience are at greatest risk of com- 

mitting crimes. 

Intelligence and Crime. One of the most enduring arguments found in 

scientific and popular literature is that antisocial behavior is more likely 

among people with low intelligence. There is little disagreement that intel- 

lectual defects are heritable (Fishbein, 1990), and much of the research 

on intelligence and crime has concluded that boys with lower aptitude are 

44 Chapter 3

more likely to become involved in delinquency and crime (Hirschi and 

Hindelang, 1977). 

When a certain group of people is found to have disproportionate in- 

volvement in crime, the natural inclination is to look for things the people 

have in common and then attribute the criminal behavior to these things. 

This is the sort of reasoning that has linked intelligence to the dispropor- 

tionately high rates of violent crime among African Americans compared 

with whites (Hindelang, 1978; Hindelang, Hirschi, and Weiss, 1979). To 

some, if African Americans consistently score lower on intelligence tests 

than whites, it is a short--but incorrect--step to conclude that African 

Americans are less intelligent because they are black (Fraser, 1995; Jensen, 

1969). The rates of serious crime among African Americans are then ex- 

plained as a result of biological differences in intelligence or aptitude. 

The words "race," "intelligence," and "crime," are controversial in terms 

of meaning and measurement. Sociologists, for example, do not give any 

credence to the idea that race has any biological meaning. Rather, race is 

considered a pure social construction. Environmental differences such as 

neighborhood, upbringing, economic conditions, schools, nutrition, and 

discrimination could well account for most if not all of the difference in 

measured intelligence between African Americans and whites. Further, it is 

well known that the very methodology of intelligence tests is discrimina- 

tory, much like the ACT and SAT tests, and it really measures exposure to 

the racially dominant culture's (i.e., white culture) language, tastes, hob- 

bies, and artistic interests (Fraser, 1995). 

Perhaps the most controversial statements on the relationship between 

intelligence and crime are rooted in Richard Herrnstein and Charles Mur- 

ray's (1994) book The Bell Curve. The authors argue that an "extensive 

research literature" shows that low IQ is a risk factor for criminal behavior. 

Claiming that differences in behavior result from differences in the char- 

acteristics of individuals (the classic psychological perspective), as well as 

differences in their circumstances (the sociological perspective), Herrnstein 

and Murray write that low intelligence may encourage crime in a variety of 

ways. 

First, they argue, low IQ may be associated with failure at school and 

work, which in turn causes frustration and perhaps resentment toward so- 

ciety and its laws. Second, it is claimed that a person with low IQ is more 

inclined to look for immediate gratification and tends to discount far-off 

risks such as arrest and incarceration. Third, the contention is made that 

a person with low IQ finds it harder to comprehend the moral and civil 

reasons for not hurting others and obeying rules. 

While acknowledging that most people with low IQ are law-abiding, 

Herrnstein and Murray maintain that the average intelligence of offenders 

Biological, Psychological, and Evolutionary Theories 45

is around ten points below that of nonoffenders, and that offenders with 

lower IQs commit crimes more often as well as more serious crimes. Citing 

research from abroad as well as self-report data from the United States, the 

authors conclude that individuals with the cognitive disadvantage implied 

by low IQ have higher rates of crime even when socioeconomic factors, 

family structure, and education are taken into account. 

On the other hand, Herrnstein and Murray recognize that the changes in 

aggregate crime rates experienced in the past several decades cannot be ex- 

plained by variations in intelligence. Large or sudden movements in crime 

rates are due to social forces rather than personal characteristics, yet these 

same forces nevertheless "may have put people of low cognitive ability at 

greater risk than before" (Herrnstein and Murray, 1994: 251). For example, 

while the downward shift in the age population due to the baby boomers 

coupled with more permissive child-rearing practices may have enhanced 

the risks of criminal involvement among all adolescents and largely ac- 

counts for the increased crime rate of the 1960s, Herrnstein and Murray 

would argue that the criminogenic impact of these forces was greatest 

among individuals with lower IQs. 

Despite the convictions of the authors, the intelligence-criminality puzzle 

remains to be solved (Guay, Ouimet, and Proulx, 2005). For one thing, if 

cognitive disadvantage explains criminal behavior, how do we then explain 

the many varieties of white-collar crime, which are often committed by 

individuals with college degrees and require higher degrees of forethought, 

skill, and political capital? Nor is it clear how constitutional and environ- 

mental factors come together to influence criminal behavior.

PERSONALITY AND AGGRESSIVE TEMPERAMENT

To say that people have an innate predisposition toward violence does not 

mean they will be violent, nor does it explain different levels and types of 

violence. Furthermore, as Green (1993: 32) points out, "Most men pro- 

claim their 'fitness' for progenitorship in non-violent ways." The actual 

display of aggression is affected by triggers and inhibitors, controls that may 

be innate but also may be learned or situational. 

Some psychiatrists believe that humans develop internal inhibitors dur- 

ing early childhood. According to Sigmund Freud, the individual psyche 

is composed of three parts: the ego, the id, and the superego. Behavior is 

motivated by those drives that are innate: the sex drive, the aggression drive, 

and even the death drive. These make up the id. As one develops and inter- 

acts with others, the superego emerges. This part of the psyche consists of 

social ideals and rules that are internalized through socialization. Finally, 

46 Chapter 3

the ego strikes a balance between the demands of the id and the constraints 

of the superego. 

The aggressive drive is expressed as violence, Freudians believe, when 

disturbances occur within the psyche. Mulvihill and Tumin (1969: 460­61) 

put it this way:

The id may overflow with violent drives: the individual hates too much, enjoys 

pain too much, or wants to destroy himself. Sometimes the id is just too much 

for the ego to control, and the individual breaks out into violent behavior. 

. . . Alternatively, the superego may be extremely overformed or underformed. 

If the superego tries to quash all expression of dislike or hatred, and to quell 

all fantasies about violence, the individual may build up a greater and greater 

reserve of unfulfilled desire, until he can no longer control himself. Then he 

becomes violent. If the superego is underdeveloped, the individual simply sees 

nothing wrong with violence; he will use it whenever the occasion seems to 

call for it. In the underdeveloped superego, we are not dealing with a "sick" 

man at variance with his environment; we are rather dealing with a sick envi- 

ronment which has encouraged violence as the "normal" mode of response.

Some psychiatrists locate the seeds of emotional disturbance in par- 

ent-child relationships. It is suggested, for example, that the "love bonds" 

between parent and child are important to regulating the aggressive drive 

and that destructive behavior is prevented by the formation of stable hu- 

man relationships in early childhood (Chodorkoff and Baxter, 1969). By 

the same token, excessive physical disciplining undermines these bonds 

and, further, teaches youngsters that there is a place for violence in relation- 

ships. Although psychiatrists may have much to tell about aggression and 

violence among those who are "disturbed" or "sick," their work is not help- 

ful in understanding types of violence for entire populations and societies. 

Indeed, some people question the applicability of the psychiatric approach 

to even extreme forms of aggression. They point out that violent offenders 

do not suffer from mental disorders as a rule. Summarizing the findings of 

investigations into mental disorders among murderers, psychiatrist Donald 

Lunde (1970: 93) argues:

I cannot emphasize too strongly the well-established fact that mental patients, 

in general, are no more murderous than the population at large. While it 

should not be surprising to find that psychotic killers have been previously 

hospitalized for treatment of psychosis, the incidence of psychosis among 

murderers is no greater than the incidence of psychosis in the total popula- 

tion. Furthermore, the percentage of murderers among former mental patients 

is actually slightly lower than that among persons who have never been in a 

mental hospital. Crimes committed by the mentally ill tend to receive dispro- 

portionate publicity, which reinforces a widespread myth about mental illness 

and violence. 

Biological, Psychological, and Evolutionary Theories 47

FRUSTRATION-AGGRESSION THEORIES

The frustration-aggression hypothesis was first advanced in the 1930s by 

psychologists at Yale University. Originally, the hypothesis asserted that 

"the occurrence of aggressive behavior always presupposes the existence of 

frustration, and . . . the existence of frustration always leads to some form of 

aggression" (Dollard et al., 1939: 1). Frustration arises whenever something 

interferes with an individual's attempt to reach a valued goal. 

It was soon recognized that this early statement of the frustration-aggres- 

sion relationship required modification to accommodate the complexities 

of real life. Even though the impulse for aggression may be strong fol- 

lowing some frustrating experience, the actual display of aggression may 

be inhibited by internal or external controls. Further, frustrations may 

be cumulative, one experience adding to another, and they may remain 

potent over a long period of time. It is now known that people evaluate 

frustrating experiences differently, according to whether they are arbitrary 

or unreasonable, for example. Finally, socialization teaches people how 

to respond to frustrations, and since the content of what is learned varies 

considerably from group to group and from society to society, the reactions 

to frustration can be expected to vary. In short, aggressive actions are not 

an automatic consequence of frustration, nor is the relationship between 

the two a simple one. As we will discuss in chapter four, Robert Agnew has

Box 3.2. Falling Down 

The film Falling Down, starring Michael Douglas, revolves around the main 

character's "mind snap" and subsequent aggressive criminal behavior. Doug- 

las plays the role of Bill, an average man who starts to lose control of himself 

while sitting in a traffic jam on a hot day without air conditioning. Adding to 

his frustration, Bill has just lost his job and is late for his daughter's birthday 

party. After feeling overcharged by a grocer for a soft drink, Bill stumbles upon 

a stash of high-powered weapons and begins an aggressive attack on various 

parties to exact his twisted sense of justice. 

Frustration-aggression theorists would examine the precipitating circum- 

stances of such behavior and compare Bill's response to those who are simi- 

larly situated to look for differences. Although this theoretical perspective can 

be helpful in understanding sudden violent behavior, sociological theories 

reviewed in chapter 4 can also shed light on them. For example, an interest- 

ing study by Hipp, Bauer, Curran, and Bollen (2004) tests the temperature/ 

frustration hypothesis (an idea first offered by Quetelet [1969] almost two 

centuries ago) against routine activities theory. The authors conclude that the 

latter theory better explains property crime but that both explanations offer 

some support for explaining violent crime. 

48 Chapter 3

recently developed a more sophisticated way to explain the consequences 

of frustration and crime.

CHAPTER SUMMARY

The scientific foundations of criminology are traced to nineteenth-century 

Europe and the rise of positivism. The development of new techniques 

of data collection and analysis and Charles Darwin's work on evolution 

spurred the application of science to problems of human behavior, includ- 

ing criminality. The work of Lombroso, Hooton, and Sheldon represent a 

kind of criminology inspired by the search for the biological and physi- 

ological causes of crime. 

Among the theoretical perspectives found within modern biological ap- 

proaches to crime are (1) evolutionary theories, which examine changing 

environmental conditions, (2) genetic theories, which focus on inherited 

traits, defects, or deficiencies, and (3) biochemical theories that examine 

hormonal or chemical imbalances. Each of these perspectives has very 

modest empirical support and for a variety of reasons cannot be considered 

part of the core set of popular criminological theories today. 

Biosocial theories maintain that there are important interactional effects 

between constitutional variables and the social environment that can lead 

to criminal behavior. The relationship between intelligence and crime has 

been a part of this theoretical tradition, but there is no clear evidence that 

IQ plays a substantial role in explaining either individual or structural 

variations in criminal involvement or crime rates in general.

KEY TERMS

atavistic 

biosocial approach 

evolutionary theorists 

frustration-aggression hypothesis 

mesomorphs 

positivism

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

1. Have you ever heard someone say that a person "looked like a crimi- 

nal"? On what basis would a person make that claim? Can there be 

Biological, Psychological, and Evolutionary Theories 49

any basis whatsoever for connecting physical appearance with crime 

or criminality? 

2. Evolutionary theories of crime are controversial because they imply 

that some crimes are natural outcomes of the fact that human beings 

are also animals. To what extent can evolutionary theory be helpful in 

understanding different forms of crime, such as political corruption 

versus violent crime? 

3. Biosocial criminologists look to both constitutional and social factors 

in explaining crime and criminality. To what extent is this related to 

the age-old "nature-nurture" debate, and where do you stand on the 

issue? 

4. What types of crime are more easily understood as a result of frustra- 

tion than others? Does aggression always, or even most of the time, 

follow frustration? Why or why not?

ACTIVITIES

1. Go to the FBI's "Ten Most Wanted List" and study the photos. Is there 

any way one could make a connection between physical appearance 

and criminality that is not racist, ethnocentric, or otherwise stereo- 

typical? 

2. Watch the film Falling Down and interpret the scenes and the main 

character's actions through the lens of the frustration-aggression hy- 

pothesis. Why would some people follow frustration with aggression, 

while others would not? 

3. Take any number of online IQ tests with your classmates or friends 

and have each self-report on their involvement in crime. Can you see 

any connections between the two? 

4 

Social Structural Theories

In the song "Breaking the Law" Rob Halford, the lead singer of the classic 

metal band Judas Priest, sings about familiar human and social problems: 

unemployment, instability, anger, disappointment, and boredom. The con- 

nection between a person's feelings, behavior, and social institutions has 

been a topic of intense scrutiny in academic quarters. In sociology, theories 

emphasize the social aspects of human behavior, including the organiza- 

tion, structure, and culture of group life as well as the interactions that oc- 

cur among individuals and groups. As we discussed in chapter 1, theories 

of crime that focus on social structure are generally macrosociological. They 

emphasize social conditions and patterns that transcend the immediate 

social situation. Theories of crime that focus on social interaction explain 

crime in terms of social process and are generally microsociological. They 

emphasize how the immediate social situation shapes the behavior of par- 

ticipants and is, in turn, shaped by it. This chapter focuses on social struc- 

ture, the next on social process, but it should be emphasized at the outset 

that some theories of crime defy easy classification because they bridge the 

conventional distinction between structure and process. This is true of the 

theories we review in this chapter, especially social disorganization and 

Chicago School theories, and it is true of conflict theory (discussed in chap- 

ter 6). In the end, all criminological theories are saying something about 

the behavior of individuals, for it is the individual who makes and enforces 

rules or who behaves in ways that violate them. The theories are grouped 

in different categories to emphasize their similarities and differences and to 

show how they build upon each other and how they compete. Let us begin 

our study of structural theories with a look at the work of the eminent clas- 

sical sociologist Emile Durkheim.

51 

52 Chapter 4

DURKHEIM ON CRIME, LAW, AND ORDER

Emile Durkheim is regarded by many as a founder of the sociological study 

of crime and law. The breadth of Durkheim's work is impressive, and it is 

easy to see from even a cursory examination of his scholarship that crimi- 

nologists owe him a heavy intellectual debt. Indeed, two major social struc- 

tural theories of crime, social disorganization theory and Merton's anomie 

theory, have strong and direct ties to Durkheim's work. 

Durkheim was a functionalist, and so it should not be surprising to find 

that he was concerned with how societies attempt to regulate behavior for 

the purposes of stability, control, and solidarity. Law, Durkheim believed, 

should ideally represent the collective will of the people. What should be 

considered criminal, then, are behaviors that compromise and jeopardize 

the social order. Durkheim (1893) used the term collective conscience 

to describe widely held social values and beliefs. He reasoned that some- 

thing should be made or considered criminal if it offends the collective 

conscience, the basic normative standards of the society. Punishment, 

he argued, was necessary to reaffirm the collective conscience so that all 

members of society would understand the wrongfulness and immorality of 

criminal behavior. This, he explained, increases social solidarity. 

Durkheim also pointed out that crime is not abnormal because it is 

found in every society. Further, he argued that crime and deviance are uni- 

versal because every society must have norms and every society will have 

someone break those norms at one time or another:

There is no society that is not confronted with the problem of criminality. Its 

form changes; the acts thus characterized are not the same everywhere; but every- 

where and always, there have been men who have behaved in such a way as to 

draw upon themselves penal repression . . . No doubt it is possible that crime will 

have abnormal forms, as, for example, when its rate is unusually high . . . What is 

normal, simply, is the existence of criminality, provided that it attains and does 

not exceed, for each social type, a certain level, which it is perhaps not impossible 

to fix in conformity with the preceding rules (Durkheim, 1938: 64­66).

Crime and deviance are also functional or socially beneficial because 

they provide avenues for social change. Here Durkheim meant that norm 

or law violation can cause people to become aware of required changes in 

society. Using the example of Socrates, Durkheim noted that challenges to 

established rules may enlighten others so that laws and norms may adapt 

to ever-changing social conditions:

Nothing is good indefinitely and to an unlimited extent . . . To make progress, 

individual originality must be able to express itself. In order that the originality 

of the idealist whose dreams transcend his century may find expression, it is nec- 

Social Structural Theories 53

essary that the originality of the criminal, who is below the level of his time, shall 

also be possible. One does not occur without the other (Durkheim, 1938: 71).

The defiant actions of people such as Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, 

and even Dr. Jack Kevorkian illustrate that lawbreaking or deviance can pro- 

duce social change. Of course, how positive or negative the social change is 

determined to be can be more a matter of opinion than fact. Box 4.1 further 

illustrates this point in the realm of popular music.

Box 4.1. Departing from the Norm Can Be Good 

Durkheim theorized that deviance can be beneficial to society. Let's apply this 

reasoning to changes over the years in popular music. 

Every so often watershed moments in music are sparked by the unique 

charisma, style, and spirit of musical visionaries. Most popular musicians are 

able to trace back their influences to rebels who offered up something unusual 

and distinct. We have talked about such influences with many musicians and 

read about many more. Some of the names that pop up include the influence 

of Louis Armstrong and Count Basie on jazz; Robert Johnson and B. B. King 

on the blues; Elvis Presley on blues-rock; the Beatles and the Rolling Stones on 

rock; The Who, Jimmy Hendrix, and Motorhead on hard rock; Patti LaBelle and 

Aretha Franklin on soul music and rhythm and blues; Public Enemy, Eazy-E, 

and Run-DMC on rap; Michael Jackson and Madonna on pop; Ozzy Osbourne 

on all metal genres; the New York Dolls and Motley Crue on glam metal; Nir- 

vana and Pearl Jam on grunge; Black Sabbath and Metallica on heavy metal; the 

Dead Kennedys and the Sex Pistols on punk; and Green Day and Blink 182 on 

pop punk. What do all these folks have in common? First, they achieved some 

degree of success in the marketplace by offering something new and distinct. 

Such breakthroughs can forever change music. Second, these people challenged 

traditional rules and norms relating to music, whether by their style, substance, 

or presentation. Third, to a greater or lesser extent they helped pave the way for 

new artists and acted as symbolic reminders of the spirit of innovation. 

Durkheim's ideas can also be applied to a variety of other popular culture 

subjects, such as film, television, and music videos. Regarding videos, in the 

early days of MTV, videos were simple and low budget, often depicting little 

more than images of the artists performing their songs. Over time, as the 

popularity of cable television and visual media in general grew, landmark 

videos like Dire Straits' "Money for Nothing" and Michael Jackson's "Billie 

Jean" set new standards for the visual presentation of music. Now, of course, 

some music videos are the equivalent of short films, containing complicated 

plots, hired actors or actresses, cameos from celebrities, and lots of capital 

invested in their production. Times change indeed, and often, according to 

a Durkheimian perspective, it is triggered by those who go beyond the norm 

and push the envelope. 

54 Chapter 4

While Durkheim made numerous contributions to criminology, perhaps 

the most lasting was the introduction of the concept of anomie. In both The 

Division of Labor in Society (1893) and Suicide (1897), anomie was explained 

as a social condition in which "normlessness" prevails. More specifically, 

anomie exists when systems of regulation and restraint in a society have 

diminished so much that individuals suffer a loss of external guidance and 

control in their goal-seeking endeavors. The structure regulating social rela- 

tionships is disrupted, and social cohesion and solidarity are undermined. 

Durkheim argued that anomie is more likely during periods of rapid social 

change, when traditional norms prove ineffective in regulating human con- 

duct. This structural, macrosociological approach helped explain why some 

areas have a higher suicide rate than others. This is important because sui- 

cide is often considered a very individual act and is perhaps more appropri- 

ately explained by psychological theories. However, Durkheim showed that 

suicide, as a social fact, is a phenomenon explainable by the careful study of 

large-scale social currents and forces. Sociologist Robert Merton was heavily 

influenced by the concept of anomie and used it to build a theory of crime, 

which we shall review in a few moments. First, let's consider what is known 

as the first distinct sociological theory of crime in the United States, social 

disorganization theory.

CRIME AND SOCIAL DISORGANIZATION

Crime and delinquency in cities have been given considerable attention 

in the academic community, and interest in urban problems is not low in 

the general public, either. One common understanding of the relationship 

between the city and social problems is that decaying urban environments 

generate high rates of crime and delinquency. Beginning in the early 1900s, 

sociologists at the University of Chicago published a series of studies of life 

in Chicago. Under the guidance of Robert Park and E. W. Burgess, these 

studies were designed to document the belief that problems such as crime 

and delinquency resulted from social disorganization. Simply put, social 

disorganization is the inability of a community to regulate itself (Bursik 

and Grasmick, 1995). Social organization is maintained by a group's com- 

mitment to social rules; when this commitment breaks down, social control 

breaks down. Members of the Chicago School and many contemporary 

criminologists believe that this breakdown in social control could occur 

through ecological changes, such as when communities experience rapid 

population change through social mobility and migration. 

By examining voluminous data on the city of Chicago, Clifford Shaw 

and Henry McKay (1942) were able to confirm that certain areas of Chi- 

Social Structural Theories 55

cago experienced relatively high rates of crime and delinquency and that 

these areas also showed the telltale signs of social disorganization. An area 

known as the zone of transition was found to have the highest crime rate. 

This zone is close to the central business district and, consequently, areas 

of population transition. Such areas of high crime were also characterized 

by overcrowding, physical deterioration, concentrations of minority and 

foreign-born residents, concentrated poverty, lack of home ownership, 

lack of locally supported community organizations, and concentrations 

of unskilled and unemployed workers. Further analysis showed that these 

areas also had other problems: high rates of infant mortality, tuberculosis, 

mental disorder, and juvenile delinquency (Shaw and McKay, 1942; Mor- 

ris, 1958). Shaw and McKay found that as the distance from the zone of 

transition increased, crime rates decreased. 

Shaw (1931b: 387) summarized the links between ecological change, 

social disorganization, and the development of "delinquency areas" as fol- 

lows:

In the process of city growth, the neighborhood organizations, cultural in- 

stitutions, and social standards in practically all areas adjacent to the central 

business district and the major industrial centers are subject to rapid change 

and disorganization. The gradual invasion of these areas by industry and com- 

merce, the continuous movement of the older residents out of the area and the 

influx of newer groups, the confusion of many divergent cultural standards, 

the economic insecurity of the families, all combine to render difficult the 

development of a stable and efficient neighborhood for the education and 

control of the child and the suppression of lawlessness.

One of Shaw and McKay's most important observations was that the rela- 

tive levels of delinquency and crime in local communities tended to remain 

stable over many years, despite changing ethnic and racial composition (Bur- 

sik, 1988: 524; Bursik and Grasmick, 1993: 1995). Thus, a city area with 

high rates of delinquency compared to other areas would tend to remain 

that way, as would an area with low rates relative to another. They showed 

this to be true of Chicago over a period spanning several decades. Shaw 

and McKay argued that delinquent values and traditions were being passed 

from one generation of residents to another; in other words, a form of cul- 

tural transmission was taking place. In Shaw and McKay's view, the only 

way to combat the tendency for areas to become permanently crime-prone 

was to develop neighborhood organizations that could help promote in- 

formal social controls and encourage residents to look out for each other's 

welfare (Sampson, 1986, 1987; Stark, 1987). 

Shaw and McKay and their colleagues at Chicago had a major influence 

on the development of sociological criminology. They not only showed 

56 Chapter 4

how social organization and culture unite to influence social behavior but 

also they drew attention to the processes by which youthful residents adopt 

the criminal lifestyles of an area and thus reinforce them. Even though their 

theory is essentially a macro-level explanation of variations in group rates 

of crime, they clearly believed that interactions between parents and chil- 

dren, and between neighborhood youths themselves, helped mediate the 

influences of structure and culture (Bursik, 1988: 521). Indeed, Shaw spent 

many years helping youths find alternative solutions to their problems, and 

he persuaded former delinquents and crooks to help him reverse the spread 

of delinquent values and lifestyles. The resulting Chicago Area Project be- 

came a model for delinquency prevention efforts. 

Social disorganization theory fell out of favor in the 1960s as few crimi- 

nologists identified themselves with the perspective. Various reasons can 

be advanced for this decline in popularity. For some it was sufficient to 

point out that many youngsters do not become delinquent despite living 

in high-crime areas. Others wondered whether crime and delinquency are 

not a part of social disorganization rather than a result of it. Furthermore, 

how could one explain the emergence of highly organized, cohesive youth 

gangs in neighborhoods that are supposedly so disorganized? Finally, there 

was concern that the social disorganization model diverts attention away 

from the delinquency and crime of middle-class neighborhoods and from 

nonstreet crimes such as price-fixing and the sale of unsafe products. 

If Shaw and McKay's ideas were unpopular a few decades ago, there has 

been a recent a resurrection of the theory (Pratt and Godsey, 2003; Mar- 

tinez, Rosenfeld, and Mares, 2008; Warner, 2007) One example of this is 

found in Rodney Stark's "Theory of Deviant Places" (1987). Using human 

ecology theory and other classic Chicago School concepts, Stark's theory 

focuses on the following variables: density, poverty, mixed use, transience, 

and dilapidation. He argues that poor and densely populated neighbor- 

hoods are likely to be mixed-use, and people tend to move in and out of 

these neighborhoods regularly. This can result in less community surveil- 

lance, more opportunities to engage in crime, and people who are disen- 

chanted, cynical, or apathetic about their neighborhood. Neighborhoods 

that are dilapidated are also often stigmatized, Stark maintains, for they 

signify disorder and seem attractive to those seeking deviant opportunities. 

Furthermore, Stark (1987: 901­2) proposes that:

· More successful and conventional people will resist moving into a 

stigmatized neighborhood; and 

· Stigmatized neighborhoods will tend to be overpopulated by the most 

demoralized kinds of people and suffer from lenient law enforcement, 

which may increase the incidence of crime and deviance. 

Social Structural Theories 57

Many of the basic propositions of social disorganization theory have 

been supported by scholarly research. For example, one study found that 

"busy places" in neighborhoods in Seattle have higher rates of violent crime 

(Rountree, Land, and Miethe, 1994). A study of Chicago neighborhoods 

found that the higher the level of informal community social control, 

cohesion, and trust, the lower the rate of violence in that area (Sampson, 

Raudenbush, and Earls, 1997: 922). This study also found that as there is 

more willingness on the part of people to help others in a community, the 

lower the level of violence in that area. However, there is also evidence to 

show that even nonintimates, or those removed from a person's daily or 

weekly routines, can also exercise considerable control over people's in- 

volvement in crime (Bursik, 2000). 

Another study using concepts from social disorganization theory has 

shown that there are significant community-level differences in the racial 

and ethnic distribution of crime and victimization, with the fundamental 

issue being the "embeddedness of black families in social environments 

with depleted resources" (McNulty and Bellair, 2003: 735). Similarly, an- 

other study of the distribution of black and white homicide rates in cities 

also supports this reasoning, but in a slightly different way. It may be that 

"the racial homicide differential is better explained by the greater resources 

that exist among whites than by the higher levels of disadvantage that exist 

among blacks" (Velez, Krivo, and Peterson, 2003). In other words, whites 

may have more opportunities to affect neighborhood and institutional 

change and therefore have increased regulatory power over their commu- 

nity. 

Finally, we should consider how the dramatic increase in U.S. impris- 

onment rates over the last few decades could be negatively impacting 

neighborhood and community social organization. In this vein, a very 

interesting theoretical argument has been proposed by Rose and Clear 

(1998: 441):

High incarceration rates may contribute to rates of criminal violence by the 

way they contribute to such social problems as inequality, family life dete- 

rioration, economic and political alienation, and social disorganization . . . 

(and) undermine social, political, and economic systems already weakened 

by the low levels of human and social capital produced under conditions 

such as high rates of poverty, unemployment, and crime. . . . The result is a 

reduction in social cohesion and a lessening of those communities' capacity 

for self-regulation.

In sum, this argument proposes that imprisonment takes away fathers, 

mothers, neighbors, and workers from the very social relationships that are 

needed to keep community crime rates low. For example, children are less 

58 Chapter 4

Box 4.2. Do You Live in a Socially Disorganized Community? 

Consider the follow questions. Do you know your neighbors? Do you say hi 

to them in passing? Do you ever hang out with them? Do they keep an eye 

on your children for you? When you are away, do they watch your house or 

apartment for suspicious activities? Do neighbors in your community oc- 

casionally congregate on the sidewalks or arrange for their children to play 

with one another? Do you know more than half of the people living in your 

immediate area? When problems arise, do you communicate and attempt to 

resolve them with your neighbors? If you answered yes to all or most of these 

questions, you probably don't live in a highly disorganized area. Theoreti- 

cally, then, such an area would be expected to have a lower crime rate than 

one with less neighborhood interaction cohesion, or what Sampson, Rauden- 

bush, and Earls (1997) call "collective efficacy." 

Other more structural indicators of whether you live in a socially disor- 

ganized neighborhood are the ratio of rental properties to owner-occupied 

homes, how often people move in and out of your area (the transience rate), 

and the kinds of resources provided by the government, churches, commu- 

nity organizations, and recreational groups in the area. Keep in mind that a 

socially organized community is not necessarily one that has to be so "tight" 

as to smother its residents in surveillance and social control. This might be 

dangerous: Tittle's control balance theory, reviewed in chapter 7, maintains 

that people who feel overcontrolled have a tendency to seek out deviant ways 

of expressing themselves and their interests.

likely to be well supervised if one parent, or even an older brother or sister, 

is incarcerated; family members devastated by the imprisonment of one 

parent may move in and out of areas to be nearer to the prison; and the 

growth of collective-political action movements that need young, energetic 

members is inhibited due to overincarceration. 

It has been observed by many scholars that the imprisonment boom has 

taken its largest toll on poor African American communities (Pettit and 

Western, 2004; Mauer and King, 2007). Partial support of Rose and Clear's 

model suggests that this way of thinking about incarceration and its effects 

on social disorganization are promising (Clear, Rose, Waring, and Scully, 

2003).

MERTON'S ANOMIE THEORY

Emile Durkheim's notion of anomie was extended and elaborated on by 

Robert K. Merton (1938; 1957), who made it a central feature of a strain 

Social Structural Theories 59

theory of crime. According to Merton, a state of anomie exerts pressure 

on people to commit crime. While all societies establish institutionalized 

means, or rules, for the attainment of culturally supported goals, these 

means and goals are not always in a state of harmony or integration. The 

way the society or group is organized interferes with the attainment of 

valued goals by acceptable means for some of its members. A condition of 

anomie or strain therefore exists. 

Looking at the United States in the 1930s, Merton saw an inordinate em- 

phasis on material success, which was held up as achievable by all Ameri- 

cans. Not all segments of society, however, could realistically expect to have 

material success if they followed the rules of the game. African Americans 

and the lower classes were routinely excluded from access to legitimate 

means of achievement. The acceptable routes to success--a good education, 

a good job, the "right" background, promotions, special skills--typically 

were not the routes open to them. Unfortunately, things are only margin- 

ally better today (see Farley, 2005; Feagin, 2006). 

Strain is essentially the disjunction or lack of fit between socially desir- 

able goals and the socially acceptable means to achieve those goals. Merton 

believes that various "modes of adaptation" are possible in response to the 

strain resulting from unrealized expectations: conformity, innovation, ritu- 

alism, retreatism, and rebellion. You may want to refer to figure 4.1 as we 

proceed to discuss each of these adaptations to strain. 

Many people will conform, simply accepting that they will never "make it 

big"--unless they win the lottery! Perhaps the "bite of conscience" (Wilson 

and Herrnstein, 1985) holds them back from crime; perhaps they fear pun- 

ishment; perhaps they have too much to lose, if not materially, then in terms 

of relationships with family and friends; perhaps they cannot recognize--or 

take advantage of--illegitimate opportunities. Merton prefers the idea that 

conformity reflects social acceptance of the rule of law. 

Other people may engage in ritualism. They give up on the goals but 

continue to support the socially approved means. They cling "all the more 

closely to the safe routines and institutional norms" (Merton, 1957: 151). 

Imagine the platoon leader who gives up on the apparently impossible task 

of taking the enemy position but berates his soldiers for having dirty belt 

buckles, or the loyal corporate manager who gives up on being promoted 

himself but punishes his subordinates for not "playing the game." 

Still others reject both means and goals. Such retreatism is an adaptation 

to anomic conditions in which people may even withdraw from society 

altogether. The inner-city heroine or crack addict is most often mentioned 

in this context. The drug-using, antiestablishment "hippies" of the 1960s 

and the short-lived commune movement also come to mind. On the 

other hand, some people substitute new sets of norms and goals, and 

60 Chapter 4

When confronted by a disjunction between legitimate means and socially ap- 

proved gains--a condition of anomie, which produces strain--people may adapt 

in various ways. This table summaries Merton's modes of adaptation.

Adaptation Socially Approved Goals Legitimate Means 

Conformity accept (+) accept (+) 

Innovation accept (+) reject (-) 

Ritualism reject (-) accept (+) 

Retreatism reject (-) reject (-) 

Revellion reject and replace (±) reject and replace (±)

Figure 4.1. Merton's Modes of Adaptation to Anomie

Merton calls this adaptation rebellion. Unfortunately, the logical separa- 

tion between these two modes of adaptation is unclear. For example, are 

the antiestablishment hippies retreatists or rebels? Can rebellion occur 

without retreatism? 

The adaptation that Merton identifies most closely with crime is innova- 

tion. Innovators accept the goals, but they reject the institutional means 

and substitute illegal alternatives. Merton uses innovation to explain the 

relatively high rates of property crime among lower class and minority seg- 

ments of society. Their disadvantaged status coupled with the high cultural 

priority given to material success as a goal for all makes high rates of crime a 

"normal outcome" for those segments of society. Box 4.3 provides another 

way to understand the various modes of adaptation when applied to actors 

in higher education.

Box 4.3. Possible Modes of Adaptation to Strain by Students and College 

Professors 

Merton's strain theory speaks not only to crime but deviance as well, which 

is essentially rule violation. Using the five adaptations to strain identified by 

Merton, let's consider how deviance might come about for both college stu- 

dents and college professors.

College Students 

Let us suppose the overriding goal is to achieve very good to excellent 

grades in a class. What kinds of actions might be associated with the various 

adaptations to strain over this goal? 

Conformity: Diligent, careful, meticulous reading of course materials; not 

skipping class and coming to every class meeting prepared; asking the profes- 

Social Structural Theories 61

sor questions when clarification is needed; visiting the professor during office 

hours; properly using academic sources for papers; actively participating in 

any group work or discussion. 

Innovation: Cheating on exams; plagiarizing papers; having someone else 

take your exam or write your paper; relying on others' notes rather than tak- 

ing them yourself. 

Ritualism: Here the person just wants a passing grade, nothing more; this 

might be expressed by sporadic attendance and participation in the class; 

poor or uneven performance on exams and papers; cursory reading of course 

materials. 

Retreatism: Dropping out of class, or perhaps college altogether. 

Rebellion: Disengagement from the entire conventional higher education 

system; possibly embracing anti-intellectualism or intellectualism outside the 

confines of conventional education in the form of religious training, cults, or 

even home schooling.

College Professors 

Now, let's think about college professors. Let us suppose the overriding 

goal is to be an effective teacher, productive scholar, and an active member 

of the community. 

Conformity: Put in full work weeks; work on weekends; prepare and write 

own lectures; give all self-composed essay exams; carefully read all student 

papers; publish in peer-reviewed journals and with respectable presses; spend 

hours each week in committee meetings. 

Innovation: Copy lectures from textbooks; plagiarize parts of papers; lie 

on their vitas (an academic resume); not read papers but give grades anyway; 

exaggerate the time and energy put into community work; steal student work 

(as in the film D.O.A.). 

Ritualism: This professor plays by the rules for the most part, but does seek 

to get: promoted, well-published, elected to important university positions, 

excellent teaching evaluations, or academic awards. 

Retreatism: A professor who is chronically late to class; communicates with 

students indifferently; uses dated films and lectures; seldom changes exams 

from semester to semester; is unavailable to students; never writes or pub- 

lishes; and does little to no community service work. 

Rebellion: This is the professor who subverts the dominant academic para- 

digm. This can be done by using unconventional teaching methods (extreme 

participatory pedagogies, not giving grades, allowing students control over 

the classroom experience) or overtly attempting to advance ideological, reli- 

gious, or political agendas in class. 

Although Merton never discussed these cases, it is interesting to note that 

his theory is sufficiently broad enough to be applied to specific roles and oc- 

cupations. Such applications of Merton's theory are becoming more common 

among criminologists who study white-collar crime. 

62 Chapter 4

Merton's theory of anomic strain and crime had a profound influence 

on subsequent structural theories despite some serious criticisms. In many 

ways his "theory" is merely a catalog of potential reactions to anomie: It 

does not tell us when to expect one mode of adaptation rather than an- 

other, or whether different segments of the population are likely to select 

different adaptations. Katz (1988: 358, note 9) objects that Merton's theory 

is unconvincing as an explanation for "vandalism, the use of dope, inter- 

group fighting, and the character of initial experiences in property theft as 

sneaky thrills." 

Another line of criticism is directed at the social disorganization theory 

of Shaw and McKay: Too much is made of the high rates of crime officially 

observed among the lower classes. Even if the data are credible, the preoc- 

cupation with criminal behavior among the lower classes diverts theory 

and research from the behavior of other classes and from the power rela- 

tions that exist between classes. More recent extensions of Mertonian strain 

theory, however, have been used to explain forms of white-collar crime. 

Kauzlarich and Kramer (1998), for example, have specifically studied how 

state strain brings about innovation by state and corporate organizations. 

They argue that state agencies use illegal means in order to achieve their 

operational goals, which may be financial health, legitimacy, national 

security, or political hegemony. For example, illegal human radiation ex- 

periments conducted by the U.S. government from 1940 to 1980 can be 

understood as the use of illegitimate means (violating international law 

and human rights) for the larger goal of winning the Cold War. In this 

way, white-collar crime can be understood in Mertonian terms, but this 

must be done by substituting the organization for the individual as the 

unit of analysis. 

Another limitation of Merton's theory is that there is no explanation of 

why the "success ethos" is so important in the United States. Indeed, Mess- 

ner and Rosenfeld (2000) maintain in their institutional anomie theory 

that the larger U.S. culture, not simply its structure, prizes economic suc- 

cess over other forms of achievement. Good parenting and good grades in 

school are considered less valuable because they produce no capital--that 

is, no direct financial benefits. More broadly, according to the theory, in- 

stitutions such as the family, school, and community become visualized in 

economic terms, and potential informal social control mechanisms within 

the culture become sterile. Crime is then not so much a product of those 

who are unable to achieve the American Dream but those who are locked 

in to those values (Rosenfeld and Messner, 2006.) Although institutional 

anomie theory has only been subjected to a few empirical tests, research 

has generally found some support for the theory's main contentions (Bjer- 

regaard and Cochran, 2008; Maume and Lee, 2003). 

Social Structural Theories 63

GENERAL STRAIN THEORY

Like Messner and Rosenfeld, Robert Agnew (1992; 2001) has redirected 

Merton's strain theory in the hope of increasing the theory's explanatory 

power. Unlike institutional anomie theory, however, Agnew reframes strain 

theory on the social-psychological or micro level of analysis. In some ways 

this makes Agnew's theory more similar to social process theories reviewed 

in the next chapter, but since Agnew's theory is rooted in Merton's work, 

we shall discuss it here. 

Agnew's general strain theory (GST) starts with the assumption that neg- 

ative relationships with others causes strain or stress in people's lives. Nega- 

tive relationships are those "in which others are not treating the individual 

as he or she would like to be treated" Agnew (1992: 50). According to 

Agnew, Mertonian strain theory relies too heavily on the relationships that 

prevent the individual from reaching positively valued goals. GST, however, 

considers this and two other sources of strain that may lead to crime and 

delinquency: (1) when other individuals remove or threaten to remove 

positively valued stimuli that one possesses, and (2) when others present or 

threaten to present a person with negatively valued stimuli (Agnew, 1992: 

50; 2001). Some examples might help clarify these sources of strain. 

The first type of strain, the failure to achieve positively valued goals, sug- 

gests that people have in some way not met their goals, expectations, or have 

received unfair or inequitable outcomes in social relationships. Examples 

include not meeting one's expectation to earn good grades in school, finan- 

cial strength from working, and fair treatment by their parents, teachers, and 

peers. Strain also stems from situations in which others remove or threaten 

to remove things that a person positively values. Think for a moment about 

the kinds of stressful life events we all probably encounter: the loss of part- 

ners (boyfriends, girlfriends, husbands, wives) and friends. How about when 

a child loses a parent? All of these negative events can place considerable 

stress on individuals and may trigger involvement in crime. Finally, Agnew 

maintains strain is also likely to develop when others present or threaten to 

present an individual with negative outcomes. Examples of this type of strain 

include a child who is abused, neglected, or otherwise criminally victimized 

(Agnew, 1992). The child may deal with these negative relationships by 

attempting to escape the environment all together (i.e., running or staying 

away from home) or exacting revenge upon the victimizers, who are usually 

family members. Further, these different types of strain can overlap:

For example, the insults of a teacher may be experienced as adverse because 

they (1) interfere with the adolescent's aspirations for academic success, (2) 

result in the violation of a distributive justice rule such as equity, and (3) are 

64 Chapter 4

conditioned negative stimuli and so are experiences as noxious in and of them- 

selves (Agnew, 1992: 59).

Agnew (2001) has more recently theorized that those negative experi- 

ences that are perceived as highly unjust, undeserved, and threatening are 

most likely to trigger deviant activity. 

Since most people probably experience these forms of strain at some point 

in their lives, who is more likely to commit crime or delinquent acts because 

of the strain? Agnew suggests that it is those who do not cope well with the 

situations. Coping abilities, or adaptations, which moderate the effects of 

strain are things like the ability to "blow off," neutralize, or downplay the 

seriousness and/or significance of a stressful life event. For example, lowering 

one's standards for the accumulation of wealth or grade point average help 

neutralize strain. Personality traits, temperament, and social learning and 

bonding variables ultimately, according to Agnew, help determine whether a 

person's adaptation to strain is criminal or not. The theory therefore comple- 

ments leading criminological theories such as social control theory and social 

learning theory, which we shall discuss in chapter 5. GST can also be partially 

integrated with social disorganization theory, as Agnew (1999) has at- 

tempted to do in order to explain community-level differences in crime rates. 

Empirical tests of GST have generally confirmed that the theory has 

reasonably strong predictive power (Mazerolle, 1998; Moon, Morash, Mc- 

Cluskey, and Hwang, 2009; Slocum, Simpson, and Smith, 2005; White 

and Agnew, 1992). Of the several studies, two are particularly interesting 

because they examine the theory's ability to predict gender differences in of- 

fending (Broidy and Agnew, 1997; Mazerolle, 1998). Both found that GST 

did not predict the differences in overall offending very well but that it did 

account for some differences in violent offending by gender. Specifically, 

one study found that losing a parent or family member and having negative 

relationships with adults are more likely to be criminogenic for males but 

not females (Mazerolle, 1997). This provides partial support to the notion 

that males tend to manifest anger and strain externally while women more 

often manage these emotions internally. Another study of only African 

American youths, however, found that after controlling for prior offending 

and other factors, both boys and girls had similar delinquent responses to 

the anger and depression brought on by experiences with racial discrimina- 

tion (Simons, Chen, Stewart, and Brody, 2003).

CULTURAL TRANSMISSION OF 

CRIME AND DELINQUENCY

As noted previously, ecological studies of crime and Merton's theory of 

anomie emphasized the high rates of crime officially observed among the 

Social Structural Theories 65

poor. From 1940 to 1960, sociologists seemed preoccupied with explana- 

tions of criminal activity among the lower classes. Most of the theories 

produced in the period emphasized social structure, especially the ways in 

which the behavior of adolescents and young adults is shaped by the life- 

styles and values to which they are exposed. 

A number of theories focus on what is called the delinquent subculture. 

Any heterogeneous society is likely to have a parent, or dominant, culture 

and a variety of different subcultures. The dominant culture consists of 

the beliefs, attitudes, symbols, ways of behaving, meanings, ideas, values, 

and norms shared by those who regularly make up the membership of a 

society. Subcultures differ from the dominant culture and consist of the be- 

liefs, values, and lifestyles shared by those members of society who belong 

to identifiable subgroups. For example, Goth kids, vegans, residents of a 

retirement community, homosexuals who have "come out," the hippies of 

the 1960s, and Polish Americans who belong to clubs and organizations 

that emphasize their common heritage are identifiable subgroups whose 

members share a common subculture. 

Some subcultures are merely different from the dominant culture, while 

others are in active opposition to it. Delinquent subcultures fit neither 

characterization exactly. According to Cloward and Ohlin (1960: 7), a de- 

linquent subculture "is one in which certain forms of delinquent activity 

are essential for the performance of the dominant roles supported by the 

subculture. It is the central position accorded to specifically delinquent 

activity that distinguishes the delinquent subculture from other deviant 

subcultures [such as homosexual activists]." However, even in its support of 

delinquent activities, a delinquent subculture may nevertheless also share 

aspects of the dominant culture; for example, an emphasis on material pos- 

sessions or an acceptance of gender differences in social roles. 

In general, then, subcultural theories of crime and delinquency begin 

with the assumption that people are socialized into the norms and values 

of the immediate groups to which they belong. In a sense, all people are 

conformists, but the values and norms with which they conform may be 

different from, or at odds with, those of the dominant culture, and the 

behaviors that result are sometimes illegal. In other words, some kinds of 

conformity turn out to be delinquent or criminal. So it is with the activities 

central to delinquent subcultures. 

Cohen's Theory. One of the first sociologists to propose a subcultural 

explanation of delinquency was Albert Cohen (1955). In his book Delin- 

quent Boys, Cohen suggests that high rates of lower class delinquency reflect 

a basic conflict between lower-class youth subculture and the dominant 

middle-class culture. The delinquent subculture arises as a reaction to 

the dominant culture, which is seen as discriminating against lower-class 

people. Told in school and elsewhere to strive for middle-class goals and 

to behave according to middle-class values (be orderly, clean, responsible, 

66 Chapter 4

ambitious, and so forth), lower-class youth find that their socialization 

has not prepared them for the challenge. They become "status frustrated" 

as a result of their inability to meet middle-class standards and in reaction 

turn to delinquent activities and form delinquency-centered groups. Cohen 

describes the delinquency that results as nonutilitarian (e.g., stealing "for 

the hell of it"), malicious (enjoying the discomfort of others), and negativ- 

istic (taking pride in doing things because they are wrong by middle class 

standards). 

Cloward and Ohlin's Differential Opportunity Theory. Expanding on 

Merton and Cohen, sociologists Cloward and Ohlin (1960) developed a 

theory of delinquency and youth crime that incorporates the concept of 

opportunity structures. The authors point out that society provides both 

legitimate and illegitimate opportunities for behavior, and these oppor- 

tunities (whether legitimate or not) meet different kinds of needs--some 

help a person achieve status (and with it, membership in the middle class); 

others help a person achieve economic success. Not all youths aspire to the 

same things, and Cloward and Ohlin believe that those youth who aspire to 

economic success but are denied legitimate opportunities to achieve it are 

at the greatest risk of becoming embroiled in gang subcultures. 

Cloward and Ohlin's theory is more than a rehash of strain theory be- 

cause the introduction of opportunity variables enables them to explain 

why a particular form or type of deviance arises in response to structural 

strain (see Cullen, 1983: 41­45). While anomie theory predicts that strain 

is a motivating force behind deviance and crime, it does not explain why 

one form of deviance (say, retreatism) occurs rather than another. Several 

delinquent adaptations are conceivably available in any given situation; 

what, then, are the determinants of the process of selection? Among delin- 

quents who participate in subcultures, for example, why do some become 

apprentice criminals rather than street fighters or drug addicts? These are 

distinctive subcultural adaptations; an explanation of one may not consti- 

tute an explanation of the other. 

Applying opportunity theory to the world of business (conventionally 

thought to be a far cry from delinquency), Braithwaite (1989a: 33) shows 

how a criminal subculture of price fixing might arise: 

Let us imagine, for example, that the government suddenly decides to double 

sales tax on beer in an effort to discourage consumption. The brewing compa- 

nies might find as a consequence that legitimate opportunities are blocked for 

them to achieve their profit or growth targets. They might get together at trade 

association meetings to curse the government, to begin to suggest to each other 

that they have no choice but to conspire to fix prices, in other words to fashion 

a criminal subculture which rationalizes price fixing by blaming the govern- 

ment for it, appealing to the higher loyalty of saving the jobs of their workers, 

and which evolves new criminal conduct norms for the industry. 

Social Structural Theories 67

Cloward and Ohlin identify three delinquent subcultures to which lower 

class youths may belong and that help structure a youngster's response to 

the absence of legitimate opportunities. These subcultures are criminal, 

conflict, or retreatist. 

Criminal subcultures are characterized by illegal money-making activi- 

ties and often provide a stepping-stone toward adult criminal careers. They 

tend to arise in slum areas where relatively well-organized age hierarchies 

of criminal involvement exist. This condition provides youth with adult 

criminal role models and encourages their recruitment into money-making 

crime. Also, the existence of adult roles such as "fixer" and "fence," which 

bridge the worlds of legitimate enterprise and crime, helps facilitate illegal 

money-making activities as an alternate route to economic success. 

Conflict subcultures are dominated by gang fighting and other violence. 

They arise in disorganized slum areas with weak social controls, an absence 

of institutionalized channels (legal or otherwise) to material goals, and a 

predominance of personal failure. Violence is a route to status as well as a 

release for pent-up frustrations. 

Finally, retreatist subcultures are marked by the prevalence of drug use 

and addiction. This subculture arises as an adaptation for some lower-class 

youth who have failed in both the criminal and conflict subcultures or have 

not successfully accessed either the legitimate or illegitimate opportunity 

structures. Like Merton's retreatists, they disengage from the competitive 

struggle for success goals. 

Miller's Lower Class "Focal Concerns." The works of Cohen and of 

Cloward and Ohlin focus mainly on youthful gangs, and to that extent 

they ignore a tremendous amount of delinquency and crime that is not 

gang-oriented. Their work also focuses on the organization and culture of 

the lower class, and to that extent it may not apply to lower-class behavior 

in other societies. 

The same observations can be made of Walter Miller's (1958) well-known 

study of youth gangs, a study in which he delineates the special themes or 

issues prominent in lower-class youth culture. The material and social de- 

privations that are commonplace among the urban lower class contribute 

to the development of special themes, or "focal concerns," as Miller calls 

them. Focal concerns command a high degree of emotional commitment. 

Among the focal concerns identified by Miller are "trouble" (a concern 

to avoid entanglements with the law), "toughness" (an ability to handle 

physical and emotional challenges), "smartness" (being able to con, hustle, 

or outwit others), "autonomy" (remaining free from domination or control 

by others), and "excitement" (getting kicks, avoiding the routine and the 

monotonous). 

Some of the activities shaped by these focal concerns are delinquent 

or criminal, for the law reflects and supports the dominant standards of 

68 Chapter 4

middle-class society. But even when given a choice not to engage in de- 

linquency or crime, youngsters will often find the "deviant" activity more 

attractive because the norms of groups with whom they identify, as well as 

peer group pressures, point to it as a means of acquiring prestige, status, 

and respect. 

Finally, let's think about another subculture theory that bears similari- 

ties to Miller's perspective. In 1967 Marvin Wolfgang and Franco Ferracuti 

advanced the idea that a subculture of violence can develop in poor urban 

areas. Such a subculture defines the use of physical force, aggression, and 

violence as appropriate and legitimate responses to a variety of social situ- 

ations. Unlike Elijah Anderson's (1999) notion of the "code of the streets," 

Wolfgang and Ferracuti (1967) believed that the subculture of violence was 

widespread in some communities and revealed itself in both private and 

public ways. 

In sum, the social structural theories reviewed thus far in this chapter 

purport to explain the relationship between the organization or structure 

of society and the behavior of its people. One problem with these theories 

as a whole is the almost exclusive focus on lower-class delinquency. This 

obviously limits the scope of the theories, and none of them was initially 

advanced as a general theory. Unfortunately, one of the undesirable (and 

probably unintended) consequences of the lower-class emphasis has been 

the respectability it has given the stereotypical view of crime and criminals. 

This view associates being criminal with being a member of the lower class. 

Interestingly, the considerable media publicity given to crimes by members 

of the middle class and especially the upper class sensationalizes their 

crimes, and by doing so seems only to confirm the idea that "real" crime 

is committed by the poor, the unemployed, and the disreputable. The mis- 

behaviors of "real" criminals are, by definition, unsensational. We expect 

crime from the "criminal classes." The objection to the criminological em- 

phasis on lower-class crime is essentially that it lends the weight of "expert 

opinion" to this popular stereotype. If this (i.e., the lower class) is where 

criminologists look to find crime, then it must be where crime really is! 

A common thread runs through social structural theories of crime, a 

thread that explains to a large extent why they have been almost exclusively 

theories of lower-class crime. These theories see crime as a consequence 

of inequality in the distribution of material resources. Lack of economic 

opportunities, the social disorganization of inner-city neighborhoods, the 

subculture of youth gangs, and unrealized expectations of affluence are 

hallmarks of inequality. They are the products of a social organization that 

puts some people at a disadvantage in the competition for scarce resources. 

Crime is therefore an unexceptional consequence of economic, social, and 

political disadvantage. 

Social Structural Theories 69

This common thread reflects an assumption that is made about human 

nature: Human beings are basically good people. When they become "bad," 

it is because they are pushed or pulled into crime by adverse conditions. If 

the lot of the lower classes was improved, there would be less crime. Since 

food, clothing, and shelter are material resources, the bettering of condi- 

tions must begin with economic change that distributes material resources 

to segments of society where they are most needed. This is a major policy 

implication of social structural theories, but it is not as far-reaching as the 

implications of critical theories reviewed in chapter 6.

CHAPTER SUMMARY

This chapter has reviewed theories of crime that emphasize the relationship 

between crime and social structure. Emile Durkheim's work in sociology 

provides much of the intellectual foundation for both social disorganiza- 

tion theory and strain theory. As a sociologist, Durkheim was interested in 

the various roles that deviance and crime played in society as well as how 

and why deviance persists but also changes over time. Durkheim also ad- 

vanced the notion of anomie in order to explain how deviance results from 

weakened social solidarity and control. 

Following Durkheim, social disorganization theories maintain that 

crime and delinquency result when there is a breakdown in social control. 

Members of the Chicago School believed that such a breakdown could 

result from ecological changes, as when communities experience rapid 

population change through social mobility and migration. Although this 

theory was almost forgotten, it has recently made a major comeback in 

criminology. Variations of the original theory have held up well to empiri- 

cal scrutiny. 

Merton's strain theory posits that when people find they cannot achieve 

valued goals such as wealth and status through socially approved means, 

they experience stress and frustration, which may lead to crime and devi- 

ance. In Merton's view, the poor are especially vulnerable to strain. Mer- 

ton's theory is not without its faults, however. Two important revisions of 

Merton's theory, Messner and Rosenfeld's institutional anomie theory and 

Agnew's general strain theory, have expanded upon the theory's original 

position. The former seeks to extend Merton's argument to the macrocul- 

tural sphere, while Agnew's theory focuses on the more social-psychological 

dynamics of strain. 

Subculture theories of crime revolve around the idea that crime and 

delinquency are connected to restricted opportunities and exposure to 

criminogenic cultures. Cloward and Ohlin's theory focuses on differential 

70 Chapter 4

opportunities for delinquency. Cohen's subculture theory does as well, but 

it is also concerned with how children from the lower class are treated in 

institutions such as school. Miller's theory of lower-class gangs specifies 

how subcultural value systems develop to provide rationales for delin- 

quency.

KEY TERMS

anomie 

collective conscience 

focal concerns 

general strain theory 

institutional anomie theory 

social disorganization 

strain 

subcultural theories 

subculture of violence

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

1. According to Durkheim, a certain amount of crime and deviance is 

functional or socially beneficial. Which crimes, if any, do not provide 

some form of functionality in society? 

2. Shaw and McKay believed that an urban area's geography had a lot 

to do with where crimes most occur. Thinking of modern cities, does 

social disorganization theory apply equally as well today? 

3. Robert Merton and those who have created more modern theories of 

crime based on the American Dream see crime as directly related to 

the pursuit of material items and financial success over things such as 

community building and family. Do you believe that things are con- 

tinuing to move in that direction or not? 

4. Agnew's strain theory suggests that those who are unable to cope with 

difficult or negative situations are more likely to turn to crime. In your 

view, what are the most important ways of coping with problems so 

that crime does not become attractive? 

5. Are criminal subcultures as prevalent in today's society as in the past? 

Do people belonging to subcultures as described by Miller and others 

really have a greater chance of committing crime, or have technologi- 

cal and social changes allowed subcultures to find other ways of ex- 

pressing needs and wants? 

Social Structural Theories 71

ACTIVITIES

1. Take a tour of a local area and look for signs of social disorganization. 

What things do you see that might be related to higher levels of crime 

in some areas according to the theory? If possible, consult online po- 

lice statistics to see if the data supports your impressions. 

2. Take an informal poll of people to see if they think, as Durkheim did, 

that crime is useful and functional for society (you might get some 

strange reactions!). If your interviewees answer negatively, share with 

them some of Durkheim's observations and note their reactions. 

3. To better understand Merton and Agnew's theories, take an informal 

poll of fellow students and ask them when they are most likely to con- 

sider cheating or plagiarizing on a course assignment or test. Are their 

responses consistent with the theories? 

5 

Social Process Theories

Humans are social animals and for the most part we like to have friends 

to share our time with and to help us navigate life. We need some social 

support from our friends, parents, and teachers in order to develop emo- 

tionally and intellectually. For many years, social scientists have been able 

to show that our relationships with intimate others substantially impact 

our values, beliefs, and behavior. Criminologists are especially interested 

in the manner in which friends, parents, and teachers "teach" us lessons 

about obeying or disobeying rules. Some criminological theories focus on 

parental behavior and practices, while others cast their gaze on peer groups. 

Still others examine how peer, parental, and school experiences combine to 

push or pull someone toward criminal values and behavior. 

Social process theories, the type of explanations we shall review in this 

chapter, recognize that not all people exposed to the same social structure 

engage in the same behavior, nor do people who come from dissimilar 

social environments necessarily behave differently. Social process theories 

are more microsociological, as they are concerned with how individuals ac- 

quire social attributes through interaction with others. A person's attributes 

are what identify a person in the eyes of others, distinguishing one person 

from another. When thinking about attributes it is important to keep in 

mind that their meaning is always contextual; how one person looks to 

another is always a matter of how other people in a similar situation look 

to that person. 

Social attributes, such as being reliable or being "forward," convey mes- 

sages about a person's behavior, status, and ideas. They are part of that 

person's social identity, and other people use them to determine how 

they should behave toward that individual and to distinguish that person

73 

74 Chapter 5

from others. A person is not born with these attributes but acquires them 

through interaction with others. Criminality is a social attribute. People 

become criminals, and that status is confirmed when others treat them like 

criminals and confirmed again when people so identified actually engage 

in criminal behavior. 

Social learning theorists owe a major intellectual debt to the ideas of the 

renowned social psychologist George Herbert Mead. Mead's interactionist 

perspective (sometimes called symbolic interactionism) sees human beings 

as active agents in the construction of the social world they experience. The 

idea is that during interaction, people construct meanings, expectations, 

and implications that shape everyone's behavior and thus create a certain 

social reality for participants. This experience influences what happens in 

later interactions, although each interaction creates its own social reality. 

Social order is therefore fluid and ever-changing. 

One of the most important elements of the interactionist perspective is 

the idea that actions arise out of situations (Blumer, 1969: 85). Whether 

people are at home with their families, in school, at work, or at play, each 

situation presents opportunities, demands, tasks, obstacles, pleasures--and 

sometimes dangers--that must be taken into account and evaluated by the 

actor. That assessment provides people with the basis for understanding 

the situation and forming their actions. Essentially, the meaning of a situa- 

tion for each participant derives from the actions and reactions of the other 

participants. 

For example, how do you decide that you are in control of a situation? By 

how others respond to you. Or consider how you know that a situation is 

safe or dangerous. You can "read" the situation through the actions of oth- 

ers, or you can put yourself in the shoes of another and imagine how they 

would act and what the likely results would be. Obviously, this becomes 

possible only when you have prior knowledge or experience with similar 

situations and people. Social order is constructed as people agree on the 

meanings and implications of the situations they are in, and act accordingly.

THE PROCESS OF ASSOCIATION

In criminology, social process theories attempt to describe and explain the 

ways in which individuals become criminal or adopt criminal values. They 

deal with the links between an individual's interaction with others and that 

person's motivations, perceptions, self-conceptions, attitudes, behavior, 

and identity. Although many interactionist theories seem to place greater 

emphasis on the behavior of others than on the behavior of "self," the goal 

is the same: to explain the emergence and consequences of behavior. An 

underlying assumption is that criminal behavior can be explained within 

Social Process Theories 75

the same framework as any other behavior. A common theme in many 

social process theories is that criminal behavior is learned through interac- 

tion with others.

THE THEORY OF DIFFERENTIAL ASSOCIATION

In the 1939 edition of Principles of Criminology, Edwin H. Sutherland for- 

warded what is known as differential association theory. According to 

this theory, criminal behavior patterns are acquired through processes of 

interaction and communication, just as are other behavior patterns. The 

principle of differential association accounts for the particular behavior 

pattern acquired through these processes: Individuals acquire criminal be- 

havior patterns because they are exposed to situations in which the learn- 

ing of crime outweighs the learning of alternative, noncriminal behaviors. 

Sutherland wanted it clearly understood that criminal behavior was not the 

result of biological or psychological pathology, but rather was one possible 

outcome of normal interactive processes. In their daily lives, people are par- 

ticipants in a variety of group situations, in which they are exposed to the 

behavior and influence of others. What they "pick up" in these situations 

helps shape their own behavior. When a person is more involved with de- 

linquent or criminal groups, he or she is more likely to become delinquent 

or criminal as a result. The theory as a whole consists of the following nine 

propositions:

1. Criminal behavior is learned. 

2. Criminal behavior is learned in interaction with other persons in a 

process of communication. 

3. The principle part of the learning of criminal behavior occurs within 

intimate personal groups. 

4. When criminal behavior is learned, the learning includes (a) tech- 

niques of committing the crime, which are sometimes very compli- 

cated, sometimes very simple; (b) the specific direction of motives, 

drives, rationalizations, and attitudes. 

5. The specific direction of motives and drives is learned from defini- 

tions of the legal codes as favorable or unfavorable. 

6. A person becomes delinquent because of an excess of definitions fa- 

vorable to violation of law [the principle of differential association]. 

7. Differential association may vary in frequency, duration, priority, and 

intensity. 

8. The process of learning criminal behavior by association with crimi- 

nal and anticriminal patterns involves all of the mechanisms that are 

involved in any other learning. 

76 Chapter 5

9. While criminal behavior is an expression of general needs and values, 

it is not explained by those general needs and values, since noncrimi- 

nal behavior is an expression of the same needs and values (Suther- 

land and Cressey, 1974: 75­77).

Figure 5.1 illustrates the process of differential association. Box 5.1 

discusses how principles of differential association theory can be used to 

understand the idea that music affects behavior. 

Three important observations should be made about this theory. First, 

the theory of differential association purports to explain noncriminal as 

well as criminal behavior. Noncriminal behavior emerges because of an 

excess of definitions unfavorable to law violation. Thus, if a child spends 

a great deal of time interacting intensely with people whose behavior and 

ideas stress conformity to the law, the child is likely to grow up a conform- 

ist (in terms of the law, at least). 

Second, the theory can be used to explain variations in group rates of 

crime as well as individual criminality. Although the theory focuses on how

Figure 5.1 The Process of Differential Association 

Social Process Theories 77

Box 5.1. Connections between Music and Differential Association Theory 

Every once in a while a musician or band attracts the attention of those who 

would never be their fans. This is most often the case when the artist's style or 

lyrics receive widespread press coverage because they are seen by mainstream 

audiences as especially obscene, pornographic, offensive, or dangerous. It is 

the latter concern that is most interesting to discuss from the perspective of 

differential association theory. 

One early example that illustrates the fear in some quarters about corrupt- 

ing the morals of youth stems from a performance that would surely now 

would be considered conservative. By the time Elvis Presley made his third 

appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show (a very popular 1950s mainstream variety 

television program), Presley's gyrations and hip shaking were deemed so ris- 

qué that the cameras were aimed above the waist so audiences wouldn't have 

to be exposed to his shaking lower body movements. Elvis's style was shock- 

ing to older generations but attractive to younger folks, and sometimes the 

former tried to "protect" the latter from the sensuous messages sent by Presley 

for fear that they would imitate him or adopt casual attitudes about sex. 

Fast-forward fifty years and compare this to the now infamous 2004 Su- 

per Bowl halftime fiasco between Justin Timberlake and Janet Jackson. As 

they performed a highly sexualized dance, Timberlake tore some fabric from 

Jackson's chest and exposed her bare breast to millions of live viewers. It is 

unclear if the stunt was planned, but reactions to it ranged from laughter and 

ambivalence to shock and outrage. MTV, which produced the miniconcert, 

was told by the National Football League that they would never work together 

on a show like this again. Citing decency regulations, the Federal Communi- 

cations Commission threatened MTV along with CBS, the television station 

that aired the halftime show, with fines and other penalties for the incident. 

Some social control agents (especially parents and teachers) have in other 

instances tried to prevent kids from getting the "wrong" message by attacking 

artists' music. Heavy metal artists such as Ozzy Osbourne and Judas Priest 

were early targets of such attacks in the 1980s; in fact, both were unsuccess- 

fully sued over the content of their lyrics. Marilyn Manson has been vilified 

by many as a modern-day devil who encourages youth to be disobedient, 

anarchist, hedonistic, and violent. He was singled out by some as encourag- 

ing the views that lead to the 1999 Columbine school shooting. Rent Michael 

Moore's film Bowling for Columbine to view Manson's reaction to those who 

blamed him for that kind of violence. Several years ago Ice-T and his band 

Body Count was accused of encouraging youth violence against law enforce- 

ment officers in his song "Cop Killer." Led by police officers, a whole social 

movement sprung up against him and his music. More recently, Eminem has 

been accused of encouraging homophobia, sexual assault, and misogyny in 

his lyrics. 

The connection we are trying to make here is that there appears to be a 

widely held popular belief that listening to music and watching musical 

78 Chapter 5

performances can affect not only the attitudes of the young but also their be- 

havior. This is not dissimilar to the underlying logic of differential association 

theory. Let's think further on this. When you were a younger teenager, some 

of you might have been told by your parents to avoid contact with certain 

people. Parents often do this because there is something about another kid 

they don't like and they are concerned that this person may negatively influ- 

ence your values, attitudes, and behavior. Put more simply, the rationale is 

that parents don't want their kids "hanging out with the wrong crowd." Essen- 

tially this is a Sutherlandian argument, as it assumes that frequent and intense 

interactions with others might directly affect your attitudes and behavior. A 

similar line of reasoning applies to the possible effect of the media on beliefs. 

Clearly many people believe that indeed the media can negatively influence 

children, as regulatory bodies that govern the content of television shows, 

films, and CDs all have some form of rating system designed to alert parents 

to adult content, such as the use of profanity, violence, sex, or illegal drugs. 

Of course, when Sutherland wrote differential association theory, the 

world was a very different place in terms of the mass media. Children, and to 

some extent adults, had less exposure to messages outside of their immediate 

physical environments. Sutherland didn't give much credence to the idea that 

"picture shows" could influence the formulation of definitions favorable or 

unfavorable to law. This is one of the reasons he limited the theory to interac- 

tions with intimate others. In today's society, however, children and adults 

alike are surrounded by mass media and access to Internet-based social net- 

working sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace, and the possible effects 

of media images on crime continues to draw scholarly interest.

individuals come to engage in criminal behavior, a compatible explanation 

of variations in rates of crime for whole populations is possible. Thus, rela- 

tively high crime rates are predicted for people and places having extensive 

exposure to definitions favorable to law violation, especially when there is 

a high probability that such definitions will be learned by a relatively large 

number of people. Shaw and McKay's delinquency areas, discussed in the 

preceding chapter, would meet these criteria. 

Third, the theory can applied to white-collar crime as well as traditional 

street crime. Sutherland invented the term white-collar crime, and he soundly 

criticized other theorists (like Shaw, McKay, and Merton) for failing to con- 

sider those crimes situated within the context of work. Sutherland believed 

that a general theory of crime cannot be based on a class-specific model of 

criminal behavior. Variables like poverty or neighborhood disorganization 

are insufficient explanatory variables since people can, and do, learn crimi- 

nal behavior and attitudes in any economic or neighborhood context. 

It is fair to say that the theory of differential association has been very 

influential in criminology. It is, after all, hard to argue with the idea that 

Social Process Theories 79

people learn criminal ways from others. Yet few theories have been sub- 

ject to more criticism: The language is imprecise; the theory is untestable 

because major variables such as "definitions favorable or unfavorable to 

law violations" cannot be measured; the theory deals with the acquisition 

and performance of behavior and yet leaves out any mention of personal- 

ity traits or other psychological variables; and the theory does not explain 

the fact that people often respond differently to the same situation. C. Ray 

Jeffery (1959) observes that since crime is learned, it must first exist. What 

accounts for the first criminal act? How does one explain crimes that are 

committed "out of the blue" or by people with no prior interaction with 

criminals?

BEHAVIORAL LEARNING THEORIES

According to behavioral learning theories, people tend to repeat activities for 

which they will be rewarded and to avoid those for which they will be pun- 

ished. They also tend to copy others whom they see being rewarded. In this 

case the reward is experienced vicariously. The sanctioning effect of rewards 

and punishments may apply to any behavior. One influential modifica- 

tion of Sutherland's original theory has been made by Robert Burgess and 

Ronald Akers (1966). They argue that Sutherland's formulation does not 

identify the mechanism by which individuals in fact learn. Taking a social 

learning approach, the authors restate Sutherland's theory in terms of oper- 

ant conditioning--a view that argues a certain behavior is learned because 

past examples have been rewarded. Thus, people engage in crime because 

it has been more highly rewarded in the past than has other behavior. That 

some people become criminals and others do not is explained by noting 

that all people do not go through the same socialization process, nor are 

they exposed to the same nonsocial situations of reinforcement. 

Another quasi-behavioral learning theory was proposed by Daniel Glaser 

(1956), who argued that all forms of interaction between an individual 

and his or her social environment be incorporated in a modified theory 

of differential identification. "A person," writes Glaser (1956: 440), "pur- 

sues criminal behavior to the extent that he identifies himself with real or 

imaginary persons from whose perspective his criminal behavior seems ac- 

ceptable." These people serve as behavior models, and they need not come 

into direct, personal contact with the individual. Hence Glaser acknowl- 

edges something that Sutherland did not: the possibility that portrayal of 

criminal roles in the mass media is linked with the adoption of criminal 

behavior patterns. 

These modifications of Sutherland's theory have some parallels with 

a prominent theory that people learn violence by imitating or modeling 

80 Chapter 5

the behavior of people they "look up to." Albert Bandura (1973) showed 

that the behavior of aggressive models is readily imitated by experimental 

subjects, whether observed in the flesh or via film. In one well-known ex- 

periment, Bandura played a film of a woman who beat, kicked, and hacked 

an inflatable doll. After witnessing the film, nursery school children, when 

placed in a room with a similar doll, duplicated the woman's behavior and 

also engaged in other aggressive acts. 

Experiments such as these have established the existence of immediate 

imitation, but how enduring are the behaviors learned, and does each new 

situation have to be virtually identical with the one originally observed 

in order for similar behavior to occur? While the jury is still out on these 

questions, there is evidence that suggests imitated behaviors do survive over 

time and that people will generalize from the initial modeling situation to 

other, sometimes quite dissimilar, situations. 

Violent behavior has its rewards. Many people learn about them quite 

early in life. They learn that conflicts can be won through violence, that 

violence can be effective as a rule-enforcing technique, and that violence 

helps people get their way in the face of resistance. They also discover that 

respectable people often reward violence used in their interest, especially 

against "outsiders" and people regarded as a threat. From history, they learn 

that violence helped make America a better place to live. Closer to everyday 

life, they see that successful use of violence often confers status, authority, 

and even riches. 

This brief list by no means exhausts the rewards associated with violence. 

As people grow up they have many opportunities to learn that violence is 

rewarded. But they also learn that it has its costs. Violence is costly when 

used at the wrong time, in the wrong place, or against the wrong person. 

But since there are differences of opinion as to when the use of violence 

is wrong, the costs (and rewards) of violence in any given situation are 

perceived differently by members of different groups (Stanko, 1990). One 

cannot assume that because one person or group refrains from violence in 

a certain situation, others will too.

PEER GROUPS AND SERIOUS DELINQUENCY

The observation that association with friends who are delinquent or crimi- 

nal is associated with high rates of offending is not new, but it continues to 

be reconfirmed in study after study (Gorman and White, 1995; Hochstetler, 

Copes, and DeLisi, 2002; Moon, Morash, McCluskey, and Hwang, 2009). 

Recall that the associational argument states when youths are involved 

with delinquent friends, the association encourages further delinquency. 

How it does is a matter of debate, but various mechanisms are possible: 

Social Process Theories 81

the group's power to sanction behavior of members; the social rituals that 

confirm membership and confer status; the role models provided by the 

group's leader(s); the facilitation of activities that are not easily (or success- 

fully) performed alone. The essential idea is that the delinquency of the 

group influences its members, and vice versa. 

It all sounds simple enough, but the issue of peer influence remains 

controversial. In the first place, some studies have found that seriously 

delinquent youths are weakly attached to delinquent peers (e.g., Chapman, 

1986; also Gottfredson and Hirschi, 1990: 154­57). They are loners. Other 

studies have found quite the opposite, at least for youths involved in illicit 

drug use (Bahr, Hoffmann, and Yang, 2005; Kandel and Davies, 1991). 

Youths in drug-using networks display extremely strong interactive ties with 

peers. Second, a study of incarcerated offenders found that group members 

who conformed to conventional standards were more popular than less 

conforming members (Osgood et al., 1986). Third, at least two observa- 

tional studies, one in the United States (Schwendinger and Schwendinger, 

1985) and one in England (Parker, 1974), have shown that occasional and 

serious delinquents participate side-by-side in the same street-corner net- 

works, and the occasionals remain sporadic offenders. 

Another issue further complicates what appeared to be a simple matter. 

Rather than influencing a youth's propensity to commit crimes, it has been 

suggested that delinquent peer groups merely facilitate crime among indi- 

viduals whose tendencies are already compatible with it (Linden and Hack- 

ler, 1973; Gottfredson and Hirschi, 1988). A network of delinquency-prone 

individuals creates and responds to criminal opportunities in its milieu. 

The type and frequency of criminal acts will be determined largely by that 

milieu. A chronic delinquent is most often a lower-class, street-corner male 

who keeps company with other lower-class, street-corner males. This sug- 

gests that, quite apart from the intimate interaction among peers, the social 

structure of lower-class, street-corner society is conducive to high rates of 

street crime (Barlow and Ferdinand, 1992: 60­79).

TESTING DIFFERENTIAL ASSOCIATION THEORY

Testing the original formulation of differential association is not easy, and 

both the methods used and the results have been inconsistent. Usually 

researchers infer support (or nonsupport) of the theory and do not test it 

directly. This is largely Sutherland's fault because he did not specify how the 

theory might be tested, and he left major concepts undefined. We shall now 

review a few studies that have attempted to test differential association. 

One study involved interviewing 1,544 students in nine high schools in 

the Southeast (Paternoster and Triplett, 1988). The authors reported strong 

82 Chapter 5

support for differential association. Friends' definitions of appropriate 

and inappropriate behavior and friends' actual behavior were significantly 

related to an individual's own use of marijuana, drinking behavior, petty 

theft, and vandalism. A study of more than 1,000 Dutch children found 

great support for the idea that the frequency of contact with deviant friends 

significantly influences definitions favorable to deviant behavior (Bruin- 

sma, 1992). In another study, Warr and Stafford (1991) used National 

Youth Survey data (see chapter 2) to evaluate associational theory. They 

found that peers' behavior--what they actually do--was a more important 

predictor of self-reported delinquency than peers' attitudes about behavior. 

Two tests of differential association have been conducted from data ob- 

tained from the Richmond Youth Project, a self-report survey of more than 

4,000 high school students. The first study found that definitions favorable 

to law violation predicted delinquency more strongly than any other vari- 

able (Matsueda, 1982; Matsueda and Heimer, 1987). However, in a recent 

reexamination of this data, it was found that the bonds to parents and 

friends more strongly explained delinquency (Costello and Vowell, 1999). 

More specifically, the authors found that definitions favorable to law viola- 

tion were shaped or mediated by other factors, especially measures of the 

social bond (discussed in some detail later in this chapter). (A similar find- 

ing was made by Matsueda and Anderson, 1998, and Bahr, Hoffmann, and 

Yang, 2005.) 

Indeed, tests of differential association theory have supported the media- 

tion hypothesis--the notion that larger social and structural factors shape the 

content and form of definitions favorable or unfavorable to crime (Heimer, 

1997). This approach has been used to explain the gender differences in 

violent offending. A study by Heimer and De Coster (1999) found that:

· Learning violent definitions is an important predictor of violent de- 

linquency; 

· Aggressive peers and coercive discipline each has a larger effect on 

boys' than girls' learning of violent definitions; 

· Emotional bonds to family influence girls' but not boys' learning of 

violent definitions; 

· Accepting traditional gender definitions significantly reduces violence 

among girls but does not influence violence among boys; and 

· Boys engage in more violent delinquency than girls in part because 

they learn more violent definitions and more traditional gender defi- 

nitions than girls and have more previous experience with violent of- 

fending than girls.

How and with whom we associate varies in a number of ways (e.g., by 

age, location, gender, and time). In the case of gender, role socialization 

Social Process Theories 83

reflects larger social norms and values, which help shape definitions of so- 

cially acceptable and unacceptable behavior in everyday interaction. When 

combined with a consideration of structural inequality in opportunities in 

schools, politics, and the workplace, one can see why there are differences 

in criminal offending by gender. 

Differential association theory can also be helpful in explaining the 

causes of occupational and organizational crime. Indeed, partial support of 

the theory has been found in studies of organizational crime (Kauzlarich 

and Kramer, 1998). In some respects, white-collar crime:

may be better understood by reference to differential association than is true of 

conventional lower class crime and delinquency, both because of the broader 

range of learning options generally available to the white collar crime offender 

and the complex nature of the offenses themselves (Friedrichs, 1996a: 229).

However, differential association theory is not equipped to explain the 

larger structural and organizational elements involved in the genesis and 

persistence of many organizational crimes. This limitation has prompted 

many white-collar crime scholars to study how definitions of appropriate 

and inappropriate behavior are created and maintained in unique organi- 

zational climates. 

For example, Vaughan's (1996) monumental study of the space shuttle 

Challenger explosion employs the notion of the normalization of deviance, 

a condition in which deviations from technical protocols gradually and 

routinely become defined as normative. Risky practices, which can be an 

outcome or a precursor to the normalization of deviance, are often caused 

by "environmental and organizational contingencies (which) create opera- 

tional forces that shape world view, normalizing signals of potential dan- 

ger, resulting in mistakes with harmful human consequences" (Vaughan 

1996: 409).

SELF-CONCEPT

Most research and theorizing based in differential association theory ad- 

dresses the ways in which youths, in particular, come to adopt patterns of 

delinquent or criminal offending. Learning, communication, and interac- 

tion are the fundamental processes by which individuals acquire their 

social identities. These processes are also crucial to the development of an 

individual's personality--motivations, ideas and beliefs, perceptions, feel- 

ings, preferences, attitudes, values, self-control, inhibitions, and awareness 

or sense of self. Some authors have argued that a person's sense of self, or 

self-concept, is a major element among the forces that control behavior. 

84 Chapter 5

Containment Theory. One of the first to propose a link between 

self-concept and criminal behavior was Walter Reckless. Reckless (1973) 

believes that the individual confronted by choices of action feels a vari- 

ety of "pulls" and "pushes." The pulls are environmental factors--such 

as adverse living conditions, poverty, lack of legitimate opportunities, 

abundance of illegitimate opportunities, or family problems--that serve 

to pull the individual away from the norms and values of the dominant 

society. The pushes take the form of internal pressures--hostility, biopsy- 

chological impairments, aggressiveness, drives, or wishes--that may also 

divert the individual away from actions supported by dominant values 

and norms. 

But not all people faced with the same pulls and pushes become delin- 

quent or criminal. To explain why some do not, Reckless advances contain- 

ment theory. According to Reckless (1973: 55­56), there are two kinds of 

containment, inner and outer. 

Inner containment consists mainly of self components, such as self-con- 

trol, good self-concept, ego strength, well-developed superego, high frustra- 

tion tolerance, high resistance to diversions, high sense of responsibility, 

goal orientation, ability to find substitute satisfactions, tension-reducing 

rationalizations, and so on. These are the inner regulators. 

Outer containment represents the structural buffer in the person's im- 

mediate social world that is able to hold him within bounds. It consists 

of such items as a presentation of a consistent moral front to the person; 

institutional reinforcement of his norms, goals, and expectations; the 

existence of a reasonable set of social expectations; effective supervision 

and discipline (social controls); provisions for reasonable scope of activity 

(including limits and responsibilities) as well as for alternatives and safety 

valves; and opportunity for acceptance, identity, and belongingness. Such 

structural ingredients help the family and other supportive groups contain 

the individual. 

In Reckless's view, the inner control system, primarily self-concept, pro- 

vides a person with the strongest defense against delinquency involvement. 

Commenting on the results of a follow-up study of white schoolboys in 

high-delinquency areas in Columbus, Ohio, Reckless and Simon Dinitz 

(1967: 517) observe: 

In our quest to discover what insulates a boy against delinquency in a high 

delinquency area, we believe we have some tangible evidence that a good 

self-concept, undoubtedly a product of favorable socialization, veers slum 

boys away from delinquency, while a poor self-concept, a product of unfavor- 

able socialization, gives the slum boy no resistance to deviancy, delinquent 

companions, or delinquent subculture. We feel that components of the self 

strength, such as a favorable concept of self, act as an inner buffer or inner 

containment against deviancy, distraction, lure, and pressures. 

Social Process Theories 85

The work of Reckless and his associates has not gone without criticism, 

but interest in self-concept and its connection with criminality has remained 

very much alive in some circles. One study seems to confirm the impor- 

tance of favorable family experiences in protecting a child against crimino- 

genic influences, even in slum neighborhoods. Joan McCord (1991) used 

case records of visits to the homes of 232 boys as well as records of their 

juvenile and adult criminal activity covering a thirty-year period. She found 

that sons of mothers who were self-confident, offered leadership, and were 

affectionate and consistently nonpunitive in discipline tended to escape 

delinquency involvement. However, McCord also discovered that a differ- 

ent mechanism seemed to relate to whether a child subsequently became 

an adult criminal: a father's behavior toward wife and children. Apparently, 

fathers who undermine their wives, who fight with the family, and who are 

aggressive "teach their sons how to behave when they become adults" (Mc- 

Cord, 1991: 412). Thus, juvenile crime may be more susceptible to control 

mechanisms, including self-concept, whereas adult crime may be more 

susceptible to the influence of role expectations. More recent extensions of 

this approach have focused on how different identities both between and 

within gender influence the process of constructing one's self and criminal 

offending and victimization (Giordano, Cernkovich, and Holland, 2003; 

Giordano, Millhollin, Cernkovich, Pugh, and Rudolph, 1999). A central 

finding is that although involvement in crime by both men and women 

is strongly influenced by their peer and intimate relationships, women are 

less significantly affected by these relationships than men. 

Techniques of Neutralization. One interesting theoretical contribution 

bearing on self-concept comes from David Matza and Gresham Sykes. 

Matza (1964) argues that individuals are rarely committed to or compelled 

to perform delinquent or criminal behavior. Rather, they drift into and out 

of it, retaining a commitment neither to convention nor to crime. This so- 

called drift theory is also applicable to some instances of organizational 

crime (Braithwaite, 1989b). 

In Matza's view, delinquents are never totally immune to the demands 

for conformity made by the dominant social order. At most they are merely 

flexible in their commitment to them. In a joint publication, Sykes and 

Matza (1957) argue that if delinquents do form subcultures in opposition 

to dominant society, they are surprisingly weak in their commitment to 

them. They show guilt and shame, though one would expect none; they 

frequently accord respect and admiration to the "really honest" person and 

to law-abiding people in their immediate social environment; and they 

often draw a sharp line between appropriate victims and those who are not 

fair game--all of which suggests that "the virtue of delinquency is far from 

unquestioned." In terms of the dominant normative order, the delinquent 

appears to be both conforming and nonconforming. 

86 Chapter 5

Sykes and Matza believe that in order to practice nonconformity, delin- 

quents must somehow handle the demands for conformity to which they 

accord at least some recognition. In the view of these authors, delinquents 

handle those demands by learning to neutralize them in advance of violat- 

ing them. That is, they redefine their contemplated action to make it "ac- 

ceptable" if not "right." The authors identify five techniques of neutraliza- 

tion that facilitate the juvenile's drift into delinquency:

1. denial of responsibility ("alcohol causes me to do it; I am helpless"); 

2. denial of injury ("my action won't hurt anyone"); 

3. denial of the victim ("he 'has it coming'"); 

4. condemnation of the condemners ("those who condemn me are worse 

than I am"); and 

5. appeal to higher loyalties ("my friends, or family, come first, so I must 

do it").

Two other techniques of neutralization have been proposed and dis- 

cussed in a classic study of occupational crime (see Hollinger, 1991; Klock- 

ars, 1974; Minor, 1981). They are "defense of necessity" and "metaphor 

of the ledger." Defense of necessity relates to the fact that among business 

offenders illegal acts are seen as standard business practice and necessary in 

a competitive marketplace. Metaphor of the ledger relates to the idea that a 

person can build up "good" credit so that he or she can later do something 

"bad" without feeling guilty--a form of cashing in the credits. 

More recently, scholars of state crime, corporate crime, and elite devi- 

ance have found strong evidence of how techniques of neutralization work 

(Jamieson and McEvoy, 2005; Kauzlarich, Matthews, and Miller, 2001; 

Piquero, Tibbetts, and Blankenship, 2005). Obviously, one of the most 

important things that separates victimizers from their victims is their power 

to exert their will. Most often, the perpetrators of state crime (e.g., human 

rights violations and illegal wars) do not acknowledge the degree to which 

their policies have caused harm. Instead, they concentrate on assessing 

the "effectiveness" of their policies, no matter how harmful they might 

be to others, to bring about desired change or to maintain positions of 

dominance. Injury caused by criminal domestic and international policies 

can also be downplayed by neutralizing reasonable categorical imperatives 

(e.g., do no harm) by employing bankrupt utilitarianism, that is, arguing 

that the ends justify the means. Further, harms are neutralized by denying 

responsibility, dehumanizing the powerless for purposes of exploitation, 

and appealing to higher loyalties (i.e., the capitalist political economy and 

"national security") (Kauzlarich, Matthews, and Miller, 2001; Simon, 2007; 

1999). 

Social Process Theories 87

Political policy makers attempt to "neutralize" the destructive and harm- 

ful effects of their policies, as in the long history of U.S. abuses in Latin and 

Central America:

U.S. policy makers have consciously decided (1) that the U.S. is entitled to 

control Central America and that the peoples of Central America are obligated 

to acquiesce in this power exercise; (2) that violence is permissible, and policy 

makers can live with themselves and conclude that they are ethical/moral per- 

sons and that these policies are ethical/moral even if they involve violence; (3) 

that the use of violence, intimidation, and threat of violence will produce the 

desired effect or minimize a more negative one; and (4) that the policy of vio- 

lence and control will not unduly endanger the United States, and the country 

will neither sustain physical harm nor suffer legal, economic, or political con- 

sequences that will outweigh the benefits achieved through this violence (Tifft 

and Markham, 1991: 125­26).

With respect to the historical treatment of Native Americans within the 

United States, "colonists quickly justified their violence by demonizing 

their enemies" Takaki (1993: 43). However, the transference of one's own 

negative tendencies to another group is not something new. While Native 

Americans were seen as unruly, "God-less" savages, Takaki (1993) notes 

that the atrocities committed by the civilized whites against the Native 

Americans, were, in fact, savage. It is in this light, then, that Native Ameri- 

cans became an enemy worthy of indiscriminate killing. In much the same 

manner, the indiscriminate killing of the "God-less" communists of Central 

America were also justified:

[This] is a painful reality. Many of us face this reality with initial disbelief and 

denial, for it is difficult for us to see either the United States or ourselves as 

terrorists, as batterers. Terrorists and batterers are someone else. To emotion- 

ally experience, to actually witness the destruction, the horror, the reality of 

destabilization, starvation, torture and death by design, by public planning, is 

beyond our comprehension (Tifft and Markham, 1991).

Empirical evaluations of the neutralization hypothesis are scarce in part 

because of the difficulty of establishing what happens cognitively before a 

law violation occurs. Almost all research has looked at rationalizations after 

the fact, which provides at best only inferential evidence. The problem is 

one of establishing the causal order: neutralization before transgression. 

In any case, with the exception of Agnew's (1994) study and some in- 

direct support from Presser's (2003) interviews with violent men, the evi- 

dence is not very impressive in studies of most traditional street crimes. The 

absence of neutralizations, however, does not mean they might not have 

operated at some time in the mind of an offender. Neutralizations might 

88 Chapter 5

arise after earlier transgressions and act as rationalizations for later ones, 

perhaps contributing to a "hardening" process that leads to a commitment 

to deviance (Hirschi, 1971: 208). Hamlin (1988: 432) goes even further 

and calls the prior sequencing argument "a fallacy." He argues that the mo- 

tives for doing things are created during the process of legitimizing actions 

that have been criticized or challenged. 

Furthermore, neutralization may be necessary only for certain offenders. 

According to one scholar, "neutralization should only be necessary when 

a potential offender has both a strong desire to commit an offense and a 

strong belief that to do so would violate his personal morality. . . . If one's 

morality is not constraining, however, then neutralization or rationaliza- 

tion is simply unnecessary" (Minor, 1980: 103­20). Topalli (2005) has 

even found that some offenders neutralize "being good rather than being 

bad." In other words, to survive on the streets and reach high status in their 

neighborhood, some offenders actively seek to enhance their "hard core" 

reputations on the street and neutralize in the opposite direction that Sykes 

and Matza would predict. 

There may be no adequate way to disentangle the causal order problem 

mentioned above, even with longitudinal data, since definitional learning 

("this is right to do, this is wrong," and "I'm OK, I'm not OK," etc.) occurs 

concurrently with rule breaking (Hollinger, 1991). Even so, neutralization 

theory may have received a "bum rap" from critics, especially in light of his 

finding that neutralization may interact with age, younger people being less 

likely to neutralize than older ones (Hollinger, 1991).

SOCIAL CONTROL THEORY

Like Matza and others, control theorists emphasize the episodic character 

of much crime and delinquency, but unlike their colleagues, they build in 

no assumptions about what motivates people to commit deviance. Indeed, 

"They assume that human beings are born free to break the law and will re- 

frain from doing so only if special circumstances exist" (Box, 1981: 122). 

The most prominent version of control theory is that of Travis Hirschi 

(1971). According to Hirschi, these special circumstances exist when the 

individual's bond to conventional, or moral, society is strong. As originally 

conceived, Hirschi's social control theory holds that this bond is based on 

four elements: attachment, commitment, belief, and involvement. Attachment 

refers to the individual's affective involvement with conventional others 

(e.g., parents, teachers, friends), including sensitivity to their thoughts, feel- 

ings, and desires. When that attachment is weakened, the individual is free 

to deviate. Commitment is the "rational" component in conformity. It refers 

Social Process Theories 89

Figure 5.2. Hirschi's social control theory

to the weighing of the costs and risks of deviance in light of that person's 

investment, or "stake," in conformity. "When or whenever he considers de- 

viant behavior, he must consider the costs of this deviant behavior, the risks 

he runs of losing the investment he has made in conventional behavior" 

(Hirschi, 1971: 20). The weaker the commitment to conformity, the lower 

the costs of deviance; hence the freer one is to deviate. Figure 5.2 illustrates 

the major thrust of the theory. 

Hirschi defines belief as "a common value system within the society 

or group whose norms are being violated." But individuals differ in the 

strength of their belief in the moral validity of these social rules. If for some 

reason these beliefs are weakened, the individual will be freer to deviate. By 

including involvement, Hirschi suggests that deviance is in part a matter of 

opportunities to deviate. He argues that the more one is involved in con- 

ventional things, the less one has the opportunity to do deviant things. This 

is one of the weakest parts of the theory, as Hirschi himself discovered in 

his research with more than 4,000 California junior high and high school 

students. The reason is that opportunities for criminal or delinquent activi- 

ties increase along with opportunities for noncriminal activities. 

Both the clarity of its exposition and the many research findings support- 

ing it have given Hirschi's control theory a prominent place in criminology. 

For example, one test of the theory conducted on the subject of misbehavior 

in school found that every measure of the social bond except involvement 

90 Chapter 5

was shown to have significant effects in the predicted direction (Stewart, 

2003). As the study's author explains, the logic goes like this:

Students who accept and believe in the dominant set of conventional school 

rules will be less likely to engage in delinquent behaviors and recognize the 

validity of those rules for maintaining a safe school environment. Those who 

care about and feel supported by their teachers and friends are more likely to 

develop affective ties to school and display socially acceptable behavior. Those 

with well-defined educational goals, who invest greater effort, and display 

higher aspirations for status attainment may be more committed to the edu- 

cational process overall. As a result, they may recognize that involvement in 

delinquent behavior may jeopardize their future goals (Stewart, 2003: 493).

A study by Agnew (1985), however, questions social control theory's util- 

ity as an explanation of youth crime. He studied a national sample of 1,886 

male youths interviewed first in the tenth grade and again at the end of the 

eleventh grade. He found delinquency involvement to be remarkably stable 

over the two-year period, with the delinquency measured in the tenth grade 

accounting for 65 to 68 percent of the delinquency measured later. 

In contrast, Agnew found that the social bond variables of parental at- 

tachment, school grades, and commitment explained only 1 to 2 percent of 

the variance in delinquency. Agnew speculates that as children grow older, 

the importance of the bonds discussed by Hirschi may diminish, but he 

does not rule out that they may be important among younger children. 

Hirschi's social control theory has also been heavily criticized for over- 

stating the importance of the social bond. A reanalysis of the Richmond

Box 5.2. Differential Association, Social Control Theory, and Boyz n the 

Hood 

The 1991 film Boyz n the Hood is still regarded as one of John Singleton's best 

movies. The story revolves around a father (played by Laurence Fishburne) 

trying to shield his teenage son Tre (Cuba Gooding Jr.) from widespread 

crime and violence on the streets of their neighborhood in south central Los 

Angeles, where Singleton himself was raised. Criminologically, the film illus- 

trates the difficulties that parents have in connecting with their children, as 

there is competition from peer groups over what values and beliefs are most 

desirable. In real life, we know that as children enter the teenage years, they 

begin to model their friends' behavior more than their parent(s), and some- 

times regard their parent(s) as the enemy, or cops, which can further add to 

the distances between them. If you haven't seen the movie, watch it and think 

about its connection to social process theories of crime. If it's been awhile 

since you've seen it, give it another viewing. 

Social Process Theories 91

Youth Project data by David Greenberg (1999) found that while social con- 

trol theory has its merits, criminologists have overestimated the strength 

of the theory. For example, Greenberg (1999) found that (a) intimacy in 

communication between parent and child (a measure of attachment) is not 

highly correlated with delinquency, (b) a very modest negative relationship 

between involvement in school-related activities and delinquency, and (c) 

negative correlations between aspirations to attain higher levels of educa- 

tion (e.g., college) and delinquency are also quite small. However, another 

study also using the same data source found that measures of the social 

bond, especially belief, were the greatest predictors of delinquency (Cos- 

tello and Vowell, 1999). 

One final comment on this prominent theory is in order. Some crimi- 

nologists contend that control theory ignores the criminal activity of career 

offenders, as well as the crimes of people in positions of economic and po- 

litical power. The "upperworld" individual is actually freed by conventional 

society to engage in "indiscretions" because these are not viewed as espe- 

cially disreputable, much less criminal (Hagan, 1985). Such a person may 

thus exhibit strong social bonds to conventional society and considerable 

involvement in illegal activities. Indeed, if we are to take into consideration 

political and state crimes, many of the offenders would be discovered to be 

very bonded to the social order because of their high levels of education, 

employment status, familial relationships, and general belief systems. While 

there has been some support for social control theory in studies of occupa- 

tional crime (Lasley, 1988; Makkai and Braithwaite, 1991), Hirschi's version 

is best suited to explain juvenile delinquency, not white-collar crime.

INTERACTIONAL THEORY

Terrence Thornberry (1987) developed an interactional theory of de- 

linquency that highlights the relationship between delinquency and the 

family, school, and peers. While attention to these factors is certainly not 

new, Thornberry argues that criminologists have only explored their unidi- 

rectional (one-way) qualities. His theory unites insights from social control 

and differential association theories, among others. 

Thornberry argues that instead of simply studying how a person's commit- 

ment to school affects their belief in conventional or unconventional values, 

we should also consider how beliefs shape the commitment to school, which 

in turn may further influence beliefs, which then may further affect commit- 

ment, and so on. He explains, "Bonding variables appear to be reciprocally 

linked to delinquency, exerting a causal impact on associations with delin- 

quent peers and delinquent behavior; they also are causally effected by these 

variables" (our emphasis; Thornberry, 1987: 876). Interactional theory, then, 

92 Chapter 5

Figure 5.3. An Interactional Theory of Delinquency 

Source: Thornberry (1987). Reprinted with the permission of the American Society of Criminology.

suggests that many of the variables in social control theory and differential 

association theory can affect one another in all sorts of ways. Again, most 

people would think that strong attachment to parents reduces the extent to 

which youths associate with delinquent peers. But is it not true that associa- 

tions with delinquent peers could affect a child's bond with their parents? 

Is it not also the case that delinquent peers could affect delinquency, just as 

delinquency affects association with delinquent peers? (Matsueda and An- 

derson, 1998). Figure 5.3 illustrates Thornberry's theory applied to those in 

middle adolescence. 

That the school, family, and peers have multiple and reciprocal effects is 

just part of the interactional theory. The second major part of the theory 

specifies how these variables affect people over the life course. This devel- 

opmental approach, which is similar to that of Sampson and Laub's (1988; 

1992) theory reviewed in chapter 7, suggests that the importance of these 

factors varies by age. For the very young, the family is the most important 

agent of socialization; when youths enter into middle adolescence, friends 

and the school become more important than before, and as the person en- 

ters adulthood, work and families of procreation (second families) become 

salient. All of this suggests that at different points in life, some associations 

more than others will be connected with our attitudes, beliefs, and behav- 

ior. It has been furthered argued that earlier delinquency has effects on later 

delinquency, and that low social economic status can have compounding 

effects (Thornberry and Krohn, 2001). 

There is no doubt that the journey from childhood to adulthood is 

marked with change. Criminal offending is often shaped by these devel- 

Social Process Theories 93

opmental changes, and at least one test of Thornberry's theory has been 

supportive (Jang, 1999; Thornberry and Krohn, 2001).

THE LABELING PERSPECTIVE

Up to this point, the focus has been on crime and delinquency as behavior 

and on people who commit crimes and the distinctions between them and 

those who do not. The questions "What causes or influences criminal be- 

havior?" and "What factors are associated with committing crime or becom- 

ing criminals?" are underlying concerns in the work reviewed. However, 

the conception of crime and the criminal that underlies such questions is 

not the only one that has been recognized. Instead of viewing crime simply 

as illegal behavior and the criminal as one who engages in it, some crimi- 

nologists draw attention to the behavior of other people with whom an 

individual interacts. Crime is a label attached to behavior, and the criminal 

is one whose behavior has been labeled crime. Crime is thus problematic 

and a question of social definitions. Nothing intrinsic in behavior makes 

it a crime:

Social groups create deviance by making the rules whose infraction constitutes 

deviance, and by applying those rules to particular people and labeling them 

as outsiders. From this point of view, deviance is not a quality of the act a per- 

son commits, but rather a consequence of the application by others of rules 

or sanctions to an "offender." The deviant is one to whom that label has been 

successfully applied; deviant behavior is behavior that people so label (Becker, 

1963: 9).

Labeling theory, or the societal reactions approach, gained immense 

popularity in the fields of crime and deviance during the 1960s. This was 

also about the time that the social constructionist paradigm reviewed in 

chapter 1 fully emerged in sociology. In its applications to the crime scene, 

labeling theory has been used to explain why individuals continue to en- 

gage in activities that others define as criminal, why individuals become 

career criminals, why the official data on crime and criminals look the way 

they do, why crime waves occur, why law enforcement is patterned the way 

it is, why criminal stereotypes emerge and persist, and why some groups in 

society are more likely to be punished, and punished more severely, than 

others. Box 5.3 describes a famous study by William J. Chambliss (1973) 

that vividly illustrates some of these points. 

Though labeling theory gained popularity during the 1960s, it is based 

on the much earlier contributions of Frank Tannenbaum (1938) and Edwin 

Lemert (1951; 1972). Sixty years ago, Tannenbaum pointed out that society's 

94 Chapter 5

Box 5.3. The Saints and the Roughnecks 

William J. Chambliss (1973) followed the experiences of two small-town ju- 

venile gangs whose members were students at "Hannibal High." The youths 

regularly broke the law. However, only the members of the Roughnecks were 

considered delinquent by officials and repeatedly arrested. The other gang, the 

Saints, largely escaped criminalization, and no members were ever arrested. 

According to Chambliss, four factors played important roles in the dif- 

ferential response, and all related to the class position of the gang members. 

The Roughnecks came from the lower class, while the Saints came from more 

"respectable" upper-middle-class families. 

First, the Roughnecks were more visible. Unlike the Saints, whose members 

had access to cars and could escape the local community, the Roughnecks 

had little choice but hang out under the surveillance of neighbors and local 

authorities. 

Second, the outward demeanor of the Saints deceived parents and officials. 

Around authority figures, they wore masks of courtesy and obedience, and 

when accused of deviant behavior, they were apologetic and diplomatic. The 

Roughnecks, on the other hand, misbehaved openly and showed little regard 

for social customs or the feelings of others. 

Third, when responding to the gangs' misbehavior, authorities displayed 

bias that favored the Saints. The Saints were characterized as typical adoles- 

cents who were merely sowing their wild oats as normal boys do. 

Finally, in defining the Roughnecks as boys who get in trouble, the com- 

munity reinforced the "deviance" of gang members and helped produce a 

self-fulfilling prophecy so that deviant self-images promoted further deviance. 

The Saints, meanwhile, remained respectable in the eyes of the community, 

although in reality they continued to maintain a high level of delinquency. 

Chambliss's study is one of the best examples of the importance of the la- 

beling perspective to date. It clearly shows that "labeling, stigma and negative 

self-images have a powerful impact in determining who we are and what we 

become" (1999: 120).

efforts at social control may actually help create precisely what those efforts 

are meant to suppress: crime. By labeling individuals as "delinquents" or 

"criminals" and by reacting to them in a punitive way, Tannenbaum argued, 

the community encourages those individuals to redefine themselves in ac- 

cordance with the community's definition. A change in self-identification (or 

self-concept) may occur, so that individuals "become" what others say they 

are. Tannenbaum (17­18) described the process:

From the community's point of view, the individual who used to do bad 

and mischievous things has now become a bad and unredeemable human 

Social Process Theories 95

being. From the individual's point of view there has taken place a similar 

change. He has gone slowly from a sense of grievance and injustice, of being 

unduly mistreated and punished, to recognition that the definition of him 

as a human being is different from that of other boys in his neighborhood, 

his school, street, community. This recognition on his part becomes a pro- 

cess of self-identification and integration with the group which shares his 

activities. It becomes, in part, a process of rationalization; in part, a simple 

response to a specialized type of stimulus. The young delinquent becomes 

bad because he is defined as bad and because he is not believed if he is good. 

There is a persistent demand for consistency in character. The community 

cannot deal with people whom it cannot define. Reputation is this sort of 

public definition.

Even if people act in ways normally defined as good, their goodness will 

not be believed. Once stigmatized, they find it extremely difficult to be free 

of the label "delinquent" or "criminal." As Erikson (1966: 17) notes in 

Wayward Puritans, "The common feeling that deviant persons never really 

change . . . may derive from a faulty premise; but the feeling is expressed 

so frequently and with such conviction that it eventually creates the facts 

which later 'prove' it to be correct." 

A bad reputation doesn't just affect individuals. Reuter and Rubinstein 

(1983) describe the experience of corporations and even whole industries 

(e.g., the vending machine business) whose bad reputations have lead to 

an increase in crime. The reason, they argue, is that when labeled crooked, 

respectable people do not apply for jobs or work with such businesses, 

leaving them open and attractive to risk-takers and criminals--a kind of 

self-selection is going on, "bad" places attracting "bad" people. 

Societal reaction to crime and delinquency helps turn offending indi- 

viduals from seeing themselves as basically "straight" and "respectable" 

and toward an image of themselves as criminal. Thus, some people who are 

reacted to as criminals come to think of themselves as criminals, or at least 

they participate in what becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. In a study of used 

car fraud, one of Braithwaite's (1978) informants said, "They think because 

you're a used car dealer you're a liar. So they treat you like one and lie to 

you. Can you blame the dealer for lying back?" 

The term secondary deviation refers to the criminal acts associated with 

the individual's acquired status as a criminal and his or her ultimate accep- 

tance of it (Lemert, 1951; 1972). Secondary deviation emerges from a pro- 

cess of reaction and adjustment to the punishing and stigmatizing actions 

of significant others, such as schoolteachers, parents, and law enforcement 

officials. Although initially the individuals engage for a short time in devi- 

ant acts that they regard as incompatible with their true selves (suggesting 

the need for the techniques of neutralization discussed earlier), they even- 

96 Chapter 5

tually come to accept their new identities as deviants and are well advanced 

toward a career in deviance:

The sequence of interaction leading to secondary deviation is roughly as fol- 

lows: (1) primary deviation [initial acts of deviance prompted by any number 

of reasons]; (2) social penalties; (3) further primary deviation; (4) stronger 

penalties and rejections; (5) further deviation, perhaps with hostilities and 

resentments beginning to focus upon those doing the penalizing; (6) crisis 

reached in the tolerance quotient, expressed in formal action by the commu- 

nity stigmatizing of the deviant; (7) strengthening of the deviant conduct as 

a reaction to the stigmatizing and penalties; (8) ultimate acceptance of devi- 

ant social status and efforts at adjustment on the basis of the associated role 

(Lemert, 1951: 77).

Whether an individual moves from primary to secondary deviation de- 

pends greatly on the degree to which others' disapproval finds expression 

in concrete acts of punishment and stigmatization. In a later paper, Lemert 

notes: "While communication of invidious definitions of persons or groups 

and the public expression of disapproval were included [in earlier discus- 

sions] as part of the societal reaction, the important point was made that 

these had to be validated in order to be sociologically meaningful. Valida- 

tion was conceived as isolation, segregation, penalties, supervision, or some 

kind of organized treatment" (1974: 457). Support for the criminogenic 

impact of validation comes from Shannon's (1991) famous cohort study 

in Racine, Wisconsin, which found that boys who experienced repeated 

contacts with the police were at much greater risk of chronic delinquency. 

A more recent version of the theory that has been empirically supported 

in the literature posits that official intervention during adolescence can 

negatively impact educational attainment and employment opportunities 

in direct ways. In regard to education, children labeled as troublemakers 

are more likely to be harshly disciplined. They may even be suspended or 

expelled. This may not only create animosity toward the school system and 

administrators but also preclude the child from eventually landing a good 

job. It is theorized that this leads to reduced opportunities for legitimate 

ways to achieve income and status and thus raises the probability of sec- 

ondary deviation as the individual does not see him or herself fitting into 

mainstream society (Bernburg and Krohn, 2003). 

Some critics have attacked labeling theory, arguing that many of its key 

assumptions are not supported by the bulk of available evidence. Indeed, 

Wellford (1975: 342) asserts that the supposed connection between pu- 

nitive reactions, changes in self-concept, and secondary deviation is "a 

simplistic view of behavior causation, one that stresses the explanation of 

intellectual as opposed to behavioral characteristics of the subject." More 

contemporary critics argue that the claim that changes in self-concept pro- 

Social Process Theories 97

duce changes in behavior has yet to be demonstrated. Some prefer to view 

behavior as situationally determined, and thus crime may well occur quite 

independently of the actor's self-concept. 

To be sure, labeling theory has come in for its share of criticism--perhaps 

even a disproportionate share--but it is far from dishonored as a theo- 

retical perspective on crime, nor is it about to be abandoned by the field. 

Braithwaite's (1989) theory of reintegrative shaming (discussed in detail 

in chapter 7) and Sampson and Laub's (2003; 1997) continuing work in 

developmental criminology both take labeling theory seriously, giving it a 

prominent place in their theories of crime. 

While differential association theory, social control theory, and varieties 

of strain/anomie theory are more frequently tested than labeling theory, 

several studies in addition to the ones mentioned above have found that 

labeling theory is helpful in explaining some of the dynamics involved in 

crime and deviance (Bernburg, Krohn, and Rivera, 2006). For example, 

because of the stigma surrounding being "mentally ill," people who may 

in fact be mentally ill might avoid treatment, keep their problems secret, 

or withdraw from the very audiences (friends, family) that might be able 

to help them improve the quality of their lives (Link and Cullen, 1983; 

Triplett, 2000). Criminal justice policies are also instructively viewed 

through labeling theory, as Triplett (2000) notes in the context of social 

reactions to juvenile delinquency in the 1990s. Furthermore, two stud- 

ies found that while the effects of labeling theory are not as direct as the 

initial authors of the theory suggest, the effects of labeling are mediated 

through differential association (Adams, 1996; Downs, Robertson, and 

Harrison, 1997). Another study found that the effects of labeling were far 

stronger--a child's perception of teacher disapproval was highly associ- 

ated with delinquency, independent of prior delinquency. However, the 

effects of labeling were less direct when considering a child's delinquent 

peer associations (Adams and Evans, 1996). Other research has found that 

the effects of labeling were highly significant in explaining adolescent drug 

use (Edwards, 1993).

CHAPTER SUMMARY

This chapter has considered the social processes by which people acquire 

the attributes of a criminal. A common theme running through many social 

process theories is that criminal behavior is learned through association 

with others who have criminal attributes. Edwin Sutherland's differential 

association theory is among the most well-known social process theories, 

and it has received considerable empirical support. Sutherland's theory, 

like several other social process theories, also draws attention to the ways 

98 Chapter 5

in which relationships with others provide opportunities and incentives to 

learn criminal behavior patterns. 

Self-concept theories of criminality suggest that a person's sense of self, 

which is grounded in the reactions of others, is an important element in 

the internal control of behavior. A strong self-concept is a defense against 

criminal influence. Neutralization theories suggest that self-respecting in- 

dividuals will occasionally drift into crime or delinquency, provided they 

can rationalize their misdeeds so as to protect their self-image as essentially 

good and honest people. 

Control theory, on the other hand, asserts that by nature people will tend 

to do whatever they want, including crime, so the important theoretical 

question is "What stops them?" Hirschi believes that people are less likely 

to become criminals the more attached they are to the people, values, and 

activities of conventional (i.e., noncriminal) society. 

Labeling theory revolves around the idea that crime is a label attached to 

behavior and to people; there is nothing intrinsic in behavior that makes it 

a crime. Labeling theory emphasizes how the stigmatizing reactions of oth- 

ers may turn an individual's infrequent or spontaneous criminal behavior 

into persistent involvement that matches a criminal identity.

KEY TERMS

containment theory 

differential association theory 

drift theory 

interactional theory of delinquency 

interactionist perspective 

normalization of deviance 

operant conditioning 

secondary deviation 

social control theory 

social process theories 

techniques of neutralization

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

1. Social process theories tend to focus on peer and family relationships 

as key in leading an individual to or away from crime. How important 

do you think family is compared to peer relationships in influencing 

criminal involvement? 

Social Process Theories 99

2. Differential association theory seems very intuitive and based on com- 

mon sense. Is the theory sufficiently detailed enough to provide a firm 

understanding of the causes of crime? If so, how? If not, what might 

be added to theory to make it more powerful? 

3. What techniques of neutralization appear to be the most commonly 

used by offenders? Would you expect the neutralizations of white- 

collar criminals to be substantially different than those involved in 

traditional street crime? 

4. The involvement variable in Hirschi's social control theory has been 

shown to be particularly weak. Why do you think this is so? Could the 

theory be as strong without the concept of involvement? 

5. One radical implication of labeling theory is to ignore juvenile delin- 

quency because youths often grow out of crime if they are not labeled 

"criminal." Is such a policy preferable or even possible given the in- 

creasingly strong movement to prosecute children as though they are 

adults?

ACTIVITIES

1. Sutherland placed a high value on peer relationships and crime. Think 

about the role your friends have played in your decision to engage in 

crime or not. Are there any specific moments in time that were par- 

ticularly poignant in leading you one way or another? 

2. Listen to the Dixie Chicks's song "Goodbye Earl," and note all of the 

different techniques of neutralization vocalized to justify the killing 

of "Earl." To what extent do the lyrics mirror the main ideas of Sykes 

and Matza? 

3. To better understand Hirschi's social control theory, talk to your par- 

ents or legal guardians about how they tried to guide your moral and 

ethical development. To what extent are their responses interpretable 

through the Hirschi's variable "belief"? 

6 

Critical Theories

The lack of good jobs and homelessness are enduring social problems in 

the United States and in many other countries of the world. Hope that 

"things will get better" often hinges on the idea that financial security 

will bring about greater happiness. For the most unfortunate, hope might 

simply be for a meal or home. Many more dream of a life free from abuse, 

assault, and neglect. As critical theorists point out, however, forces external 

to the individual such as gender, economic class, and race have a lot to do 

with who "makes it" in any given society. Critical criminological theorists 

are openly critical of social forces that limit opportunities for some groups 

while expanding them for others. 

What distinguishes critical theories of crime from other explanations is 

their opposition to--not just interest in--unequal political, economic, and 

social structures and relationships. The major forms of critical theories 

reviewed in this chapter include Marxist, left realism, feminist, postmod- 

ernism, peacemaking, and cultural criminology perspectives. Respectively, 

their critiques are centered on capitalism, stratification and inequality, pa- 

triarchy, modernity, war making, and monolithic understandings of crime. 

Critical theories of crime have roots in general sociological conflict theory. 

While the social structural theories reviewed in chapter 4 consider the 

impact of social and economic inequities on crime, they do so only up 

to a point. Conflict theory goes a step further by seeing society shaped 

by conflicts among people who have competing self- and group interests. 

Even though at any time a society may seem to agree on basic values and 

goals, the existence of scarce resources and the tendency for them to be 

allocated unequally means that someone (or some group) is benefiting 

at the expense of someone else. In American society, groups at an overall

101 

102 Chapter 6

disadvantage are women, minorities, and the poor. People on the "losing 

end" may not recognize or admit that their interests are in conflict with 

the interests of others, when in fact they are. Even though the struggle over 

scarce resources may be unrecognized or acknowledged, conflict theorists 

believe it is historic and ubiquitous. It usually consists of a struggle over 

three related things: money, power, and influence. Those who have more 

of them try to keep things the way they are; those who have less of them 

favor change so that they can obtain a bigger share. The groups with wealth, 

power, and influence are favored in the conflict precisely because those re- 

sources put them in a dominant position. It is the "haves" rather than the 

"have-nots" who make the rules, control the content and flow of ideas and 

information, and design (and impose) the penalties for nonconformity. 

Dominance means people are in a position to promote their self-interest, 

even at the expense of others. 

Sometimes the struggle over scarce resources is blatant and bloody, but 

more often it is subtle and restrained. Conflict theorists point to various fac- 

tors as part of the complex reasons for the restraint. For example, by control- 

ling ideas and information, the dominant group is able to promote beliefs 

and values that support the existing order. In this way, the disadvantaged 

classes in society may develop what Marx and Engels (1947) called "false 

consciousness": a belief that prevailing social conditions are in their inter- 

est, when in fact they are not. Marx and Engels (1947: 39) illustrate how 

this happens in the case of law. Law is presented to the masses as "the will 

of the people," and this "juridical illusion" undermines the development 

of opposition and resistance among the disadvantaged. People are likely to 

feel uncomfortable challenging a law that they believe reflects public con- 

sensus. In reality, law reflects the interests of the ruling class, according to 

Marx and Engels. In like manner, contemporary feminists theorize that law 

is not only biased against the poor, but also against women. 

A second way that the struggle over scarce resources is kept in check is 

through the institutionalization of conflict. Special mechanisms such as 

courts, tribunals, and (in modern times) arbitration and civil rights hear- 

ings are set up to settle disputes. Disputes between individuals and groups 

are often conflicts over the distribution of scarce resources. When institu- 

tionalized avenues of settling disputes exist, the underlying struggle tends 

to be moderated and obscured. Aggrieved parties in the immediate dispute 

are pacified if not by talk of "justice," then by the emphasis on procedures. 

Nowhere is this more evident than in the realm of crime, where victims of- 

ten experience a complete loss of purpose as they face interminable delays 

and the intricacies of judicial procedure. 

The consensus or functionalist view sees law and other political arrange- 

ments as useful for society as a whole, which justifies their existence. 

Conflict theorists, on the other hand, see them as useful for the dominant 

Critical Theories 103

group(s) (i.e., the wealthy, men, and whites), and perhaps even harmful to 

other groups or to the larger society. Law and politics protect the interests 

of the powerful, who in turn resist efforts to change them. Before we ex- 

amine various critical and feminist theories in detail, let's first look at an 

influential pluralist conflict theory, which is one source of contemporary 

critical criminology.

TURK'S CONFLICT THEORY

Austin Turk (1966; 1969) has developed a conflict theory of criminality, 

and his work illustrates many of the points made above. What makes Turk's 

work distinctive is his emphasis on authority and power relations rather 

than on economic inequality. 

Turk begins by rejecting the conception of crime as behavior, arguing 

instead that crime is a status acquired when those with authority to create 

and enforce legal rules (lawmakers, police, prosecuting attorneys, judges) 

apply those rules to others (the "subjects" in authority relations). He then 

constructs a theory to explain this process of criminalization. Turk believes 

that criminology needs a theory "stating the conditions under which cul- 

tural 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" (1969: 53). 

Turk hypothesizes that conflict between groups is most likely when 

authorities and subjects disagree about a particular activity, but the ac- 

tions of both groups (social norms) correspond with what they each think 

ought to happen (cultural norms). For example, if the authorities hold that 

marijuana use is wrong and refrain from using it themselves, but a group 

of subjects holds that marijuana use is okay and they use it, then conflict 

is likely because there is no room for compromise. In such a case, Turk 

argues, the authorities are likely to resort to coercion in order for their view 

to prevail. Conflict is least likely when neither authorities nor subjects act 

in accordance with their beliefs: Neither group is sufficiently committed 

to a value or belief to make an issue out of it. Other factors can affect the 

probability of conflict, including the degree to which subjects who resist are 

organized and the level of their sophistication. Conflict is more likely when 

norm resisters are poorly organized and unsophisticated. 

Given the existence of conflict, the probability of criminalization de- 

pends on power differentials between authorities and subjects and on 

the realism of moves (i.e., tactical skills) employed by opposing parties. 

Criminalization is more likely when the power difference favors authorities 

104 Chapter 6

and the moves adopted by resisters are unrealistic. Examples of unrealistic 

moves are those that: (1) increase the visibility of an attribute or behavior 

perceived by authorities as offensive; (2) draw attention to additional of- 

fensive attributes or violate even more significant norms upheld by au- 

thorities; and (3) increase the level of consensus among authorities, for 

example, by turning opposition to a particular rule into an attack on the 

whole system; or (4) increase the power differences in favor of the enforcers 

(Turk, 1969: 72). 

Turk's theory has not been tested as much as other theories reviewed in 

this chapter, but one of the very few empirical studies found considerable 

support for the notion that poor organization and a lack of sophistication 

among norm resisters tend to produce conflict. However, the more specific 

claims of Turk regarding the relative importance of organization and sophis- 

tication were not well supported (Greenleaf and Lanza-Kaduce, 1995). 

It should be noted that for a number of reasons Turk's theory represents 

one of the finest examples of theory construction in criminology. Foremost 

among these issues is the nature of the relationship between those who 

create, interpret, and enforce legal rules and those who are subject to them. 

Crime has no objective reality apart from the meanings attached to it, and 

criminality is an expression of those meanings. As Turk makes clear, the 

structure of authority relations must be included in a comprehensive theory 

of criminalization. Turk's theory focuses on authority relations and explains 

how it is that some people are labeled as criminals. Marxist theorists go 

further, casting conflicts of authority and criminal labeling within a general 

theory of political economy having roots in the work of Karl Marx.

MARXIST CRIMINOLOGICAL THEORY

While Karl Marx said little about crime, some criminologists, especially criti- 

cal criminologists, recognize a substantial debt to this nineteenth-century 

scholar. Marx believed that a society's mode of economic production--the 

manner in which relations of production are organized--determines in 

large part the organization of social relations, the structure of individual and 

group interaction. Marx (1859: 20­21) put it this way:

In the social production in which men carry on they enter into definite rela- 

tions that are indispensable and independent of their will; these relations of 

production correspond to a definite stage of development of their material 

powers of production. The totality of these relations of production constitutes 

the economic structure of a society--the real foundation, on which legal and 

political superstructures arise and to which definite forms of social conscious- 

ness correspond. The mode of production of material life determines the gen- 

Critical Theories 105

eral character of the social, political, and spiritual process of life. It is not the 

consciousness of men that determines their being, but, on the contrary, their 

social being determines their consciousness.

Under a capitalist mode of production, there are those who own the 

means of production and those who do not. The former group is known 

as the bourgeoisie and the latter as the proletariat. The bourgeoisie, or ruling 

class, controls the formulation and implementation of moral and legal 

norms, and even ideas. Both classes are bound in relationship to one an- 

other, but this relationship is asymmetrical and exploitive. 

This relationship affects law, and by extension, crime. Laws are created by 

the elite to protect their interests at the expense of the proletariat. However, 

the image of law promoted to the masses is one that implies democracy and 

consensus. For example, nearly everyone would agree that killing another 

without legitimate reason should be criminal. However, what are those 

legitimate reasons? War? Corporate violations of safety laws that result in 

worker deaths? Marxists might point out that even presumably simple and 

well-supported laws may not work in the interests of the have-nots, though 

they may be perceived to be a representation of the collective will of a soci- 

ety. In this spirit, Marxist scholars have noted:

The fact is that the label "crime" is not used in America to name all or the worst 

of the actions that cause misery and suffering to Americans. It is primarily re- 

served for the dangerous action of the poor (Reiman, 1999: 25).

[I]t is not the social harms punishable by law which cause the greatest misery 

in the world. It is the lawful harms, those unpunishable crimes justified and 

protected by law, the state, the ruling elites that fill the earth with misery, want, 

strife, conflict, slaughter, and destruction (Tifft and Sullivan, 1980: 9).

Marxist criminology probably hit its high point in the 1970s after many 

of Marx's early writings were translated to English and made available in 

the United States. The perspective is still a force in criminology, but not 

in its original formulation, as its applicability to the study of crime and 

law has been realized more fully by contemporary critical criminological 

scholarship. First, however, let's take a look at the classic work of the Dutch 

criminologist Willem Bonger. 

Bonger on Crime and Economic Conditions. As previously discussed, Marx 

himself wrote little about crime. However, an intellectual follower of Marx, 

Willem Bonger, applied some of Marx's arguments to crime in capitalistic 

societies. In Criminality and Economic Conditions (published in English in 

1916), Bonger observed that capitalistic societies appear to have consider- 

ably more crime than do other societies. Furthermore, while capitalism 

developed, crime rates increased steadily. 

106 Chapter 6

Under capitalism, Bonger argued, the characteristic trait of humans is 

self-interest (egoism). Given the emphasis on profit maximization and 

competition, and the fact that social relations are class structured and geared 

to economic exchange, capitalistic societies spawn intraclass and interclass 

conflicts as individuals seek to survive and prosper. Interclass conflict is one- 

sided, however, since those who own and control the means of production 

are in a position to coerce and exploit their less fortunate neighbors. Crimi- 

nal law, as one instrument of coercion, is used by the ruling class to protect 

its position and interests. Criminal law "is principally constituted according 

to the will of" the dominant class, and "hardly any act is punished if it does 

not injure the interests of the dominant class" (1969: 379, 380). Behavior 

threatening the interests of the ruling class is designated as criminal. 

Since social relations are geared to competition, profit seeking, and the 

exercise of power, altruism is subordinated to egoistic tendencies. These 

tendencies lead, in Bonger's view, to a weakening of internal restraint. Both 

the bourgeoisie and proletariat become prone to crime. The working class 

is subject to further demoralization, however, because of its inferior ex- 

change position and its exploitation at the hands of the ruling class. "Long 

working hours and monotonous labor brutalize those who are forced into 

them; bad housing conditions contribute also to debase the moral sense, as 

do the uncertainty of existence, and, finally, absolute poverty, the frequent 

consequence of sickness and unemployment" (1969: 195). 

In Bonger's view, economic conditions that induce egoism, coupled with 

a system of law creation and enforcement controlled by the capitalist class, 

account for (1) higher crime rates in capitalistic societies than in other soci- 

eties, (2) crime rates increasing with industrialization, and (3) the working 

class character of official crime. 

A Sampling of Marxist Criminology: 1970s to the Present. It was in the 

1970s in the United States that the first systematic Marxist statements on 

crime began to appear. Many works by Marx (such as the Economic and 

Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844) became widely available to U.S. scholars at 

this time. Also adding to the appeal of Marx's scholarship was the spirit of 

sweeping social movements of the 1960s and the accompanying cultural 

and political changes that occurred at this time. Students, professors, and 

social activists looked to alternative literatures to help them answer big 

questions about social problems such as crime, racism, sexism, and war. 

Marxist theory is still a valuable tool for analyzing the nuances of the po- 

litical economy's impact on crime and victimization, but much of the con- 

temporary relevance of Marxian criminology is attributable to the work of 

David Gordon, Richard Quinney, Steven Spitzer, and William Chambliss, 

whose work we will now review. 

According to David Gordon (1971; 1973), most crime is a rational re- 

sponse to the structure of institutions found in capitalistic societies. Crime 

Critical Theories 107

is "a means of survival in a society within which survival is never assured" 

(1971: 59). Gordon identifies three types of crime in the United States as 

the best examples of this rationality: ghetto crime; organized crime; and 

corporate, or white collar, crime. These types offer a chance at survival, 

status, and respect in a society geared to competitive forms of social inter- 

action and characterized by substantial inequalities in the distribution of 

social, economic, and political resources. 

Involvement in different types of crime is explained by class position. 

Those in the upper socioeconomic classes have access to jobs in which 

paper transactions, large amounts of money, and unobtrusive communica- 

tion are important features. Illegal opportunities are manifest in the many 

forms of white-collar crime. Those in the lower classes, especially those 

who are "raised in poverty," do not have easy access to money and nonvio- 

lent means to manipulate it. Accordingly, illegal activities tend to involve 

taking things by force or physical stealth. Gordon sees duality in American 

justice in that the state tends to ignore certain kinds of crime, most notably 

corporate and white-collar crime, and concerns itself "incessantly" with 

crimes among the poor. According to Gordon, this duality is understand- 

able only if one views the state through the radical perspective. First of all, 

government in a capitalistic society exists primarily to serve the interests 

of the capitalist class, and preservation of the system itself is the priority. 

So long as power and profits are not undermined, the offenses that tend 

in general to harm members of other classes receive little interest. Second, 

even though offenses of the poor tend to harm others who are poor, they 

are collectively viewed as a threat to the stability of the system and the inter- 

ests of the ruling class. Furthermore, an aggressive lower class is a dangerous 

class, and the spread of ghetto crime (conveniently identified with African 

Americans) to other parts of the nation's cities heightens the fears of the 

affluent classes who are in a position to influence policy. Gordon's critical 

approach provides a framework for explaining both the status of criminal- 

ity and the behavior of the criminal (see also Spitzer, 1975). 

Richard Quinney, one of the most prolific criminologists in the world, 

has written on crime from a number of theoretical perspectives, but here 

we will consider his Marxist theory of crime, first published as Class, State, 

and Crime in 1977. This work is really not a theory of crime causation per 

se, but a call through critique for the use of Marxist theory in the scholarly 

understanding of law, justice, and crime. 

Quinney starts with a number of presuppositions. First, to understand 

the meaning of crime in capitalist society one must take into account how 

capitalist economics develop. By this Quinney means that to understand 

crime in U.S. society, we should have a sense of the historical evolution 

of political economy and how it instructs our everyday lives and ideas. 

Second, says Quinney, it is important to get a grasp on how systems of 

108 Chapter 6

class domination and repression operate for the benefit of the capitalist 

class through the vehicle of the state. Here Quinney suggests that law is 

one weapon in the arsenal of the bourgeoisie to exploit the proletariat and 

to deflect scrutiny from their own harmful actions. Additionally, Quinney 

writes that ideas about crime and justice are created through human ex- 

periences within a capitalist society, and therefore the dominant ideology 

of crime reflects that bias. Justice, too, is ideological in this sense, as it is 

constituted through the prism of capitalist logic and interests. Crime itself, 

according to Quinney, is a manifestation of class struggle as well: 

Much criminal behavior is of a parasitical nature, including burglary, robbery, 

drug dealing, and hustling of various sorts. . . . the behavior, although pursued 

out of the need to survive, is a reproduction of the capitalist system (61).

Crimes such as murder, assault, and rape, he continues, often stem from 

those who are already "brutalized by the conditions of capitalism" (61). 

The solution to crime, according to Quinney and others working from this 

perspective, involves a fundamental restructuring of society on socialist 

principles (Quinney, 1979). 

Quinney called criminologists on to the carpet over their role in all of 

this as well. Quinney viewed uncritical criminologists as tacit agents of the 

capitalist state, for the discipline of criminology "seeks to control anything 

that threatens the capitalist system of production and its social relations" 

(176). What Quinney meant is that by divorcing the study of crime from the 

study of class domination, criminologists are involved in reproducing the 

inequalities caused by capitalism. Many mainstream criminologists have 

taken issue with the claim that they are capitalist patsies because they study 

crime in traditional ways, but Quinney's claim is defensible from a Marxist 

point of view; as the old saying goes, "if you are not part of the solution, 

you are part of the problem" would apply. Indeed, from this perspective, 

the problem of crime is rooted in capitalism, and thus the study of anything 

else is uncritical and indirectly supportive of the system. It is therefore part 

of the problem because it detracts attention from the real issues. 

At about the same time Richard Quinney was making his important 

stance in criminology, another Marxist-inspired conceptualization of crime 

was offered by William Chambliss (1975). Chambliss, also a highly prodi- 

gious criminologist, maintained like Quinney that the state was a tool used 

by the elite to control the poor and protect their own wealth, status, and 

privilege. If this wasn't the case, he asked, how is it that the wrongs commit- 

ted by the rich, which represent just as much of a threat if not greater than 

traditional street crimes in terms of injury, are either not defined as criminal 

or are not prosecuted and punished? While in today's world it may seem 

there that there is more attention paid to elite crime by both the public 

and the state (e.g., publicity surrounding the Enron fiasco), there is hardly 

Critical Theories 109

equity in enforcement and punishment. This is not to say that traditional 

street crimes such as murder and robbery should not be taken seriously, but 

rather if an important rationale for criminalization and punishment is the 

seriousness of injury, white-collar crimes (including state crimes like geno- 

cide, illegal war, and repression) must also be taken seriously. Chambliss 

maintained that crimes in the suites are often off the radar screen because 

of the elite's grip on power and their influence on those who control the 

creation and enforcement of law. Unless the proletariat were to achieve 

class consciousness--a Marxian term for the crystallization of thought by 

the proletariat that capitalism must end--the crimes of the elite will escape 

proper scrutiny. More directly, Chambliss argued that:

· Acts are criminal because it is in the interests of the ruling class to so 

define them. 

· The lower classes are labeled criminal and the bourgeoisie is not be- 

cause the bourgeoisie's control of the means of production gives them 

control of the state and law enforcement as well. 

· Socialist and capitalist societies should have significantly different 

crime rates since class conflict will be less in socialist societies.

In a similar vein, Steven Spitzer (1975: 352) has maintained that people 

become candidates for formal social control in a capitalist society when 

they "disturb, hinder, or call into question" any of the following:

· capitalist modes of appropriating the product of human labor (theft) 

· the social conditions under which capitalist production takes place 

(those unable or unwilling to perform labor) 

· patterns of distribution and consumption in capitalist society (drug 

use) 

· the process of socialization for productive and nonproductive roles 

(youths who refuse schooling or traditional family life) 

· the ideology that supports the functioning of capitalist society (revolu- 

tionaries and other political deviants)

Because there has never been a genuine socialist society that would 

meet Marx's definition, it is difficult to gauge the validity of Chambliss's 

and Quinney's assertions that crime will be lower in communist societies. 

However, elements of Chambliss's first two points identified above are 

more amenable to empirical scrutiny, and studies based on these points 

have found that some but clearly not all lawmaking and law enforcement 

is as classist as theory suggests. In fact, later modifications of the theory by 

Chambliss and others clearly leaves room for such possibilities. Spitzer's 

theory also has both strengths and weaknesses, as some deviance is defined 

110 Chapter 6

as such by authorities because it threatens the principles of the economic 

system, but the extent to which the laws are passed with this specific intent 

on the part of the bourgeoisie is questionable. 

This points to one of the problems with early efforts in Marxist crimi- 

nology: their overly instrumentalist theme. Instrumental Marxism, which 

has fallen out of favor in critical criminological circles, grants too much 

importance to the direct relationship between the economy and crime. The 

theorized supremacy of economics results in overgeneralization, as it is 

now commonly understood that rather than conscious capitalist interests 

dictating the whole content of law and the working of the criminal justice 

system, other interests and actors shape institutions and social structures 

such as criminal justice and law. Another major problem with the instru- 

mentalist treatment of the structural sources of crime is its vision of the 

ruling class itself. Sometimes the image conjured up is of a small band of 

powerful individuals in collusion with one another to determine the desti- 

nies of all. Some early Marxists also portrayed those whose criminal actions 

were political as victimized prisoners of circumstance whose crimes were 

not their responsibility. A final tension in instrumental Marxist theory can 

be identified. Some adherents to the perspective are against short-term re- 

forms of the criminal justice system because such actions would undermine 

the militant opposition necessary for a socialist revolution. This matter 

has been a source of tension between critical criminologists, as less radical 

scholars have argued that even small change is better than nothing. Left re- 

alists (discussed later) have grounded their integrative theory with specific 

attention to this issue. 

As the years passed, Marxist criminology, as many theories have, began 

to develop into more sophisticated sets of ideas about crime and law. Da- 

vid Greenberg (1977), for example, developed an explanation of juvenile 

delinquency that focused on teenagers' exclusion from the labor market. 

Greenberg noted that since children and teenagers do not normally engage 

in "serious work," their ability to achieve status through money is difficult. 

Everyone knows that it is difficult if not impossible for teens to work at 

a place like McDonald's while in high school and make the rent. Some 

parents, of course, neither have the means nor the desire to buy their chil- 

dren all the clothes, toys, concert tickets, and cars that youths might want. 

Youths, then, because they are not capable of buying these items them- 

selves, might turn to delinquency (such as theft) to upgrade their lifestyle or 

status. By showing how the lack of participation in a capitalist labor market 

might be connected to crime, Greenberg's theory adds some explanatory 

power to Marxist criminological theory, as many of the explanations for 

crime causation by earlier Marxist criminologists were somewhat crude. 

Mark Colvin and John Pauly developed another influential Marxist 

theory of juvenile delinquency in 1983. Juvenile delinquency, they argued, 

Critical Theories 111

Box 6.1. Challenging Inequality through Music: The Lyrics of Public En- 

emy and Rage against the Machine 

Public Enemy and the now defunct band Rage against the Machine were 

among the most commercially successful music groups to write songs that 

included explicit critiques of racial and economic inequality in the United 

States. In a study of Rage against the Machine lyrics, Finley (2002) notes that 

several critical criminological themes are represented in the group's lyrics, 

including the ideas that (a) capitalism is a source of crime, (b) crimes of the 

powerful are more harmful than those of the poor, and (c) the media trans- 

mits racist and classist messages about crime. 

In the song "Know Your Enemy," Rage against the Machine criticizes the 

culture of capitalism, especially in the educational system that forces students 

to conform and submit to authority figures who may not themselves be 

sources of accurate knowledge. A similar attack on the culture of educational 

and political institutions in the United States is found in the lyrics to "Take 

the Power Back," which specifically criticizes ethnocentrism and the purified 

history lessons that are taught in schools. A reading of Public Enemy lyrics, 

particularly those from the Fear of a Black Planet album, also reveals the pres- 

ence of critical criminological themes, especially those that are attentive to 

the intersection of race and class. One example of this is found in the lyrics 

to "Burn Hollywood, Burn," which excoriates the media's portrayal of urban 

blacks. 

While early forms of critical criminology were silent on the issue of race 

(and gender), it has become increasingly attentive to the intersections of the 

various forms of inequality under capitalism. This is evidenced not only in 

individual scholarly contributions and anthologies (e.g., Barak, Flavin, and 

Leighton, 2001; Ross, 2009; Schwartz and Milanovic, 2000) but also by the 

growing collaborative efforts between the American Society of Criminology's 

divisions on Women and Crime, People of Color and Crime, and Critical 

Criminology.

begins with parenting. While this does not seem all that Marxist, they ar- 

gued that parenting styles are influenced by relationships and experiences 

at work. First, many delinquents come from working-class families, where 

the breadwinners are employed in "dead end" jobs (so-called Fraction I 

jobs) and are subject to coercion, threats, and the possibility of dismissal 

at any time. Such jobs include nonunionized industrial, textile, and agri- 

cultural work. Workers in this category tend to be highly alienated from 

their jobs, and this tends to carry over at home. Such parents are likelier 

to be punitive (sometimes physically), inconsistent with discipline, and 

generally more abusive than parents employed in better jobs. As a result of 

this type of parenting, children are more likely to become alienated from 

their parents, and that leads to a greater likelihood of alienation at school 

112 Chapter 6

and association with other alienated peers. Along with the disadvantages 

of their class position, the table then becomes set for the formulation of 

delinquent attitudes and behavior. Bohm (1998) has suggested that more 

workers today are employed in Fraction I jobs, and if Colvin and Pauly's 

theory is correct, we would expect to see higher rates of alienation and 

consequently criminal violence by juveniles. Colvin and Pauly's theory was 

a major contribution to critical criminology at the time, as it showed, like 

Greenberg's, that both cultural forces and insights from other theories of 

crime can be integrated into Marxist theory to form a potentially more valu- 

able explanation of crime. 

Marxist criminology matured immensely in the 1990s. Perhaps the best 

illustrations of this change are recent socialist feminist theories (discussed 

later) and Chambliss's structural contradictions theory (Chambliss and 

Zatz, 1993). Let's examine the latter now. 

Rejecting theories (and to some extent his earlier work) that maintained 

that the capitalist mode of production exclusively determines law, and by 

implication crime, the new theory posits that every society attempts to re- 

solve conflicts and dilemmas caused by fundamental contradictions. The 

creation of law, then, is more complicated than the ruling class plotting 

against the interests of the working class (see figure 6.1). The basic contra- 

diction within capitalism is between labor and capital, and it

produces conflicts between workers and capitalists, and for the state it creates 

a set of dilemmas. Should the state represent only the interests of capitalists, 

the conflicts will increase in intensity, with workers pitted against the state. . . . 

Were the state to side with the workers . . . the system would likewise collapse 

and a new social order would have to be constructed. Faced with this dilemma, 

officials of the state attempt to resolve the conflict by passing laws, some which 

represent the interests of capitalists and some the interests of workers (Cham- 

bliss and Zatz, 1993: 10).

This refinement of Marxist theory allows for the idea that the state has 

relative autonomy from the capitalist class. While elite interests surely shape 

law, they do not exclusively instruct it. Consider the example of white-collar 

crime. A major goal of the capitalist state has been to promote capital ac- 

cumulation (corporate money making). However, there is quite a bit of 

regulation over business as well. Barnett (1981: 7) has argued that while this 

is true, the state's regulatory function "must not be so severe as to diminish 

substantially the contribution of large corporations to growth in output and 

employment." So, from this structural--rather than instrumental--Marxist 

view, while state regulatory agencies have been created to help protect work- 

ers (The Occupational Safety and Health Administration), the environment 

(The Environmental Protection Agency), and consumers (The Consumer 

Product Safety Commission), they cannot do anything to seriously compro- 

Critical Theories 113

Figure 6.1. Instrumental and Structural Marxist Theories

mise an industry's basic contributions to the functional requirements of the 

economy (Matthews and Kauzlarich, 2000). While regulatory agencies can 

help protect the environment and make workplaces and commodities safer, 

the laws and regulations will never be so strong as to disable business from 

the ability to reap profits. This is seen as problematic by Marxists, as the 

main motivation of corporate crime can be linked to the desire to maximize 

profits (Friedrichs, 2009). Ultimately laws governing business will not be 

114 Chapter 6

created or enforced if they seriously compromise principles designed to fa- 

cilitate capitalist accumulation. In fact, to some Marxists, their very existence 

increases false consciousness, as the illusion of protection is enhanced when 

the "front" put up by the state seems legitimate on the surface (Pearce and 

Tombs, 1998). 

Research by Michalowski and Carlson (1999) illustrates the enduring 

value of the Marxist criminology. The authors have shown that unemploy- 

ment rates and new court admissions to prison can be linked to swings and 

qualitative changes in the U.S. economy. These changes include shifts in the 

productive dimension of the overall economy, the workforce, and various 

state interventions. Thus, periods characterized by high unemployment, 

deteriorating job quality, low social-welfare benefits, and a growing surplus 

population of young, disaffected, unemployed men will generate a greater 

reliance on punitive strategies than other periods in time (Michalowski and 

Carlson, 1999: 227). In sum, the study illustrates how discrete changes in 

capitalist economies affect aggregate levels of crime.

LEFT REALISM

Several years ago British criminologists Jock Young and Roger Matthews 

started to systematically critique some radical Marxist criminological theo- 

ries. Young and Matthews proposed that the "left idealism" of the radi- 

cal perspective be replaced by "left realism." According to Young (1986; 

1997), left idealism has tended to downplay the severity of crime and the 

fact that it is most often intraclass and intraracial. As Matthews (2004: 9) 

explains:

While not ignoring crimes of the powerful, new left realists have taken the po- 

sition that the effects of street crime are both serious and real, that the criminal 

class is not revolutionary, and that critical (i.e., Marxian, conflict, feminist, and 

radical) criminologists must pay attention to it. What ties new left realism to 

Marxian criminology, however, is its emphasis on understanding crime within 

the larger political economy.

In addition, Young charges that left idealism has failed to build on past 

theories of criminal etiology and in consequence has failed in its theoretical 

mission to explain crime. For example, Young writes:

there is no evidence that absolute deprivation (e.g., unemployment, lack of 

schooling, poor housing, and so forth) leads automatically to crime. Realist 

criminology points to relative deprivation in certain conditions as being the 

major causes of crime; i.e., when people experience a level of unfairness in 

their allocation of resources and utilize individualistic means to attempt to 

right this condition. . . . To say that poverty in the present period breeds crime 

Critical Theories 115

is not to say that all poor people are criminals. Far from it: most poor people 

are perfectly honest and many wealthy people commit crimes. Rather, it is 

to say that the rate of crime is higher in certain parts of society under certain 

conditions (Young, 1997: 30­31).

Young (1986: 25) believes that the central tasks of radical or critical crim- 

inology still remain: "to create an adequate explanation of crime, victim- 

ization, and the reaction of the state." The alternative realist criminology 

deals with that agenda while uncovering the reality of crime, "its origins, 

its nature, and its impact" (Young, 1986: 21). Official data and research is 

not rejected out of hand, nor will current definitions of crimes and their 

severity constrain the realist's search for this reality (Matthews, 1986: 8). 

Left realism emphasizes going behind appearances that pass as reality. A 

"central tension" in left realism is working both "in" and "against" the state. 

The question is this: How can the victimization and suffering of crime, es- 

pecially among the lower classes, be reduced without extending the coercive 

and bureaucratic apparatus of the state? (Dekeseredy, Alvi, Schwartz, and 

Tomasceski, 2003; Matthews, 1986: 14). 

Like other social structural perspectives, one of the central ideas of realist 

criminology leads to the lower classes. But rather than looking there only 

for offenders, the realists see the lower class as a victim of crime "from all 

sides" (Young, 1986: 23). The lower class generally, and racial minorities in 

particular, are doubly vulnerable to crime because they are victims of preda- 

tory street crimes as well as white-collar crimes: They are victims of the poor 

and the powerful (Young, 1997; 2000). 

In the tradition of both left realism and strain theory, Elliott Currie (1997) 

has theorized about crime in so-called market societies. These types of soci- 

eties (e.g., the United States and Great Britain) have significant economic 

inequality as well as a scarcity of stable and rewarding jobs. Market societies 

are characterized by the pursuit of personal economic gain in all facets of 

life. This one-dimensional motivation, Currie argues, comes at the expense 

of people's interest and ability to invest in powerful social, cultural, and hu- 

man forces (so-called social capital), which are known to be negatively re- 

lated to violence in any given society. In such societies, people have little or 

marginal interest in furthering their relationships with others outside their 

immediate group, such as the larger community or neighborhoods. 

According to Currie (1997), market societies are criminogenic--they 

provide fertile grounds for crime to flourish--in a number of ways. First, 

while market economies like the United States can produce lots of jobs, 

many are low paying and without benefits. So, even though the unemploy- 

ment rate in the United States is currently low, many people are working 

very hard for very little. This continues to produce economic and social 

inequalities that positively correlate with the overall crime rate. Second, 

market societies tend to have limited formal and informal social supports. 

116 Chapter 6

For example, the strains between family and work are profound for many 

working people. There is little formal support by employers or the govern- 

ment to provide paid parental leaves, quality universal health care, or to 

do something about the disintegration of neighborhoods and communi- 

ties. Third, market societies often place "competition and consumption 

over the values of community, contribution, and work" (Currie, 1997: 

161). We should therefore expect that in a "dog-eat-dog" world, people 

will care less about others' well-being, and not caring about other people 

makes it easier to victimize them. Fourth, Currie believes that it is possible 

that the amount of firearm violence in the United States could be reduced 

with more sensible gun regulation. The United States leads the advanced 

industrialized world in the rate of gun crime and violence--it also has the 

weakest national regulations on the sale and possession of guns. Finally, 

Currie notes that at least in the United States, the lack of alternative po- 

litical discussion leads people to believe that there is nothing that can be 

done about social problems like crime. Crime is thus easily divorced from 

its larger structural roots, which in turn lessens people's ability to envision 

a safer and less violent society. 

Left realism is surely here to stay, for it provides a richer approach to 

understanding the links between crime and the economy than traditional 

Marxist theories. In fact, the approach may soon be as recognizable as any

Box 6.2. Policy Proposals of Left Realism 

Left realist criminological theory has a number of clear policy implications, 

some of which are similar to those of Merton's strain theory (reviewed in 

chapter 4). Which of the following left realist proposals do you think have a 

good chance to reduce crime?

· Job creation and training programs 

· A higher minimum wage 

· Government-sponsored day care 

· Housing assistance 

· Teaching of entrepreneurial skills in high school 

· Linking school, business, and state services 

· Creating universal health care

As one of the preeminent left realists of our time notes, the perspective 

emphasizes the importance of making changes in the area of social policy more 

than criminal justice policy (Walter Dekeseredy and Barbara Perry, 2006; De- 

keseredy et al., 2003). Do you agree?

Source: Dekeseredy (2004). 

Critical Theories 117

other criminological theory discussed in this text, especially given its clear 

practical implications (see box 6.2).

FEMINIST THEORIES OF CRIME

Feminist theory has challenged many of the biases of traditional academic 

disciplines, including criminology. For years criminology was very andro- 

centric, as criminologists were mostly males studying males, either ignor- 

ing women altogether, stereotyping them, or otherwise downplaying their 

importance. While there are many different forms of feminist criminol- 

ogy (e.g., liberal socialist and radical) at the most basic level feminism in 

criminology is about centering gender and its relationship to lawmaking, 

lawbreaking, and reactions to crime (Iadicola and Shupe, 1998: 78; Miller, 

2003). Several years ago Kathleen Daly and Meda Chesney-Lind (1988: 

108) published a landmark paper on feminism and criminology in which 

they identified five elements of feminist thought that distinguish it from 

other forms of social and political perspectives. These are:

1. Gender is not a natural fact but a complex social, historical, and cul- 

tural product. 

2. Gender and gender relations order social life and social institutions in 

fundamental ways. 

3. Gender relations and constructs of masculinity and femininity are not 

symmetrical but are based on an organizing principle of men's superi- 

ority and social and political economic dominance over women. 

4. Systems of knowledge reflect men's views of the natural and social 

world. 

5. Women should be at the center of intellectual inquiry, not peripheral, 

invisible, or appendages to men.

Taken together, these points suggest that a small physiological difference 

at birth between males and females (that is, our sex) becomes the basis for 

drastically different expectations, opportunities, and socialization through- 

out the life course. Open almost any introductory sociology textbook and 

read the chapter on gender. There you will find overwhelming evidence of 

the significance of (a) gender role socialization (the teaching of girls to be 

feminine and boys to be masculine) and (b) gender inequality (the differ- 

ences in political, social, and economic power, authority, and status among 

men and women). There is simply little doubt that in aggregate, men and 

women have very different social statuses. 

Criminologists who take gender seriously use these larger sociological 

realities to help understand issues such as (a) different offending rates, 

118 Chapter 6

(b) differential involvement in types of crime, (c) police, prosecutorial, 

and judicial discretion in criminal justice, (d) institutional discrimina- 

tion against women in criminal justice, and (e) differential victimization 

(Flavin, 1998; Miller, 2003; Stanko, 1995). This last area has played a key 

role in the development of criminological research and theory on domestic 

assault, sexual assault, child maltreatment, pornography, and prostitution. 

While there is considerable debate among criminologists about the im- 

pact of feminism on criminology more generally (Rafter and Heidensohn, 

1997), there is little question that feminist criminology is a growing area 

of scholarship, and in our view, it makes considerable contributions to the 

understanding of crime. 

There are two issues that lie at the heart of the feminist challenge to 

theoretical criminology: (1) whether traditional theories of crime apply to 

girls and women, and (2) why women offend significantly less than men 

(Miller, 2003). Regarding the first, it is important to examine the question of 

whether interactions and relationships with friends and family are qualita- 

tively different for boys and girls. For example, research has shown that par- 

ents tend to be more controlling in some aspects of their daughters' lives but 

not their sons'. Instead of "control" being a gender-neutral variable, it could 

be that girls are subject to different forms of control, say in the monitoring 

of physical appearances and sex. If parents exercise control and tolerance 

in gendered ways, a seemingly objective measure of the social bond, such 

as the quality or time of "parental interaction," may be measuring different 

things for boys than girls. Further, how do we know there are not significant 

variations in the causes of offending within gender categories? To explore 

this question, feminist criminologists are working on new ways to under- 

stand the intersections of race and class with gender (Miller, 2004). 

The second issue relates to what is known as the gender-ratio problem. The 

concern here is rooted in the fact that official statistics and other measures 

of crime indicate that men and boys are much more involved in criminal 

activity than girls and women. From a feminist perspective, any legitimate 

theory of crime must be able to address this relationship, as it is among the 

more universal facts about crime. We turn to one such theory now. 

Gender Class Theory. As we have seen, theories of crime that focus on 

class relations and economic inequality owe a heavy debt to Marx and 

Engels. However, some criminologists believe that an adequate theory of 

crime requires the incorporation of a second aspect of social structure, 

what Messerschmidt (1986) calls relations of reproduction. "[I]n all societies," 

Messerschmidt writes, "people need to reproduce, socialize, and maintain 

the species. Consequently, people organize into relations of reproduction 

to satisfy these needs" (1986: ix). 

From a socialist feminist perspective, in capitalist societies such as the 

United States "relations of reproduction take the form of patriarchal gender 

Critical Theories 119

relations, in which the male gender appropriates the labor power and con- 

trols the sexuality of the female gender" (Messerschmidt 1986: ix­x). How- 

ever, the domination of women as a group by men as a group is intertwined 

with class domination: "Women labor in both the market and the home, 

and suffer masculine dominance in each. But in addition, their experience 

in both realms is determined by their class" (1986: xi). In production and 

in reproduction, behavior is shaped by power relations that cut across both 

spheres. In the United States, "we do not simply live in a 'capitalist' society, 

but rather a 'patriarchal capitalist' society" (Messerschmidt, 1986: 35). One 

can therefore distinguish two basic groups: "a powerless group, comprising 

women and the working class, and a powerful group, made up of men and 

the capitalist class" (1986: 41). 

Messerschmidt endeavored to show how interlocking class and gender 

relations affect both criminal behavior and its control. For example, the 

well-documented gap between female rates of serious crime (which are 

low) and male rates (which are high)--the so-called gender ratio prob- 

lem we discussed above (Daly and Chesney-Lind, 1988: 119; see also 

Chesney-Lind and Shelden, 1992: 7­28 and Miller, 2003)--is explained 

in terms of the lack of female opportunities for legitimate and illegitimate 

activities that results from the fact that women are subordinate, "and there- 

fore less powerful in economic, religious, political, and military institu- 

tions" (Messerschmidt, 1986: 43). On the other hand, males have power, 

which provides them with far more opportunities to commit crime. When 

class is brought into the picture, the argument is this: Lower-class males 

have less power, hence commit less crime, than capitalist and middle-class 

males, but in all social classes, males are more powerful than females. 

"Their powerful position allows some men to engage in crimes specifically 

as men to maintain their dominant position" (Messerschmidt, 1986: 45). 

Rape and wife beating are examples. 

While socialist feminist theories of crime can be criticized for their lack 

of attention to race, the theory offers a more sophisticated way to think 

about the relationship between gender and class and how both operate to 

structure the nature and extent of crime and victimization. 

Power control theory. John Hagan and his colleagues have developed 

what has become known as the power control theory of crime, which attempts 

to explain gender differences in offending. The theory focuses on the rela- 

tions of girls and boys to their parents and argues that in patriarchal (male- 

dominated) families, male delinquency will be greater because parents 

encourage, support, and socialize boys into masculine roles and behaviors. 

Girls in patriarchal families, however, commit less crime because they are 

more subject to regulation by their parents and are encouraged to adopt 

more feminine roles and behaviors. On the other hand, girls in more egali- 

tarian families, where each parent has equal power and status, are more 

120 Chapter 6

likely to engage in delinquency because fewer controls are exercised over 

her behavior. In sum, the theory holds that: As women enter the paid labor 

force and assume more powerful positions in the workplace, mothers, and 

by extension their daughters, might become freer and less controlled. Thus, 

daughters could become more like sons in their willingness to take risks 

and their involvement in delinquency (McCarthy, Hagan, and Woodward, 

1999: 762). 

What makes Messerschmidt's and Hagan's work important is its improve- 

ment over other critical theories that focus on only economic inequality, 

and particularly its specification of how class and gender together affect 

crime. Even so, the approaches, specifically Hagan's, are not without critics. 

Meda Chesney-Lind (1987), for example, objects that Hagan's work repre- 

sents a "not-so-subtle variation" of the now discredited view that "liberated" 

females commit more crime. The liberal feminist theory of crime to which 

Chesney-Lind is referring to here maintains that women's involvement in 

crime is linked to their increased opportunities in society, especially in the 

workplace. The argument goes like this: The women's liberation movement 

has pushed for equality between the sexes. The result, Adler (1975) and 

Simon (1975) suggested, has been a convergence of gender roles as many 

of the experiences and opportunities previously reserved for males (and a 

few "lucky" females) are open to more and more females. In Adler's terms, 

a "virilization" of women has taken place, and the masculine female will 

become less distinguishable from her male counterpart in all areas of life, 

including crime. The changes, because they affect home life and the social- 

ization process, presumably will filter down to young girls. This liberation/ 

opportunity theory predicts that the crime rates of women and girls will 

increase and broaden. Under empirical scrutiny this theory has been shown 

to be weak. This is partly due to the fact that females are still more likely 

to hold low-paying jobs that are often auxiliary to the "more important" 

and better-paying jobs of men. Some have suggested that many women are 

actually less free today than they were forty years ago. They are expected to 

contribute to family income, and yet child care facilities are woefully inad- 

equate. This is particularly burdensome on young single mothers, many of 

whom are teenagers (Morris, 1987: 72). 

Hagan and his colleagues have recognized the merit of such criticism 

by Chesney-Lind and have pointed out in a test of a revised power control 

theory that there is a "further possibility that changes in women's work and 

family experiences might affect their relationships with their sons and their 

sons' fathers, thus altering, and perhaps diminishing delinquency among 

males" (McCarthy, Hagan, and Woodward, 1999: 761). This richer, more 

dynamic power control theory has been to some extent empirically sup- 

ported, and the revised power control theory now awaits further test. 

Critical Theories 121

A Sampling of Feminist Works. There are hundreds, perhaps thousands, of 

feminist studies and tests of theories in criminology. As with our review of 

Marxist criminological theories, however, we can only provide a snapshot 

of these works. Let's review a few that illustrate the continuing value of 

contemporary feminist scholarship in criminology. 

Jody Miller (1998) has studied the similarities and differences between 

men and women robbers. Based on interview data from St. Louis, Miller 

found that while the motivations for engaging in robbery for men and 

women were similar, the accomplishment of robbery was very different. She 

found that (a) women robbers targeted female victims more than men, and 

(b) some of the women robbers used men's perceptions of women as weak 

and sexually available to facilitate robbing males. These differences suggest 

that women who commit violent crimes may do so quite differently than 

men because of the gendered nature of their environment, wherein "the 

differences that emerge reflect practical choices made in the context of a 

gender-stratified environment, one in which, on the whole, men are per- 

ceived as strong and women are perceived as weak" (Miller, 1998: 60­61). 

Other research by Miller on girls and gangs also suggests similar social pro- 

cesses and structures at work (Miller, 1998b). In a different vein, Lisa Maher 

(1997) has found evidence that women who engage in violent crime often 

do so to protect or defend themselves. While Miller (1998) found that the 

motivations for men and women to commit robbery were similar, Maher 

found that women often "vicced" (robbed) male clients in part because of 

their increased economic marginalization and vulnerability to abuse and 

assault on the street. Women, then, according to Maher, can clearly have 

different motivations than men for engaging in violent crime. 

A study of the impact of gender on residential burglars by Mullins and 

Wright (2003) has found further evidence of this. Regardless of gender, the 

majority of the burglars indicated that they stole money and other items to 

enhance a "party" lifestyle (i.e., buying drugs, alcohol, fancy clothes, and 

jewelry). However, women were far more likely to report that the money 

gained from the burglaries would be in some way used to take care of their 

children. Consider the following statement:

I needed money, cause I needed a roof over my head, food to eat, things for 

my baby . . . cause I needed diapers and I was broke and, you know, my hours 

had been cut and I didn't have the money to pay rent plus to get the baby 

what it needed. You know, it's gonna be cold soon, I need winter clothes for 

my kid.

Men rarely mentioned such problems. 

Another interesting type of feminist criminological theory has developed 

around the relationship between masculinities and crime. Led by James 

122 Chapter 6

Messerschmidt (1994; 2000: 6), structured action theory "emphasizes the 

construction of gender as a situated social and interactional accomplish- 

ment. . . . Gender grows out of social practices in specific social structural 

settings and serves to inform such practices in reciprocal relation." Es- 

sentially, the theory suggests that when men "do" crime or violence, they 

are oftentimes acting out a role within a specific social context that can be 

related to the presentation of masculinity. 

But this performance of masculinity is relative and intermittent. Obvious 

affronts to a boy's or man's masculinity are called masculinity challenges, and 

it is these things, such as insults and threats to a boy or man, which can 

give rise to the motivation to violent behavior or masculine social action 

(Messerschmidt, 2000). However, many threats to masculinity may not 

result in violent behavior. 

Using structured action theory to help understand the identities of nine 

boys, Messerschmidt (2000: 139) notes that each of the boys, and all males 

presumably, construct or "do" gender differently. The difficult part is iden- 

tifying who is most at risk and how to promote a "democratic manhood" 

in which men and boys separate violence, authority, and domination from 

being masculine. Closing this section with the words of Messerschmidt 

(1997: 185) seems appropriate. His take on the future directions of feminist 

criminology is consistent with ours:

rather than conceptualizing gendered crime simplistically in terms of, for ex- 

ample, males commit violence and females commit theft, new directions in 

feminist theory enable us to explore which males and which females commit 

which crimes, and in which social situations.

Indeed, it is quite fair to say that criminology can only benefit from this 

type of analysis.

POSTMODERN CRIMINOLOGY

Like other critical criminologies, postmodern theories of crime are oppo- 

sitional, only for this perspective the opposition is to modernity, or more 

specifically, privileged discourses (i.e., writing and speaking by the more 

powerful members of society) that drown out and marginalize the less 

powerful in society. Grounded in a critique of the notion that rationality, 

reason, science, and technology lead to progress (as implied by Enlighten- 

ment-era thought) postmodern criminology has its intellectual roots in 

the writings of French scholars such as Lacan, Baudrilland, Foucault, and 

Lyotard, whose work remains largely unread by most criminologists, even 

by many critical criminologists. Postmodernism openly questions conven- 

tional ideas about the value of science in explaining crime and posits that 

Critical Theories 123

the world is chaotic and unpredictable (Ferrell, 1998; Henry and Milova- 

novic, 2003). According to Arrigo (2004), there are three themes of the 

postmodernist perspective: (1) the importance of language, (2) the notion 

of partial knowledge and provisional truth, and (3) deconstruction, differ- 

ence, and possibility. Let us consider each of these in turn. 

Criminological postmodernism sensitizes us to the power of words, es- 

pecially the so-called crime speak and how the use of language is linked to 

how we think about and define the supposed "being" of crime and justice 

(Arrigo, 1998; Henry and Milovanovic, 1996; 1999). For example, a post- 

modern constitutive theory of crime offered by Arrigo (1998: 56) maintains 

that:

· Language is never neutral. It is encoded with multiple desires and mul- 

tiple ways of knowing. 

· Certain conversations about crime are valued and esteemed over oth- 

ers. Crime talk provides one accented or anchored representation of 

reality. 

· There is an inherent problem when crime talk signs are reduced to 

perpetuate conventional criminological meanings . . . this semiotic 

cleansing of being . . . denies . . . the possibility for emerging alterna- 

tive or replacement narratives on crime, on criminal behavior, and on 

the criminal law. 

· Theories of crime [are the] product of coterminous forces, the subject 

in process and economic conditions that give rise to notions of crime.

While postmodern criminology has yet to make a significant impact on 

the discipline of criminology as a whole, it clearly raises important ques- 

tions such as "how do we know what we think we know?" This is the sec- 

ond important theme of the perspective, and perhaps the most powerful. 

Philosophically speaking, truth is not absolute, nor is it something that can 

ever really exist on its own. A simple way to think about it is by picturing 

all of the different situations that people find themselves in as they make 

decisions about their lives. 

While there surely may be shared statuses (e.g., race, educational level, 

and gender), human beings are infinitely different and, from the post- 

modern perspective, there is no compelling reason to assume that their 

behavior has the same universal cause. Lyotard (1984: 82) even goes so 

far as to "wage war on totality," the so-called metanarrative of grand social 

theories. 

Postmodernist opposition to general or macro level theories of crime also 

stems from the idea that some "texts" or "discourses" (e.g., discussions, im- 

ages) of crime are given more credence than others for no other reason than 

they come from people in a position of power to be heard. Such texts should 

124 Chapter 6

be deconstructed to reveal the interests that guide them, which may, for 

example, be racist, sexist, or economic. This dismantling of dominant un- 

derstandings of crime leaves room for the creation of replacement discourses, 

stories that have been neglected or dismissed not because they are necessar- 

ily inaccurate, but because they do not fit into the dominant paradigm. As 

Henry and Milovanovic (2003: 67) note, replacement discourse "is designed 

to displace harmful moments in the exercise of power with discourses that 

tell different stories about the world." An example would be busting myths 

about crime being primarily committed by the underclass and minorities 

(which would be one logical conclusion if official government statistics are 

the primary source of data) by placing narratives from workers and consum- 

ers victimized by wealthy corporations into the story of crime.

PEACEMAKING CRIMINOLOGY

Critical criminology has given rise to what is known as peacemaking 

criminology, a perspective that sees crime and suffering as part of the 

larger problem of domination caused by the unequal distribution of power 

in society. The perspective shares much in common with the nonviolent 

philosophies articulated by thinkers such as Jane Addams, Dr. Martin Lu- 

ther King Jr., and Gandhi. Some peacemaking criminologists credit Zen 

Buddism and Quakerism as inspirations as well (Quinney, 1991). First 

developed in 1991 by Richard Quinney and Hal Pepinsky, the perspective 

sees human existence as being characterized by suffering; crime is a most 

vivid example of this. Through compassion and genuine care for ourselves 

and others, it is maintained, the suffering can end as personal and collec- 

tive awareness grows. Peacemaking criminology is therefore a criminology 

of "compassion and service" that seeks to eliminate suffering and therefore 

all crime (Quinney, 1991: x). This is done through working for peace at all 

levels of social and personal life. 

Peacemaking criminologists see that much of criminal justice is geared 

toward "war making." Of course this is not a particularly novel observation, 

as the phrase "war on crime" is well integrated into the common vernacu- 

lar in the United States. The use of the term war assumes that there is an 

enemy. The word also implies that violence is an acceptable way to resolve 

problems. Peacemaking criminologists, however, subscribe to the view that 

violence begets violence, and that war making is the least effective way to 

bring about justice and healing for the individual, self, and society. More 

specifically, violent responses to suffering undermine the ability of victims, 

offenders, and communities to communicate and cooperate. As Pepinsky 

(1999: 69) explains: 

Critical Theories 125

People cannot talk, listen together, and fight one another at the same time. 

Peacemaking is a matter of injecting doses of conversation into our social 

space--conversation that embraces the greatest victims and the most powerful 

oppressors of the moment at the same time. The sooner dialogue begins, the 

less likely explosive and violent relations will develop. The sooner the dialogue 

commences, the sooner power imbalances will be mediated, and the sooner 

peace will be made.

While peacemaking criminology is regarded by some as too philosophi- 

cal or even metaphysical, John Fuller (2004) has identified some basic 

principles of the perspective that are more amenable to practice in the day- 

to-day criminal justice context, and perhaps life more generally:

1. Nonviolence (force, especially the physical variety, is counterproduc- 

tive) 

2. Social justice (fairness and equality in all aspects of social policy and 

social structure) 

3. Inclusion (all stakeholders should participate in the process) 

4. Correct means (no coercion or discrimination) 

5. Comparable knowledge (everyone should know what's going on) 

6. Categorical imperative (act as though it was universal law; do no 

harm)

As you can see, peacemaking criminology is not just theoretical, but can 

be applied to a number of real-life situations both in and outside of the 

criminal justice system. One such one way that peacemaking criminology 

is practiced in criminal justice is through victim-offender reconciliation 

programs, where a trained mediator oversees face-to-face meetings between 

the offender and victim. Now a fairly common practice in the United States 

and Australia, the idea here is that the offender is placed in the situation of 

actually thinking about how his/her actions have affected others. Studies 

have shown that victims often feel some sense of catharsis in the process, 

and offenders, often for the first time, are confronted with the victim's reac- 

tion to the crime. Unlike the traditional model of criminal justice where 

there is little to no interaction between the main participants in a crime, 

the hope is that "victims and offenders are able to develop creative and 

long-lasting resolutions to their difficulties" (Fuller, 2004). Another way 

that peacemaking criminology can be put into practice is through family 

group conferencing in the juvenile justice system, where the offender's and 

victim's family members discuss how the crime has impacted their lives. As 

with all forms of restorative justice, the hope is that the wounds from crime 

can be healed through genuine dialogue designed to promote forgiveness, 

introspection, and change. 

126 Chapter 6

CULTURAL CRIMINOLOGY

Over the last fifteen years a fresh perspective on crime and deviance has 

developed from the work of Jeff Ferrell (1995; 1999) and other scholars 

that challenges and moves beyond other critical theories of crime. Known 

as cultural criminology, this school of thought views crime and deviance, 

and the reactions to them, as dynamic and ever-changing processes linked 

to creating and maintaining meaning through resistance, power, and reac- 

tions to everyday conflict and dilemmas (see Ferrell, Hayward, and Young, 

2008; Hayward, 2003). Unlike structural theories of crime, cultural crimi- 

nology does not maintain that crime and deviance, or the reaction to them, 

are caused by any one particular social structural force (such as capitalism 

for Marxists or patriarchy for feminists). Rather, cultural criminologists see 

crime and deviance as activities constructed by individuals and groups in 

their everyday lives as a response to the context (both immediate and dis- 

tant) in which they live and the meaning the acts have for their lives in a 

situated moment of time. Borrowing from cultural theories such as interac- 

tionism, labeling, and to some extent subculture explanations of crime, cul- 

tural criminologists are interested in explaining a wide range of crimes, and 

reactions to them, but have principally written on acts of resistance such as 

vandalism, stylistic crime in art and music, illegal motorcycle racing, graf- 

fiti, and some forms of youth violence, although more recent scholarship 

has also examined terrorism, genocide, and corporate crime (Muzzatti, 

2006). Just as critical to the perspective is how power and inequality impact 

rule-making, law enforcement, and media images of crime. The perspective 

includes serious consideration of how larger structural forces such as the 

economy and shifts in politics and technology affect crime, both in the 

development of deviant or criminal labels and in the performance of norm 

violation. Cultural criminology is a broad theoretical perspective which has 

certain advantages over other critical theories because it is highly integrative 

and is concerned with both rule development and the violations of rules 

(not just one or the other, as is the case with most theories of crime). 

One of the many unique features of cultural criminology is its apprecia- 

tion of the role of boredom, the search for excitement, thrills, and risk-taking 

in crime. Extending Katz's (1988) work on sensual attractions to crime 

(reviewed in chapter 7), scholars such as Ferrell (2004), Presdee (2000), 

and Lyng (1990) have analyzed how resistance to bureaucracy, irrational 

rules, social control, authority, and quite simply the banality of everyday 

life, can provide the grounds for rule-breaking and risk-taking in a variety 

of forms. Presdee (2000: 47) has argued that crime can be understood as 

"carnival," which he defines as "a domain in which the pleasure of playing 

at the boundaries (social and personal) is most clearly provided for. . . . It 

functions as a playful and pleasurable revolution, where those normally 

Critical Theories 127

excluded from the discourse of power may lift their voices in anger and 

celebration." Activities such as body modification, joy riding, S&M, raving, 

recreational drug taking, gang rituals, the Internet, festivals, and extreme 

sports, Presdee maintains, can be seen as a part of the carnival of crime. For 

the most part, these crimes are not "rational" in the sense that monetary gain 

can be achieved by their performance. Particularly important for Presdee is 

how media images of crime are produced, consumed, circulated, and com- 

modified into pseudo-objective accounts and narratives about crime. 

In another cultural criminology analysis, Ferrell (2004: 294) has argued 

that boredom resulting from alienation in the postmodern, hyper-capitalis- 

tic world can also provide the basis of forms of crime and deviance:

So, while some die a day at a time, others seek to overturn organized boredom, 

here with a spray can, there with a swirling interruption of automotive traffic. 

And in many of these large and small revolutions there is clearly something 

more being sought than excitement. Excitement, it seems, is in reality a means 

to an end, a subset of what ultimately emerges as the antidote to modern bore- 

dom: human engagement.

Sometimes this desire for engagement takes on highly political or social 

organizational purposes. As Ferrell (1993; 2001; 2005) has found in his 

ethnographic studies of urban graffiti artists, dumpster diving, and others 

on the street, "crimes of style" are partly developed out of the desire to share 

creativity with others, individual artistic expression (which is often quashed 

in schools, jobs, and youth home-life) while at the same time having quali- 

ties of resistance to agencies of social control such as the police, schools, 

and local government. 

As you can see, cultural criminologists have something unique to say 

about crime even though the perspective has roots in some well-known so- 

ciological theories (especially interactionism, phenomenology, the Chicago 

School, positive postmodernism, and Weberian theory). Cultural criminol- 

ogy's rejection of traditional criminological theories which rely on mecha- 

nistic, static, and rational choice based variables as well as its often poetic 

and richly enthnographic approach to studying crime and deviance makes 

the perspective intriguing and important as it certainly captures elements of 

crime not previously considered by criminologists.

CHAPTER SUMMARY

Critical theories of crime include Marxist, left realism, feminist, postmod- 

ernism, peacemaking, and cultural criminology perspectives. Respectively, 

their critiques are centered on capitalism, stratification and inequality, 

patriarchy, modernity, war making, and monolithic approaches to crime. 

128 Chapter 6

Critical theories of crime have roots in general sociological conflict theory, 

which sees society shaped by conflicts among people who have competing 

self- and group interests. 

Stemming from Karl Marx's critique of capitalism, early Marxist crimino- 

logical theory saw law as a tool of the bourgeoisie that is used to control the 

proletariat and to protect the harms committed by the elite from scrutiny. 

Crime was seen as a reaction of the proletariat to its oppression. This instru- 

mentalist approach gave way to more sophisticated Marxist theories of crime, 

some of which maintained that economic class influences everyday activities, 

making crime more attractive to the economically marginalized. Other struc- 

tural Marxist theories see the state as relatively autonomous from elite inter- 

ests, but still a reflection of the logic of capitalism. Left realism developed out 

of a critique of the tendency of Marxist theory to downplay the importance of 

street crime and victimization. The perspective emphasizes the relationship 

between the nested contexts of racial, gender, and class stratification. 

Feminist criminological theory developed through the critique of the 

andocentric nature of criminology and theories of crime. There are several 

different varieties of the perspective (e.g., liberal socialist and radical), but 

at the most basic level of analysis, feminism in criminology is about center- 

ing gender and its relationship to lawmaking, lawbreaking, and reactions to 

crime. Two of the most important questions raised by feminist criminolo- 

gists are: (1) Do extant theories of crime apply to girls and women?, and 

(2) How is the tremendous gender differences in criminal offending to be 

explained? Studies of burglars and robbers show that while offenders may 

share some similarities across gender, there are notable difference as well. 

Postmodern criminology has attacked the notion that an absolute truth 

exists about crime. The deconstruction of dominant crime stories is con- 

sidered necessary to allow room for replacement discourses, which are 

marginalized perspectives on crime that don't fit into the dominant or 

publicized understanding of crime. Peacemaking criminology holds that 

crime is a part of human suffering, and that violence by both individuals 

and social institutions like the criminal justice system are equally unaccept- 

able. From this perspective, the ultimate solution to crime is to be found 

in sweeping cultural changes that emphasize nonviolence and social justice 

in all aspects of life. Among the newest critical theories of crime, cultural 

criminology sees crime and deviance as an ever-changing response to the 

banalities and alienating features of contemporary society. 

Cultural criminology approaches crime and deviance, and the reactions 

to them, as dynamic and ever-changing processes linked to creating and 

maintaining meaning through resistance, power, and reactions to everyday 

conflict and dilemmas. The perspective includes both macro- and micro- 

level analyses of crime and is unique because it considers understudied 

elements of life and their relationship to crime. 

Critical Theories 129

KEY TERMS

conflict theory 

cultural criminology 

feminist criminology 

instrumental Marxism 

left realism 

liberation/opportunity theory 

peacemaking criminology 

postmodern criminology 

structural contradictions theory 

structured action theory

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

1. Karl Marx's critique of capitalism is among the most influential in- 

tellectual projects that has informed critical criminological theories. 

We suspect most Americans have had very little exposure to Marx's 

academic theories and instead identify him only with communism. 

To what extent do you see value in Marx's work when applied to con- 

temporary economic issues and crime? 

2. Structural and instrumental Marxists find that laws and their enforce- 

ment favor the wealthy at the expense of the working class and poor. 

What are some examples of these laws and practices? Alternatively, 

what kinds of laws seem to be unrelated to economic status? 

3. Feminist theorists have proposed alternative theories and ways of 

thinking about crime. Do you believe that involvement in crime has 

more to do with gender or other things? Are there any crimes in which 

gender is more likely to play a role than others? 

4. Peacemaking criminology is sometimes critiqued for being too op- 

timistic. Given what you know about the theory, do you see the 

perspective having a legitimate chance of influencing criminal justice 

system operations? Why or why not?

ACTIVITIES

1. Visit the FBI, Bureau of Justice Statistics, and U.S. Census websites and 

find data about state poverty levels and crime rates. Are poorer states 

more likely to have higher rates of crime? Interpret your findings 

through conflict theory. 

130 Chapter 6

2. Listen to the Public Enemy song "Hazy Shade of Criminal," and note 

the extent to which the lyrics are consistent with the perspectives of- 

fered by Marxist theorists of crime. Do you find value in the lyrics as 

a critical commentary on law and crime? 

3. Research the band Leftover Crack and listen to their song "Burn Them 

Prisons Down." To what extent do the lyrics relate to conflict theory? 

Are the song's claims accurate? 

4. Listen to and analyze the lyrics of Suzanne Vega's song "Luka." How 

does the artist draw the connection between domestic violence, op- 

pression of women, and patriarchy? 

7 

General and Integrated Theories

Students and professors alike experience a certain degree of frustration when 

trying to answer the seemingly straightforward question: "What causes 

crime?" There is no doubt that the question is deceiving in its simplicity, 

as in reality, crime is an immensely complex and ubiquitous problem that 

varies over space and time. But when asked what the causes of crime all boil 

down to, as professors, we tell our students that we need to ask more ques- 

tions before we even begin to pursue the answer. Such questions would 

be "What type of crime?," "Crime rates or individual criminal activity?," 

"Juvenile or adult crime?" Even after whittling down the question, the truth 

of the matter is that there is still much controversy and disagreement about 

the nature, extent, and distribution of particular types of crime, criminal- 

ity. Inevitably some students get the impression that criminological theory 

is incapable of generalizing about crime and that the answer might just as 

well be, as Bob Dylan sings, "blowin' in the wind." 

Such an opinion is not shared by general and integrative criminological 

theorists, the two major forms of theory to be discussed in this chapter. Let 

us first discuss general criminological theory. 

The period of time from the late 1980s to the mid 1990s may very well 

go down in history as the time criminology finally took stock of its achieve- 

ments and rediscovered general and integrated theory. General theories 

explain a broad range of facts and are not restricted to any one time or 

place. This does not mean that a particular general theory has to explain all 

crime, but if exceptions keep turning up its generality is obviously suspect. 

By the same token, successful tests of a general theory with a particular 

crime, say armed robbery, cannot be the basis for inferring that the theory 

applies equally well to embezzlement or even to other forms of robbery.

131 

132 Chapter 7

Only repeated tests of a theory with different people, places, or events will 

establish its degree of generality. 

Crime varies in many ways. There are variations from one population, 

place, and time to another, and from one individual to another; there are 

variations in the frequency with which people commit crimes (called the 

"incidence" of crime), and variations in the proportion of people who 

commit those crimes (the "prevalence" of crime); there are variations in the 

way crimes are committed, and in the consequences that follow for offend- 

ers as well as for victims; there are variations in criminalization, from the 

declaration that certain activities are crimes all the way to the imposition 

of penalties. 

A general theory that explains all these variations would be impressive 

indeed. In the first place, it would need to explain variations at the indi- 

vidual level as well as variations at the societal level. The things that account 

for differences among individuals may not account for differences among 

societies, and vice versa. As Braithwaite (1989a: 104) asserts: "There is 

some evidence, for example, that while unemployment is a strong predic- 

tor of individual criminality, societies with high unemployment rates do 

not necessarily have high crime rates." In the second place, a theory that 

accommodates all these variations would have to explain not only the be- 

havior that constitutes crime but also the propensity of people to engage in 

that behavior and the propensity of others to apply criminal labels to those 

people and acts. 

A third reason such an all-encompassing theory would be impressive 

relates to the conceptualization of crime as an event. One way to think of 

crime as an event is illustrated by the routine activities approach, discussed 

in chapter 2. In this conceptualization, crime occurs when opportunities 

and motivated offenders fortuitously come together in the absence of ca- 

pable guardians. From this vantage point, a general theory of crime would 

have to explain variations in the situational matrix that gives rise to crimi- 

nal events. 

The central concepts of a theory usually reflect the training of its 

author(s). It comes as no surprise when a sociologist includes social vari- 

ables in a theory of crime, nor when a psychologist includes personality 

variables, a biologist constitutional variables, or a geographer spatial vari- 

ables. Yet some scholars see discipline boundaries as a hindrance to the 

development of a general theory of crime. Gottfredson and Hirschi (1990: 

274) make this point, arguing that "much of the research generated by 

these disciplines is beyond the reach of their own explanations of crime." 

They "find no adequate positivistic theory that accounts for a range of 

well-documented facts about crime (e.g., the age curve [crime rates peak at 

age twenty to twenty-four and fall off rapidly thereafter], the gender gap, the 

disproportionate involvement of minorities, the high correlation between 

General and Integrated Theories 133

crime rates and rates of other "deviancy"), and the characteristics of crime 

itself" (Barlow, 1991: 231). And so Gottfredson and Hirschi claim to base 

their theory on a conception of human nature and of crime that escapes the 

fetters of disciplines. 

If the disciplinary baggage theorists carry around restricts their ability 

to construct a general theory of crime, the competition among different 

theoretical perspectives within a discipline is surely more restrictive. This 

has led some criminologists to seek integrated theories that borrow from 

otherwise competing paradigms. In sociological criminology, for example, 

attempts have been made to unite control theory with rationality-opportu- 

nity theory, associational theory with strain theory, and cultural deviancy 

theory with control theory. These efforts expose some of the commonali- 

ties among ostensibly competing theories (Barlow and Ferdinand, 1992: 

201­22), though tests of integrated theories (usually with juveniles) have 

had mixed success. To the extent that an integrated theory explains a 

wider range of phenomena, it is more general than the individual theo- 

ries of which it is constructed, and that makes theoretical integration a 

worthwhile challenge. We examine integrated theories at the end of this 

chapter.

SIX GENERAL THEORIES OF CRIME

Our observations above might well evoke pessimism about the possibility 

of constructing a general theory of crime. Yet the challenge has now been 

taken up, although it should be said that Katz (1988) makes no claim that 

his work constitutes a general theory. In truth, his is as much method as 

theory, but the two are so intertwined as to be indistinguishable, as we shall 

see. Here, then, are the six theories. There is space to do only a superficial 

job, and readers are strongly advised to read the original sources in their 

entirety. Always remember that the further removed one is from the origi- 

nal author, the more likely it is that arguments and ideas will be misrepre- 

sented. This is another good reason to read the original works. 

We begin with two theories that share a common grounding in sociobiol- 

ogy, although one is an evolutionary theory and the other is a behaviorist 

learning theory. 

Wilson and Herrnstein's General Theory. Wilson and Herrnstein (1985: 

42) offer an integrative theory of criminal behavior that combines socio- 

biological, psychological (behaviorist), and rationality-opportunity per- 

spectives on crime. Their theory is about "the forces that control individual 

behavior," and it incorporates behavioral, biological, and environmental 

factors to explain why some people commit "serious" street crimes and 

others do not. 

134 Chapter 7

An underlying assumption of the theory is that when individuals are faced 

with choices of action, they evaluate them according to their consequences 

and will prefer those with the highest anticipated ratio of rewards to costs. 

To the extent that individuals act on this basis, their behavior is rational. 

Therefore, both stealing and bestiality can be rational. Wilson and Herrn- 

stein believe that individuals can choose to commit or not commit a crime, 

and for any given level of internal restraint (the "bite of conscience"), they 

will select crime over noncrime whenever the reward-cost ratio is greater for 

the crime than for the noncrime. 

What any given individual considers rewarding (or costly) is part human 

nature (i.e., it satisfies such primary drives as hunger and sex) and part 

learned. These rewards may be material or nonmaterial, certain or uncer- 

tain, and immediate or delayed. The evaluation of any particular action will 

be influenced by how well a person handles uncertainty and delay, which 

Wilson and Herrnstein believe is influenced by nature, temperament, and 

social environment. Aggressive individuals, for example, are inclined to be 

more impulsive and less able to delay gratification, a trait characteristic also 

of youth. The rewards of noncrime are often delayed, whereas the rewards 

of crime generally precede their costs and will therefore be preferred by 

less mature and more impulsive individuals. Finally, there is the important 

question of equity: Crime may be preferred to noncrime if it is perceived to 

correct an imbalance in distributive justice. Such an imbalance occurs when 

people feel that in comparison to them, others get more than they deserve 

on the basis of their contribution. 

Wilson and Herrnstein's theory is controversial partly because of their 

claim that the theory is general enough to encompass most sociological 

theories of criminal behavior (1985: 63­66), partly because it is used to 

justify conservative crime control policies (528­29), and, perhaps most of 

all, because it links criminal behavior to constitutional factors. On the other 

hand, Wilson and Herrnstein have explored some new avenues and some 

old ones in a way that merits serious study. 

A major criticism of their approach is its focus on "serious" street crime-- 

murder, theft, rape--to the exclusion of other forms of criminality. A gen- 

eral theory of crime that explains only a small range of behaviors is not so 

general, and in any case it is certainly not established that embezzlers, con 

artists, organized criminals, fences, and pilferers are constitutionally differ- 

ent from noncriminals, or for that matter, from other criminals. It is also 

curious that despite their declared focus on serious street crime, the volu- 

minous research that Wilson and Herrnstein bring to bear on their theory 

often does not make that distinction. Finally, Wilson and Herrnstein's 

approach manifests the ideology of conservative criminology in its thinly 

veiled search for the criminal type (for additional criticisms, see Gibbs, 

1985). 

General and Integrated Theories 135

Inferential support for Wilson and Herrnstein's theory (and also that of 

Gottfredson and Hirschi, discussed later) comes from a survey of college 

undergraduates by Nagin and Paternoster (1993). These authors asked 

students to describe their involvement in three distinctive offenses--drunk 

driving, sexual assault, and theft. Students were presented with various 

scenarios that were experimentally varied across the sample. They were 

asked to estimate the chances they would commit the act specified in the 

scenario, as well as the chances that they would be arrested; they were also 

questioned about their perceptions of the costs and benefits of committing 

the offense, and they were also given questions designed to measure their 

level of self-control. 

Nagin and Paternoster found evidence of individual differences in the 

propensity to commit crime (individuals lacking self-control were more 

likely to say they would commit an offense), as well as evidence that stu- 

dents took vulnerability of the target and perceived benefits and costs of 

doing the crime in account. The authors thus concluded that individual 

differences and situational factors both influence the decision to commit 

crime--although in this case hypothetical crimes. The authors advocate 

more research along these lines, although less research has been conducted 

on Wilson and Herrnstein's theory as the years have passed since Nagin and 

Paternoster's study. 

Cohen and Machalek's Evolutionary Theory. The evolutionary ecological 

theory proposed by Cohen and Machalek (1988) is also integrative, and 

what is remarkable is the simplicity of the result. The theory is heavily in- 

fluenced by biological developments and is described as a general theory 

even though the authors apply it to a restricted range of crimes (although 

see Vila, 1994, for an attempt to extend the theory to all forms of crimi- 

nal behavior). Even though the theory remains to be fully developed, it 

unites the perspectives of routine activity, structure, social psychology, 

and biology. 

Cohen and Machalek (1988: 467) argue that variation in individual be- 

havior is explained by the "alternative behavioral strategies" that are used 

as people try to meet their needs. Some of these strategies are expropriative, 

because they involve depriving others of valuable things. Many crimes are 

expropriative, and it is these crimes to which the theory is applied. 

Behavioral strategies develop over time as people (like other organisms) 

strive to meet their needs. The successful strategies tend to become "major" 

ones. However, the more prevalent a strategy becomes within society, the 

more vulnerable the population is to "invasion" by alternative strategists, 

or to "nonconformists" who are willing to be creative. This is one way that 

new strategies evolve and behavior diversifies. 

In addition, individuals differ in their physical and behavioral traits and 

resources. These differences may result in the selection (intentional or not) 

136 Chapter 7

of different strategies, just as they may help or hinder a person's successful 

adoption of a preferred strategy. In this way, "conditional" strategies arise 

alongside major strategies, and again behavioral diversity grows. 

Human beings possess intelligence, meaning they can think; however, 

people do not always act with conscious purpose. "It is thus unnecessary to 

assume that criminal acts are perpetrated by rational, calculating individu- 

als who understand fully the strategic implications of their chosen actions" 

(Cohen and Machalek, 1988: 479). Indeed, people may have resource ad- 

vantages that they do not realize or intend, and yet these advantages explain 

why they have adopted a strategy. If a strategy works well it will probably 

be tried again, although the individual may never question or realize why 

it worked. 

Cohen and Machalek argue that property crimes, as expropriative strate- 

gies, are promoted by various factors, some pertaining to individuals, oth- 

ers to the type and mix of noncriminal strategies that exist in a time and 

place. Deficiencies in social, cultural, and physical resources may promote 

criminal strategies (such as burglary) that are employed as alternatives to 

inaccessible noncriminal strategies. However, criminal alternatives may 

also be promoted by resource advantages: "[An] individual who is rich in 

[resources] may be even more predisposed to commit a criminal act pre- 

cisely because he or she commands the resources required to implement an 

expropriative strategy successfully" (Cohen and Machalek, 1988: 483). 

If both resource deficiencies and advantages promote crime, it is difficult 

to see how resource differences can explain individual or group differences 

in the selection of expropriative crime. Cohen and Machalek get around 

this problem by taking a conventional and conservative approach: People 

who are socially and economically disadvantaged are more likely to be ex- 

posed to values and experiences that encourage criminal behavior. They do 

not tell us why this should be so. On the other hand, resource variability 

can explain the type of crime selected, for as seen repeatedly in chapter 3, 

access to criminal opportunities often requires the right combination of 

resources. 

Because expropriative strategies arise as alternatives to legitimate pro- 

duction activities, they are promoted by the expansion and proliferation 

of noncriminal activities. For example, Cohen and Machalek (1988: 480) 

observe that "large-scale concentrations of producers offer rich and invit- 

ing opportunities" to both advantaged and conditional strategists. Once 

discovered, a particular theft strategy is likely to proliferate through conven- 

tional social-psychological processes such as imitation and social learning, 

and through independent discovery. 

This brief sketch does not do justice to Cohen and Machalek's theory, 

which contains other elements and emphasizes the evolutionary dynamics 

General and Integrated Theories 137

that underlie the development and acquisition of behavioral strategies (see 

also Machalek and Cohen, 1991; Vila and Cohen, 1993; and Vila, 1994). 

Nevertheless, it is important to note again that none of the elements described 

above is new. One can find them in the theories reviewed in the last several 

chapters. A new idea that does emerge is the notion that crime is shaped by 

"strategy evolution" in general, and that the characteristics, frequency, and 

mix of behavioral strategies explain the amount and types of crime that exist 

in any particular place, time, or group. An evaluation of their theory using 

real-world data has not yet been accomplished; however, computer simula- 

tions have not disproved the theory (Vila and Cohen, 1993: 907). 

Gottfredson and Hirschi's General Theory of Crime.* Crime can be thought 

of as a form of cheating, where one person or group extracts resources from 

another without compensating the victim (Machalek and Cohen, 1991: 

223). What crimes have in common is the fact that they victimize. When 

crime is conceptualized this way, questions about the ubiquity and evolu- 

tion of crime follow naturally enough, for how can societies survive in the 

face of such parasitic conduct? Gottfredson and Hirschi (1990) take a dif- 

ferent approach in conceptualizing crime, although they acknowledge that 

suffering occurs. Much of the account that follows is taken from a critical 

review of their theory (Barlow, 1991). 

Taking classical (rational choice) theory as a starting point, Gottfredson 

and Hirschi argue that crime, as any other behavior, turns on the likelihood 

that it will bring pleasure. Its characteristics must in general be consistent 

with that result irrespective of the specific motives, interests, or talents of 

the people doing it. Gottfredson and Hirschi observe that most crimes are 

in fact attempts, and this implies something about the nature of crimes: 

they are unlikely to be carefully thought out, skillful acts involving special 

expertise, technology, or organization. Criminal acts are relatively easy and 

simple to commit, involve little skill or planning, and tend to be exciting, 

risky, or thrilling. 

What makes crimes distinct from analogous acts is that they entail the 

use of force and fraud, and this helps make gratification immediate. On 

the other hand, force and fraud also threaten the self-interests of victims 

and are therefore universally resisted. Like Machalek and Cohen (1991) 

and Durkheim ([1893] 1964a) before them, Gottfredson and Hirschi see 

potential retaliation as the inseparable other side of crime. And so we have 

three other characteristics of crimes: they provide immediate gratification 

but also produce pain and suffering for victims and the risk of long-term 

costs for offenders.

*Parts of this section are from Barlow (1991). 

138 Chapter 7

Beyond the commonalities already noted, crimes will not occur unless an 

appropriate opportunity exists. That opportunity is defined by the logical 

structure of the crime itself, and therefore will vary from one specific of- 

fense (embezzlement) to another (rape). Gottfredson and Hirschi describe 

the "typical or standard" characteristics and the logical structures (neces- 

sary elements or conditions) of burglary, robbery, homicide, auto theft, 

rape, embezzlement, and drug use. The characteristics and elements of the 

offenses are strikingly similar. However, it is also apparent that the likeli- 

hood of any particular crime being committed is influenced by the avail- 

ability of opportunities and a person's access to them, issues the authors do 

not explore. Presumably, the characteristics of situations and the personal 

properties of individuals jointly affect the use of force or fraud in pursuit 

of self-interest. 

Gottfredson and Hirschi maintain that crimes are interchangeable not 

only among themselves but also with analogous acts that do not involve 

force or fraud. They call this the versatility construct. And so they end up 

rejecting traditional distinctions among crimes (e.g., petty and serious, per- 

sonal and property, attempted and completed, street and suite) as "without 

import" and "a waste of time." They look for what crimes have in common 

as a basis for inferring what criminals have in common. 

Criminality: Low Self-Control. If crimes differ in opportunities for their 

commission, individuals differ in the extent to which they are vulnerable to 

the temptations provided by those opportunities. Gottfredson and Hirschi 

use the notion of self-control to represent that vulnerability, and criminal- 

ity is synonymous with low self-control. Criminality refers to the propen- 

sity to use force and fraud in the pursuit of self-interest. Its characteristics 

are inferred from the characteristics of crime. In this way Gottfredson and 

Hirschi ensure that the conception of criminality is consistent with their 

conception of crime. 

The traits associated with low self-control include: short-time perspec- 

tive; low diligence, persistence, and tenacity; a tendency to be "adventure- 

some, active, and physical"; a tendency to be "self-centered, indifferent, or 

insensitive to the suffering and needs of others"; and a tendency to have 

"unstable marriages, friendships, and job profiles." Since these traits are 

also implicated in many noncriminal acts (e.g., alcohol use, accidents, 

smoking, running away, truancy) "crime is not an automatic or necessary 

consequence of low self-control" (Gottfredson and Hirschi, 1990: 91). In 

other words, there is no theoretical basis for predicting which of many pos- 

sible crimes and analogous acts will be committed by individuals with low 

self-control. 

Gottfredson and Hirschi identify the major cause of low self-control as 

"ineffective parenting." However, individual differences among children 

(and parents) may affect the prospects for good parenting. Thus low intel- 

General and Integrated Theories 139

ligence tends to compromise the recognition of low self-control and the 

willingness or ability to do anything about it. Other factors affecting pa- 

rental control and the prospects for effective socialization include parental 

criminality and anything that interferes with the monitoring and supervi- 

sion of children. Gottfredson and Hirschi acknowledge that schools and 

other socializing institutions (marriage, work, Boy or Girl Scouts) may have 

a positive effect on self-control; but the further from early childhood one 

moves, the harder it is to make up for early deficiencies. Besides, the traits 

characteristic of low self-control are inconsistent with success at school, 

work, and interpersonal relationships. This fact explains, in their view, 

why delinquent youths end up in the company of each other ("birds of a 

feather") and why failure in school, marriage, and work correlates strongly 

with delinquency and crime (they all require diligence, hard work, and 

willingness to defer gratification). 

The Stability Postulate. Central to the theory is the proposition that levels 

of self-control are relatively stable throughout the life course. Put another 

way, "differences between people in the likelihood that they will commit 

criminal acts persist over time" (Gottfredson and Hirschi, 1990: 107). This 

"stability postulate" is predicated on the belief that the early failure of 

control and socialization cannot readily be overcome later in life any more 

than effective control and socialization of a child can later be undone. To- 

gether with the notion that there are many noncriminal acts that are analo- 

gous to crimes, the stability postulate explains why the so-called age-curve 

of crime is invariant across space and across crimes, as well as why "[m]en 

are always and everywhere more likely than women to commit criminal 

acts" (p. 145). 

To summarize, the central proposition of Gottfredson and Hirschi's gen- 

eral theory of crime is as follows: Crime rate differences among individuals 

are explained by the independent effects of variations in the characteristics 

of crime itself (i.e., the opportunity to pursue self-interest through the 

use of force or fraud) and variations in self-control (criminality, or the 

propensity to use force or fraud in the pursuit of self-interest). Criminal 

opportunities held constant, low self-control predicts relatively high rates 

of offending, low self-control earlier in life predicts criminality later in life, 

and criminality earlier in life predicts low self-control later in life. 

Scope of the Theory. Despite continued reference to "ordinary" or "com- 

mon" crimes, Gottfredson and Hirschi call their theory general, going so 

far as to claim that the theory "is meant to explain all crime, at all times, 

and, for that matter, many forms of behavior that are not sanctioned by 

the state" (p. 117). In short, the independent effects of crime opportuni- 

ties and criminality explain bait-and-switch scams in appliance stores, 

police brutality, bid-rigging, employee theft, fraudulent advertising, insider 

trading, tax evasion, smuggling, gang crimes, labor racketeering, prison 

140 Chapter 7

rape, armed robbery, arson, burglary, murder, rape, and shoplifting; and 

they also explain drug use, accidents, smoking, and eating between meals. 

No specialized theories are needed because all crimes and analogous acts 

"provide relatively quick and relatively certain benefit with minimal effort" 

(Gottfredson and Hirschi, 1990: 190). 

Unfortunately, Gottfredson and Hirschi do not develop the opportunity 

(crime) side of their theory sufficiently well to predict which of all these 

varied acts individuals are likely to commit (at a high or low rate) at any 

given time, or when they might switch from one crime to another or from 

crime to a noncriminal but analogous act. Nor do they provide a basis for 

deducing what kind of social or cultural setting would experience a high 

(or low) rate of any particular crime or analogous act. Their treatment of 

these issues as theoretically irrelevant or inconsequential hardly lessens 

the theory's vulnerability to attack. In fact, it is quite clear that Gottfredson 

and Hirschi have a very unique, and in our view, myopic understanding 

of crime, especially those committed in the context of an organization or 

institution. 

The theory is most vulnerable in its application to white-collar crime, 

both organizational and occupational. Gottfredson and Hirschi present FBI 

arrest data on embezzlement and fraud to show that correlates of "white 

collar" crime are similar to those of murder (and therefore other common 

crimes), and they also refer to "good research" that shows just how mun- 

dane, simple, and easy occupational crimes are and that the people who 

commit them also tend to commit analogous acts (drug and alcohol use, 

for example). 

The evidence is at the very least inconclusive about these issues, and 

at most contrary to the claims of Gottfredson and Hirschi. Indeed, much 

research into organizational and occupational crime clearly challenges an- 

other assertion of their theory--that crime is more prevalent among those 

outside the occupational structure than among those in it (see Barlow, 

1991). The lack of consistent evidence of a relationship between unem- 

ployment and crime is one challenge, but another comes from abundant 

evidence that employee fraud and theft, though often mundane, are wide- 

spread in all sectors of the U.S. economy as well as in those of other coun- 

tries. Furthermore, evidence of widespread crime in the fields of health, real 

estate, banking, insurance, defense contracting, and politics hardly supports 

the contention that high-end occupations are inconsistent with criminality 

(Reed and Yeager, 1996; Yeager and Reed, 1998). 

Gottfredson and Hirschi do not assert that criminality is absent among 

corporate executives or other high-level employees, merely that it is less 

prevalent the higher one climbs the occupational ladder. Even if this is true, 

many of the crimes committed at the high end display characteristics op- 

posite to those indicative of low self-control. Compared to low-end crime, 

General and Integrated Theories 141

high-end crime is much more likely to involve planning, special expertise, 

organization, delayed gratification, and persistence--as well as consider- 

ably larger potential gains with arguably less long-term cost. Such distinc- 

tions are also apparent when comparing the activities of fences with thieves, 

"good" burglars with "kick-it-in men," pickpockets with purse snatchers. 

Gottfredson and Hirschi's theory can accommodate these observations 

in only one of two ways: Either temptations to commit force and fraud 

in the pursuit of self-interest overwhelm the resistance associated with 

self-control, or (many) individuals with low self-control manage somehow 

to become managers, professionals, and entrepreneurs. 

If their stability postulate is wrong, however, it is possible for people 

with low self-control early in life to develop it later and for individuals with 

self-control early in life to lose it later. Braithwaite's theory of reintegrative 

shaming (discussed below) presumes this to be true, while Gottfredson 

and Hirschi's theory requires that it not be. Recall that low self-control is 

inconsistent with effective control and socialization, and that includes so- 

cialization into as well as out of crime. Hence the groups and organizations 

to which offenders belong are regarded as facilitating crime among people 

who already lack self-control. Gottfredson and Hirschi thus dismiss as 

misguided (or poor) research suggesting that the social and cultural milieu 

of an organization generates criminality among its members. Besides, they 

argue, there is little social support of white-collar offenders because their 

offenses usually victimize the organizations in which they work and are 

detrimental to fellow employees. 

Our reading of wide-ranging research is very different. Whether the 

subject is police corruption, employee pilfering, the ethics of corporate 

managers, antitrust violations, city politics, or state crime, one finds social 

support of criminality through subcultures of criminality--accommodating 

norms, goals, means, and values and networks of cooperation. Gottfred- 

son and Hirschi's view that such support relates to the nature and context 

of crime itself rather than to the propensity of individuals to commit it 

would perhaps constitute a fatal counterattack if they could also show that 

self-control cannot be undermined by external (group) influence. This has 

not been established, however, and contrary to the general theory, rational 

choices are "far from being self evident and stable"; rather, they are "socially 

constructed in group interaction" (Yeager and Reed, 1998: 894). 

Minority Crime. Among the facts about crime in America are these: Afri- 

can Americans constitute roughly 14 percent of the population, yet nearly 

50 percent of those arrested for violent crime are black, as are 33 percent 

of those arrested for property crimes, 40 percent of those serving jail time, 

and 47 percent of those in state prisons (Sourcebook of Criminal Justice 

Statistics, 2006). How would the general theory of Gottfredson and Hirschi 

explain these facts? 

142 Chapter 7

They reject traditional explanations of minority involvement in crime 

(e.g., inequality and subcultural theories) and resort to an emphasis on 

the self-control component of their theory. In their view, parental manage- 

ment of children is the key to understanding racial variations in crime; and 

within the realm of parenting, discipline is considered more important 

than supervision, which affects access to criminal opportunities. However, 

Gottfredson and Hirschi cite no evidence, saying only that "[p]artitioning 

race or ethnic differences into their crime and self-control components is 

not possible with currently available data" (p. 153). 

On Gottfredson and Hirschi's side, the relationship between parenting 

and delinquency is one of the strongest in the literature, and evidence is 

piling up that the impact of structural factors (e.g., family composition, 

socioeconomic status) on delinquency is mediated by parental manage- 

ment. Nevertheless, if poverty, community disorganization, large family 

size, and family instability impact negatively on parental management, 

rates of crime and delinquency will be affected. Such structural conditions 

are prevalent in inner-city African American communities (Anderson, 1999; 

Wilson, 1987), where rates of victimization by force and fraud are also high 

(Stewart and Simons, 2006). Gottfredson and Hirschi do not explore the 

implications of this for their theory. 

In rejecting inequality theories of race differences in crime, Gottfredson 

and Hirschi point out that "[offenders] tend to victimize people who share 

their unfortunate circumstances" (p. 152). True, but then this question 

arises: Are there race differences in the tendency for offenders to victimize 

people who are like themselves? According to their theory, crime is a matter 

of "proximity, ease, and convenience of rewards"; hence, there is no a priori 

basis for predicting such differences. Nevertheless, studies of the urban 

distribution of crime indicate that African American offenders have a more 

restricted image of the city than white offenders, who can move around 

more freely and need not concentrate their criminal activities in areas close 

to home, thereby foregoing "easy marks" (Carter and Hill, 1979; Boggs, 

1964). This suggests that while most crime tends to be intraracial, crimes 

committed by whites are likely to be more dispersed and hence potentially 

more rewarding--but also more costly and risky--than crimes committed 

by blacks. If access to profitable criminal opportunities is skewed in favor 

of whites, Gottfredson and Hirschi are silent on the issue and its implica- 

tions for their theory. 

Gottfredson and Hirschi's general theory of crime has come under con- 

siderable empirical scrutiny since its publication. An example of the most 

common approach to testing the theory is a study of drunk driving and self- 

control. Here a composite measure of low self-control was found to relate 

to DUIs for both men and women, and the authors found a strong risk- 

taking component to drunk driving, for example, not wearing seat belts. 

General and Integrated Theories 143

However, they also found that teenagers did not have higher blood-alcohol 

levels than others and speculate that a minimum drinking age of nineteen 

might have been a factor. Furthermore, "it may be that teenagers express 

more of their criminality in other and more demanding [i.e., physical] 

ways" (Keane, Maxim, and Teevan, 1993: 40). A more recent study finds 

support for the theory but suggests that inclusion of routine activity theory 

concepts (reviewed in chapter 2) would make the theory stronger. The au- 

thors found that the relationship between low self-control and delinquency 

is mediated by the amount of time children are unsupervised by adults as 

well as the time they spend with friends (Hay and Forest, 2008). 

As seems fairly typical of tests of this general theory to date, self-control 

is found to relate to crime or analogous acts and therefore has become an 

important contribution to criminology (Gibbs, Giever, and Higgins, 2003; 

Piquero, MacDonald, Dobrin, Daigle, and Cullen, 2005; Winfree, Taylor, 

He, and Esbensen, 2006; Vazsonyi, and Klanj, 2008). 

Braithwaite's Theory of Reintegrative Shaming. Like Gottfredson and 

Hirschi, Braithwaite (1989a: 1) believes that "there is sufficient in common 

between different types of crime to render a general explanation possible." 

However, Braithwaite explicitly rejects the idea that crimes are inherently 

similar, arguing instead that they are qualitatively similar by virtue of the 

stigma attached to them and by the fact that the offender makes a "defiant 

choice" in grasping the opportunity to perpetrate a crime: 

The homogeneity presumed between disparate behaviors such as rape and 

embezzlement in this theory is that they are choices made by the criminal actor 

in the knowledge that he is defying a criminal proscription which is mutually 

intelligible to actors in the society as criminal (Braithwaite, 1989a: 3).

Braithwaite excludes acts that are formally crimes but whose criminaliza- 

tion is without support in the society at large, for example, "laws against 

marijuana use in liberal democracies or laws that create political crimes 

against the state in communist societies" (3). Braithwaite's theory applies 

to predatory crimes, acts that involve victimization of one person or group 

by another. 

We encountered some of the ideas in Braithwaite's theory in previous 

chapters. But the theory is much more than this. Braithwaite offers yet an- 

other integrative theory, one that incorporates elements of major sociological 

theories of crime and delinquency: control theory, labeling theory, subcul- 

tural theory, associational theory, strain theory, and social learning theory. 

Braithwaite's diagram of his theory is reproduced in figure 7.1. The ar- 

rows indicate the direction or flow of influence between linked variables, 

and the signs indicate whether the relationship between them is positive 

(i.e., a plus sign indicates the more of one, the more of the other) or nega- 

tive (i.e., a minus sign indicates the more of one, the less of the other). On 

144 Chapter 7

Figure 7.1. Braithwaite's Reintegrative Shaming Theory 

Source: John Braithwaite, Crime, Shame, and Reintegration, Cambridge University Press, 1989. Reprinted 

with the permission of Cambridge University Press.

the integrative and original aspects of his theory, Braithwaite (1989a: 107) 

has this to say:

The top left of [the figure] incorporates the key variables of control theory; 

the far right--opportunity [strain] theory; the middle and bottom right-- 

subcultural theory; the right side of the middle box--labeling theory. With 

one crucial exception (reintegrative shaming), there is therefore no originality 

in the elements of this theory, simply originality of synthesis.

The central proposition of the theory is this: Crime rates of individuals 

and groups are influenced directly by processes of shaming. High-crime 

rates result from shaming that stigmatizes, because rule-breakers who are 

shamed but not forgiven are more likely to become "outlaws" and to par- 

ticipate in subcultures of crime. This is referred to as disintegrative sham- 

ing, a stigmatizing approach that involves:

· Disrespectful disapproval and humiliation; 

· Ceremonies to certify deviance but no ceremonies to decertify devi- 

ance; 

· Labeling the person, not just the deed, as evil; and 

· Deviance is allowed to become a master status trait (Braithwaite, 

1989a: 194). 

General and Integrated Theories 145

On the other hand, when rule-breakers are shamed but then forgiven 

and welcomed back to the fold, the unpleasant, punitive experience of 

being shamed is offset by the pleasant relief of discovering that one is still 

accepted (loved, wanted, cared about) despite the transgression. This what 

Braithwaite refers to as reintegrative shaming. The process of reintegrative 

shaming confirms the validity of the rules and reestablishes the transgres- 

sor's place as a member in good standing. This process involves:

· Disapproval while sustaining a relationship of respect; 

· Ceremonies to certify deviance terminated by ceremonies to decertify 

deviance; 

· Disapproval of the evil of the deed without labeling the persons as 

evil; and 

· Deviance not being allowed to become a master status trait (Braith- 

waite, 1995: 194).

While Braithwaite hypothesizes that either kind of shaming is likely to be 

more successful at combating predatory crime than "punishment without 

associated moralizing and denunciation" (p. 86), systems of punishment 

that encourage reintegration should experience the lowest crime rates. 

As a mechanism of social control, shaming works best among closely con- 

nected people whose fortunes, reputations, and futures are interdependent-- 

as in families, for example, or among workmates, colleagues, and friends. Jus- 

tice officials in Western industrialized societies are at a decided disadvantage: 

"Most of us will care less about what a judge (whom we meet only once in 

our lifetime) thinks of us than we will care about the esteem in which we are 

held by a neighbor we see regularly" (Braithwaite, 1989a: 87). Interdepen- 

dence among individuals has a societal correlate--"communitarianism"-- 

which has three elements:

(1) densely enmeshed interdependency, where interdependencies are charac- 

terized by (2) mutual obligation and trust, and (3) are interpreted as a matter 

of group loyalty rather than individual convenience. Communitarianism is 

therefore the antithesis of individualism. (Braithwaite, 1989: 86)

Western industrialized societies, with their high rates of urbanization and 

residential mobility, are more individualistic than less-developed agrar- 

ian societies. The model in figure 7.1 shows that communitarianism has 

a positive effect on shaming but is itself undermined by shaming that is 

merely stigmatizing. This is because shaming without reintegration makes 

criminal subcultures more attractive and encourages their formation "by 

creating populations of outcasts with no stake in conformity" (Braithwaite, 

1989a: 102). Criminal subcultures are also fostered by blocked legitimate 

146 Chapter 7

opportunities, and once formed they encourage crime directly by provid- 

ing illegitimate opportunities and incentives to deviate from the norms of 

conventional society. 

At the individual level, interdependency is associated with age, marital 

status, gender, employment status, and aspirations within societal-wide 

approved opportunity systems. More so than other people, older teenag- 

ers and young adults--especially if they are male--are freed from the 

constraints and obligations of interdependency, as are single people, those 

without work, and those with low commitment to legitimate ways of "get- 

ting ahead." Absent the close ties of interdependency, such people are less 

likely to be exposed to or affected by shaming. They are more susceptible 

to crime because controls are weak. 

Evaluation of the Theory. Braithwaite's work is an important contribution 

to criminological theory. Not only does he show how "old" competing 

theories can be integrated into one model but also his addition of the 

social-psychological variable, shaming, is a major innovation. Along with 

associational theories, his theory is one of the few that can be applied to oc- 

cupational and organizational crimes. Other notable accomplishments are 

that the theory of reintegrative shaming can be applied at both individual 

and societal levels of analysis and that it incorporates background and fore- 

ground variables, although discussion of the lived experience of shaming is 

largely limited to the mechanics of gossip (see Braithwaite, 1989a: 75­77). 

The latter is certainly an area for future research and elaboration and will 

be considered when we discuss Katz. 

Braithwaite suggests ways his theory could be tested and even mentions 

modifications that could be made to accommodate additional variables. Few 

specific tests of the theory have been conducted to date, but at least a dozen 

or so studies have found some empirical support of some of Braithwaite's 

theses (Botchkovar and Tittle, 2005; Chaplin and Cochran, 1997; Losoncz 

and Tyson, 2007; Makkai and Braithwaite, 1994; Vagg, 1998; Zhang and 

Zhang, 2004). Despite the absence of focused tests, Braithwaite confidently 

asserts the merits of his theory by claiming that it accounts for the thirteen 

best-established findings in criminology, which no other existing theory can 

do. Among these findings are the high rates of crime among males, people 

living in large cities, certain categories of young people (e.g., those with low 

aspirations, poor school performance, weak attachments to school or par- 

ents, or strong attachments to delinquent peers), and among disadvantaged 

people. The theory also accounts for the low rate of crime in Japan--an in- 

dustrialized nation--when compared with other industrialized nations such 

as the United States (see Braithwaite, 1989a, especially pages 61­66). 

One of the theory's most interesting aspects is its implications for crimi- 

nal justice policy in highly individualized societies such as our own. Given 

that reintegrative shaming works best in the informal contexts of family, 

General and Integrated Theories 147

friends, and neighborhood, a justice policy aimed at preventing or reduc- 

ing crime should be a community-based, largely informal system that uses 

traditional process and punishment as a last resort. Such an approach has 

come to be known in recent years as restorative justice. Box 7.1 provides 

some information on restorative justice practices that are consistent with 

Braithwaite's theory. 

Expanding on the policy implications of the theory, Braithwaite and Pet- 

tit (1990) advocate a "republican" approach to criminal justice in which 

formal interventions are minimized and in which subjective assurances of 

liberty, equality, fraternity, and dialogue are guaranteed all citizens (also 

see Braithwaite, 1991; 1995). In such a setting, the reintegrative prospects 

of community shaming are enhanced and the likelihood is greater that the 

offender will recognize his offense and shame himself. In this manner, 

shaming becomes conscience-building, the essence of crime prevention in 

Braithwaite's view. 

Despite its originality, broad scope, and impressive integration of existing 

theories, the theory of reintegrative shaming leaves at least one important 

issue unresolved. For example, Braithwaite (1989a: 13) claims his theory 

accommodates the existence of "multiple moralities" in modern societies, 

whereas some others do not. He argues, "[A] severe limitation of theories 

that deny this, like Hirschi's control theory, is that they give no account of 

why some uncontrolled individuals become heroin users, some become 

hit men, and others price-fixing conspirators." This is fair enough, but 

aside from identifying criminal subcultures as the milieu in which crime is 

learned and via which tastes may be indulged in illegitimate ways, it is by 

no means clear how one would derive predictions about variations in the 

prevalence and incidence of particular types of crime, or about crime selec- 

tion by predisposed individuals. 

Tittle's Control Balance Theory. Recall from chapter 5 that Hirschi's social 

control theory holds that people who are not strongly bonded to conven- 

tional society are those most likely to commit crime. Hirschi's argument, 

then, is that this lack of control produces criminal outcomes. But what about 

people who have a lot of control or those who are overcontrolled? Are they 

likely to commit crimes as well? Would they commit different types of 

crime than those who are undercontrolled? 

Charles Tittle (1995) has produced an integrative control balance theory of 

deviance that addresses these and other questions. First, Tittle intends for 

his theory to explain deviance, not just crime. Deviance, according to Tittle 

(1995: 124), is "any behavior that the majority of a given group regards 

as unacceptable or that typically evokes a collective response of a negative 

type." 

The central thesis of control balance theory is that the "amount of con- 

trol to which people are subject relative to the amount of control they 

148 Chapter 7

Box 7.1. Restorative Justice 

Restorative justice involves a holistic approach to criminal justice and crime 

prevention that promotes the healing of the victim, offender, and commu- 

nity. It is inspired by a genuine desire to right a wrong (crime), but in a fair 

and humane way. Restorative justice differs from traditional criminal justice 

in several ways. First, its focus is on the future. Healing requires an under- 

standing of the past harm, but recovering from the injury, rebuilding the 

community, and forging interdependencies should be paramount. Second, 

the process by which justice is to be achieved is through dialogue, mediation, 

and negotiation, not through adversarial "warlike" techniques. Healing is the 

goal, not the amount of people who can be sent away to prison. Third, the of- 

fender takes responsibility for the crime and repentance is encouraged. This is 

crucial for reintegration, as traditional punishment and revenge philosophies 

generally do not facilitate healing. Fourth, restorative justice carries a concern 

not only for the victims of crime but also a sincere concern for the well-being 

of the offender. Historically, offenders were considered violators of the ab- 

stracted "society" and unfit for membership in the community. 

There are many types of restorative justice practices in Australia, New 

Zealand, and in the United States. Here are some that are consistent with 

Braithwaite's shaming theory:

· Victim-offender, community accountability, and family group confer- 

ences where offenders, victims, and communities come together to rein- 

tegratively shame and restore community and victim health. 

· Community and neighborhood advisory boards, which offer input and 

advice for the handling of deviance and deviants in the community. 

· Peer mediation and conferencing, where the offender is shamed by peers 

and intimates and then reintegrated into the group. 

· Victim services and victim impact statements, where victims can be heard 

by state officials, special victims agents, and the offender. 

· Offender community service, in which the offender gives back to the 

community harmed. 

· Offender competency development, such as the teaching of life, civic, 

and parenting skills.

Many county courts, prosecutor's offices, and probation departments in 

the United States have embraced the philosophy of restorative justice. To the 

many practitioners who have seen the failures of traditional justice, restor- 

ative justice is seen as an attractive approach, but it is still unclear whether the 

restorative justice movement will become the dominant form of doing justice 

in the years to come.

Sources: Coates, Umbreit, and Vos (2006), Minnesota Department of Corrections (1998), and the 

Restorative Justice Institute (1999). 

General and Integrated Theories 149

can exercise" affects the probability of deviance more generally, as well as 

the type of deviance (Tittle, 1995: 142). Being controlled or experiencing 

control means that a person is subject to the will of others through, for 

example, rewards and punishments. If a teenager is not free to stay out all 

night, drink beer, choose her friends, or go to concerts, one might say they 

are experiencing control. When people exercise control, they have the abil- 

ity to limit the options, choices, and behaviors of others. The parent who 

sets the limits in the above example is exercising control. 

The relationship of control to deviance is found in the control ratio, 

which is the overall level of control people have in their lives. The ratio is 

calculated by weighing the total level of control a person exercises against 

the total level of control that the person is subject to. People who control 

more than they are controlled by others have a control surplus, while those 

who are controlled more than they control others have a control deficit. 

Tittle (1995: 266) provides the following example:

a man may have a control surplus in the domestic realm but a control deficit 

in the work environment, a youth may have a control deficit in the society as 

a whole, but a control surplus in the recreational domain, and a woman may 

have a control surplus in the realm of interpersonal relations, but a control 

deficit with respect to the physical environment.

Another example is in order. Think of the class for which you are read- 

ing this book. How much control do you have over the course? How much 

control are you subject to in the course? You have probably been subject to 

control in the following ways: You must meet the class requirements, such 

as passing grades on papers and examinations, even the number, nature, 

and length of the papers and examinations is generally out of your control. 

You may also be required to attend lectures and participate in classroom 

discussions. You must also earn a certain amount of points or a certain 

overall grade to have this class "count" for credit. You have probably had 

little if any control over the textbook used, whether class is canceled, or if it 

is dismissed early. Clearly you are subject to great amounts of control and 

regulation in a typical college classroom. Now, what kinds of things can you 

control in the course? Unless the class is extremely unfair, most students 

have some control over their performance on exams and the relative con- 

tent of their papers. You may also have some control in group discussions 

and by making observations or raising questions to the professor. You also, 

of course, have the ability to drop the course, be more or less interested 

in the course, and express your views about the course and instructor on 

teaching evaluations. All told, however, you can see how most students 

probably have a control deficit when it comes to the typical college course. 

Can you think of how this control deficit might lead to deviance in the 

150 Chapter 7

Figure 7.2. Control Balance 

A. R. Piquero and M. Hickman (1999), "Empirical Test of Tittle's Control Balance Theory," Criminology 37, 

p. 321. Reprinted with permission of the American Society of Criminology.

form of cheating, plagiarism, and lying to the professor? How might the 

professor act deviantly as a result of his or her control surplus? Are there 

professors who sexually harass, discriminate, or use psychological "warfare" 

to intimidate students? 

According to Tittle (2004; 1995), those who have a control balance are 

least likely to engage in deviance, but the probability and seriousness of 

deviance rises with the degree of control deficit and surplus (see figure 7.2). 

This is straightforward enough, but Tittle goes one step further by theoriz- 

ing the type of resulting deviance will differ depending on whether one has 

a surplus or deficit. Those with a control deficit seek to escape or rectify 

their problem through deviance, while those with a surplus seek to extend 

their control. 

Critical Variables. Surely a control imbalance is not by itself sufficient for 

the deviant act to take place. Tittle rightly acknowledges that other indepen- 

dent variables play a role in the genesis and persistence of deviant behavior:

1. The predisposition toward deviant motivation, 

2. The situational stimulation of deviance (provocation), 

3. The likelihood of constraint in the face of deviance, and 

4. The opportunity to commit deviance.

Let us briefly review each of these variables. 

Tittle argues that the predisposition to deviance is rooted in a funda- 

mental aspect of human nature: the desire for autonomy. This means that 

General and Integrated Theories 151

people generally want to escape the control of others as well to extend their 

control over others. This universal drive for freedom and power is likely to 

result in deviance when control is imbalanced. Thus, while the theory is 

called control balance, a major motivation for deviance is the elimination 

of the control imbalance. Tittle also suggests that autonomy and control 

are embedded not only in the personal, individual context but also within 

organizational contexts, such as family and work. 

While motivation is a necessary component of the deviant act, certain 

events and circumstances trigger the behavior. This is what Tittle (1995: 

163) calls provocation, which includes "contextual features that cause people 

to become keenly cognizant of their control ratios and the possibilities of 

altering them through deviant behavior." Examples of provocation include 

being insulted, dismissed from employment, and any number of threats or 

challenges which can then trigger an attempt to balance the control ratio. 

Constraint refers to the "probability or the perceived probability that 

control will actually be exercised" (Tittle, 1995: 167). Constraint, then, 

could be manifested in the form of the probability that the deviant act 

would result in, for example, arrest or discovery by a significant other. It 

also can be generally understood to be a calculation of the risk associated 

with deviance. 

The last major variable in control balance theory is opportunity. Like the 

rational-opportunity theories reviewed in chapter 2, Tittle agrees that a situ- 

ation or circumstance must be available for the performance of deviance. 

This means that there must be, for example, available victims, people to rob 

and assault, drugs to sell and use, and things to steal and destroy. Finally, in 

a refinement of the theory, Tittle (2004) has proposed integrating insights 

from Hirschi and Gottfredson's self-control theory. 

Evaluation of the Theory. There are many strengths of control balance 

theory. First, the theory is truly general. It provides us with sound ways 

of understanding both white-collar and traditional street crime and devi- 

ance. Unlike Gottfredson and Hirschi's theory, Tittle does a splendid job of 

dealing with the conceptually difficult issues that distinguish occupational 

from organizational crime. Indeed, Tittle understands that there is more to 

white-collar crime than simple embezzlement. 

Second, Tittle's theory is intended to explain deviance, not just those 

things that legislators happen to define as crime. While Hirschi and Got- 

tfredson claim they transcend a narrow definition of crime, they do it 

poorly. Tittle's sociological approach to crime and deviance provides a mea- 

sure of breadth and depth not found in many other theories of crime. 

Third, control balance theory weaves many of the most well-supported 

findings in criminological theory into the novel idea of control ratio. Tittle's 

specificity and attention to detail to these matters in many ways breaks the 

mold. While Braithwaite (1989a) also explains the relationship of his novel 

152 Chapter 7

concept (shame) to other well-tested variables in criminology, Tittle does it 

more meaningfully, with keen attention to how the theory may be empiri- 

cally tested in the future. 

It usually takes several years for a theory in criminology to undergo rig- 

orous testing. Tittle's theory has been tested in several studies (Baron and 

Forde, 2007; Piquero and Hickman, 1999; Piquero and Piquero, 2006). 

While some support was found in the Piquero and Hickman (1999) study 

for the notion that control imbalance leads to deviance, the types of devi- 

ance predicted by Tittle were not supported. More specifically, it was found 

that predation and defiance were significantly related to those with a con- 

trol surplus, not just a control deficit. This finding confirms the suspicion 

voiced by Braithwaite (1997) that it would be better to collapse the types 

of deviance categories into simpler, broader constructs (e.g., reducing the 

types of autonomous deviance into a larger "predation" category). Tittle 

(1997) has agreed with a few of Braithwaite's suggestions along these lines. 

Indeed, Tittle (2004) has revised the theory to take into account some of 

the mixed empirical findings on the theory and some conceptual flaws. 

One of the main ways Tittle changed the earlier version of the theory was 

to admit that the qualitative categories of deviance expected as results of 

a control imbalance are not especially valid. Instead, Tittle (2004) now 

proposes that a person's control balance desirability, that is the long-term 

usefulness and resolutive capacity of a deviant act, is a central predictor of 

the type of deviant outcome. 

Katz's Seductions of Crime. A fascinating book hit the shelves in the late 

1980s, Jack Katz's Seductions of Crime: Moral and Sensual Attractions in Doing 

Evil. In this book, Katz explores the relationship between doing crime and 

the emotional states of the offender. His focus is the foreground of crime as 

opposed to the background variables traditionally emphasized in positiv- 

istic criminology. It is an analysis of the seductions and compulsions that 

are felt by people as they engage in criminal activity and that draw them 

into and through criminal "projects." To understand (and explain) crime 

as action, it is first necessary to reconstruct criminal events as they are ex- 

perienced by participants. Criminology, Katz argues, should move from the 

inside of crime outward, rather than the other way around. 

For Katz (1988: 9), the commonality among such diverse crimes as pil- 

fering, robbery, gang violence, and apparently senseless robbery-murders 

is the "family of moral emotions" that are subjectively experienced by of- 

fenders: "humiliation, righteousness, arrogance, ridicule, cynicism, defile- 

ment, and vengeance. In each [crime] the attraction that proves to be most 

fundamentally compelling is that of overcoming a personal challenge to 

moral--not material--existence." The following passage illustrates Katz's 

central argument: 

General and Integrated Theories 153

The closer one looks at crime, at least at the varieties examined here, the more 

vividly relevant become the moral emotions. Follow vandals and amateur 

shoplifters as they duck into alleys and dressing rooms and you will be moved 

by their delight in deviance; observe them under arrest and you may be stunned 

by their shame. Watch their strutting street display and you will be struck by 

the awesome fascination that symbols of evil hold for the young men who 

are linked in the groups we often call gangs. If we specify the opening moves 

in muggings and stickups, we describe an array of "games" or tricks that turn 

victims into fools before their pockets are turned out. The careers of persistent 

robbers show us, not the increasingly precise calculations and hedged risks of 

"professionals," but men for whom gambling and other vices are a way of life, 

who are "wise" in the cynical sense of the term, and who take pride in a defiant 

reputation as "bad." And if we examine the lived sensuality behind events of 

cold-blooded "senseless" murder, we are compelled to acknowledge the power 

that may still be created in the modern world through the sensualities of de- 

filement, spiritual chaos, and the apprehension of vengeance. Running across 

these experiences of criminality is a process juxtaposed in one manner or 

another against humiliation. In committing a righteous slaughter, the impas- 

sioned assailant takes humiliation and turns it into rage; through laying claim 

to a moral status of transcendent significance, he tries to burn humiliation up. 

The badass, with searing purposiveness, tries to scare humiliation off; as one 

ex-punk explained to me, after years of adolescent anxiety about the ugliness 

of his complexion and the stupidity of his every word, he found a wonderful 

calm in making "them" anxious about his perceptions and understandings. 

Young vandals and shoplifters innovate games with the risks of humiliation, 

running along the edge of shame for its exciting reverberations. . . . Against the 

historical background of a collective insistence on the moral nonexistence of 

their people, "bad niggers" exploit ethically unique possibilities for celebrating 

assertive conduct as "bad" (Katz, 1988: 312­13).

Katz's "empirical" theory is, then, a theory of moral self-transcendence 

constructed through examination of the doing of crime as experienced and 

understood by its participants. Crime becomes a "project" through which 

offenders transcend the self that is caught up in the mundane routines of 

modern life. Crime embodies a creative exploration of emotional worlds 

beyond the realm of rational controls--it is spiritual, nonrational, self-ful- 

filling, and self-proclaiming. The lure of crime is, inter alia, its promise 

of providing "expanded possibilities of the self . . . ways of behaving that 

previously seemed inaccessible" (Katz, 1988: 73). 

Katz (1988: 9) argues that there are three necessary and sufficient steps 

through which the construction of crime takes place: "(1) a path of action-- 

distinctive practical requirements for successfully committing the crime; (2) 

a line of interpretation--unique ways of understanding how one is and will 

be seen by others; and (3) an emotional process--seductions and compul- 

sions that have special dynamics." 

154 Chapter 7

If there is a link between the foreground and background in Katz's theory, 

the path of action is one obvious place to look. Observe:

As a consequence of the inequality of resources in society, some of the ways 

of transcending mundane life are more open to some groups of people than 

to others. Sky diving, for example, may offer a transcendent experience, but 

it is unlikely to be available to many young black members of the urban 

under-class. Crack, on the other hand, may provide a similarly transcending 

experience . . . but unlike sky diving is available to all, rich and poor. Moreover, 

the poor, perhaps more than any others in modernity, are faced with lives in 

which meaninglessness and the destruction of the self are ever present pos- 

sibilities (O'Malley and Mugford, 1991: 16).

O'Malley and Mugford make this observation in the face of criticism that 

Katz cannot explain the shape of crime, that is, its distribution among social 

classes, between cities, or among racial or ethnic groups, because he rejects 

structural perspectives, particularly strain theory. Yet one strength of Katz's 

work lies precisely in the fact that it begins with no assumptions about 

how predispositions to crime might be distributed and concludes that only 

through examination of the experience of elite (or white-collar) crime can 

we construct the necessary comparative picture (Katz, 1988: 313­24). How- 

ever, Katz is not confident of criminology's ability to study the foreground 

of white-collar crime:

Now, where would we get the data? With white-collar crime, we have a 

special problem in locating facts to demonstrate the lived experience of de- 

viance. Despite their presumably superior capacity to write books and the 

healthy markets that await their publication efforts, we have virtually no 

"how-I-did-it-and-how-it-felt-doing-it" autobiographies by corrupted politi- 

cians, convicted tax frauds, and chief executive officers who have been deposed 

by scandals over inside trading (Katz, 1988: 319).

Katz goes on to suggest that what will turn out to be distinctive about 

elite crime is not its motivations or consequences but its emotional quality: 

Feelings of shame often attend its discovery. In contrast, "[s]tickup men, 

safecrackers, fences, and drug dealers often wear the criminal label with 

pride, apparently relishing the opportunity to tell their criminal histories 

in colorful, intimate detail" (Katz, 1988: 319). 

Bringing up the issue of shame returns us to the central element in Braith- 

waite's (1989a) theory of crime. We noted that Braithwaite is largely silent 

on the emotional process involved in shaming except to say that people 

find shaming a humiliating experience that provokes fear and anxiety and, 

consequently, avoidance behavior on the part of the person shamed. The 

avoidance may come in the form of conformity (most likely if the shamed 

also experience pangs of conscience), or it may come in the form of with- 

General and Integrated Theories 155

drawal from the group and participation in deviant subcultures--behavior 

that provoked shaming now becomes behavior that is rewarded. If the 

shaming is followed by forgiveness and other reintegrative processes, it be- 

comes a particularly powerful mechanism for reinforcing cultural (group) 

values and identity. 

Katz complements Braithwaite in his documentation of the emotions 

moving around the edge of shame. His analysis of the process of transcen- 

dence may help criminologists understand more completely the dynamics 

of shaming, especially when it fails. The humiliating subordination that 

shaming is (when there is no self-participation or reintegration) represents 

a moral affront that must be "put right" through a transcendent process 

of self-reaffirmation, of reconstruction that salvages honor, identity, and 

worth. The formation and persistence of criminal subcultures, crucial to 

understanding the forms that deviance takes, and an important crimino- 

genic source in Braithwaite's model, can be explored within the framework 

of foreground analysis of the kind Katz has demonstrated. 

Importantly, Katz's (1988: 52­79) analysis of sneaky thrills--shoplifting, 

pilfering, vandalism, joyriding (some of which were discussed in chapter 

5)--also shows how shaming can act as a stimulus for crime as well as a 

reaction to be avoided. It is precisely the people who have some emotional 

investment in the conventional order (especially their standing in it) who 

are likely to be responsive to shaming--otherwise, who cares if a parent, 

teacher, police officer, or judge bawls you out? Yet the euphoria or thrill of 

sneaky theft--the seduction of the crime itself--lies precisely in the risk that 

one will be shamed if caught:

Thus, the other side of the euphoria felt from being successful is the humiliation 

from being caught. What the sneak thieves are avoiding, or getting away with 

by not being caught, is the shame they would feel if they were caught. . . . The 

thrills of sneaky thefts are metaphysically complex matters. On the one hand, 

shoplifters and vandals know what they are doing is illegal; the deviant charac- 

ter of the practice is part of the appeal. On the other hand, they typically register 

a kind of metaphysical shock when an arrest induces a sense that what they are 

doing might be treated as real crime. . . . Once an arrest occurs, the shoplifting 

career typically ends in response to an awareness that persistence would now 

clearly signal a commitment to a deviant identity (Katz, 1988: 64­66).

INTEGRATED THEORY

As we explained in chapter 5, social process theories deal with the dynamic 

aspects of the relationship between individuals and their immediate social 

environments. They explain how it is that certain people learn criminal 

behavior patterns and how they acquire criminal status. Where social 

156 Chapter 7

structural theories (discussed in chapter 4) focus on the relationship of 

organization and culture to values, norms, resources, and opportunities, 

social process theories consider how the actions of individuals and groups 

influence what people do and become. 

Even though process has been separated from structure in this review of 

prominent theories, the two are in reality intimately connected. One way 

to think of that connection is to visualize structure as setting the stage for 

process, which in turn brings structure to life. When thinking about crime, 

structure promotes and restrains criminal activity among different segments 

of the population, while process determines which individuals within those 

segments will become criminally active (or be singled out for criminal la- 

beling), and which will not. 

Two questions are therefore relevant when considering why crime varies 

from place to place or from group to group: (1) How do social structures 

compare? and (2) How do the activities and experiences of individuals 

compare? Often it is not possible to answer both questions at the same 

time because the kinds of information or methodologies needed are not 

available or not used. Sometimes the criminologist who engages in research 

is simply not interested in process questions, for example, but wants to 

evaluate the relationship between structure and crime, perhaps at a class or 

societal level. 

It is helpful, nevertheless, to illustrate how structure and process can 

be linked in research. While there are many integrated theories, one fairly 

recent study assesses the criminal behavior of individuals who live in differ- 

ent family and neighborhood environments (structure) and are exposed to 

different interactional experiences (process). The study is by John Laub and 

Robert Sampson (1988), and it is based on a reanalysis of data compiled 

by Sheldon and Eleanor Glueck some forty years ago. 

The Gluecks (1950) collected data on 500 officially defined delinquents 

and 500 nondelinquents. All subjects were white males growing up in poor, 

deteriorated neighborhoods close to the industrial and commercial zones 

of Boston. Their average age was just under fifteen. Data on all sorts of 

social, psychological, and biological variables were collected in a multifac- 

tor design. Despite a variety of criticisms leveled at the Gluecks' research 

design, the study remains a classic in the field (Laub and Sampson, 1988: 

357­61). 

The reanalysis of the Gluecks' data by Laub and Sampson focused pri- 

marily on the relationship between family factors and delinquency. The 

family factors were divided into two categories that reflect the distinction 

between structure and process. Structural factors included household 

crowding, economic dependence, residential mobility, and parental crimi- 

nality. Process variables included parental discipline and supervision of a 

child and emotional rejection. 

General and Integrated Theories 157

Laub and Sampson hypothesize that parental child-rearing practices and 

other family management skills would be most directly related to the delin- 

quent behavior of a child since they constitute the emotional atmosphere 

and control environment to which the child is exposed while growing up. 

Basing their argument on work by Hirschi (1983) and others, Laub and 

Sampson predict that good parenting skills and a supportive emotional 

climate help prevent the emergence of delinquency in a child because they 

enhance family social control. 

The authors also predict, however, that parental discipline and family 

emotional climate are directly influenced by background factors such as 

economic dependency, irregular employment, and parental criminality. 

Thus, the structural variables influence delinquency through their impact 

on family process. "For instance, it is likely that residential mobility and 

irregular employment by mothers are related to difficulties in supervis- 

ing and monitoring children. Similarly, family disruption not only affects 

supervisory capacity, but also attachment and disciplinary practices" (Laub 

and Sampson, 1988: 367­68). 

In this manner, Laub and Sampson show how structure and process can 

be linked in the explanation of delinquency. When they reanalyzed the 

Gluecks' data to test this model, they found that the quality of family social 

control was indeed directly and strongly related to serious and persistent 

delinquency among boys. Equally important, however, was the finding that 

the social structural variables helped set the stage by directly influencing the 

ways in which parents supervise and discipline their children and the qual- 

ity of the emotional relationship between parent and child. 

The relationship between family life and delinquency, it must be said, is 

one of the most researched issues in criminology. Yet a review of nearly 300 

studies came up with few clear-cut conclusions, except to reiterate that a re- 

lationship does exist--deviance begins at home (Wright and Wright, 1994). 

The lack of definitive conclusions about the specifics of the link between 

family life and crime reflects in part the many inconsistencies plaguing the 

methods and findings of so much of the research. It also reflects problems 

in resolving the issue of causality:

For example, when researchers observe an association between family conflict 

and delinquency, any one of three explanations may describe the actual re- 

lationship between the variables. Family conflict may, in fact, actually cause 

delinquency. Alternatively, having a delinquent child may create considerable 

conflict within the family. Or, perhaps family conflict and delinquency are 

unrelated, but increase or decrease in relation to one another because of their 

mutual relationship to yet a third variable, for instance, aggression proneness 

among family members. Researchers never prove causality but endeavor to 

eliminate alternative explanations by using more complex models and methods 

that allow them to rule out other possibilities (Wright and Wright, 1994: 2). 

158 Chapter 7

On the whole, one can safely say that family structure and family in- 

teraction together with external factors such as the economic condition, 

opportunity structure, quality of schools, and institutional stability of 

neighborhood and surrounding community go a long way toward explain- 

ing the antisocial behavior of youth. How relevant these same factors are 

for explaining adult crime, especially occupational and public order crimes, 

is another matter. The fact that most youths "mature" out of crime by their 

late teens and early twenties indicates that something is operating to halt or 

perhaps even reverse the impact of these factors for a majority of children 

once they reach adulthood. 

Some criminologists believe that key adult roles such as spouse, full- 

time worker, and parent make continued criminality too costly. Perhaps 

people become concerned about losing their family's respect (e.g., Rowe, 

Lindquist, and White, 1989), or perhaps participation in family life bonds a 

person more closely to conventional society, including values and attitudes 

about marital, parental, and work responsibility (e.g., Thornberry, 1987; 

Sampson and Laub, 1990). On the other hand, Gottfredson and Hirschi 

(1990) argue that criminality reflects impulsivity, short-time perspective, 

and other characteristics of low self-control. Such individuals are unlikely 

to make successful marriage partners, parents, or workers as adults, just as 

they are unlikely to do well in school as children. Any relationship between 

marriage and family life and crime is therefore spurious, meaning that the 

three are related only through their association with low self-control. 

Wright and Wright (1994) conclude that the research on this issue is in- 

conclusive. But here is another thought: Some forms of crime--small busi- 

ness crime and perhaps some occupational and professional crimes--may 

actually thrive on strong family and work relationships. Since the emphasis 

in most criminological research is on street crime, it is easy to forget that 

robbery, burglary, drug pushing, rape, assault, and murder actually repre- 

sent just the tip of the crime iceberg. An adequate description and explana- 

tion of the relationship between family life and crime must surely move 

beyond these crimes into the world of business crime, money laundering, 

fraud, and bribery--offenses not usually committed by children, nor by 

people whose backgrounds automatically suggest a delinquent childhood. 

The Life Course Perspective. A very promising integrated theory of crime 

has been proposed by Sampson and Laub (1992; 1993b; 2003) who reana- 

lyzed the Gluecks' (1950) data. Their theory centers on the notion of the 

life course, through which all individuals travel from birth to death. The life 

course consists of trajectories, which are long-term sequences and patterns 

of behavior (e.g., schooling, work life, marriage, parenthood, or criminal 

career), and transitions, which are specific life events within a trajectory, 

such as first job, first marriage, going to college, or joining a gang (Piquero 

and Mazerolle, 2001). 

General and Integrated Theories 159

Sampson and Laub's review of research shows that there are fairly stable 

attributes of individuals that are established early in life and that provide 

continuity and consistency as individuals age; aggression might be one, 

with adult manifestations in the form of spousal abuse and harsh punish- 

ment of children. But they also find evidence that a childhood trajectory 

may be modified or even halted by key life course events, such as getting 

married or getting a job or moving from one town to another. Sampson 

and Laub believe that in the transition to adulthood, it is not so much the 

timing of discrete life events such as marriage but, rather, "the quality or 

strength of social ties" that result (Sampson and Laub, 1992: 73). 

Sampson and Laub call for a deeper examination of how continuity and 

change work together in an individual's life course to inhibit or promote 

antisocial behavior. In proposing a dual focus on continuity and change 

within the individual life course, they nevertheless recognize that structural 

conditions, including social opportunities and the actions of social control 

agencies, impact on the life experiences of individuals and therefore the 

chances that an individual's criminal behavior will begin, end, continue, or 

undergo modification over time. 

Perhaps the most interesting conclusion of Sampson and Laub's (2003) 

prodigious series of studies is that crime involvement for all persons, in- 

cluding serious, persistent offenders, declines significantly with age. This 

finding, although somewhat contested (e.g., Blokland, Nagin, and Nieuw- 

beerta, 2005) is that desistance from crime as one ages is a universal fact, 

regardless of the differences in individuals' early childhood experiences.

CHAPTER SUMMARY

Consistent with the goal of general theory, the theories reviewed in this 

chapter seek to identify the things diverse crimes have in common and to 

build explanations around them. Most of the theories are heavily indebted 

to existing ideas about crime, and what is new is more in the packaging 

than in the substance. On the other hand, Katz shows us a way of thinking 

about crime that departs significantly from the other approaches even as it 

complements Braithwaite's. 

It is safe to say that criminologists will be examining these theories 

closely in the years ahead. Do not expect that one will emerge as the expla- 

nation of crime. For one thing, criminologists disagree on the definition of 

their subject matter. For another, the data and methodology for adequate 

tests of all theories do not yet exist. What is likely to happen is continued 

refinement and reshaping, so that the dominant theories a decade from 

now will show their indebtedness but will not be the same. 

160 Chapter 7

Remember, too, that the criminological enterprise is affected not only by 

the ideas and values of its participants but also by the ideology underlying 

public policy. That ideology affects the funding of research. Theories that 

challenge established paradigms tend in any case to be embraced with great 

caution, all the more so if they conflict with the funding priorities of gov- 

ernments and universities. 

If the measure of criminology is its success at explaining crime, where do 

you think we stand? We certainly know a lot about the crime scene, and 

well we should after more than 100 years of research. We can also point to 

theories that have remained prominent for many, many years--differential 

association is perhaps the best example. Some of the general theories we 

have reviewed in this chapter address crime at both micro and macro levels 

of analysis, and some integrate theories that once appeared incompatible. 

Some also bring together behaviors that were once thought to be so differ- 

ent as to require different explanations--rape and shoplifting, for example. 

It is noteworthy, too, that an argument made long ago by French sociolo- 

gist Emile Durkheim now seems more relevant than ever: that crime and 

punishment are two parts of an inseparable whole; that one cannot be 

explained without also explaining the other.

KEY TERMS

communtarianism 

control balance 

control deficit 

control ratio 

control surplus 

criminality 

disintegrative shaming 

general theories 

integrated theories 

interdependency 

life course 

low self-control 

reintegrative shaming 

restorative justice 

versatility construct

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

1. Of the six major theories reviewed in this chapter, which do you find 

most helpful in explaining crime? Why or why not? 

General and Integrated Theories 161

2. A major criticism of Wilson and Herrnstein's approach is its focus 

on "serious" street crime. Do you think the theory is as applicable to 

white-collar crime? 

3. Cohen and Machalek argue that some people try to meet their needs 

through expropriative strategies. Under what conditions is this strat- 

egy likely to be chosen over others? 

4. According to Braithwaite, shaming, or the fear of being shamed, is a 

powerful force in our lives. Is shame a universal feeling, and can it 

lead to lawful behavior as well as crime? 

5. Gottfredson and Hirschi's self-control theory is more positioned to 

explain street crimes than white-collar offenses. However, are there 

instances of elite crime or deviance that do revolve around the interest 

in immediate or short-term gratification?

ACTIVITIES

1. Attend a local sentencing hearing. Are any themes voiced by lawyers 

or the judge that are consistent with shaming theory? 

2. Conduct an informal poll with people you know and ask them what 

they think is the most important factor in the commission of crime. 

Analyze the responses and note which ones are related to any of the 

general and integrated theories discussed in this chapter. 

3. Write down all the important things and people that you have control 

over, and likewise, those things and people who control you. Where 

do you fall on the various control levels, as discussed by Tittle? Would 

your involvement in crime be influenced by your control level? 

Epilogue 

Tools for Using 

Criminological Theory

At the very least, a course in criminological theory should enable students 

to offer the casual observer some insight into the character and causes of 

crime. However, as is true with many apparently simple questions, thought- 

ful answers rarely come easily. For one thing, there are dozens of theories of 

crime and the sheer variety of competing explanations can be overwhelm- 

ing. For another, "crime" and "criminality" cover many different things, so 

an explanation of one may hardly touch another. And as we have seen in 

the preceding chapter, attempts to construct general theories of crime that 

apply to many forms are fraught with difficulties and pitfalls. Small wonder 

students who have completed this course often feel more confused about 

crime than when they started. 

We believe that some of the confusion can be lessened if students keep 

the following seven points in mind when thinking about criminological 

theory. 

1. There are many different types of crime. A cursory glance at annual 

crime statistics shows that while petty theft, vandalism, and simple assault 

make up the bulk of crimes known to the police, many other offenses are 

committed in a given year, among them: sexual assaults, forgery, liquor law 

violations, weapons violations, drug crimes, gambling offenses, disorderly 

conduct, robbery, auto theft, vagrancy, embezzlement, prostitution, fraud, 

and murder. There are also many types of crime that are not listed at all, 

from so-called white-collar offenses and state and governmental crimes to 

domestic violence. But you get the implication: a theory of crime that does 

well for one type may not do as well for another, or even be relevant (a 

simple example: a theory that explains barroom violence is hardly relevant 

for corporate price-fixing, or safecracking by professional thieves).

163 

164 Epilogue

2. Criminality varies among individuals as well as among groups. This is 

an important distinction because the clues to variations among individuals 

may be different from those relevant for groups. Explaining individual dif- 

ferences draws us toward psychological and social-psychological theories, 

while variations among groups are better addressed with social-structural 

theories. 

3. Variations in criminality are not the same as variations in crime. This 

important distinction has been addressed by Ron Clarke and Travis Hirschi, 

among others. "Criminality" can be thought of as the propensity to commit 

crime and is a property of individuals or groups. "Crime" refers to offenses 

as events that occur with greater or lesser frequency, duration, intensity, and 

so on. Crime is all about opportunities, while criminality is all about moti- 

vations. Theories designed to explain variations in criminality are unlikely 

to shed enough light to also explain variations in crime as an event--and 

vice versa. 

4. Among the ways crimes differ is in the resources and ability needed to 

commit them. This means that even though an opportunity for crime exists, 

it must still be accessed (taken advantage of), and the ability to do this var- 

ies among individuals and groups. Almost anyone can punch someone else 

(a simple assault) or shoplift (a petty theft); safecracking is another story, 

as are price-fixing and bomb-making. To the degree that opportunities for 

crime and access to them vary independently, a promising theory will ad- 

dress both these aspects of crime. 

5. Just as crimes differ objectively in opportunity and access, they also 

differ subjectively. Simply put, while an opportunity for crime must exist 

objectively for the offense to occur, subjective perceptions will influence 

whether the opportunity is seized. Just as objective opportunities for crime 

(and access to them) vary among places and times, as well as among indi- 

viduals and groups, so do perceptions of those opportunities (and access to 

them). A promising theory will also address these variations. 

6. Crime is a social construction. From a legalistic point of view, acts are not 

criminal until lawmakers say they are--and assign a penalty for violations. 

Generally speaking, the seriousness of offenses is gauged by the penalties as- 

signed to them; the lighter the penalty, the less serious the crime. So crimes 

vary by seriousness, where seriousness is a judgment made by people with the 

legal authority to do so. Although by no means exact, there is a connection be- 

tween the legal seriousness of an offense and its perceived wrongness among 

the public at large. The two tend to vary together, that is, if one is high so is the 

other. Thus, a person who plants a bomb that kills twenty people faces execu- 

tion or life in prison without parole; this same act receives the highest severity 

scores in national surveys of the general public. On the other hand, vagrancy 

and trespassing are relatively minor crimes in terms of penalties; not surpris- 

ingly, they receive among the lowest severity scores from the general public. 

Tools for Using Criminological Theory 165

This has bearing on the likelihood that crimes will be committed if only 

because the more serious a contemplated act is perceived to be, the less 

likely it will occur. There are two reasons for this: (1) more serious crimes 

carry higher penalties (or costs and risks); this is the core of the deterrence 

argument; and (2) more serious crimes incur greater moral objection; this 

is the "normative" or wrongness argument found in neutralization theory. 

A promising theory of crime will address both the legal and moral aspects 

of seriousness. 

7. Finally, external counter-control may reduce both crime and criminal- 

ity. By this we mean that criminal events and the propensity to participate 

in them are each susceptible to efforts by others (police, courts, parents, 

teachers, friends, neighbors, witnesses, etc.) to prevent them from occur- 

ring in the first place, or to lessen their impact if they do arise. At the level 

of events, effective counter-control works on the opportunities for crime 

and/or access to them--it makes a given situation less prone to crime; at the 

level of motivations, effective counter-control reduces the likelihood that 

an individual or group finds crime appealing--it makes people less prone 

to committing crime. A promising theory of crime will address the impact 

of counter-control on both events and people. 

The primary goal of any theory is to predict differences; that is, when 

there will be more or less of something. In our case, theory should result in 

predictions about crime and criminality. Policymakers can then use these 

predictions to make strategic decisions in the effort to reduce crime and 

criminality. 

Some scholars (e.g., Gibbs, 1972, 1994) believe that predictive power 

is the only appropriate criterion when assessing theories. But there is a 

hitch: To achieve such assessments it is necessary that theories be stated 

formally, so that their logical structures are exposed in a parsimonious way 

and their arguments made explicit. Unfortunately, this is rarely the case 

in social science theory, and criminology is no exception. If convincing is 

necessary, simply look back through the chapters you have read and try to 

derive testable predictions from the mostly discursive theories presented. In 

many cases it will be a difficult, if not impossible, task. Worse, just when 

you think you've nailed down a testable prediction derived from one of the 

theories, the author of the theory could very easily say, "That's not what I 

meant." 

So when friends or acquaintances bemoan the "crime problem" and ask 

you to suggest solutions, you should first ask them to be more specific. 

What kind of crime are they talking about? Are they talking about criminal 

events or criminal people? If it is the latter, are they talking about individu- 

als or groups of people? If the former, are they interested in the objective 

features of a situation or the subjective ones? An even more fundamental 

question you should ask is this: "What do they mean by the words 'crime' 

166 Epilogue

and 'criminal'? A legalistic answer would focus your attention on acts and 

situations defined as crime by legislatures and on the people who commit 

those acts. An answer that emphasized social harm or moral prohibitions 

would focus your attention on a much broader range of acts and potentially 

a broader range of people. The definition of "crime" and "criminal" thus 

has important implications for theory. Indeed, some criminologists (e.g., 

Black, 1976) believe that variations in crime and criminality are directly 

linked to the behavior of law itself.

AN ANALYTICAL FRAMEWORK

Textbooks such as this one provide a survey of the main theories in crimi- 

nology, but how can beginning students of crime think more cogently 

about explaining crime in broader terms? We have thought long and hard 

about the numerous criminological theories reviewed in this book and 

have concluded that there is indeed a way to make better sense out of 

the causes of crime than having to consider every detail of criminological 

theory. In what follows, we lay out an analytical framework--not a causal 

theory--of crime that allows students to center on three main variables on 

three levels of analysis. 

Drawing on an integrated theoretical model of organizational crime 

(Kauzlarich and Kramer, 1998; Kramer, Michalowski, and Kauzlarich, 

2002), we propose that crime in general can be understood as a result of 

the coincidence of (a) pressure for goal attainment, (b) the availability and 

attractiveness of legitimate means for achieving those goals, and (c) the 

absence of effective social control. This proposition can be boiled down to 

three elements: motivation, opportunity, and control. Motivation refers to 

the factors that make one inclined to pursue goals. These goals are often 

rooted in the desire for money, status, power, or respect, concepts found 

in a variety of criminological theories previously reviewed. One who is 

highly motivated to achieve any of these goals is at greater risk for criminal 

behavior, but it should be remembered that many who pursue these goals 

do not engage in criminal behavior. Therefore, as Sutherland indicates in 

his ninth proposition of differential association theory, motivations alone 

cannot be the basis of a sufficiently general theory of crime. Indeed, all 

the motivation in the world is moot if the opportunity to realize those 

goals is blocked. Therefore, the second major element of our proposition 

is opportunity, which refers to the available resources one has to meet his 

or her goals. The ability to pursue goals is contingent on the amount of 

economic, cultural, and social capital one has so that people who are so- 

cially disadvantaged or otherwise unable to reach goals through legitimate 

means, a la Merton's anomie/strain theory, are more likely to resolve their 

Tools for Using Criminological Theory 167

strain through criminal activity. Finally, the notion of control refers to the 

degree of informal and formal regulation surrounding a person or group. 

Those who are not subject to effective social control are more likely to, in 

combination with strong goals and blocked legitimate means, find criminal 

behavior more attractive. This is consistent with control theories reviewed 

previously in this text. 

We are not interested here in developing a formal theory of crime but 

rather ways for you, the student, to think more coherently about the variety 

of ways that crime can be understood within the parameters of motivation, 

opportunity, and control. Table E.1 provides a graphic illustration of our 

analytical framework and identifies key variables and concepts related to 

the causes of crime. 

While motivation, opportunity, and control are the three key concepts, 

none of them can be understood as monolithic categories that operate on 

only one level of analysis. Recall from chapter 1 that levels of analysis are 

slices of reality that guide the degree of abstraction used in thinking about 

crime. There are two main levels of analysis: micro (small picture) and 

macro (big picture). Micro level theories focus on individuals and social 

processes, while the macro perspective is interested in large-scale social 

structures. To these levels we can add a third--meso, which refers to an 

intermediate or "in between" level of analysis. This level is concerned with 

more immediate factors than the macro level, but those that are still re- 

moved from the individual. For example, whereas a macro level of analysis 

might target inequality in a society as a contributing factor to increases in 

crime and a micro theory would look at the individual self-control levels, 

the meso level of analysis would focus on the neighborhood, family, or 

school environment. Indeed, not all people are equally affected by in- 

equality, nor do they share the same levels of social control. We propose, 

as many criminologists do, that this is due to the mediating effects of their 

immediate social environment.

Motivation 

As table E.1 indicates, motivation on the macro level of analysis sensitizes 

us to many of the key theoretical concepts reviewed earlier. Recall Merton, 

Messner, and Rosenfeld and Bonger's concerns about how competition and 

materialism produce conditions conducive to crime. The logic here is that 

larger cultural and structural elements of a society produce and reinforce 

norms and values that make criminality more attractive. For example, dis- 

proportionate pressure in any society for people to achieve material items, 

wealth, and recognition can become primary to one's life at the expense of 

family, neighborhood, and community bonds. Any complete analysis of 

crime should take into consideration these larger background factors. 

168 Epilogue

Table E.1. An Analytical Framework for Studying the Causes of Crime 

Motivation Opportunity Control 

Macro Competition, Inequality in Race, Law & Criminal Justice 

Materialism, Media, Gender, Class, Age, 

& Ideology & Technology

Meso Status & Community Neighborhood, Police-Community 

Norms Community, School, Relations, Collective 

& Family: Efficacy, Family & 

Resources School Structure, & 

Culture Environmental Design 

Support

Micro Individual Goals, Intelligence Skills/ Coping Skills, 

Feelings of Relative Training Time & Neutralization, 

Deprivation, Ability Hardened Targets, 

Rational Choice, & Self-control, & Shaming 

Previous 

Victimization

At the meso level of analysis, the motivation for crime is thought to be 

rooted in local or community-based social structures or cultures. Some 

communities, such as those discussed by Anderson, Cohen, Cloward, and 

Ohlin, and Laub and Sampson (chapters 4 and 7) have unique cultures and 

norms that reward or expect some forms of behavior over others. Ander- 

son, for example, found that in many lower-income communities, African 

Americans feel that adopting the "code of the street" provides them with 

both protection from victimization and the achievement of status within 

the community. Anderson further argues that higher rates of violent crime 

in inner cities are explained by this cultural response to structural condi- 

tions of isolation, alienation, and lack of economic opportunity (which we 

shall discuss under the concept of opportunity below). 

At the micro level of analysis, motivation can be studied in terms of 

how individuals conceptualize their own personal and professional goals, 

whether they feel marginalized, how they intellectually process potential 

rewards and punishments, and whether they have been previously victim- 

ized. All of these variables are important to consider as similarly situated 

people (at the macro and meso levels of analysis) do not always act in 

identical ways. Indeed, most individuals from economically disadvantaged 

communities living in a wider culture of materialism do not engage in seri- 

ous crime, so we must ask, what distinguishes those who do? One answer 

is through Classical and rational choice theoretical approaches (reviewed 

in chapter 2) that examine how individuals think differently about the pos- 

sible punishments and rewards for engaging in crime. Another way to think 

Tools for Using Criminological Theory 169

about micro level motivations for crime is to consider the extent to which 

individuals vary in their exposure to negative treatment, as Agnew has pro- 

posed in his general strain theory, reviewed in chapter 4.

Opportunity 

People need opportunities to accomplish anything. These opportunities 

may be self-created or a product of one's social position. While motivation 

for criminality is critical to understanding the causes of crime, we must also 

consider the range of opportunities for criminal behavior available to an 

individual or group in order to develop a fuller understanding of crime. 

On the macro level of analysis, many criminological theories maintain 

that economic deprivation and racial and gender inequality are key vari- 

ables in explaining who has the opportunity to live life without engaging 

in crime and who doesn't. In terms of rates of crime, high levels of violence 

in poor urban areas are thought to be related to the lack of good jobs and 

schools in communities. Elijah Anderson illustrated this point quite well 

in his studies of poor African American communities in U.S. cities. One 

can also see this line of reasoning in many other criminological theories, 

such as Braithwaite's reintegrative shaming approach (reviewed in chapter 

7) and Currie's theory on crime in market societies, which was reviewed in 

chapter 6. Further, the level of supervision and physical security in neigh- 

borhoods impact how much opportunity there may be for criminality. Rou- 

tine activities and situational crime prevention theories reviewed in chapter 

2 are helpful in this way. 

Opportunity is not only a macro level matter but also one that is op- 

erational at the meso level of analysis. Opportunities provided in more 

immediate social environments such as the schools, family, and neighbor- 

hood play key roles in the extent to which criminal behavior is attractive. If 

neighborhoods, families, and schools are close-knit--what Braithwaite calls 

interdependent--crime tends to be lower because of the internalization of 

social norms contrary to criminality (a la social disorganization theory and 

social control theory) and the potential fear that social and cultural capital 

(e.g., respect and friendship) can be lost. 

On the micro level of analysis, opportunities for crime relate to variable 

individual perceptions. As we discussed earlier, some people may be intel- 

lectually incapable of figuring out how to engage in sophisticated crimes 

such as computer hacking, Internet fraud, or Ponzi schemes while others 

might be able to see these opportunities without much difficulty. Addition- 

ally, the amount of time a person has can be directly related to the ability to 

see and seize criminal opportunities. For example, those with demanding 

family or job responsibilities may find little time to think about criminal 

enterprises. Likewise, children who are busy with chores or homework after 

170 Epilogue

school and who are otherwise supervised by adults in their activities would 

have less opportunity to think about seizing criminal opportunities.

Control 

Humans are socially regulated in a number of ways--and by a number of 

audiences. In a college classroom, for example, most students and profes- 

sors alike are aware of norms that govern their behavior--and the potential 

costs of violating these rules (e.g., being reprimanded and losing respect 

or status). Likewise, parental, school, peer, community, and government 

control over the definition and enforcement of standards of conduct are 

thought to be critical for understanding why some people break rules and 

others do not. Why would some people never dare to commit a burglary, 

for example, while others do it routinely? Indeed, not all people succumb 

to regulation and control, nor do all societies and communities have the 

same degree of control over the people in their geographic area. 

On the macro level, the regulation of behavior can be linked to large- 

scale social structures such as law and the criminal justice system. Recalling 

Classical criminological theory and modern-day rational choice approaches 

reviewed in chapter 2, the logic is quite simple: People inclined to engage in 

crime will not do so if they greatly fear the punishment for doing so. Thus, 

to control potential criminal inclinations, the possibility of arrest, prosecu- 

tion, conviction, and sentencing to a prison or jail should be threatened in 

order to compel people to obey the law. Many federal and state laws are 

designed with the assumption that the threat of punishment can have a 

deterrent effect, although as we have discussed earlier in chapter 2, deter- 

rence theory has several limitations. Additionally, sociological theories, like 

that proposed by Braithwaite, suggest that people not only want to avoid a 

criminal sentence, but many also fear the resulting shame and stigma that 

results from criminal processing. Of course, this embarrassment takes place 

only if the individual actually cares about the opinions of others, and this 

is not as likely in noncommutarian societies. 

On the meso level of analysis, local policing, community, neighborhood, 

and school networks also offer the potential for regulation and control. No 

matter what national or state laws exist, the immediate climate of control 

is a more significant factor impacting crime commission. Social disorgani- 

zation theory and Laub and Sampson's notion of "collective efficacy" are 

particularly salient here. If people in a community are closely attached and 

dependent on one another, there is more to lose in the way of status and 

respect as a result of engaging in criminal behavior. Additionally, peace- 

making criminologists would posit that these intimate relationships create 

more respect for others' property and life, thus making criminality less at- 

tractive. 

Tools for Using Criminological Theory 171

On the micro level of analysis, Gottfredson and Hirsch's self-control 

theory (chapter 7) is helpful here as it points out that individuals have 

varying degrees of control over their own behavior. Those who pursue more 

clearly self-interested and short-term goals are more likely to commit crime, 

especially when other macro and meso controls are inoperable. Also on this 

level, Agnew's general strain theory is helpful because it suggests that those 

who do not have the coping skills to deal with negative treatment are more 

likely to resolve strain through crime. Therefore, the ability to control reac- 

tions to painful circumstances, such as child abuse, is something to look for 

when thinking about the causes of crime at this level of analysis. 

This brief overview of an analytic framework was designed to help you 

think more clearly and integratively about crime and criminality. The 

framework borrows heavily from many of the theories of crime reviewed 

earlier in the text by integrating key concepts along various levels of intel- 

lectual analysis. We wish you good fortune in the development of your 

understanding of crime and criminality. It has been our lives' intellectual 

pursuit, and we all still have much to learn. 

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Index

Analytical framework for studying Conservative criminology, 10­11 

crime, 168 Containment theory, 84­85 

Anomie, 54, 59­60, 62 Control balance theory of crime, 

Atavism, 37 147­52 

Corporate crime and interests, 6, 62, 

Beccaria, Cesare, 2, 19­23 86, 105, 107, 112­14, 163 

Behavioral learning theories, 79­80 Crime displacement, 27­29 

Bentham, Jeremy, 2, 19­23 Crime prevention, 26­30, 147­148 

Biological theory, 37­39 Criminological theory: characteristics 

Biosocial approach, 42­45 of, 4­10; functions, 3­4; goal, 

Bonger, Willem, 105­6 2; ideology and, 10­13; levels of 

Braithwaite's theory of reintegrative analysis, 5­8; paradigms in, 8­9 

shaming, 143­47 Criminology: classical school of, 

Burglary, 26 19­23; conservative,10­11; critical, 

12­13, 101­28; defined, 2; liberal, 

Capital punishment, 20­22 11­12 

Capitalism and crime, 104­14 Critical criminology, 12­13, 101­28 

Chambliss, William J., 93­94, 107­9, Critical theories of crime, 101­28 

112 Cultural Criminology, 126­27 

Classical school of criminology, Cultural transmission of crime, 64­69 

19­23 

Cloward and Ohlin's theory, 66­67 DeKeseredy, Walter, 115­16 

Code of the streets, 68, 168 Deterrence, 18, 20­23, 165, 170 

Cohen, Albert, 65­66 Differential association theory, 75­79; 

Cohen and Machalek's theory of crime, 81­83 

135­37 Differential identification, 79 

Collective conscience, 52 Differential opportunity theory, 66­67 

Conflict theory, 101­4 Distal causes, 9

193 

194 Index

Drift theory, 85 Life course perspective, 158­59 

Durkheim, Emile, 52­54 Lombroso, Cesare, 2, 37, 48 

Low self-control, 138 

Economic model of crime, 23­25 

Evolutionary theory, 40­42 Marx, Karl, 102, 104­5 

Expropriative crimes and strategies, Marxist criminological theory, 104­14 

135­36 Masculinity challenges, 122 

McKay, Henry, 54­56, 62 

Feminist criminology, 117­22 Merton's anomie theory, 58­62 

Ferri, Enrico, 2 Michalowski, Raymond, 9, 31, 36, 114, 

Ferrell, Jeff, 12, 123, 126­27 166 

Films and crime, 5­7, 47, 53, 61, Miller, Walter, 67­68 

77­78, 90 Modes of adaptation, 58­62 

Focal concerns, 67­68 Moore, Michael, 4, 6­7 

Frustration-aggression theories, 47­48 Motivation, and crime, 31, 42, 121, 

Functionalism, 30, 52, 102 166­69 

Murder, 21­22, 35, 46 

Garofalo, Raffaele, 2 Music, 2, 53, 77­78, 111 

Gender, 12, 32, 31, 64, 82­83, 85, 

117­22 Operant conditioning, 79 

Gender-class theory, 118­19 Opportunity and crime, 29­32 

General strain theory, 63­64 

General theories, 9, 131­33 Paradigms, 8­9 

General theories of crime, 133­55 Peacemaking criminology, 124­25 

Gottfredson and Hirschi's theory of Peer groups and delinquency, 80­81 

crime, 137­143 Personality and crime, 45­47 

Physical appearance and crime, 39 

Hirschi, Travis, 88­91 Positivist school of criminology, 35­37 

Postmodernism, 122­24 

Ideology, 10­14 Power control theory, 119­20 

Integrated theories, 155­59 Proximate causes, 9 

Intelligence and crime, 43­45 Public policy on crime, 3, 13, 25, 87, 

Interactionist perspective, 74 116, 146­48 

International theory, 91­93 Punishment, 19­24, 52, 59, 79, 109, 

Institutional anomie theory, 62 145, 147­49 

Instrumental Marxism, 113 

Quinney, Richard, 107­8 

Katz's theory of crime, 152­55 

Kramer, Ronald C., 62, 83, 166 Race, 44, 111, 118, 142, 168 

Rape, 41, 119, 

Labeling perspective, 93­97 Rational choice model, 17­18, 25­27 

Labeling theory, 93­97 Rationality-opportunity theories, 133 

Left realism, 114­17 Reintegrative shaming, 143­47 

Levels of analysis, 5, 7­8, 146, 160, Restorative justice, 13, 125, 147­48 

167­68 Restricted theories, 9 

Liberal criminology, 11­12 Robbery, 25, 121, 152 

Liberation/opportunity theory, 120 Routine activity approach, 29­32 

Index 195

Saints and roughnecks, 94 Structural contradictions theory, 112 

Secondary deviation, 95 Structured action theory, 122 

Self-concept and criminal behavior, Subcultural theories of crime, 64­69 

83­88 Subculture of violence, 68 

Self-control and criminality, 138 Sutherland, Edwin, 4, 75­79, 81, 166 

Shaw, Clifford, 54­57 

Situational crime prevention, 30­32 Techniques of neutralization, 85­88 

Social control theory, 88­91 Tittle's control balance theory, 

Social disorganization theory, 54­58 147­52 

Social process theories, 73­98 Turk, Austin, 103­4 

Social structure theories, 51­70 

Stark, Rodney, 56 Utilitarianism, 19 

State and government crimes, 62, 86, 

87, 91, 109 Wilson and Herrnstein's theory of 

Strain theories, 58­64 crime, 133­35 

About the Authors

Hugh D. Barlow is emeritus professor of sociology at Southern Illinois Uni- 

versity, Edwardsville. He is coauthor with David Kauzlarich of Introduction 

to Criminology, 9th edition (2009), and author of Dead for Good: Martyrdom 

and the Rise of the Suicide Bomber (2007). Barlow is recipient of the Herbert 

Bloch Award given by the American Society of Criminology for services to 

the profession. He resides in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

David Kauzlarich is professor and chair of sociology and criminal justice 

studies at Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville. He is coauthor with 

Hugh D. Barlow of two other criminology textbooks and several other books 

including Crimes of the American Nuclear State: At Home and Abroad (with 

Ronald C. Kramer). Kauzlarich has recently received major awards from 

the American Society of Criminology's Critical Criminology Division and 

Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville for his research and teaching.

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