Research Project

Create a research proposal, an annotated bibliography, complete the research paper. 

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The topic is on incarceration- What types of crimes have the highest recidivism rates and why and what are the causes of recidivism 

Detailed information is included in the PDF.

Research Proposal

What is a Research Proposal?
• A research proposal is a detailed plan or ‘blueprint’ for the intended

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study

• Research proposal forms the backbone for the research and is the
most important step in the process of conducting research

• Research Proposal describe planned activities and include a time line

• Research Proposal describes what you intend to accomplish and how

Elements of a Research proposal

• Identify a research problem or research topic
• Introduction
• Problem and objectives
• Literature Review
• Research Methods and Design

• Subjects for Study – population and sampling
• Research Instrument – surveys (questionnaire), interviews,

• Data Collection Methods

Data Analysis

• References

Identify a research problem or research topic
• A problem is something to solve or framed as a question that must be

answered

• You can identify a research problem by reading recent research to find a
gap in what is currently known about it or identify community problems or
through personal experiences.

• You might look for:
• A phenomenon or research area that has not been thoroughly studied
• A situation or relationship that is not well explained
• A disturbing question that has not been resolved through research

Introduction
• Introduction is termed as the need for the study.

• It introduces the idea and sets the scene for the research

• It drives the research

• The introduction should be designed to create interest in the reader about
the topic and proposal.

• It should convey to the reader, what you want to do, what necessitates the
study and your passion for the topic (Sandelowski & Barroso, 2003).

Problem and Objective

• What exactly do you want to study?

• Does the proposed study contribute to our general understanding of
crime, criminal behavior, the criminal justice system or policy
responses to crime?

• Specify Research problem or objective

• Indicate what you intend to achieve in the Research

Literature Review
• Review what others have written about your research topic

• Literature review tells you what is already known and not known.

• Your literature search must be organized around the key concepts you wish to
study

• You can access academic journals, reports by government agencies, institutional
databases, libraries online

• Summarize each article in a paragraph, highlighting the details relevant to your
research interest.

• Literature review should include supporting data, disagreements and analytical .

Theoretical Framework

• Discuss Criminological Theories that support your research. Those
theories must be synthesized into your Research. Examples of
Criminological Theories are Social learning theory, Strain theory,
Conflict theory, etc

• If you have not taken the Criminology and Theories of Crime class,
you can google theories that support your topic.

Research Questions

• What specific questions will your research try to answer?

• It’s useful to view research questions as a more specific version of the
problem or objective described earlier

• Your specific questions should be framed so as to address the
research objective

• Your study’s research question/questions is not the same as your
survey questions

Hypothesis
• You only need to state Hypothesis if you are going to conduct a hypothesis

testing, in that case a quantitative analysis.

• A hypothesis is a specific, clear, and testable proposition or predictive
statement or possible outcome of a scientific research that must be tested

• Two types of Hypothesis –
• Null Hypothesis is the starting point of your measurement and represents

equality eg there is no difference between variable A and variable B
• Research Hypothesis represents inequality eg. there is a difference b/w

two variables or there is a relationship between rehabilitation and
recidivism

Research Methods and Design
• Subjects for Study – population and sampling

• Whom or what will you study in order to collect data?

• Identify who are available for study and how you will reach them.

• Is it appropriate to select a sample? If so, how will you do that?

• If there is any possibility that your research will have an impact on those
you study, how will you ensure that they are not harmed by the research?

• If you intend to interact with human subjects in the course of your
research, you may have to include a consent form.

Measurement

• What are the key variables in your study?

• How will you define and measure or operationalize them?

Data Collection Method

• How will you actually collect the data for your study?

• Will you observe behavior directly or conduct a survey? Surveys are used to
study attitudes, perceptions and opinions

• Will you undertake field research, or will you focus on reanalysis of data
already collected by others?

• You may include more than one research method.

Data Analysis

• Briefly describe the kind of analysis you plan to conduct.

• Are you interested in precise description of your data?

• Do you intend to explain why things are the way they are?

• What possible explanatory variables will your analysis consider?

• Will you conduct qualitative analysis or quantitative analysis?

References

• Ensure to reference and include a list of all materials you consulted
and cited in your proposal.

• Reference your materials according to APA format.

References

• Sandelowski M, Barroso J. (2003). Writing the proposal for a
qualitative research methodology project. Quality Health
Research. 13, 781–820.

1

Research Proposal
Topic:
What is a Research Proposal?

• A research proposal is a detailed plan or ‘blueprint’ for the intended study
• Research proposal forms the backbone for the research and is the most important

step in the process of conducting research
• Research Proposal describe planned activities and include a timeline
• Research Proposal describes what you intend to accomplish and how

Elements of a Research proposal
• Identify a research problem or research topic
• Introduction
• Problem and objectives
• Literature Review
• Theoretical Framework
• Research Questions
• Hypothesis
• Research Methods and Design

• Measurement
• Subjects for Study – population and sampling
• Research Instrument – surveys (questionnaire), interviews,

• Data Collection Methods
• Data Analysis
• References

Annotated Bibliography
You are required to work on your annotated bibliography which is a list of resources or
literature you intend to review for the project. In this case, you would organize the list of
literature, read the journal articles, books or other documents relevant to your topic,
provide brief analytical summary of each. Your annotated bibliography must contain at
least 20 annotated Literature (journal articles and/or books).
Annotated Bibliography: An annotated bibliography is a list of citations from books,
journal articles, and documents that are relevant to your research topic. You can visit
Databases to find academic materials for your research project. Each citation is annotated
by writing a very brief (usually about 150-250 words) descriptive summary of the article
in a paragraph. The purpose of the annotation is to inform the reader of the relevance of
the sources cited in relation to the research topic.
Retrieved from https://guides.library.cornell.edu/annotatedbibliography. Writing
Annotated bibliography before the actual Research paper helps students to easily develop
their literature review and complete the Research project.

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About the Research Project
You are required to present a 25 pages double space (Font 12) research project. The
project will be written in a journal article format and will report the results of a survey
research, interviews, case studies (primary research) or secondary research (use of
existing data) consistent with the knowledge gained throughout the criminal justice
program or based on another related knowledge. Pick up any journal article written
according to the APA style, and see the format that is used, that is, the different sections
of the journal, the font, the space between lines, the reference system, etc.
The project should follow the following structure, that is, every paper should
contain the following 17 items:
(1) A cover page which contains the title of the project and the name of the author as

specified at the end of these instructions. Cover page must be written according to the
APA format.
Each paper needs to have a title. Choose a topic that relates to Criminal justice
issues. Example:

(2) A table of content
(3) An abstract. An abstract is a succinct description of the whole research project. It
includes a brief description of the purpose of the study, the methodology used (briefly
describing the procedure, the population, the sampling, the instrumentation, the analysis),
the key findings and the implications or recommendations. All this should be said in
about 200 words (about one third to a half page).
(4) An Introduction (1 – 1 & half pages) (what the researcher wants to investigate), the
importance and relevance of the topic. Properly introduce your research, pointing out the
need for the research and support its relevance with available data. Your research
question should be related to the title. According to the title of your choice.
There needs to be evidence in your Introduction that you read journal articles, books, or
other websites etc that would help you to construct a good Introduction. This paper is
purely based on Research. Read over, correct grammatical errors and repetitions.
Your introduction should not be based exclusively on personal opinions.
You are required to write an introduction that drives this research. As pointed out above,
your introduction should not be completely based on personal opinions, more should be
based on academic materials you read. You need to read journal articles, books and
official websites/database that relate to your topic to help you construct a very good
Introduction. I recommend that you also cite data to buttress the need for this study.

• Introduction is termed as the need for the study.

• It introduces the idea and sets the scene for the research

• It drives the research

(5) Purpose of the Study
The purpose of your Research is a concise description of what the Researcher is trying to
achieve. You need to summarize your intended accomplishments through this research.

Read developments in your area of research and find gaps in literature that needs to be
addressed. Also discuss those gaps, pointing out the need for this study.

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You are required to subtitle the “Purpose of the Study”. You are required to discuss
your own Objective or purpose of conducting this study.
Here are important features to consider here:

• Discuss exactly why you are conducting this study.
• Discuss how your study would contribute to our general understanding of your

research interest.
• Specify Research problem or objective
• Indicate what you intend to achieve in the Research

(6) Literature Reviews (about 12 Pages)
A complete literature review including criminological theories or theoretical
frameworks that support your research topic: You should review various literature
related to the topic to be investigated. In this case it is the literature related to your topic.
It means that you have to go to the library, virtual library or go to the internet and read
articles or books that have dealt with the topic you are investigating. The literature review
helps you learn about what has been said by previous researchers on this topic, what were
their findings, what were their successes or shortcomings (limitations), what new
orientation they propose, so that you, as a junior researcher, can see what stone was left
unturned, and you can fill that gap in your present or future study. Once you get a good
idea or finding or discussion from those previous studies, you can include them in your
study as an argument or counterargument in what you are doing. If you quote somebody
or paraphrase someone else, you need to give a proper reference, that is, you have to give
the credit where it belongs. Generally, every scholarly paper you read always starts with
the literature review before going into the methodology and data analysis; this is a
good model you must follow as you write your paper. We do this to avoid to re-invent
the wheels: your work should lean on the work of others who have done similar research
before you. Remember that a good literature review takes the shape of a reversed
pyramid. That is, you start with a broad area, and you narrow it down to the point you
like to focus your study on. What you would like to do here is to find the gaps or some of
the good ideas that you can explore in your study to make it stand out. The gaps could be
in the methodology, the sample, the sampling technique, the analysis or an aspect that the
previous researcher completely overlooked. It is advisable to start with the most recent
articles and to go backward in order to capture the most recent findings. For example,
start with the articles written in 2021 & 2020 and move back to those of 2019, 2018, then
2017, then 2016, etc. You may easily have about 10 or 12 pages here as this is one of the
most critical parts of this research project, it is one that will take you more time to
complete.
YOU MUST PROPERLY IN-TEXT CITE AND REFERENCE according to APA format
to avoid plagiarism.
Paragraphing: You need to develop your Literature reviews in paragraphs for clarity.
Each article you are reviewing must start on a new paragraph. Your paragraphs must be
understandable and coherent. Each paragraph should be about half a page, with sentences
related to the main idea.

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In-text Citations: Also avoid in-text citing of publications’ URL, rather cite author’s last
name and year of publication. Cite more of peer reviewed journal articles, books,
government websites, and institution’s database etc.

(7) Theoretical Framework
You need to include Theoretical Framework that is composed of Criminological or
Criminal Justice Theories. Your Theoretical Framework must be subtitled and discussed
substantially. Your Criminological Theories must not be kept hanging, it must be
connected to your research objective. I advise, you limit your theories to about 2 or 3
(but not less than 2) and these theories must strongly support your research.
Examples of criminological theories are Social Learning Theory, Strain Theory, Critical
Race Theory, Biological Theory, Rational Choice Theory, Classical Theory, Deterrence
Theory, Conflict Theory, Social Disorganization Theory etc.

(8). Research Question/s:
You need to include your main Research Questions at the end of your Literature Reviews
and sub-title it “Research Questions”.
Here are some important features of the “Research Questions” –

• What specific questions will your research try to answer?

• It’s useful to view research questions as a more specific version of the problem or
objective described earlier

• Your specific questions should be framed so as to address the research objective

• Your study’s main research question/questions is not the same as your survey
questions but your main Research question/s sets the scene for your survey
questions. Research question/s drives your survey questions.

Using the title above, what you want to see is what the students at your local college or
university think (their perception) about the level of safety on their campus. In other
words, do the students feel safe or unsafe? How do they feel about the level (number) of
crimes on that campus? Are there adequate protective measures to ensure student safety
on that campus? Who have the most fear of crime, females or males, freshmen, or
seniors? What else could be done to provide more safety to the students, etc…

(9) Hypotheses (if needed): after you have reviewed the literature you should state your
hypotheses in relation with your research question. This is nothing else than what you
would like to test (evaluate) with the data that you collect. This is a statement of a
relationship between two or more variables to be tested. The data will allow you to reject
or retain the hypothesis. You may have one, two, three or more hypotheses, depending
upon your interest and your data. Having one or two may be more manageable for this
kind of time sensitive exercise. For example: Female students at Norfolk State
University feel safer on their campus than the male students. Or Male students at the
local university are less concerned about safety on campus than female students, etc…
Note: Skip this section if you are not testing any hypothesis. Once you state your
hypothesis, you are required to test it.

5

(10) Research Method and Design – Explaining the population under investigation, the
sampling method and procedure of data collection, the instrument used. This is an area
where the researcher is the more creative. Are you going to use experimental designs or
other types of data gathering strategies (survey, interview, case study, participant
observation…)? For this project, you may conduct a survey (questionnaire, interviews –
structure or unstructured, etc). In your Research Method class course, you learnt about
how to design a good questionnaire, the wording, the timing, the relationship between
your question items and the variables to be analyzed in the study.
Your questionnaire should not be unnecessarily long with questions that you will never
use, or extremely short to leave out some important questions. Always ask yourself why
you ask a particular question and how you will use it in your study.

Sampling: Choose a sample wisely, that is, a sample that is appropriate for the types of
data you want. Next is the question of how the sample is selected. Statisticians would
recommend a random sample. If you use one like this, explain what sampling
procedure you used (the Research Method book gives you different sampling
techniques/designs); if you did not, justify why the departure from randomness and
how it will affect the generalizability of your findings. This is often one of the
concerns reported in the limitations of the study. What you do here is to provide the
reader with enough information for him or her to replicate whatever you have done; that
is why, in writing this section, you should provide enough details. You may select non-
probability sampling design like Purposive sampling, Snowball sampling,
Convenience sampling etc.

(11) A statement of compliance (this section is not required, DO NOT INCLUDE
THIS SECTION IN YOUR RESEARCH) with the regulation on the protection of
human subjects. In chapter 2 we learned about how human subjects have been abused in
research, and the precautions that are to be taken when one is engaged in research
involving human subjects. If you think that your investigation will cause some harm or
embarrassment, discomfort to the respondent, then you need to seek the consent for their
voluntary participation, and you must submit a protocol to the Institutional Review Board
(IRB). In the present case we do not have enough time to go through this IRB
process, therefore, make your questions more general so that they do not touch the
areas that are sensitive to individual subjects.

(12) Data Collection – Describe the details of the data you collected for your study.
You are required to discuss in detail how you collected your data. You are basically
giving details of the data collection processes and procedures in your own words and
sometimes quoting from the Interviewees, but those quotes must be in “quote”.
Discuss the number of questions you used to conduct the research. Discuss what the
structure of questions are aimed at, if closed-ended or open-ended, or both, if interview
(if you conducted interview) like structured, semi-structured or unstructured interviews
were used to guide interviewees during the conversations. Discuss your behavior and
participants during the interview. If Surveys, discuss if you included yes/no or likert scale
questions like (strongly agree, agree, neutral, disagree, strongly disagree) which helps to
explore participants’ perceptions and opinions. Discuss why you chose open-ended or

6

close-ended questions. Which may allow interviewees or participants to share their
experiences. Discuss more on this ….
If you used secondary data, discuss how you collected the secondary data including
databases and websites that you visited to collect your data. Also discuss your steps
in collecting your data.
Also discuss the type of data that was collected such as participants’ responses, direct
observations, pictures etc. You can also describe the interview environment if one on one
interview. Also discuss how you collected the data eg notetaking, audio or video
recording etc.
Also discuss potential risks
Discuss about the Informed consent. For instance, the participants were expected to sign
consent forms showing that they were willfully participating in the study. Discuss more
on this…

(13) Data Analyses Procedure and Data Analyses: Describe how your data will be
input (it goes even to describe what software you will use –SPSS or Excel or others) and
analyzed: what statistical procedure will be used. Normally, in this section, you tell the
reader what procedure you used for Quantitative study (frequency tables, percentages, t-
test, regression, correlation, ANOVA, etc), and why it is the appropriate procedure. You
may employ basic descriptive statistics, and or inferential statistics such as frequency
tables, crosstabs, histogram, charts/graphs, measures of central tendency, means
comparisons, contingency tables, percentages, t-test, regression, correlation, ANOVA, or
the likes whatever you can afford thru Excel or SPSS.

If you conduct Qualitative Research like Interviews or Case Studies, you are also
required to analyze your data using Qualitative approaches like Narrative Analysis,
Thematic Analysis, and Discourse Analysis etc. Read more on this.

Data analysis is not about copying and pasting your Interview responses. You need to
analyze those responses based on the objectives of your research. You need to analyze all
the important aspects of your surveys and Interviews based on themes you come up with.
First, read about how to analyze survey and interview data. If your topic is on Police
Brutality and Misconduct. You are required to analyze and discuss the responses from
your participants.
If you conducted Interviews, Analyze your interview data according to Themes. Be Very
Clear on your Analysis. Read about Thematic Analysis.
Thematic Analysis: You need to identify Themes from the responses. And analyze
accordingly. You can create tables for this and analyze the contents of the table.

(14) Discussion: Here is where you explain the result you obtained, whether they are
significant in relation with your hypotheses – whether or not your hypotheses are
supported or rejected or in relation to your Research questions. The analogy is that of a
spin doctor, who tries to give his or her interpretation of the findings. You will show
here if your findings confirm or not the findings by others that you reviewed in the
literature. You can use sources from your literature review section or some outside
sources to support your arguments.

7

(15). Conclusion: Discuss your conclusion.

(16) Limitations, Policy Implications/Recommendations. Talk about the implications
of your findings, and the limitations (problems you encountered during your research) of
your study – these could be due to your sampling, lack of time or resources, your data or
your analysis. This can be your sampling designs, increasing the sample size,
diversifying the sample, trying the study with a different population, using different data
analysis technique, time constraints etc. Finally, what do you recommend that society
should do, or future researchers should do in the light of your findings?

(17) Reference Page – Properly reference your sources according to APA format. All
referenced materials must be in-text cited. Reference according to APA format.
Just remember that the American Psychological Association (APA) style is required for
writing all papers in criminal justice and criminology. It is important for you to review
the manual to see how the other sections of the research paper are presented You could
obtain a copy of the Publication Manual for the American Psychological Association, (6th
edition or the 7th edition) or review its content as needed in the library.

You are required to submit in the attachment after your References, also the survey
or interview questionnaire that you have used in your study.

About the American Psychological Association (APA) style
There are many styles used to refer; the biomedical style, the sociological style, the
American Psychological Association (APA) style, just to name a few. The Department
of Criminal Justice has adopted the APA style in all their written works. We all, students,
and teachers, need to know how to use it. And take it from me: I am not inventing it or
making it unnecessarily burdensome (or being too picky or meticulous about it); it is a
guide by which we all must abide. There is only one correct way to do it, not two; just
follow the manual carefully as it explains, and gives example for, each case.

To get acquainted to the process, you need to read a couple of well-written scholarly
papers and see how the literature review section is presented and have an idea of how
many sources have been cited. I do not expect you to cite as many, but your literature
reference should include all the sources used and cited in your paper.

Each time a source is cited in the body of the report, there must be a reference item on it
in the reference page. Remember: no name or source shall be in the reference page that
was not cited in the body of the report, as much as no name or source shall be in the body
of the report that is not listed in the reference page. The APA style recommends that you
cite the last name of the author(s) in the body of the report plus the year of the publication
on the side of the citation, and the complete reference in the reference page in the back of
the report. It should include the last name, the first and middle initials, the year of the
publication, the title of the article, the journal title, the volume, the issue number, and the
pages. For a book, the reference should include the last name, the first and middle

8

initials, the year of the publication, the title of the book, the publisher, the place of
publication, the edition number, the page, etc.

To know all the details, you must read the relevant pages of the APA manual, the 7th
edition. It is this last edition that we all must follow. Don’t go back to the previous
editions as things keep changing from one edition to the next. The latest edition always
overrides the previous ones. Please take time to read the relevant pages: this is not a
waste of time. Many students do not take time to learn those details and end up with a
substandard job. When you present your paper, the strict respect of the APA style is the
first thing I pay attention to.
I know this is a tedious job but one that you all must become familiar with; there is no
other way around. Take that pain now; it will make your work much easier later.

Practical Concerns and General Remarks about the Paper Submission.
1. Have a cover page according to APA format which includes:

Title of the Assignment: Research Project
Topic: Title of the Project
Submitted by: Your name

To: Name of your Instructor
Course Name and Number:

Term
Institution Name

2. Check the spelling, punctuation, and grammar. All that is part of this exercise. Do
not neglect it; I grade your paper on all of that. Good research presented in a poorly
written style is not appealing. A good way to check that your writing is acceptable, is to
give it to another person (spouse, peer, friend or else) to read before you turn it in.

Good Luck!

Criminological Theory: A Brief

Introduction

Fourth Edition

Chapter 1

Theoretical Criminology:
An Introductory Overview

Copyright

© 2015, 2011, 2008 Pearson Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved

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Introduction

• Crime is a reality of modern life

• Criminal Justice is concerned with the actual practice of
law enforcement

• Criminology is focused on the process of making and
breaking laws

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Origins and Evolution of Criminology

• Attention to crime can be traced back to Babylon and the
Code of Hammurabi

• Family-revenge model of justice

• Hobbes’ social contract

• Social contract involves sacrifice of personal freedom in
exchange for governmental protection

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Classical School of Criminology

• Exemplified by the writings of Cesare Beccaria and
Jeremy

Bentham

• Grounded in the concept of deterrence and places
emphasis on free will

• Focused on dimensions of punishment (certainty,
severity, and celerity)

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Significant Aspects

• Two important developments in regard to criminological
thought
1. Crime was no longer thought to be a product of

religion, superstition or myth
2. Crime was seen as a result of free will

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Positivism

• Emerged in Europe during the 19th century

• Emphasized the application of the scientific method

• Stressed the identification of patterns and consistencies
in observable facts

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Determinism

• Takes the position that human behavior is caused by
factors specific to the individual

• These factors include biological, psychological and
environmental issues

• Lombroso is the most notable figure associated with
determinism

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The Chicago School

• Helped positivism replace the classical approach to crime
during the 1920s

• Conducted a series of studies that demonstrated that
crime is a product of social ecology, specifically the
disorganization of urban life

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Nature of Theory

• What exactly is theory?

• Theory is a part of everyday life and an attempt to make
sense and order out of otherwise unexplainable events

• Observable phenomena are specified as either a cause
or effect and positioned in a relationship statement

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Cause and Effects (1 of 2)

• Are termed variables

• These statements are presented as hypotheses and are
formed to explain/predict how one factor or multiple
factors relate to the phenomena being explored

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Cause and Effects (2 of 2)

• These relationships form specific theories of crime

• Are developed according to the logic of variable analysis

• Analytic strategy specifies causal elements as
independent and dependent variables

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Variables

• In criminology, crime is the foremost dependent variable
(dv)

• Variable analysis process seeks to account for variation
in crime

• When crime is the dv, further scrutiny reveals that
theorists are referring to criminality or the crime rate

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Criminality versus the Crime Rate

• Criminality denotes the extent/frequency of offending by a
societal group

• Crime Rate denotes level of crime in a specific locale (i.e.
Phoenix)

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Correlation

• Speaks to the covariance of variables

• The direction and strength in fluctuation of the dv(s)

• Directional correlation refers to either a positive or
negative relationship

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Operationalization

• In order to analyze theoretical propositions, independent
and dependent variables are re-specified

• Variables move from a categorical/conceptual level to a
measurable level (this process is known as
operationalization)

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Determination of Causation (1 of 2)

• The strength/direction of correlations serve the objective
of determining causation

• Causation is whether an independent variable prompts
change in a dependent variable, and if so, in what
manner

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Determination of Causation (2 of 2)

• To have confidence in observed causal relationships,
there must be specificity and accuracy in the
measurement process

• Researchers refer to this as operationalization!

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Assessing Theory (1 of 2)

• What makes a theory scientific?

• Characterizing theory as scientific means that inferential
claims about relationships must be falsified

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Assessing Theory (2 of 2)

• Research entails gathering data according to the
operationalization process so that theory is framed
systematically for cause and effect

• If observations are inconsistent with premise, theory is
falsified

• Observations that are consistent are more credible, but
not necessarily true

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Elements of Causation

• Causation in the context of scientific theory requires 4
main elements

– Logical Bias
– Temporal Ordering
– Correlation
– Lack of Spuriousness

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Influence of Social Perspectives on
Theories of Crime

• Criminological theories discuss crime at different levels of
social realities/interactions

• Micro-Level Theory focuses on individual and small group
behavior

• Macro-Level Theory looks to the structural properties of
society (social inequality, culture, demographics, etc.)

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Perspectives of Social Life and the
development of Theory

• Three perspectives of social life contribute to the creation
of crime and deviance theories
1. Functionalism
2. Social Conflict
3. Symbolic Interactionism

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Why Theory Matters

• Theory is vital to criminology for several reasons:
1. Provides a scientific orientation to the phenomena of

crime
2. It grounds styles of inquiry systematically
3. Helps identify cause and effect relationships

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Evidence-Based Practice (1 of 2)

• Evidence-based practice has emerged in recent years
and signals a systematic betterment of practice through
research knowledge

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Evidence-Based Practice (2 of 2)

• For a program to be considered evidence-based, three
criteria must be met:
1. Previous implementation/delivery
2. Scientific Evaluation Finding Effectiveness
3. Successful Replication

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Theory and Policy

• A direct connection exists between theory and policy

• Theoretically-based research often sheds light on a better
way of doing things

• Typically, justice system practices and programs are
shaped by the logic of theory

Criminological Theory: A Brief
Introduction
Fourth Edition

Chapter 2

Classical and
Neoclassical Criminology

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The Classical School

• Classical Theory is one of the oldest explanations of
crime

• Derived from the ideas and writing of early Greek
philosophy

• Formally originated in the 18th century

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Classical Theory of Criminology

• Began in 1764 with ‘Of Crime and Punishments’ by
Cesare Beccaria

• This book drew from the concepts of the enlightenment
movement in Europe

• Theory focused on social harm prevention as opposed to
moral retribution of law

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Deterrence

• Beccaria looked at deterrence as the central purpose of
criminal justice

• The prevalence of crime in society was thought to reflect
irrational and ineffective law

• Legal reform implementing a more fair and rational justice
system, which would deter people from crime, was
thought to be the answer to the crime problem

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Fundamental

Assumptions

• Beccaria’s perspective is rooted in several fundamental
assumptions
1. People are generally good but need negative

motivation
2. Behavior is calculated
3. Crime control is an attainable goal

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Bentham

• Another well known figure in the development of the
classical perspective

• Developed the principle of utility based on the
assumption that people pursue pleasure and avoid pain

• Individuals calculate pleasure or pain according to
intensity, duration, certainty and extent

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Classical Criminology Assumptions

• Several assumptions underlie classical criminology
1. People have free will
2. People exhibit hedonism
3. People have rationality

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Deterrence Theory

• Martinson (1974) questioned the viability of positivist
explanations of criminality

• He also suggested that the idea behind deterrence
should be reconsidered

• This questioning included a postmodern rejection of
causal determinism

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How Deterrence Works

• To understand deterrence one must accept basic
classical ideas about human nature

• Much of the problem with crime is that it “feels good”

• Crime must be controlled by negative means

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Deterrence Effectiveness (1 of 2)

• Beccaria argues that the effectiveness of deterrence will
depend on three characteristics related to punishment
administration
1. Certainty
2. Celerity (speed of punishment)
3. Severity (painfulness of outcome)

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Deterrence Effectiveness (2 of 2)

• Of the three characteristics, maximizing swiftness and
certainness is more important for deterrence than
severity

• If severity is disproportionate, irrationality brutality may
occur and the effect on crime will be counterproductive

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Relativity

• A less extreme problem with severity has to do with
relativity

• Deterrence functions through criminal law, which makes
assumptions about which crimes are to be punished
more severely

• Sentencing is based on severity and not on
characteristics of the crime

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Limitations of Deterrence (1 of 2)

• Cost-benefit conceptualization of deterrence theory is
known as the economic model or objective deterrence

• Cost/benefit calculations are based on a number of
factors

• At times some offenders do not engage in rational
decision making

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Limitations of Deterrence (2 of 2)

• Deterrence theory assumptions are often faulty in
practice

• The diverse stratified and pluralistic nature of our society
make deterrence less than straightforward

• Different socioeconomic groups might opt out of different
crimes due to cost/benefits

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Variability of Severity

• Variability of true severity has an intangible element

• EG: Approval of peer groups and concepts such as direct
and indirect punishments affect deterrence

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Boundedness of Decision Making (1 of 2)

• Scholars recrafted deterrence to include the role of
variability and perception in individual decision making

• This is known as bounded choice/perceptual deterrence
theory

• Decisions to engage in criminal behavior are influenced
by an individual’s perception of punishment

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Boundedness of Decision Making (2 of 2)

• Deterrence occurs when perceptions of likely punishment
cause would be offenders to refrain from committing
criminal acts (despite motivation and willingness)

• Modern analysis of deterrence has divided deterrence
into two specific types (specific and general)

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Specific Deterrence

• Offender is inhibited from repeating criminal behavior by
unpleasant experiences

• Involves the direct experience of punishment

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General Deterrence

• Punishing other offenders has an effect on would be
offenders

• Involves the indirect or vicarious experience of
punishment through seeing others receive unpleasant
outcomes for their actions

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Research on Deterrence Theories

• As a theory, the validity of deterrence as a scientific
explanation depends on the ability to conduct empirical
research and testing hypotheses

• Research to study deterrence is typically very difficult to
accomplish

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Difficulties (1 of 2)

• Part of the difficulty with deterrence theory is determining
fully measurable concepts and fully specified/testable
hypotheses

• Fundamental difficulty is that deterrence is not
observable, it can only be inferred from observable
events

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Difficulties (2 of 2)

• As deterrence cannot be “seen” the majority of research
has been conducted on the failures of deterrence

• Observing people committing crime is a failure of
deterrence

• We do not really observe people not committing crime

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Methods to Determine Validity of
Deterrence Theory

1. Anecdotal Studies

2. Crime Rate Analysis

3. Natural/Field Experiments

4. Self-Report Surveys

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Appeal of Deterrence (1 of 2)

• Overall, the appeal of the theory is not entirely based on
scientific progress

• Theory is more ideological than utilitarian

• Agrees with the values we hold about human nature, law
and morality

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Appeal of Deterrence (2 of 2)

• Classical theory works, “well enough,” re: empirical
research and policy evaluations

• Does not work better than most positivist theoretical
competitors

• The variability of criminal punishments will always limit
this theory

Criminological Theory: A Brief
Introduction
Fourth Edition

Chapter 3

Biosocial Theories of Crime

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Introduction

• Explaining how and why some people become criminal
can be a challenging endeavor

• Biosocial theories of crime focus on identifying and
understanding unique qualities or characteristics of
individuals and show how the presence or absence of
some chemical hormone or physical structure is related
to criminal activity

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Biosocial Criminology

• 4 factors play a role in shaping a person’s behavior
1. Biological Factors such as hormone levels
2. Genetic Factors
3. The brain
4. The environment

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Positivist School of Thought

• The foundation for biosocial theories comes from
positivism

• Positivism is an approach to the study of human behavior
that seeks to identify the underlying causes of that
behavior using the principles and tools of the scientific
method

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Positivist Thinking in Biological
Criminology

• Based on three core assumptions
1. All people are biologically unique and different from

all other people
2. Differences in individual makeup account for

differences in individual behavior
3. Criminal behavior is a result of different constructions

and characteristics of individuals

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Early Biological Research (1 of 3)

• Early biosocial research identified different characteristics
of criminals’ faces and heads

• Phrenology or the idea that different parts of the brain
controlled different types of activities and thinking was
also important

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Early Biological Research (2 of 3)

• Some of the core characteristics discussed by Lombroso
involving atavism include:
1. Large Forehead
2. Protruding lips
3. Large Jaw
4. Long Arms

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Early Biological Research (3 of 3)

• Some of the core characteristics discussed by Lombroso
involving atavism include:
5. Pouchlike Cheeks
6. Eyes or Ears that stand out from the head

• Reference work of Ferri and Garafalo

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Early Biological Theories

• Probably the most well known was Lombroso and his
ideas of atavism

• Criminals were thought to be “throwbacks,” to a lower
form of human beings

• Certain physical characteristics were thought to relate to
criminal activity

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Contemporary Biosocial Theories

• Today’s biosocial theories as noted earlier focus on 4
factors and the roles each play in criminality

• These factors are biological, genetic, the brain, and the
environment

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Biological Factors (1 of 2)

• One of the more commonsense approaches that has
developed to explain crime is a focus on hormones

• Research on men has focused on high levels of
testosterone

• Estrogen levels in women have also been thought to be
related to criminality

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Biological Factors (2 of 2)

• Biological factors and their relationship to crime are
affected by social influences

• Diet, nutritional intake, and diet during pregnancy are
other important factors that relate to future criminality

• Much research remains to be done in this area

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Genetic Factors: Behavior Genetics

• Theories that argue that an individual’s behavioral
genetics are important for criminality emphasize that
behavior is inherited and runs through families

• The central theory behind this is that genes play a role in
crime, and are passed through families just like diseases

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Genetic Factors and Criminality

• The impact of genetic factors on criminality can be
studied in two different ways
1. Through behavior genetic analysis
2. Molecular genetic analysis

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Molecular Genetics

• Behavioral genetic research has shown antisocial
behavior to be heritable

• The bulk of evidence suggests that antisocial behavior
such as aggression and criminality carry heritability
coefficients of .5

• Different chromosomal patterns, such as XXY, have been
shown to lead to increased involvement in crime

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The Brain (1 of 2)

• How do hormones and genetics have an effect on
behavior?

• The answer is that they effect the brain in the same way

• Chemicals known as neurotransmitters allow hormones
and genetic factors to affect behavior

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The Brain (2 of 2)

• One of the strongest links between brain development
and criminality centers around alcohol, specifically
prenatal exposure to alcohol

• Research has shown that pregnant women who drank as
little as 3 times per week during pregnancy were more
likely to have children with conduct disorders

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The Environment (1 of 2)

• The final piece necessary to explain criminal behavior
from a biosocial perspective is the environment

• Biosocial criminologists tend to view the environment in a
different light than more traditional sociological
explanations

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The Environment (2 of 2)

• The role of the environment is not exclusive to biological
functions like hormones

• Most genetic research points to the environment as being
closely related to crime

• Environmental factors typically act in a complementary or
moderating role

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Policy Implications of Biosocial
Criminology (1 of 3)

• Crime as an inherited trait has been commonly argued as
part of several theories with some suggesting that it is
deterministic inheritance

• Others suggest inheritance predisposes individuals to a
greater likelihood of being criminal

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Policy Implications of Biosocial
Criminology (2 of 3)

• Biological influences like hormones and genes make
crime more or less probable

• Many feel that by placing the blame on the environment
for crime means that the blame is taken off the criminal

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Policy Implications of Biosocial
Criminology (3 of 3)

• The policy implications of biosocial criminology is that we
need to identify what is wrong with genes, body, or brain
and find a way to cure the problem

• Behavioral problems are typically multifaceted and stem
from a combination of different influences

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Conclusion (1 of 3)

• Biological explanations for crime and criminality have
been around in multiple forms for several centuries

• Earlier biological theories differ from the more recent
biological theories

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Conclusion (2 of 3)

• Two ways in which older versions and recent versions
differ

– Content of earlier theories was based on shape, size
and distinguishing features of the body

– Early biological theories believed that certain traits
defined a person as criminal

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Conclusion (3 of 3)

• The deterministic view arose out of fairly simple logic and
thinking, and today we recognize that there are many
different characteristics of people, environments and
other influences that prevent individuals from controlling
their own behavior.

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Criminological Theory: A Brief
Introduction
Fourth edition

Chapter 4

Psychological Theories of
Crime

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Introduction

• Concerns about psychological issues in our society are
closely tied to concerns about criminality and violence

• Considering crime as a mental or psychological issue is
logical

• A number of facts about known criminals exist that
support psychological links to crime

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Facts that relate Psychology to Crime

1. Typically prison inmates have lower than average Iqs

2. There are significantly high rates of mental illness
among convicted criminals compared to the general
population

3. Psychological explanations of crime support some of the
most popular views and are reinforced by the media

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Psychoanalytic Theory (1 of 2)

• A psychoanalytic perspective on crime offers
explanations based on the ideas of Freudian psychology
and its theory of personality

• People commit crime due to the three parts of their
personality (id, ego, super ego) being in conflict with one
another as a result of early life trauma/deprivation

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Psychoanalytic Theory (2 of 2)

• One way in which psychoanalytic theory stands apart
from most other theories is its assumption that people are
born with antisocial predispositions

• Freudian psychology proposes that personality is
comprised of 3 primary parts

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Three Parts of Personality

1. ID: The part of the personality that represents the set of
instincts and drives the need or demand for instant
gratification

2. Superego: Represents opposite forces and serves as
social consciousness or authority of a person

3. Ego: Attempts to balance the drives of the id and the
superego

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Crime in Psychoanalytic Perspective

1. People are not appropriately socialized, the id drives
people to do as the please

2. People are oversocialized with the superego dominating
their personality and establishing behavioral patterns

3. People who repress their guilt may eventually
experience a breakthrough of repressed guilt/id and
explode by acting out

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Personality Theories

• A commonly held belief is that criminals just seem to
think differently than other people

• A criminal personality refers to a conceptually broad term
that describes the totality of an individual’s behavioral
and emotional characteristics

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Criminal Personality (1 of 2)

• Among the more influential personality approaches to
explaining crime is the idea of a criminal personality

• Yochelson and Samenow are the primary theorists
behind this approach and believe that criminal ways of
thinking are something with which individuals are born
with

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Criminal Personality (2 of 2)

• This theory argues that the criminal personality is not a
deterministic approach to crime but serves to predispose
individuals to criminal behavior

• Criminal thought patterns are thought to be errors of
criminal thinking and there are said to be 52 different
criminal thinking errors

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Lifestyle Perspective (1 of 3)

• A similar approach to the criminal personality is White
and Walters (1989), lifestyle perspective

• Crime, in theory, arises from how individuals live their
lives including the social environment they are in, the
choices they make about their behaviors, and the thinking
patterns they use to make choices in their everyday lives

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Lifestyle Perspective (2 of 3)

• The lifestyle perspective is centered on thought
processes, specifically the beliefs that the individual holds
and uses to interpret and make sense of his or her
environment and situations

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Lifestyle Perspective (3 of 3)

• Belief systems are generated by four critical/inter-related
factors
1. irresponsibility
2. self-indulgence
3. interpersonal intrusiveness
4. patterns of social rule breaking

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Dual Systems Theory (1 of 2)

• A nascent line of research, dual systems theory,
suggests that involvement in risky behavior must be
understood as the outcome result of two
neuropsychological systems within the body

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Dual Systems Theory (2 of 2)

• Dual systems theory states that risky behavior results
when sensation-seeking behavior is high or impulsivity
levels are low

• Sensation-seeking behaviors are thought to originate in
the parts of the brain that mature faster than the parts of
the brain used to control and inhibit such behavior

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Self-Control/Self-Regulation (1 of 2)

• A fourth version of personality theory highlights the
relationship between self-control/self-regulation and
criminal behavior

• This perspective is discussed more in Chapter 8

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Self-Control/Self-Regulation (21 of 2)

• A long line of research suggests that a correlation exists
between a person’s level

of self-control

and their
offending behavior

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Mental Capacity

• The argument that criminals have a mental illness is an
often cited explanation for their behavior

• Mental illnesses are typically thought of as misdirected
and error-ridden ways of thinking and perceiving the
world

• Estimates suggest that between 20-60% of prison
inmates have some form of mental illness

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Mental Illness and Crime

• Two most common mental illnesses associated with
crime are
1.

Schizophrenia

2. Antisocial Personality Disorders

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Schizophrenia

• Manifests itself in several different ways, varying in
degree of severity

• People with schizophrenia are withdrawn and apathetic in
their behavior and affect

• Has been linked to a variety of crimes including violent
and property offenses

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Antisocial Personality Disorder

• Is also referred to as psychopathy and sociopathy

• Individuals with this disorder experience a significant lack
of development of moral order or ethics

• Individuals diagnosed with this disorder are likely to
engage in a wide range of criminal behavior

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Affective Disorders

• A growing portion of research indicates that additional
mental disorders of the affective variety (i.e. depression)
may be linked with crime and delinquency

• Research shows that juvenile delinquents are more likely
than non- delinquents to suffer from substance use and
affective disorders

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Intelligence

• A long standing/popular belief about crime is that
criminals have lower IQ scores than non-criminals

• Important topics to be aware in this area include:

• Mental Capacity and Eugenics

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Developmental Life Course (DLC) (1 of 2)

• These types of theories emphasize that there are
different issues at the core of why persons do, and then
later do not engage in criminal behavior

• DLC theories look at behavioral trajectories over time for
individuals and groups to explain how and why
involvement in crime varies through an individual’s life

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Developmental Life Course (DLC) (2 of 2)

• At its core, DLC criminology is concerned with 3 primary
issues
1. Development of offending behavior
2. Identification of risk factors unique to individuals at

various ages
3. Effects of experienced events on how individual

offending behavior does/does not develop

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Additional DLC Theories

• Catalano and Hawkins

• LeBlanc

• Thornberry and Krohn

• Sampson and Laub

• Moffitt

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Conclusion

• Psychological theories for explaining crime and criminals
are popular because they seem to make sense
intrinsically and argue that criminals are distinct from the
rest of society

• Proponents of these theories are optimistic about the
possibility of addressing society’s crime problems

Psychosocial theories – assumptions

• Individuals are the units of analysis (study)
• Theorists are searching for personalities or personality

traits that distinguish between criminals and non-criminals
• Assumes that personality is the major motivational element
• Crime results from abnormal, dysfunctional, or

inappropriate processes within the personality
• Defective personality can result from a variety of causes

(biological, genetic, social)
• Criminal behavior serves a purpose for the individual

committing the crime (relieves aggression, is physiologically
reinforcing)

What we’ll look at today

• Psychopathic personalities

• The criminal mind

• Psychoanalytic approaches (mental illness)

• IQ and crime connection

Issues to think about

• If crime is explained by biological and/or
psychological forces that are beyond one’s
control. . . .can we then hold a person fully
responsible for their behavior?

• Can we force treatment (execution
competency)

• Can we reliably identify individuals who are
likely to commit crime based on their
personalities? What if we make a mistake?

Psychopathic personality (Anti-social
personality)

• Harvey Cleckley (1941) – The Mask of Sanity
• Hare “The Sociopaths Among Us”
• Sociopaths or psychopaths are characterized by:

– Superficial charm and intelligence
– Absence of delusions, hallucinations, or other signs of psychosis
– Absence of nervousness
– Unable to feel guilt or shame
– Unreliable, chronic lying
– Ongoing antisocial behavior (conduct disorder)
– Inability to learn from experience
– Narcissistic, unable to love
– Failure to follow a life plan

Interesting findings
• Prevalence: 6x more common in boys than girls; 6-16% in boys and

2-9% in girls – may be higher in samples of prisoners and substance
users

• Hare estimates 15% – 20% of prisoners are psychopaths compared
to 3-5% in general population

• Most agree there is a biological component: Impairment in
prefrontal cortex, amygdala, no physical reaction to emotional
things; genetic connection?

• We DO NOT know how to treat someone with sociopathy
• Early predictors (markers) (Macdonald triad – Triad of sociopathy)

– Bed wetting
– Firesetting
– Cruelty to animals (practice at victim selection)
– Not in all sociopaths!

The Criminal Mind

• Do you think criminals think differently than
non-criminals (you and I)?

• How so?

• Can we identify them ahead of time based on
these different thinking patterns?

• How do we change defective thought
processes?

The Criminal Mind
• Yochelson and Samenow (1976, 1977)
• “Thought patterns” that describe all criminals (based on

interviews with offenders) and 52 “errors of criminal
thinking”
– Chronic lying
– Other people’s property is their own
– Unrelenting optimism
– Great energy
– Fear of injury
– Intense anger
– Manipulativeness
– A high self-image
– Treating this “personality” type? (approach used today in

corrections)

Psychoanalytic criminology
• Developed from Freud’s work (ego, superego, and id)
• Do criminals have higher levels of mental disorders of these

types than non-criminals?
• Are people with mental disorders more likely to commit

crime than people without them?
• Does mental illness CAUSE crime?
• Neuroses – behavioral disorders characterized by anxiety

and fears or by overpowering drives to perform irrational
activities (examples?)

• Psychoses – Two forms marked by grossly distorted
conception of reality (hallucinations)
– Affective disorders (depression, bipolar )
– Schizophrenia

IQ – Crime connection

• Delinquents usually have lower verbal
intelligence (intellectual imbalance) (PIQ >
VIQ)

• Does this mean that low IQ in and of itself
causes crime? What might be some other
explanations?

Contributions from these
approaches?

How would you criticize this
approach?

Contributions
• Early ID becomes possible (threat assessment)

• Focus is now on rehabilitation (if it is possible)

• Psychological profiling techniques – assumes that behavior is
symptomatic of underlying personality (bleaching a crime scene,
taking away a “trophy”, staging a body, covering a body with a tarp,
bringing a weapon to the scene)

• Doesn’t always work (Sniper case)

Criticisms

• Hard to empirically measure and test
• Comparison group?
• Tautological and circular in nature (using criminality to

discover the defective personality and then using the
personality to explain the criminality)

• Scope? Can this approach explain all crime?
• Key problem – many offenders do not have underlying

psychological disorders – although media makes us
think otherwise (although substance abuse may alter
one’s personality) – folks with mental illness may be
more prone to be crime victims NOT offenders

• Many offenders do not have antisocial personalities

Criticisms (continued)

• Does not take into account the important role
of social, economic and political processes in
the production of criminal behavior

• Fails to explain how a criminal career
develops, peaks, and then wanes over time
(desistance)

• Fails to explain geographic differences in
crimes rates (between countries and regions)

• Fails to explain crime trends (waves over time)

Crime Control Measures/Policies
• Rehabilitation instead of punishment

– Treat the underlying condition with meds
– Can we “force medication”? Right to say NO?
– Competency to be executed

• Prediction and risk assessment (early intervention) – problems?

• Incapacitate only those for whom treatment doesn’t work

• Use of insanity defense and other diminished capacity techniques
(guilty but not mentally ill standard)
– McNaughten rule (did not know the nature of the act and that it was

wrong)
– Brawner rule (mental disease or defect results in inability to

appreciate criminality of conduct or to conform conduct to the
requirements of the law)

– Today defendant typically must prove

Outstanding issues

• Is free will a myth?
• Treatment not effective? How do we treat

sociopaths? Malingerers?
• Is mental illness an “aggravating” factor or

“mitigating” factor? (CJP research)
• Do offenders have a right to treatment just as

they have a right to punishment?
• Can we force psychiatric treatment on

offenders? Liberty vs. individual interests

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Criminological Theory: A Brief
Introduction
Fourth edition

Chapter 5

The Social Ecology of
Crime

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Social Disorganization Theory (1 of 2)

• Contains several assumptions that distinguish it from
other perspectives discussed in the text

• Social disorganization attempts to explain why some
communities have higher crime rates than others (not
individually based)

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Social Disorganization Theory (2 of 2)

• This theory assumes that social organization, schools,
churches, businesses, etc., when functioning normally
enable a community to deal with crime

• Crime is not due to defective people, but rather social
organizations that have failed

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Intellectual Origins

• During the early 1900s in Chicago, Park and Burgess
began their work on social ecology

• Social ecology holds that people struggle for survival in a
community of mutual dependence

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Important Principles

• Two principles are of particular importance to Social
Disorganization Theory
1. People compete for resources
2. People exist in a world of mutual dependence

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Location of Crime (1 of 2)

• Shaw and McKay (1942), developed the connection
between social disorganization and crime

• Looked at how crime was spread across Chicago in the
1930s and 1940s

• They found that crime was concentrated in slum areas,
which tended to be located in the center of the city

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Location of Crime (2 of 2)

• The pattern appeared to be consistent over time
regardless of ethnic composition

• Based on this information, the question then became,
why does place matter?

• The city of Chicago was divided into 5 zones that
radiated out from the city’s center or core

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Zones

• The Zones were as follows:
1. Inner City (Central Business District)
2. Transitional Zone (Area of high crime)
3. Working Class Zone
4. Residential Zone
5. Commuter Zone (Suburbs)

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Zone II

• The most important zone to the theory is the transitional
zone

• Homes in the area are older and of poorer condition

• People living in this zone have little tangible incentive to
make their communities better

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Social Disorganization and Causes

• Shaw and McKay concluded that Social Disorganization
is endemic to Zone II

• The community in this area cannot function as its
residents would desire

• They expend personal effort to improve the living
conditions of this type of neighborhood that is against the
common sense of individuals in this area

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Conditions for Social Disorganization (1 of 2)

• According to Shaw and McKay, 3 factors create natural
conditions for social disorganization
1.

Residential Instability

2.

Racial/Ethnic Heterogeneity

3. Poverty

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Conditions for Social Disorganization (2 of 2)

• Each of the aforementioned signs of disorganization
undermines the ability of residents to work in concert and
prevent crime from occurring

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Residential Instability

• Communities with a lot of residential turnover have high
levels of crime

• Effective formal and informal community organizations
require a relatively stable population

• People do not tend to form close ties with people they will
only know for a short while

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Racial/Ethnic Heterogeneity

• Shaw and McKay found that communities where many
different ethnic groups live in close proximity have higher
crime rates

• Communication was found to decrease under these
conditions, which made the community less effective at
being able to organize/control the neighborhood

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Poverty

• Communities with high poverty tend to lack the resources
needed for effective community organization

• Concentrated poverty weakens the tax base, which
supports community institutions (schools)

• Residents are focused on personal survival and not other
activities

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Development of Social Disorganization
Theory (1 of 4)

• After Shaw and McKay the theory languished for many
years

• Other theories become more popular

• Crime was seen as a byproduct of culture and not
explicitly the domain of poor communities

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Development of Social Disorganization
Theory (2 of 4)

• Disorganization also fell out of favor due to limitations
with data

• Weakness of community networks (an important factor of
disorganization) was hard to measure using typical
community level data

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Development of Social Disorganization
Theory (3 of 4)

• The primary data that disorganization theorists were able
to show were maps with dots denoting where crime was
taking place

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Development of Social Disorganization
Theory (4 of 4)

• In 1974, Kasorda and Janowitz talked of communities
with informal ties, which helped the theory come back
into fashion

• Kornheiser (1978), attacked critiques and focused on
informal social bonds

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Revived Social Disorganization Theory (1 of
2)

• Work by Sampson et al. (1997), created the concept of
Collective Efficacy

• Collective efficacy is the idea that residents band
together to protect the best interests of their communities

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Revived Social Disorganization Theory (2 of
2)

• Social Capital is related to collective efficacy and is
based on the idea that informal networks within the
community help prevent crime

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Policy Implications (1 of 3)

• On one level, disorganization theory suggests
straightforward policy

• Community organizations with informal control
mechanisms need to be promoted

• HOAs and neighborhood watches are examples of these
types of community organizations

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Policy Implications (2 of 3)

• Shaw and McKay’s Chicago Area Project is an example
of an early social program based on Social
Disorganization Theory

• Project staff and social workers were used to help create
and maintain community organizations

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Policy Implications (3 of 3)

• An interesting finding from this study was that once
financial support was cut back, these communities began
to have more issues

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Policy Implementation

• Why have these types of policies been so difficult to
implement?

• Issues such as residential mobility, incarceration (which
hurts communities) and improvements that ‘price out’
poor residents are some of the key issues here

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Routine Activities Theory

• Based on the work of Hawley (1950) suggesting that
there was a natural rhythm of human life

• Cohen and Felson (1979), three components were
necessary for a crime to occur
1. Motivated Offender
2. Suitable Target
3. Lack of Proper Guardianship

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Role of Social Changes

• Social Changes are often relevant for
facilitating/impeding situations in which offenders are
poorly defended/worthwhile targets

• Changes such as more women working (leaving homes
unguarded during the day) have affected crime rates

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Empirical Research/Criticisms

• A criticism of Routine Activities Theory is that it is difficult
to test

• Many look at routine activities as a victim blaming theory
and are thus highly critical of it

• Readers should be aware of the inherent ideology
embedded within any type of theory

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Criminological Theory: A Brief
Introduction
Fourth edition

Chapter 6

Learning and Cultural
Transmission Theories of

Crime

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Introduction

• Learning and cultural transmission theories generally
assume that criminal behavior is similar to other forms of
human behavior in certain respects

• Crime is viewed as a result of social interaction

• Criminal and noncriminal behaviors are learned through
the socialization process

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Learning Theories

• Learning theories contend that criminal behavior is
learned from others

• The learning process involves the internalization of
values, norms, and behaviors that vary across groups

• According to social learning theory, negative outcomes
are related to life experiences

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Differential Association Theory

• Created by Sutherland

• Emphasized the role of socialization in the development
of human behavior and interaction

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Socialization

• Refers to a process of human interaction on both one-on-
one and group levels, wherein behavior is learned
1. From Others
2. Reflective of society’s cultural and subcultural values

• This perspective emphasizes two primary influences
1. Agents of Socialization (who does the socializing)
2. Content of Socialization

• Reference the 9 formal propositions of differential
association in the text

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Akers’ Social Learning Theory (1 of 2)

• A criticism of Differential Association Theory is that it
failed to explain HOW people learn to commit crime

• Akers and Burgess revised the theory by incorporating
reinforcement, punishment and observational learning
into differential association

• The people with whom we spend the majority of our time
with shape our reality

• Definitions (part of Social Learning) refer to how we
define certain situations

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Akers’ Social Learning Theory (2 of 2)

• The continuation of behavior is consequence-based

• If one wants a behavior to persist, learning theory
postulates that the behavior must be rewarded when it
occurs

• Concepts such as positive and negative reinforcement
and positive and negative punishment come into play
here

• Imitation occurs when behavior is observed in others and
is later mimicked

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Akers’ Social Structure Social Learning

• SSSL was created by expanding social learning theory to
incorporate key concepts from macro-level and structural
criminology

• The basic proposition of this theory is that variations in
social structure, culture and locations of individuals and
groups in the social system account for differences in
crime rates in neighborhoods and cities

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Cultural Transmission Theories (1 of 2)

• Focus on ideas that form values and beliefs that differ
from conventional ideas

• Value systems that differ from conventional standards
largely define subcultures

• Values, beliefs and norms of deviant subcultures
predispose people to crime and provide a rationalization
for criminal behavior

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Rise of Subcultural Perspective

• Subcultural perspectives arose as the dominant
perspective in the 1950s

• Cultural transmission theories are based on the idea that
people internalize values and beliefs

• Cultural variation and the power of conformity are
fundamental assumptions of this theory

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Cultural Norms and Legal Process (1 of 2)

• The study of subculture is necessarily integrated with the
study of legal process

• Law typically denotes the ideas/beliefs of the
conventional or dominant culture

• An additional defining characteristic of subculture is
cultural conflict

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Cultural Norms and Legal Process (2 of 2)

• The differentiation between subculture and population
segment is important to make

• Because American society is so multifaceted and groups
often disagree about appropriate standards, criminal law
function as a type of glue that holds society together

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Cohen’s Middle-Class Measuring Rod

• Most discussions on subculture theory begin with the
work of Albert Cohen

• The seminal work done by Cohen was written in 1955,
and is titled, Delinquent Boys: The Subculture of the
Gang

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Five Major Causal Factors (1 of 2)

• Cohen developed a general theory that focuses on five
major sub-factors that contribute to culture
1. Prevalence
2. Origins
3. Process
4. Purpose
5. Problem

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Five Major Causal Factors (2 of 2)

• The overall learning process of lower class boys leaves
them ill-prepared to compete in a world gauged by a
“middle-class, measuring rod.”

• Deficiencies of lower-class youth are most noticeable in
the classroom

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Cloward and Ohlin Gang Typology

• Created in 1960, this theory is often paired with Cohen’s,
because it is often viewed as a strain theory

• The hypothesis of this theory is that lower class
teenagers realize they have little chance for success by
conventional standards and thus resort to membership in
delinquent gangs

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Miller’s Focal Concerns

• Miller’s theory is a pure cultural theory for explaining
gang delinquency

• While the middle class has values, the lower class has
defining focal concerns (trouble, toughness, smartness,
excitement, fate, and autonomy)

• The rise of the subcultural perspective was aided by the
circumstances of social transition

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Demise of the Subcultural Perspective (1 of 2)

• As bandwagon shifts to the political left transpired,
labeling theory replaced cultural transmission as the
primary approach to explaining crime

• The main thrust of labeling theory was that crime and
delinquency were definitions and labels that were
assigned to people/events by operatives of the criminal
justice system

• While historical developments set into motion a chain of
events that moved criminological theory away from
subculture, theory was further affected by paradigm shifts
in social science research methodology

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Demise of the Subcultural Perspective (2 of 2)

• Rise of positivism was a deathblow to subcultural theory

• Issues with statistical clarity, greatly hurt this theory

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Subcultures of Violence and Rerise of
Cultural Perspective

• Part of the reason cultural transmission theory survived
was due to the work of Wolfgang and Ferracuti (1967)

• Homicide was viewed as an acceptance of a value
system that endorsed violence

• Subcultures of violence were identified throughout the
social strata

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Street Codes

• Criminologists have recognized the importance of street
codes and subcultural values in more recent times

• Anderson’s, Code of the Streets, is defined in
comparison to the decent moral codes of the inner city

• Recent research has attempted to test Anderson’s Code
of the Streets

• Studies typically find that neighborhoods in which
adolescents reside, the characteristics of their families,
and experiences with racial discrimination all contribute to
the street code

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Street Codes and Conclusion

• Adoption of the street code, in turn, increases
adolescents’ likelihood of committing and being a victim
of violence

• Stewart’s contributions are unique in that they examine
both the effects of living in a disadvantaged
neighborhood (macro-level factors), and individual
adoption of the street code (micro-level factors)

Criminological Theory: A Brief
Introduction
Fourth Edition

Chapter 7

Strain Theories of Crime

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Reserved

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Introduction

• Strain theories are among the older theories in
criminology, and it is impressive that they still hold today

• Theory was originally formed by Merton in the 1930s and
has been consistently reformulated

• While the theory has waned on/off through the years, it is
consistently one of the most tested theories in the
literature today

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What do Strain Theories Assume?

• Strain theories believe that people would not naturally
commit crime if not for unfortunate external
circumstances that push them toward criminal behavior

• People are generally law abiding, however sometimes
obstacles prevent them from accomplishing their goals

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Merton’s Theory and Its Variants

• Merton was the first to closely look at the American
culture, or the American dream

• The underlying belief system of placing
monetary/financial success above the “proper” ways to
achieve success causes problems

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Aspects of American Culture Relevant to
Crime

1. Goals, or what we are socialized to want

2. Means or rules we are expected to follow while striving
to achieve these goals

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The American Dream

• Tells people what they should want out of life and how to
go about getting it

• The problem in Merton’s belief is that the goals of
American society are emphasized at the expense of
having people follow rules

• Being successful is important, no matter what the means
of achieving it are

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The American Social Structure

• Merton examined what the impediments of the American
Dream, might be
1. Based on socioeconomic conditions, it is often

IMPOSSIBLE for some people to be successful
2. The reality of inequality is the biggest impediment to

the American Dream

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Responses to Strain

• When faced with an obstacle to achieving individual
desires or goals, anomie or strain occurs

• People have to determine how to respond to/cope with it

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Ways of Coping with Strain (1 of 2)

• According to Merton, there are five ways people can cope
with strain
1. Conformity: Using typical means to be successful
2. Innovation: Rejection of legal means to achieve

success
3. Ritualism: Exerting effort, for purely dogmatic reasons

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Ways of Coping with Strain (2 of 2)

• According to Merton, there are five ways people can cope
with strain
4. Retreatism: Escaping mainstream society

(drug/alcohol abuse)
5. Rebellion: Rejecting mainstream goals and replacing

them with different means (revolutionaries)

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Later Work on Merton’s Theory

• Merton’s theory did not receive much attention past its
initial conceptualization (1938)

• This was due to political/ideological reasons, not scientific
ones

• Cloward and Ohlin’s (1960) work on criminal subcultures
extended Merton’s theory

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Empirical Support

• Merton’s theory and those that come after it suggest a
certain image of criminal offenders

• Critics of the theory cite the lack of empirical research
(especially prior to 1960) as a drawback to the theory

• Issues with self-report surveys have greatly hampered
the theory’s testability

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Agnew’s General Strain Theory

• During the 1980s and 1990s, scholars began to believe
that strain theory could be rehabilitated

• Agnew was the most successful in this area, creating
what is now known as General Strain Theory (GST)

• Agnew’s theory broadens Merton’s, and talks of more
general means of coping

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Types of Strain

• Agnew’s theory expands the causes of strain from 1 to 3

• Agnew does not believe that a single cause of strain is
the problem but rather the accumulation of events leads
to whether or not someone would break the law

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Three Types of Strain

• Failure to achieve positively valued goals

• Something valued positively is removed from life

• Imposition of noxious stimuli

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Types of Coping

• Agnew proposed several ways in which people cope with
strain
1. Behavioral coping
2. Cognitively reinterpreting situations (cognitive coping)
3. Emotional coping

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When Does Strain Lead to Delinquent
Coping?

• Strain is more likely to lead to crime if it interferes with an
area of life that an individual finds important

• Individuals with poor coping skills and/or resources are
more likely to turn to crime

• Absence of conventional social support, high risk reward
ratios of crime, and predisposition to crime also lead to
delinquency

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Empirical Support (1 of 2)

• Few researchers argue that Strain is a successful theory
based on empirical support

• Most tests of GST have relied on survey data

• A variety of indicators have measured strain including
neighborhood problems, negative life events, and hassles
with peers

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Empirical Support (2 of 2)

• While ample data exists to test Social Disorganization (a
competitor of Strain), datasets that are able to test strain
(measuring feelings/emotions) are limited

• Hoffman (2002) and a few other studies (eg. Brezina)
have found support for the theory, but not enough
research exists to support the theory

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Messner and Rosenfeld, Institutional
Anomie

• Originally conceptualized in 1994, this theory was built
mostly on the work of Merton

• Focused specifically on institutions responsible for
regulating behavior and how these institutions are
subverted

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Value Orientations (1 of 2)

• Messner and Rosenfeld focus on four American Value
Orientations
1. Achievement
2. Individualism
3. Universalism
4. Money Fetish

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Value Orientations (2 of 2)

• The primary idea behind this theory is that the economy
holds disproportionate power

• Other institutions are devalued due to the overarching
power of the economy

• See the low level wages of those who educate and
socialize children

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Empirical Testing

• Unlike Agnew’s theory, Messner and Rosenfeld’s theory
has received little empirical testing

• The basic premise behind the theory is that dominant
economic institutions should produce higher crime rates

• This is a difficult proposition to measure and has yielded
inconclusive/inconsistent results

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Social Support Theory (1 of 2)

• Cullen et al. (1994) attempted to respond to the
weaknesses of Merton’s original theory

• This theory focused on social support at the individual
level as well as higher units of analysis

• The primary idea is that when people have difficulties
they believe there are people who can support them

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Social Support Theory (2 of 2)

• Cullen reasoned that there are high rates of crime in
America because little structural or cultural support exists
for people who get into difficulties

• Research on this theory is small in size, but in general it
is supportive of the theoretical propositions

Merton’s theory – key definitions
• Monolithic society – a society where everyone has the

same goals
• Cultural structure – our GOALS – what are these in the U.S.

culture? Does everyone share the same goals?
• Social structure – the MEANS available to achieve the goals

– access to good education, employment, hard work ethic
• Anomie – a societal response when means of achieving

goals are not available to everyone in a society – a “sick”
society (Durkheim) – crime then is a normal response to
abnormal conditions (STRUCTURES ARE NOT INTEGRATED
or do not match)

• Strain – An individual response to anomie – alienation,
deprivation, hopelessness, individual choice is
“constrained” by the social structure

Assumptions

• We live in a monolithic society
• Structure of society provides the means of achieving

these goals (ours is a capitalist structure)
• All have same goal of material success (agree?)
• All subscribe to the cultural norm of achieving goals

through hard work at an acceptable occupation (do
you agree with this?)

• All have access to means of achieving goals in a healthy
society

• Unhealthy society creates crime and deviance

Merton’s theory of strain

• When there is a dysjunction between cultural
structure and social structure (goals and
means) and certain groups of people are
blocked from the means to achieve these
goals, a collective response to this condition is
anomie; an individual response is strain

• Strain results in adapting to an abnormal living
environment

• There are five different adaptations

Adaptations
• Conformity + +
• Innovation + – (criminal behavior,

shoplifting, underprivileged deviance)
• Ritualism – + (Amish)
• Retreatism – – (alcoholic – homeless

example)
• Rebellion +/- +/-* (terrorists, commune-

types, Charles Manson family, “street culture”)

• * rejection of goals or means, replacement with new ones

Questions:

• What policies would this theory advocate to reduce
crime?

• Could this theory explain white collar/corporate crime?
• Does this theory explain why Martha Stewart engaged

in criminal behavior?
• What about Michael Vick?
• Can this theory explain desistance (when a person

stops engaging in criminal behavior)?
• Can this theory explain crime trends over time?
• Can this theory explain crimes of violence?

Policies based on Merton

• Increase means of achieving goals
• Redistribute the wealth (reduce poverty)
• Programs that increase opportunities for

legitimate employment, education (Johnson’s war
on poverty)

• Put constraints on cultural goals – revisit the
American dream and pursuit of “things” – what is
the role of the media in generating a culture
which is unrealistic for many to achieve?

• Japan as an example

Flaws of this theory
• Doesn’t address why some individuals innovate and

others rebel, etc. (Agnew’s theory comes in)
• Doesn’t explain WHY means of achieving goals are not

available to everyone! What facilitates this?
(discrimination, felony disenfranchisement, industrial
decline)

• Research suggests a limited/inconsistent relationship
between SES and self-reported crime and we would
expect a strong relationship

• Doesn’t explain why people with many “means”
commit crime (like Martha Stewart)

• Assumptions are not correct – not everyone shares
goals, work ethic not shared by all (religion, laziness)

Flaws (continued)

• Doesn’t address lack of equal access to
illegitimate means of achieving goals (Cloward
and Ohlin)

• Downplays role of non-sociological factors
• Downplays role of free will in choosing to

commit crime
• What role does opportunity play in crime

production?
• Deficient policies to reduce crime – don’t work

Agnew’s general strain theory

• Assumes we all have some strain
• Argues that we must focus on individual

differences and quantitative dimensions of
strain

• Addresses “why do some respond to strain in
one way and some in the other way?

Dimensions of strain and individual
factors

• Duration (length of time it lasts)
• Magnitude (Severe or moderate?)
• Recency (how recent is strain)
• Clustering

• Individual factors that affect response to strain
include – IQ, social skills, social support,
association with delinquent peers, personality
traits (mental illness, temperament)

Agnew argues that . . .
• Strain most likely to lead to crime when:

– Conditions are perceived to be unjust
– Strain is high in magnitude
– Low level of social control (formal or informal?)
– Great pressures to cope by breaking the law (role of

community, peers, sub-culture’s expectations)

– Pulls together individual and social factors
– Are there personality types that are more likely to

negatively respond to strain? Why would this be important
to know?

Cloward and Ohlin

• Concept of “differential opportunity”
• Argue that if a person can be denied access to

legitimate means of achieving goals they can
also be denied access to illegitimate means

• If individuals want to “innovate” they might
lack the skills, knowledge, personality, or
opportunity to use illegitimate means
– Learning structures and performance structures

• This could explain the FORM innovation takes:

Access to illegitimate means to
achieve goals

• Women blocked from criminal organizations
so don’t have access to these opportunities
(why women commit non-violence?)

• Women used to be blocked from work outside
of the home so lacked opportunities in the
workplace

• For adolescents, their access to illegitimate
means depends on the resources available to
them, such as cars, money, intelligence

Reaction Formation theory – Cohen
• A more specific “adaptation” as specified by Merton – explains how

subcultures that support violence are developed
• Precursor to “subculture of violence” theories
• Argues that middle class promotes values such as hard work,

deferring gratification, respecting property, non-violent methods,
hope for the future, etc.

• These are taught in school and promoted by the media
• Lack of opportunities to achieve these goals and lack of success in

middle-class schools by members of the lower classes leads to
strain (middle class, majority teachers)

• Strain produces a “reaction-formation” which is reversal of middle-
class values (rejection of middle-class values)

• Subcultures evolve that promote violence (such as gangs)
• This is an adaptation of “rebellion” per Merton’s theory

Criminological Theory: A Brief
Introduction
Fourth Edition

Chapter 8

Control Theories of Crime

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Reserved

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Introduction

• The Control Perspective is among the oldest and most
popular explanations for the causes of criminality

• The basic idea behind the control perspective is that
people are fundamentally selfish/pleasure seekers
(dating back to work of Hobbes)

• Also drew from the work of Durkheim, Bentham, and
Freud

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What Control Theories Assume about
Human Nature? (1 of 4)

• Control theories assume that the desire to commit crimes
is natural to all human beings and what needs to be
explained is why people resist criminal temptation

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What Control Theories Assume about
Human Nature? (2 of 4)

• Control theories begin with the view that crime is simply a
consequence of rational self-interest, of which everyone
is born with

• Learning to commit crimes from others is not necessary

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What Control Theories Assume about
Human Nature? (3 of 4)

• Another factor that is commonly assumed in control
theories is that there is general agreement in the world
about what constitutes socially unacceptable behavior

• Crime is not simply an arbitrary product of moral
entrepreneurs or powerful people

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What Control Theories Assume about
Human Nature? (4 of 4)

• Some people find the fundamental assumptions of
human behavior believable, others do not

• It is important to be aware that assumptions are very
different than proven facts

• Assumptions cannot be scientifically proven

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Early Control Theories

• Reiss (1951) was the first criminologist to discuss control
theories, personal and social forms of control

• Toby (1957) discussed stakes of conformity where
individuals resist criminal temptations due to being
interested in conforming

• Nye (1958) focused on two types of external control, e.g.,
direct and indirect

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Hirschi’s Social Control Theory (1 of 4)

• The control theory formulated by Hirschi (1969) has taken
on the role as the most frequently referenced social
control theory

• Hirschi’s conceptualization focuses on the individual’s
social bonds as means of imposing restraints on behavior

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Hirschi’s Social Control Theory (2 of 4)

• The Social Bond is an individual’s connectedness to
society and crime, and occurs with weakened
connections to others

• Social bond consists of four elements
1. involvement
2. commitment
3. attachment
4. Belief

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Hirschi’s Social Control Theory (3 of 4)

• Criminals are not socialized to commit crime, but rather
they are undersocialized to conform

• While some of these bonds may vary independently,
Hirschi hypothesized that the four elements of the social
bond are interconnected

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Hirschi’s Social Control Theory (4 of 4)

• People with weakened bonds do not necessarily become
criminals, but criminal temptations will speak more
persuasively to this group of people

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Empirical Testing (1 of 2)

• For the first 25 years of publication, Hirschi’s social
control theory was subject to empirical testing more than
any other theory

• Hirschi himself tested his theory in his 1969 book using
data from California

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Empirical Testing (2 of 2)

• Empirical testing supported the theory, but some
weaknesses were found

• Associations with delinquent peers (bonds) were more
closely related to crime

• Questions asked on Hirschi’s self-report surveys also
may have been problematic

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Self-Control Theory

• Gottfredson and Hirschi came up with this theory in 1990

• This book focuses little on social bonds, and is much
more concerned with individual levels of self-control

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People with Low Self-Control (1 of 2)

• Hirschi argues that low self-control leads to distinctive
personality characteristics

• These individuals are lazy, impulsive, self-centered,
belligerent and cannot deny instant gratification

• A common thread of low self-control behaviors are that
they are potentially destructive

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People with Low Self-Control (2 of 2)

• While self-control encompasses many traits it is also
unidimensional

• Personality traits are symptoms of having low self-control

• Social bonds fit into the theory, in that people with low
self-control fritter away the opportunities to create bonds

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Origins of Self Control

• Where does low self-control come from?
– It is an acquired characteristic
– Childrearing is the primary agent for the development

of self-control

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Empirical Research and Criticisms of Self-
Control Theory (1 of 2)

• Since 1990, few theories have generated as much
research attention and discussion as self-control theory

• Self-report surveys are the typical methods of testing self-
control theory

• Issues with measurement (reference the Grasmick scale)
have made measuring self-control difficult

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Empirical Research and Criticisms of Self-
Control Theory (2 of 2)

• Results of the empirical tests have generally been
supportive of the theory

• Individuals with low self-control tend to engage in more
crime

• Evidence exists linking self-control with adverse life
circumstances

• While significant, the effect of low self-control on crime
has not been found to be large

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Criticisms

• A major criticism exists as to how self-control is
measured

• Self control theory typically has significant problems
accounting for spurious variables

• Issues with delinquent peers are especially difficult to
account for, and must be taken into consideration

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Sampson and Laub’s Life Course Theory (1
of 4)

• One of self-control theory’s more controversial positions
is its claims that by late childhood individual differences in
self-control remain relatively stable

• The life course perspective (see Sampson & Laub, 1993)
offers a different view

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Sampson and Laub’s Life Course Theory (2
of 4)

• This perspective is based on data originally collected by
the Glueck’s in the 1950s

• This theory accounts for why juveniles become offenders
in the first place

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Sampson and Laub’s Life Course Theory (3
of 4)

• Also looks at how and why transitions between childhood
and adolescence can shape later adult offending

• Family context shapes juvenile offending

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Sampson and Laub’s Life Course Theory (4
of 4)

• The argument of stability versus change over the life course
is important to keep in mind here

• The paradox is that while most if not all adult offenders
were juvenile offenders, not all juvenile offenders become
adult offenders

• Social bonds account for this, due to Sampson and Laub

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Sampson and Laub’s Life Course Theory

• Stability and change are hallmarks of individuals
according to Sampson and Laub’s theory

• Theory hypothesizes that individual behavior is
remarkably consistent over time

• Consistency over the life course is known as a trajectory

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Self-Control Revised?

• Hirschi updated and revised self-control theory in 2004

• Self-Control was updated to include the totality of
consequences an individual considers when deciding
whether or not to commit crimes

• Social bonds are these consequences

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Policy Implications (1 of 2)

• Social control theory suggests policies that would
strengthen bonds between individuals and society

• Self control theory advocates for programs that help
young children improve self-control

• Similar to many theories, control theories question the
usefulness of prison

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Policy Implications (2 of 2)

• Self-Control Theory is very concerned with the court and
correctional system policies

• Threats of exceedingly punitive sanctions are of no value
if people do not consider them

• Self-control theory indicates that the formal justice
system offers little crime prevention in return for huge tax
expenditures

Criminological Theory: A Brief
Introduction
Fourth Edition

Chapter 9

Theories of Social Conflict

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Reserved

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The Conflict Perspective (1 of 3)

• Crime from the conflict perspective is considered a
byproduct of social inequality

• Crime arises from both the effort of those in control
groups and those positioned lower in the social structure

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The Conflict Perspective (2 of 3)

• Crime also arises as a collective expression of alienation,
deprivation, and frustration by those in the working class

• The conflict perspective is particularly applicable in highly
stratified, pluralistic, multicultural societies such as the
United States

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The Conflict Perspective (3 of 3)

• Those who gain power naturally define crime and
deviance in ways that serve their interests, and their
designations determine how society will be structured

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Marxist Heritage

• The philosophical foundation in which the conflict
perspective is built is traced to the works of Karl Marx

• According to Marx, the economic system of capitalism is
the source of most social problems, including crime,
because it creates competition for profit

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Marxist Concepts (1 of 2)

• The capitalistic desire for profit is realized through the
extraction of surplus value from the working class, by the
ruling class

• Profit through surplus value can only be realized through
the exploitation of the working class by the ruling class

• The insatiable desire for profit leads to alienation

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Marxist Concepts (2 of 2)

• Marx predicted that as alienation became obvious and
widely recognized throughout the working class, class
consciousness and later revolution would arise

• Mainstream definitions of success factor into class
consciousness

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Orthodox Marxism

• Also known as Instrumental Marxism

• This theory posits that a direct relationship exists
between the interests of the ruling class and the criminal
justice system

• These interests are identifiable based on the historical
functioning of the criminal justice system

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Structural Marxism (1 of 2)

• Differs from Orthodox Marxism in that it acknowledges an
indirect relationship between ruling class interests and
how social class institutions operate

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Structural Marxism (2 of 2)

• According to this theory, ruling class interests are subtle

• While these theories don’t explicitly discuss crime, they
are the bases for several theories that do

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Labeling Theory (1 of 4)

• The Labeling perspective acknowledges that people first
participate in norm violation, either crime or a less serious
act by chance or as a part of growing up

• The difference between delinquents and non-delinquents
often is as simple as who gets caught

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Labeling Theory (2 of 4)

• Lemert and Tannenbaum are two of the primary labeling
theorists

• According to Lemert (1967), initial acts of deviance,
known as primary deviance lead to reactions from
authority that are often negative

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Labeling Theory (3 of 4)

• Youths are seen as delinquent and lose opportunities to
participate in conventional activities

• Continued participation in crime is known as secondary
deviance

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Labeling Theory (4 of 4)

• Secondary deviance reflects both the ironic social
construction of crime through the labeling process and
the importance of self-concept

• Secondary deviance is promoted through internal
normalization of behaviors and the lacking of social
controls

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Reintegrative Shaming (1 of 2)

• Braithwaite’s (1989) theory of Reintegrative Shaming is
the most important recent contribution to labeling theory

• Argues that it is illogical and counterproductive to publicly
label

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Reintegrative Shaming (2 of 2)

• Characterized as a combination of several perspectives
including: labeling, subcultural, control, opportunity and
learning

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Marxist Criminology (1 of 2)

• Marxist or radical criminologists use the Marxist
framework to examine criminal law, crime itself, and
government practices of social control

• Social Origins of the law are seen as reflective of special
interests that are traceable to class

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Marxist Criminology (2 of 2)

• Marxists contend that criminal law serves to control the
lower classes and provide immunity for crimes of the
ruling class

• From the Marxist perspective, criminal law is seen as a
tool of repression by the ruling class

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White-Collar and State Crime (1 of 2)

• Marxist’s are more focused on White-Collar Crimes than
street crimes

• Sutherland was an early theorist who examined white
collar crime

• Some theorists believe white collar crime (fraud, false
advertising) are more harmful than street crime

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White-Collar and State Crime (2 of 2)

• Political or state crime differs from white collar crime in
respect to its primary objectives

• Political gain as opposed to economic advantage

• Political objectives are the state’s need to obtain power or
authority

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Left Realism

• Evolved due to critical theorists’ neglect of inner city
crime

• Young (1987) is a well known Left Realist

• Left realists are quick to criticize critical criminologists
who neglect to support victims of crime

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Cultural Criminology (1 of 2)

• Closely related to the field of cultural studies and
influenced by postmodern insights

• This perspective is focused on crime control, and uses
techniques such as media analysis

• The role of culture (e.g.- how certain subcultural groups
recruit members) is heavily emphasized in this
perspective

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Cultural Criminology (2 of 2)

• Qualitative research methods play a large part in how
cultural criminology is studied

• The immediacy of crime, or firsthand observation is
helpful in this area

• Cultural Criminology is highly tied into social
constructionism

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Social Construct of Crime (1 of 2)

• Crime is typically explored objectively, but can also be
examined subjectively

• Subjectivists also known as Constructionists or those
who contend that crime is socially/subjectively
constructed

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Social Construct of Crime (2 of 2)

• No individual or act is inherently deviant to society

• Media heavily influences what is criminal

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Feminist Criminology (1 of 3)

• Frequently misunderstood and misrepresented

• Not simply the study of women and crime

• Feminist Criminology aims to place gender at the center
of discourse

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Feminist Criminology (2 of 3)

• Feminist Criminology much like Feminism itself allows for
the idea that women’s experiences differ dramatically
from those of men

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Feminist Criminology (3 of 3)

• Three primary types of feminist criminology exist
1. liberal
2. radical
3. marxist

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Types of Feminist Criminology (1 of 2)

• Liberal Feminism is a cultural orientation to gender
differences that examines attitudes about gender roles

• Radical Feminism is a more aggressive approach and is
the stereotypical, “anti male” perspective

• See Hagan’s (1989)- Power-Control Theory

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Types of Feminist Criminology (2 of 2)

• Marxist/Socialist Feminism attributes gender oppression
to inequality inherent in capitalistic economies

• Feminist Criminology has become highly influential in
recent years

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Types of Feminist Criminology
and Conclusion

• Feminist Criminology is a more recent development in the
attempt to understand crime

• It is currently gaining popular acceptance into the
mainstream

• Advocates such as Sharpe do not believe this has been
fully achieved as of yet

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Developmental Criminology

• A theoretical model that attempts to link life transitions and
developmental processes with patterns of offending behavior
over time

• Notion is that involvement in crime closely resembles a
legitimate career with a beginning, an ascension, a peak, a
decline, and an exit

• Examines persistence and desistance of criminal behavior
(why do people keep committing crime and why do people
stop?)

• Described as “dynamic” rather than static

• Interactive(?)

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Example

• Terrie Moffitt’s Dual Pathway Developmental Theory

• Demonstrates existence of adolescent limited (AL)
offenders and life-course persistent (LCP) offenders

• Both have very different pathways in and out of crime,
start criminal careers at different ages, both commit
different types of crimes, and both have very different
psychological and family profiles

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Key findings from developmental study of
crime

• Most offenders will desist quickly
• Many will desist without any criminal justice system

involvement
• Some, a small percentage, will persist over a long period of

time (these are the career criminals, habitual or chronic
offenders)

– This small percentage (between 6-8%) is responsible for a
large percentage of crime committed over time (the 80/20
rule)
▪ Wolfgang study – found 6% of the cohort studied

committed more than 50% of the crime over time
▪ Orange County, CA – found 8% of young offenders

responsible for nearly 60% of crime totals over time

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The 8% solution: Preventing serious, repeat
juvenile crime

• The Orange County, CA Probation Department’s
research staff tracked two groups of first-time juvenile
offenders for three years and found that a small
percentage (8%) of the juveniles were:

– Arrested repeatedly (a minimum of 4 times within a
3-year period) (These are PERSISTERS)

– Responsible for 55% of arrests
– Could be identified reliably at first contact with the

juvenile justice system
– What characteristics do you think these kids had

compared to the 92% that were DESISTERS?

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8% solution

• These 8% enter system with complex set of problems or RISK
FACTORS which were identified as:

– Involvement in crime at an early age
– A multi-problem profile including:

▪ Significant family problems (abuse, neglect, criminal family
members, lack of supervision and control)

▪ Problems at school
▪ Drug and alcohol abuse
▪ Behaviors such as gang involvement, running away and stealing

– Many of these features make desistance more challenging (web of
problems)

– Given these findings, if you were a judge . . .
– What would you do with the 92% that would desist quickly?
– What about the 8% to make desistance happen quickly?

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8% Intervention Program
• Created the “8% Early Intervention Program” to serve first-time

offenders who were no older than 15.5 and who exhibited at least
three of the four risk factors in the multi-problem profile

• Goals included:
– Increase structure, supervision, and support for families
– Make kids accountable
– Make school more important
– Promote prosocial values, behaviors and relationships
– Develop new interventions in the community
– Bottom line: Identify the “persisters” and help them at an early

age
– Young Juvenile Offender project here in Virginia (Functional

Family Therapy, intensive home-based therapy)
– Fast Track Project (page 328 of textbook)

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How does desistance happen?

• Two theories of desistance
– Sommer
– Shover

• How do you think desistance happens?

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Stages of desistance – Sommer (gradual
process)

• Stage 1 – Catalysts for change, making decision to stop
offending

– Socially disjunctive experiences – hitting rock bottom,
tiredness, illness, fear of death, aging, perception of
risk/certainty of punishment increases

– Delayed deterrence – increasing severity of
punishment with multiple charges (3 strikes);
increasing fear of punishment; harder to do time

– Assessment – reappraisal of life and goals, psychic
change, role of religion?

– Decision – Decision to quit and/or initial attempts at
desistance; usually a conscious decision to stop

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Stages (continued)

• Stage 2 – Discontinuance
– Public announcement of decision to end criminal participation, claim to a

new social identity (beginning of certification process)

• Stage 3 – Maintenance
– Ability to successfully renegotiate identity, support of significant others,

integration into new social networks, ties to conventional roles, stabilization
of new social identity

– THIS IS THE CRITICAL STAGE
– Likely to be episodic with occasional relapses interspersed with longer

periods of good behavior
– Typically a slowing down process, deceleration (fewer criminal events)
– Involves a successful certification process (pronouncement by others that

you have moved from “offender” to “law-abiding citizen”

– If you were an offender going through this process, what factors do you
think might help you be successful?

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Factors that impact success at Stage 3

• Access to legitimate opportunities, employment opportunities

• Social support (family, friends, neighbors, programs like OAR)

• Ability to be involved in legitimate activities

• Ability to shun criminal world (gangs) (Move away?)

• Formal treatment programs that provide ties to people (AA and sponsors; drug
treatment courts)

• Success of certification process
– Appear in legitimate locations; importance of family; “appearing” normal

(remove tattoos, piercings); having an address and phone number

• Reduce negative stigma of probation and parole supervision (A
CORRECTIONAL PARADOX)

• Prison-based self-improvement programs

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Shover’s Model of Exiting

• A five-pronged process rather than a three-point stage
– Aging Process
– Orientational Change (new perspective of self,

growing awareness of time, changing aspirations and
goals, growing sense of tiredness)

– Interpersonal Change (ties to another person, ties to
a line of activity)

– Modified Calculus (risks now outweigh the reward –
rewards of crime now seen as minimal)

– Reduction in Criminal Behavior

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Laub and Samson study “Shared Beginnings
and Divergent Lives”

• Main finding: Found support for Shover’s exiting process. Three
main determinants of a “knifing off” of criminal activity included:

– Joining the military
– Getting married
– Finding legitimate employment
– Religion also played a role (although minor)
– Other findings:

▪ Did not observe a process but a quick change for some
▪ Desistance did not seem to depend on perceived risk of legal

punishment
▪ Conditions necessary for exiting life of crime are largely

outside the correctional system’s control
▪ Argues that the CJS does little to make desistance happen –

may actually make persistence in crime more likely – HOW?
▪ What policy implications does this approach have if we want

to make desistance happen sooner rather than later?

Criminological Theory: A Brief
Introduction
Fourth Edition

Chapter 10

Evaluating and Integrating
Theory

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Theory Construction (1 of 2)

• The development of new theories and refinements of
existing ones is known as theory construction

• This process is one in which factors which are known to
be connected to crime are connected to new ideas

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Theory Construction (2 of 2)

• When constructing theories criminologists typically work
with what they already have and seek ways to change it

• Most theories tend to better address certain types of
offenses by featuring explanations that more effectively
account for either violent or property crime

• No simple overarching grand theory of crime exists

• Questions abound: Which theories are right? Which are
not?

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Evaluating Theory (1 of 3)

• To begin a discussion of comparing the relative and
“correctness” of individual theories it is important to
consider both the diversity and complexity of statements
that are included in theoretical criminology

• As theories have evolved over time, research
methodologies have evolved and become increasingly
sophisticated

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Evaluating Theory (2 of 3)

• Advances in statistical technology have allowed for more
precision in determining causal inference

• Theories have become more complex as today’s theorists
have become more cognizant of theory-methods
symmetry

• Empirical assessment with accurate methods is highly
important

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Evaluating Theory (3 of 3)

• In order to sort out concerns with theory, criminologists
compare and evaluate theories in 3 separate ways
1. Singularly
2. Theory competition
3. Theory integration

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Singular Theory Assessment

• Simplest approach to assessing theory

• This approach seeks to evaluate the level of support that
is available for theory/ ies

• Data is gathered in order to examine whether formally
stated propositions that specify causal relationships
between theories can be supported

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Theory Testing (1 of 2)

• If a sample is adequate to allow generalizability and
operationalizations of key variables are specifically
precise in order to minimize measurement error, a theory
can be shown to be supported

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Theory Testing (2 of 2)

• It is important to remember that it is hard to confirm or
disconfirm theories

• Theories are tested by multiple researchers who may or
may not find contradictory levels of support for particular
theories

• Theory testing also entails spatial and temporal variation

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Theory Competition (1 of 2)

• Involves direct and systematic comparison of two or more
theories

• Competition lies in the rank ordering individual theories
according to
1. Level of empirical support
2. Scope of coverage (breadth)

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Theory Competition (2 of 2)

• Assessing several theories at once allows for
identification of what explanations are better for
understanding which theories better explain the crime
problem

• Reference to level of empirical support typically means
whether variable analysis is accepted as statistically
significant

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Importance

• Theory competition is important in two respects
1. Theory comparison enables better explanations of

criminal behavior to be found
2. New knowledge is generated that allows for theory

construction, revision

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Furthering Theory

• Typically done in one of 3 ways
1. Emergence of Original Theory
2. Theoretical Elaboration
3. Theoretical Integration

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Empirical Support for Competing Theories
(1 of 2)

• Most theories we have examined view crime as a
function of many separate causes

• Individual theories address a wide range of disparate and
ideologically opposed policy responses

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Empirical Support for Competing Theories
(2 of 2)

• In reporting the relative empirical support for
criminological theories it is essential to identify one
qualifying concern

• While theories are evaluated based on strength and
scope, not all theories can be examined simultaneously

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Theoretical Elaboration (1 of 4)

• Requires neither the introduction of totally new ideas nor
the resolution of differences across theories

• Elaboration builds on existing theory by considering what
new variables might be realized to add more explanation

• To elaborate a theory is to extend it, and to further
specify it

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Theoretical Elaboration (2 of 4)

• Some argue that virtually all the theories we have are a
result of theory elaboration

• Theories are largely considered original because they
introduce and emphasize causal and contributing factors
previously ignored/neglected

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Theoretical Elaboration (3 of 4)

• Elaboration is better understood as a process of
extending existing perspectives to explain crime that
further advance our overall knowledge base

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Theoretical Integration (4 of 4)

• An alternative approach to address the shortcomings of
any single theory/ies and theory elaboration is theoretical
integration

• Also referred to as theoretical subsumption

• This process refers to more specific concepts being
regrouped or absorbed under a larger concept

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Theoretical Integration

• Theory integration enables two main objectives
1. Construction of models that offer greater

accountability for unexplained crime
2. Creation of general theory

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General Criminological Theories

• Criminological theories are considered middle range
theories because they seek to account for systematic
processes in human behavior and social structure that
facilitates/predicts the occurrence of crime/crime rates

• General theories are grand perspectives that purport to
account for all crime and deviance, across time and
space

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How Theory Integration Occurs

• Two primary pathways
1. Sequential Integration (most common approach)
2. Conceptual fusion (more complex)

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Theory Informing Policy and Practice

• How is criminological theory used in the real world in
practical ways?

• On the most basic level, theory is a reason for crime to
occur

• By having a theory explain the whys of crime, tangible
steps can be taken to intervene

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Crime Prevention

• Crime prevention is an example of how theory is put into
practical action

• Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTE
D) is an example of this

• CPTED uses theoretical framework (Routine Activity
Theory), to make environments safer

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Concluding Thoughts (1 of 2)

• Specific theories discussed within this context do not
explain why crime has occurred

• Each of these theories is a way of looking at the
occurrences of crime and taking a step forward in
understanding SOME crimes and criminals

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Concluding Thoughts (2 of 2)

• As a theory builds and gains in predictive ability, it can
also be more easily translated into public policy and
preventative measures

• More effective prevention, intervention, and crime
reduction is the goal

• Understanding Criminological Theory is key to effective
crime prevention and criminological practice

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Copyright

Victim (Section 14)

• Concept dates back to ancient cultures and
civilizations such as the ancient Hebrews

• Original meaning rooted in the idea of a sacrifice
or scapegoat – the execution or casting out of a
person or animal to satisfy a deity or hierarchy

• In 1940s, became known as “anyone caught up in
an asymmetric relationship or situation”

• Today, it refers to anyone who experiences injury,
loss or hardship due to any cause (forces beyond
one’s control)

Crime victims

• Refers to any person, group, or entity who has
suffered injury or loss due to illegal activity.
The harm can be psychological, physical, or
economic.

• Typology of victims
– Primary crime victims
– Secondary crime victims
– Tertiary crime victims (vicarious harm)

What is victimology?
• The scientific study of victimization, including the

following:
– Victim and offender relationships
– Why do individuals get victimized? Do victims contribute

to their own victimization?
– What individual traits lead to higher levels of

victimization?
– Interactions between victims and the CJS
– Connections between victims and the media
– Victims and the cost of crime
– Victims and social movements
– Rights of crime victims

Victimology

• Began in the 1940s and 1950s
• Fathers of this field are Mendolsohn and von

Hentig
• Early work by Mendolsohn developed a

typology of victims – the first being
“completely innocent” and the other five
contributing to the crime in some way, shape
or form (idea of “victim precipitation”)

Who gets victimized?

• MOST victimization is NOT RANDOM! Do you
agree or disagree?

• Person most likely to be a crime victim is a
young, black, unmarried male living in poverty
in an urban environment. Why?

• Risk of victimization drops after age 25. Why?
• Being married is a protective factor. Why?
• Victimization at Time 1 is significant predictor

of victimization at Time 2 (odds ratio of 5.7)

Theories of victimology
• Victim precipitation
– Victims often are also the offenders!
– Victim provocation (rape). Do rape victims “ask for it”? Is

there such a thing as “justifiable rape”?

• Routine activities/lifestyle
– Certain characteristics and lifestyles are more conducive to

victimization
– 80/20 rule (see page 533) (large/small) (20% of

respondents were victims in 81% of all offenses)
– Victimization most likely in certain places and for certain

types of people

Consequences of victimization

• Permanent disabilities
• Death or other physical harm
• Depression, guilt, self-blame, lowered self-

esteem (rape trauma syndrome)
• Chronic fear of crime (impact of high fear of

crime?) (informal vs. formal social control)
• Anger
• Insomnia

Victimization and the criminal justice
system – the Victim Rights Movement
• 1970s – marked by a vigorous victim rights

movement (women being victimized twice in
rape cases, Women’s liberation movement)

• 1983 – Office for Victims of Crime created
• Proposal of Federal Crime Victims’ Bill of

Rights
• State rights outlined

Virginia “Victims Bill of Rights” (19.2-
11.01)

Victim and witness protection

Financial assistance

Notices

• Victim input (during plea negotiations and during

trial)

Courtroom assistance

Post-trial assistance

• Establishment of Victim/Witness programs to

further these goals.

Victim and witness protection

• Separate waiting rooms
• Protective orders (do you think they work?)
• Lethality assessments
• Cell phones
• Aware alarms
• Shelters
• Law enforcement escort to car
• Courthouse security enhancements
• Assist with transportation

Financial assistance

• Criminal Injuries Compensation Fund (fines
collected from offenders)

• Restitution – issues with this?
• Property held by law enforcement agencies
• Social services
• Travel reimbursements
• Evidence recovery kits
• Crime scene clean-up

Notices

• Employer and landlord intercession
• DOC and jail notifications
• AG appeal notifications
• Plea agreement notifications

Courtroom assistance

• Confidentiality forms
• Interpeters
• Closed preliminary hearings
• Two-way closed circuit televisions
• Court room tours
• Commonwealth Attorneys meetings

Post-trial assistance

• Final disposition letters
• Jail release in appeal cases
• Victims to receive services in cases returned

on appeal

Victim input

• Written VIS
• Right to remain in the courtroom
• 1998 – oral VIS allowed in courtroom

Questions

• If we have limited funds, should money be
used to pay for offender services to
rehabilitate OR to reimburse crime victims and
pay for their services? Which approach would
be most beneficial?

• Should victims be allowed to give victim
impact testimony in court? What might be
some problems with this?

Consensus vs. Conflict models

• Consensus
– Asks questions like: Why do people break the law? What

causes people to be criminal? Why do people conform?
(the theories we’ve looked at and more to come)

– Assumes there are differences between criminals and non-
criminals

• Conflict
– Asks questions like: Why are some behaviors defined as

criminal and others are not? Why is the law applied
differently to some people than it is to others?

– No assumption of differences between criminals and non-
criminals

Conflict approach to crime
• Society is composed of diverse social groups
• Groups are class-based (the owners of the means of

production and the working class) – from Marx
• Conflict is inherent in social life (because of the

diversity among groups)

• Law is a tool of power in the hands of the group with
the most power

• What is criminal, then, is decided by the powerful
groups

• Crime does not result from biological, psychological or
behavioral factors – criminality is a social status
defined by the way an individual is perceived,
evaluated and treated by legal authorities

Conflict approach (continued)

• The wealthy in a capitalist society make the laws
to protect their property from lower classes

• End result is we have more laws against behaviors
committed by the poor and fewer laws against
behaviors committed by the ruling class (even
though their “crimes” might be more harmful”

• Harsher penalties for committing these acts
(bank robbery vs. bank fraud; crack vs. cocaine)

• Jeffery Reiman “The Rich Get Richer and the Poor
Get Prison”

Conflict approach (continued)

• How does this approach explain all criminal
behavior?
– Crime by the wealthy and powerful is attributed to

greed created by capitalism
– Crime by the powerless is attributed to the need

to violate the law in order to survive

What is “cool” about this
approach?

• Asks a critical question: Why is some behavior
defined as criminal and other behavior is not?

• Why are behaviors punished more harshly
depending on who engages in them?

• Examines the process of law formation and who
has the power to make laws

• Focus is now on identifying and abolishing
inequalities in the system rather than looking at
differences between offenders and non-offenders

New research questions

• Are sentences applied in a discriminatory
manner against members of the lower social
classes?

• In times of high unemployment, do we use
incarceration more? Why?

• Have laws changed over time depending on
who has power in a given time period?

Limitations of this approach

• Fails to examine role of individual in criminal
behavior

• Does not account for laws that clearly benefit the
disadvantaged over the wealthy

• Assumes all conflict is class-based – what about
conflict based on cultures, racial groups, genders?

• Does this approach apply outside of capitalist
society?

• Tends to romanticize the criminal and crime –
depicts the offender as the “victim” of an
oppressive system struggling to survive!

Some discussion questions

• How do we solve the crime problem based on
this approach? Is this feasible?

• Do you think that social class makes a difference
in terms of how a person is treated by the
criminal justice system? If so, can you give
specific examples to illustrate this difference?

• Do you think capitalist societies purposely create
sense that crime is a huge problem generated by
the lower classes in order to preserve the existing
social structure?

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