Why do people
commit Crimes?
Sociological Theories of Criminology
Sociological Theories
• Sociologists emphasize that human
beings live in social groups and that
those groups and the social structure
they create influence behavior.
• assume that a criminal’s behavior is
determined by his or her social
environment
• reject the notion of the born criminal.
Sociological Perspectives:
Theory of Anomie
Sociological Theorist:
Emile Durkheim (18581917)
 Argued that as society
moved from rural to urban,
traditional values and
bonds that regulated
behaviour were
weakened
 People would turn to
crime living in a big city,
no longer restrained by
norms of society
The Contributions of Durkheim
• Many sociological theories of crime
stem from the work of Emile Durkheim
• Social laws and institutions are “social
facts” and all people can do is submit to
them.
The Contributions of Durkheim
Durkheim argued that crime is also a
social fact. The cause of crime is anomie.
• Crime is functional for society because it
helps define the boundaries of morality.
anomie
For Durkheim, the dissociation of the individual from
the collective conscience.
collective conscience
The general sense of morality of the times.
Anomie cont…
 Kitty Genovese
 Young woman stabbed to death on a
street in New York City -1964
 As many as 37 neighbours and
bystanders all heard her screams for
help.
 No one called the police because
they all thought someone else would
take action.
 Sociologists call this Diffusion of
Responsibility
 The Bystander Effect
 Bystander Effect Experiment
Sociological Perspectives
cont…
Ecological School
In the 1920s, a group of sociologists
known as the Chicago School attempted
to uncover the relationship between a
neighborhood’s crime rate and the
characteristics of the neighborhood.
Chicago School
A group of sociologists at the University of Chicago
who assumed in their research that delinquent
behavior was a product of social disorganization.
The Ecological Theory of the
Chicago School
The Chicago School described American
cities in ecological terms, saying growth
occurs through a process of:
Invasion:
A cultural or ethnic group invades a territory.
Domination:
The group dominates that territory.
Succession:
The group is succeeded by another group and
the cycle repeats itself.
The Ecological Theory of the
Chicago School
•
•
Other studies found that
neighborhoods that
experienced high
delinquency rates also
experienced social
disorganization.
These communities were
more likely to condone
criminal activity than more
affluent neighbourhoods.
social disorganization
The condition in which the usual controls over
delinquents are largely absent, delinquent behavior is
often approved of by parents and neighbors, there are
many opportunities for delinquent behavior, and there
is little encouragement, training, or opportunity for
legitimate employment.
Weaknesses of this theory
• One of the problems with the theory of
the Chicago School is the presumption
that social disorganization is a cause of
delinquency.
• Both social disorganization and
delinquency may be the product of
other, more basic factors.
Strain Theory
 Current societies stress the goals of
acquiring wealth, success, and power.
 However, the means to achieve these
goals require education and economic
resources.
 These means are frequently denied or
unavailable to those who are
economically disadvantaged or have
little opportunity for formal education.
 Example: youth living in the “projects”
yearning for the chance to work on the
streets to sell drugs because they know
this is the only way they can make
money.
Strain Theory
• In 1938 Sociologist Robert Merton
argued that societies stress the goals
of acquiring wealth, success, and
power.
• the limited availability of legitimate
means to wealth puts a strain on
people. People adapt through:
1. Conformity—playing the game.
2. Innovation—pursuing wealth by illegitimate
means.
continued…
Anomie or Strain Theory
3. Ritualism—not actively pursuing wealth.
4. Retreatism—dropping out.
5. Rebellion—rejecting the goal of wealth and the
institutional means of getting it.
The Strain Theory assumes…
Juveniles who are unable to achieve status
through socially acceptable means will either:
• conform to middle-class values and resign
themselves to their inferior status, or
• rebel and establish their own value structures,
then find others like themselves and form
groups to validate and reinforce the new values.
Sociological Perspectives cont…
Social Conflict Theory
 Karl Marx and Frederick Engels
argued that the capitalist society
encouraged crime as people
competed for resources and wealth.
 Our society protects those with
power and property.
 As a result, people who are
economically disadvantaged are
more likely to be punished by our
justice system. T
 The only way to solve the crime
problem is to eliminate the capitalist
system.
Social Conflict Theory
• focuses on the conflict in society
between rich and poor, management
and labor, whites and minorities.
Social Conflict Theory
According to conflict theory, criminal law
and the criminal justice system are used
by dominant groups to control subordinate
ones.
Social Conflict Theory
• All behavior occurs because people act in
ways consistent with their social positions.
• Subordinate groups appear in official
criminal statistics more frequently because
dominant groups have control over the
definition of criminality.
Feminist Theory
• The principal goal of most feminist
theory is to abolish patriarchy by
ensuring women equal opportunity and
equal rights.
• intended to redirect the thinking of
mainstream criminologists to include
gender awareness.
patriarchy
Men’s control over women’s labor and sexuality.
Definitions
• Radical feminism – a perspective that holds that any
significant change in the social status of women can
be accomplished only through substantial changes in
social institutions such as the family, law, and medicine.
• Liberal feminism – a perspective that holds that the
concerns of women can be incorporated within
existing social institutions through conventional means
and without the need to drastically restructure society.
• Socialist feminism – a perspective that examines social
roles and the gender-based division of labor as a
significant source of women’s subordination within
society.
Social Psychological
Perspective
 Social psychology is the study of
the relations between individuals
and people.
 They are interested in how ‘regular’
people can commit atrocious
crimes.
 Stanley Milgram was specifically
interested in how Nazi’s were able
to commit horrible acts of
genocide – he focused on how
people could do this just by
following orders.
 Milgram Experiment
The Freudian Approach
Psychoanalytical Theory
 Sigmund Freud believed that all
humans have criminal tendencies.
 It is through socialization that
these tendencies are controlled
during childhood.
 If a child has an identity problem
with his/her parent, this problem
may cause the child to direct its
antisocial tendencies outward
and thus become a criminal.
Traumatic Experiences
Traumatic experiences in
early childhood leave their
mark on the individual
despite the fact that the
individual was not aware of
these experiences.
Freud and Effect of Family
According to Freud the child needs a stable
home environment in order to successfully
make the transition from ID to EGO. Research
has supported the fact that most criminals
come from unstable homes.
FREUDIAN APPROACH
John Bowlby (1946) studied 44 juvenile
delinquents and compared them with noncriminal disturbed juveniles.
• 39% of the delinquents had experienced
complete separation from their mothers for
six-months or more during the first five years of
their lives compared with 5% of the control
group.
Child abuse
Out of 36 sex murderers interviewed in the
USA 42% were found to have been sexually
abused as youngsters (Ressler et al 1988).
Dietz and Warren (1995) found that 76% of
the 41 serial rapists that they interviewed
were abused when young.
But only about 10% of abused children go on
to commit crimes.
Psychoanalytic Theories
Psychoanalytic theories of crime are
associated with the work of Sigmund
Freud
believed that people who had unresolved
deep-seated problems were
psychopaths.
psychopaths
Persons characterized by no sense of guilt, no
subjective conscience, and no sense of right and
wrong. They have difficulty in forming relationships
with other people; they cannot empathize with other
people. They are also called sociopaths or antisocial
personalities.
Psychoanalysis
• Considers crime symptomatic of deepseated problems
• Providing psychotherapy or
psychoanalysis can aid in resolving the
symptoms associated with the
problems.