Criminology Today
Chapters 7 and part of 8
Chpt. 7 – Social Structure Theories
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Old saying – you can take the criminal out
of a bad environment, but you can’t take
the bad environment out of the criminal.
Suggestion is – negative influences of
social environment predispose some
people to lives of crime, and that such
negative influences may remain active
even when people’s circumstances
change.
Major Principles of Sociological
Theories
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Sociological theory – a perspective that focuses
on the nature of the power relationships that
exist between social groups and on the
influences that various social phenomena bring
to bear on the types of behaviors that tend to
characterize groups of people.
Social structure – the pattern of social
organization and the interrelationships among
institutions characteristic of a society.
Definitions
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Social process – the interaction between
and among social institutions, individuals
and groups
Social life – the ongoing (typically)
structured interaction that occurs between
person in a society, including socialization
and social behavior in general.
3 Key Sociological Explanations for
Crime
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Crime is the result of an individual’s
location within the structure of society
Crime is the end product of various social
processes, especially inappropriate
socialization and social learning
Crime is the product of class struggle.
The perspective emphasizes the nature of
existing power relationships between
social groups
Social Structure Theories Defined
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Social structure theories – they explain crime by
reference to the economic and social
arrangements (or structure) of society.
They see the various formal and informal
arrangements between social groups as the root
causes of crime and deviance.
They highlight those arrangements within
society that contribute to low socioeconomic
status of identifiable groups as significant causes
of crime.
Social structure theorists view members of
socially and economically disadvantaged groups
as being more likely to commit crime, and they
see economic and social disenfranchisement as
fundamental causes of crime.
Types of Social Structure Theories
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Social Disorganization (ecological
approach)
Strain Theory
Culture Conflict Theory
Social Disorganization Theory
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A perspective on crime and deviance that
sees society as a kind of organism and
crime and deviance as a kind of disease or
social pathology.
Theories of social disorganization are
often associated with the perspective of
social ecology and with the Chicago
School of criminology, which developed
during the 1920s and 1930s.
Social Disorganization
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A condition said to exist when a group is
faced with social change, uneven
development of culture, maladaptiveness,
disharmony, conflict, and lack of
consensus.
Social Ecology – the attempt to link the
structure and organization of any human
community to interactions with its
localized environment
Social Pathology
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Those human actions which run contrary to the
ideals of residential stability, property ownership,
sobriety, thrift, habituation to work, small
business enterprise, sexual discretion, family
solidarity, neighborliness, and discipline of will.
The tem referred simply to behavior not in
keeping with the prevalent norms and values of
the social group.
Definitions
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Cultural transmission – the transmission of
delinquency through successive generations of
people living in the same area through a process
of social communication
Ecological theory – a type of sociological
approach that emphasizes demographics (the
characteristics of population groups) and
geographics (the mapped location of such
groups relative to one another) and that sees
the social disorganization that characterizes
delinquency areas as a major cause of
criminality and victimization.
Chicago School
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Chicago School of criminology – an ecological approach
to explaining crime that examined how social
disorganization contributes to social pathology.
Chicago School – demonstrated the tendency for criminal
activity to be associated with urban transition zones,
which, because of the turmoil or social disorganization
that characterized them, were typified by lower property
values, impoverished lifestyles, and a general lack of
privacy.
The greatest contribution the ecological school made to
criminological literature can be found in the claim that
society, in the form of the community, wields a major
influence on human behavior.
The Criminology of Place
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(Also called Environmental Criminology) is an
emerging perspective within the contemporary
body of criminological theory that builds upon
the contributions of routine activities theory and
situational crime prevention, as well as the
ecological approaches.
It emphasizes the importance of geographic
location and architectural features as they are
associated with the prevalence of victimization.
Broken Windows Thesis
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Broken windows thesis – physical deterioration
and an increase in unrepaired buildings lead to
increased concerns for personal safety among
area residents.
Offenders from other neighborhoods are then
increasingly attracted by the area’s perceived
vulnerability.
Physical evidence of disorder, left unchecked,
leads to crime by driving residents indoors and
sending a message to would-be offenders that a
neighborhood is out of control.
Defensible Space
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A surrogate term for the range of mechanisms –
real and symbolic barriers, strongly defined
areas of influence, and improved opportunities
for surveillance – that combine to bring an
environment under the control of its residents.
Since the routine activities of places may be
regulated far more easily than the routine
activities of persons, a criminology of place
would seem to offer substantial promise for
public policy as well as theory.
Strain Theory
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Anomie – a social condition in which norms are
uncertain or lacking
Norms – wealth, status, happiness
Means – education, hard work, $ savings
Crime and deviance tend to arise as alternative
means to success when individuals feel the
strain of being pressed to succeed in socially
approved ways but find that the tools necessary
for such success are not available to them.
Strain theory – a sociological approach that
posits a disjuncture between socially and
subculturally sanctioned means and goals as the
cause of criminal behavior.
Page 272 – Relative Deprivation
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Relative deprivation refers to the economic and
social gap that exists between rich and poor who
live in close proximity to one another.
People assess their position in life by way of
comparison with things and people they already
know.
Relative deprivation creates feelings of anger,
frustration, hostility, and social injustice on the
part of those who experience it.
Distributive justice – an individual’s perception of
his or her rightful place in the reward structure
of society – could even apply to wealthy
General Strain Theory (GST)
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GST – a perspective that suggests that
lawbreaking behavior is a coping mechanism
that enables those who engage in it to deal with
the socioemotional problems generated by
negative social relations.
Strains most likely to cause crime include child
abuse and neglect; negative secondary-school
experiences; abusive peer relations; chronic
unemployment; marital problems; parental
rejection; erratic, excessive, and or/harsh
supervision or discipline; criminal victimization;
homelessness, racial, ethnic, or gender
discrimination; and a failure to achieve selected
goals.
Culture Conflict Theory
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a/k/a Cultural Deviance Theory – suggests that
the root cause of criminality can be found in a
clash of values between differently socialized
groups over what is acceptable or proper
behavior.
Conduct norms – shared expectations of a social
group relative to personal conduct
Because crime is a violation of laws established
by legislative decree, the criminal event itself,
from this point of view, is nothing more than a
disagreement over what should be acceptable
behavior.
2 types of culture conflict
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Primary conflict – arises when a fundamental
clash of cultures occurs – i.e. an immigrant
father who kills his daughter’s lover following an
old-world tradition that demands that a family’s
honor be kept intact.
Secondary conflict – when smaller cultures
within the primary one clash – i.e. prostitution
and gambling provided plentiful examples of
secondary conflict
Today – drug use and abuse provide more
readily understandable examples – some parts
of America – drug dealing is an acceptable for of
business
Subcultural Theory
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A subculture is a collection of
values and preferences, which
is communicated to subcultural
participants through a process
of socialization.
Subcultures differ from the
larger culture in that they
claim the allegiance of smaller
groups of people.
Ex. – wider Am. Culture
proclaim that hard work and
individuality are valuable, but
subculture may espouse the
virtues of deer hunting, male
bonding, and recreational
alcohol consumption. (Did they
just slam the South?)
Redneck Deer Stand
Delinquency and Drift
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Techniques of neutralization – culturally available
justifications that can provide criminal offenders
with the means to disavow responsibility for
their behavior
5 types of justification – p. 278
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Denying responsibility
Denying injury
Denying the victim
Condemning the condemners
Appealing to higher loyalties
Violent Subcultures
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Geographic distinctions among
violent subcultures in different parts
of the U.S.
A body of criminological literature
exists, for example, that claims that
certain forms of criminal violence
are more acceptable in the southern
U.S. than in northern portions of
the country
Some writers have also referred to
variability in the degree to which
interpersonal violence has been
accepted in the South over time,
whereas others have suggested
that violence in the South might be
a traditional tool in the service of
social order.
The notion of a “southern violence
construct” holds that an “infernal
trinity of Southerner, violence and
weaponry” may make crimes like
homicide and assault more
culturally acceptable in the South
than in other parts of the country.
TROY KING ASKS
SUPREME COURT FOR
EXCUTION DATES
King also filed a motion
for an execution date for
a second Wiregrass killer,
Phillip Hallford. Hallford,
61, was convicted of
shooting a 16-year-old
boy to death in the
Daleville area. Hallford
has been on death row
for 21 years for the April
13, 1986, shooting death
of Charles Eddie
Shannon, his daughter’s
boyfriend.
Differential Opportunity Theory
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Illegitimate opportunity structure –
subcultural pathways to success that the
wider society disapproves of
Reaction formation – the process by which
a person openly rejects that which he or
she wants or aspires to but cannot obtain
or achieve
The Code of the Street
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Contemporary street code that stresses a
hyperinflated notion of manhood that rests
squarely on the idea of respect.
At the heart of the code is the issue of
respect – loosely defined as being treated
‘right’ or being granted one’s ‘props’ (or
proper due) or the deference one
deserves.
Gangs
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80% of agencies serving a population of
50,000 or more reported gang-related
problems – only 12% of rural agencies
reported such problems
Estimates – 760,000 gang members and
24,000 gangs were active in U.S. in 2004
Critique of Social Structure
Theories p. 290
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The fundamental assumption of social
structure approaches is that social
injustice, racism, and poverty are the root
cause of crime. – If true, negates social
responsibility perspective.
Others argue the inverse is true – poverty
and what appear to be social injustices are
produced by crime.
Chapter 8: Theories of Social
Process and Social Development
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1999 Columbine shootings (15 people
died) – criminologist continue to debate
the influences in the lives of Harris and
Klebold that led up to the Columbine
shootings
2007 Virginia Tech shooting spree – death
of 33 people by student suffering from
mental problems
The Social Process Perspective
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a/k/a interactionist perspectives - A theory
that asserts that criminal behavior is
learned in interaction with others and that
socialization processes that occur as the
result of group membership are the
primary route through which learning
occurs.
Groups include – family, peers, work
groups – which one identifies
Types of Social Process Theories
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Learning Theory – a perspective that places
emphasis upon the role of communication and
socialization in the acquisition of learned
patterns of criminal behavior and the values that
support that behavior
According to learning theory, criminal behavior is
a product of the social environment and not an
innate characteristic of particular people
Differential association – the sociological thesis
that criminality, like any other form of behavior,
is learned through a process of association with
others who communicate criminal values
Differential Identification Theory
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An explanation for crime and deviance
that holds that people pursue criminal or
deviant behavior to the extent that they
identify themselves with real or imaginary
people from whose perspective their
criminal or deviant behavior seems
acceptable
Social Control Theory
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A perspective that predicts that when
social constraints on antisocial behavior
are weakened or absent, delinquent
behavior emerges. Rather than stressing
causative factors in criminal behavior,
control theory asks why people actually
obey rules instead of breaking them.
Containment Theory
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A form of control theory that suggests that a
series of both internal and external factors
contributes to law-abiding behavior.
Containment – aspects of the social bond that
act to prevent individuals from committing
crimes and that keep them from engaging in
deviance.
Social bond – the link, created through
socialization, between individuals and the society
of which they are a part.
General Theory of Crime
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Asserts that the operation of a single
mechanism, low self-control, accounts for
‘all crime, at all times’; including acts
ranging from vandalism to homicide, from
rape to white-collar-crime.
Control-Balance Theory
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Control ratio – the amount of control to
which a person is subject versus the
amount of control that person exerts over
others.
Labeling Theory
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Tagging – the process whereby an individual is
negatively defined by agencies of justice
Primary deviance – initial deviance often undertaken to
deal with transient problems in living
Secondary deviance – deviant behavior that results from
official labeling and from association with others who
have been so labeled.
Labeling – an interactionist perspective that sees
continued crime as a consequence of limited
opportunities for acceptable behavior that follow from
the negative responses of society to those defined as
offenders.
Moral enterprise – the efforts made by an interest group
to have its sense of moral or ethical propriety enacted
into law.
Reintegrative Shaming
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Stigmatic shaming – a form of shaming, imposed
as a sanction by the criminal justice system, that
is thought to destroy the moral bond between
the offender and the community
Reintegrative shaming – a form of shaming,
imposed as a sanction by the criminal justice
system, that is thought to strengthen the moral
bond between the offender and the community.
Dramaturgy
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Dramaturgical perspective – a theoretical point of view
that depicts human behavior as centered around the
purposeful management of interpersonal impressions.
Impression management – the intentional enactment of
practiced behavior that is intended to convey to others
one’s desirable personal characteristics and social
qualities
Discrediting information – information that is inconsistent
with the managed impressions being communicated in a
given situation
Total institution – a facility from which individuals can
rarely come and go and in which communal life is
intense and circumscribed.
Prosocial Bonds
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Bonds between the individual and the
social group that strengthen the likelihood
of conformity.
Prosocial bonds are characterized by
attachment to conventional social
institutions, values, and beliefs.
Next Week
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Start at page 317 in Chapter 8 and finish
Chapter 8
Chapter 9: Sociological Theories III
Criminology Today
Last part of Chapter 8
and Chapter 9
The Social Development
Perspective
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Human development – The relationship between
the maturing individual and his or her changing
environment, as well as the social processes that
the relationship entails.
Social development perspective – An integrated
view of human development that examines
multiple levels of maturation simultaneously,
including the psychological, biological, familial,
interpersonal, cultural, societal, and econlogical
levels.
Concepts in Social Development
Theories
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Social development theories focus more on
individual rates of offending and seek to
understand both increases and decreases in
rates of offending over the individual’s lifetime.
Life Course Theories – highlight the
development of criminal careers, which are seen
as the result of various criminogenic influences
that affect individuals throughout the course of
their lives.
Important Life Course Principles
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Historical time and place – children born during
depression - life shaped by experience
Timing in lives – life transitions and when they
occur - early marriage or child bearing –
influence course of persons life
Linked lives – interdependent lives – family
members has serious illness
Human agency – choices made and actions
taken, moving into city to find work – definition
– the active role that people take in their lives;
the fact that people are not merely subject to
social and structural constraints but actively
make choices and decisions based on the
alternatives that they see before them
Virginia Tech Massacre
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Seung-Hui Cho[3] (January 18, 1984 – April 16, 2007) was a South
Korean student at Virginia Tech who committed mass murder of 32 people
and wounded 25 others in the shooting rampage which has come to be
known as the Virginia Tech massacre.[4][5] Cho committed suicide after
law enforcement officers breached the doors of the building where he had
killed and injured the majority of his victims.
Cho was a South Korean national who had permanent resident status in
the United States, where he arrived at a young age with his family. He was
diagnosed with a severe form of an anxiety disorder known as selective
mutism in middle school, as well as depression.[6] After this diagnosis he
began to receive treatment and he continued receiving therapy and
special education support until his junior year of high school. During Cho's
last two years at Virginia Tech, several instances of his aberrant behavior,
as well as plays and other writings he submitted containing references to
violence, caused concern among teachers and classmates.
In the aftermath of the Virginia Tech shootings, Virginia Governor Tim
Kaine convened a panel consisting of various officials and experts to
investigate and examine the response and handling of issues related to
the shootings. The panel released its final report in August 2007, devoting
more than 30 pages to detailing Cho's troubled history. In the report, the
panel criticized numerous failures—by school administrators, educators
and mental health professionals who came into contact with Cho during
his college years, who failed to notice his deteriorating condition and failed
to help him. The panel also criticized misinterpretations of privacy laws
and gaps in Virginia's mental health system and gun laws. In addition, the
panel faulted Virginia Tech administrators in particular for failing to take
immediate action after the first shootings.[
Laub and Sampson’s Age-Graded
Theory
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Laub and Sampson found that children who turned to
delinquency were frequently those who had trouble at
school and at home and who had friends who were
already involved in delinquency.
They also found that two events in the life course –
marriage and job stability – seemed to be especially
important in reducing the frequency of offending in later
life.
The delinquency is more likely to occur when an
individual’s bond to society is weak or broken.
Social capital – the degree of positive relationships with
others and with social institutions that individuals build
up over the course of their lives.
The greater a persons social capital, the less the chance
of criminal activity.
Moffitt’s Dual Taxonomic Theory
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Criminologist have long noted that although adult
criminality is almost always preceded by antisocial
behavior during adolescence, most antisocial children do
not become adult criminals.
Life course persisters tend to fail in school and become
involved in delinquency at an early age.
Research findings indicate that positive development
pathways are fostered when adolescents are able to
develop (1) a sense of industry and competency (2) a
feeling of connectedness to others and to society (3) a
belief in their ability to control their future, and (4) a
stable identity.
Adolescents who develop these characteristics appear
more likely than others to engage in prosocial behaviors,
exhibit positive school performances, and be members of
nondeviant peer groups.
Farrington’s Delinquent
Development Theory
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Persistence – continuity in crime, or continual
involvement in offending
Desistance – the cessation of criminal activity or
the termination of a period of involvement in
offending behavior.
Farrington found that the study’s persistent
offenders suffered from “hyperactivity, poor
concentration, low achievement, an antisocial
father, large family size, low family income, a
broken family, poor parental supervision, and
parental disharmony.
Evolutionary Ecology
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Cohort Analysis – a social scientific technique
that studies over time a population with
common characteristics. Cohort analysis usually
begins at birth and traces the development of
cohort members until they reach a certain age.
Evolutionary ecology – an approach to
understanding crime that draws attention to the
ways people develop over the course of their
lives.
Interactional Theory
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A theoretical approach to exploring crime and
delinquency that blends social control and social learning
perspectives.
The fundamental cause of delinquency according to
interactional theory is a weakening of a person’s bond to
conventional society.
Adolescents who are strongly attached to their parents
and family and who strive to achieve within the context
of approved social arrangements, such as education,
rarely turn to serious delinquency.
On childhood maltreatment -- it was found that the
degree of maltreatment experienced in childhood bore at
least some relationship to the extent of delinquent
involvement later in life.
Development Pathways
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Manifestations of disruptive behaviors in childhood and
adolescence are often age dependent, reflecting a
developing capability to display different behaviors with
age.
Interviews with high risk youths show that
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Delinquency is related to individual risk factors like impulsivity
The more seriously involved in drugs a youth is, the more seriously
that juvenile will be involved in delinquency
Children who are more attached to and involved with their parents
are less involved in delinquency
Greater risks exist for violent offending when a child is physically
abused or neglected early in life
Students who are not highly committed to school have higher
rates of delinquency and vice versa
Affiliations with street gangs and illegal gun ownership are both
predictive of delinquency
Living in a “bad” neighborhood doubles the risk for delinquency
Family receipt of public assistance (welfare) is associated with the
highest risk of delinquency (followed by low socioeconomic status)
PHDCN
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Project on Human Development in Chicago
Neighborhoods (PHDCN) – an intensive
study of Chicago neighborhoods
employing longitudinal evaluations to
examine the changing circumstances of
people’s lives in an effort to identify
personal characteristics that may lead
toward or away from antisocial behavior.
Chapter 9: Social Conflict Theories
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Consensus model – an analytical
perspective on social organization that
holds that most members of society agree
about what is right and what is wrong and
that they various elements of society work
together in unison toward a common
vision of the greater good.
Unabomber
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Theodore John Kaczynski [kaˈtʂɨɲskʲi] (born May 22, 1942), also known
as the Unabomber, is an American mathematician and social critic who
carried out a campaign of bombings. He was born in Chicago, Illinois, and
excelled in academics at a young age. Kaczynski received an undergraduate
degree from Harvard University and earned a PhD in mathematics from the
University of Michigan. He became an assistant professor at the University of
California, Berkeley at age 25 but resigned two years later. In 1971, he moved
to a remote cabin in Lincoln, Montana. From 1978 to 1995, Kaczynski sent 16
bombs to targets including universities and airlines, killing three people and
injuring 23.
Kaczynski sent a letter to The New York Times on April 24, 1995 and
promised "to desist from terrorism" if The New York Times or The Washington
Post published his manifesto. In his Industrial Society and Its Future (also
called the "Unabomber Manifesto"), he argued that his bombings were
extreme but necessary to attract attention to the erosion of human freedom
necessitated by modern technologies requiring large-scale organization.
The Unabomber was the target of one of the most expensive investigations in
the Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI) history. Before Kaczynski's identity
was known, the FBI used the handle "UNABOM" ("UNiversity and Airline
BOMber") to refer to his case, which resulted in the media calling him the
Unabomber. Despite the FBI's efforts, he was not caught as a result of this
investigation. Instead, his brother recognized Ted's style of writing and beliefs
from the manifesto, and tipped off the FBI. To avoid the death penalty,
Kaczynski entered into a plea agreement, under which he pled guilty and was
sentenced to life in prison with no possibility of parole
Pluralist Perspective
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An analytical approach to social
organization that holds that a multiplicity
of values and beliefs exists in any complex
society but that most social actors agree
on the usefulness of law as a formal
means of dispute resolution.
Conflict Perspective
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An analytical perspective on social organization
that holds that conflict is a fundamental aspect
of social life itself and can never be fully
resolved.
Proletariat – in Marxist theory, the working class.
Bourgeoisie – In Marxist theory, the class of
people who own the means of production.
Social class – distinctions made between
individuals on the basis of important defining
social characteristics
Page 354 – Radical Criminology
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Radical criminology – a perspective that
holds that the causes of crime are rooted
in social conditions that empower the
wealthy and the politically well organized
but disenfranchise the less fortunate.
Marxist criminology – a perspective on
crime and crime causation based on the
writings of Karl Marx.
Structural & Instrumental Marxism
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Structural Marxism - A perspective that
holds that the structural institutions of
society influence the behavior of
individuals and groups by virtue of the
type of relationships created.
Instrumental Marxism – a perspective that
holds that those in power intentionally
create laws and social institutions that
serve their own interests and that keep
others from becoming powerful.
Critical Criminology
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A perspective that holds that crime is the natural product
of a capitalist system.
Market societies are societies in which the striving after
personal economic gain runs rampant and becomes the
hallmark of social life.
The conditions endemic to market societies lead to high
crimes rates because they undercut and overwhelm
more traditional principles that “have historically
sustained individuals, families, and communities.”
7 mechanisms operate in a market society to produce
crime – page 358
Marxist criminology has suffered a considerable loss of
prestige among many would-be followers in the wake of
the collapse of the former Soviet Union and its client
states in Eastern Europe and other parts of the world.
Emerging Conflict Theories
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Left-realist criminology – an approach to the subject
matter of criminology based on ideas inherent in the
perspective of left realism.
Left realism – a conflict perspective that insists on a
pragmatic assessment of crime and its associated
problems
Left realists argue that victims of crime are often the poor
and disenfranchised who fall prey to criminals with similar
backgrounds.
A central tenet of left realism is that radical ideas must be
translated into realistic social policies if contemporary
criminology is to have any practical relevance.
The major goal of left realism is therefore to achieve “ a
fair and orderly society” through a practical emphasis on
social justice.
Hence, left realists are concerned with the reality of crime
and the damage it does to the most vulnerable segments
of the population.
Feminist Criminology
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Feminist Criminology – a self-conscious
corrective model intended to redirect the
thinking of mainstream criminologists to
include gender awareness.
Patriarchy – the tradition of male
dominance.
Androcentricity – a single-sex perspective,
as in the case of criminologist who study
only the criminality of males.
Definitions
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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.
Power- control Theory

A perspective that holds that the
distribution of crime and delinquency
within society is to some degree founded
upon the consequences that power
relationships within the wider society hold
for domestic settings and for the everyday
relationships among mean, women, and
children within the context of family life.
Postmodern Criminology


A brand of criminology that developed following
WWII and that builds on the tenets inherent in
postmodern social thought.
Deconstructionist Theory – a postmodern
perspective that challenges existing
criminological theories in order to debunk them
and that works toward replacing traditional ideas
with concepts seen as more appropriate to the
postmodern era.
Peacemaking Criminology




A perspective that holds that crime control agencies and
the citizens they serve should work together to alleviate
social problems and human suffering and thus reduce
crime.
Peace model – an approach to crime control that focuses
on effective ways for developing a shared consensus on
critical issues that could seriously affect the quality of
life.
Participatory justice – a relatively informal type of
criminal justice case processing that makes use of local
community resources rather than requiring traditional
forms of official intervention.
Restorative justice – a postmodern perspective that
stresses “remedies and restoration rather than prison,
punishment and victim neglect. See Drug Court p. 371
Convict Criminology

A new radical paradigm consisting of
writings on the subject matter of
criminology by convicted felons and exinmates who have acquired academic
credentials, or who are associated with
credentialed others.
Next Week

Chapters 10, 11 and 12