The Criminological Moment: On the Limits of Theoretical
Explanations of Criminogenic Agency1
Michael W. Raphael
CUNY Graduate Center
Abstract
Several texts on theoretical criminology organize themselves in various ways. Yet, the correlation of the
types of crime these theories purport to explain at the phenomenological level at which factors orbit and
exert their social facts to correlate an individual with a criminal act is not altogether clear. This paper
presents a framework for a new ‘theoretical organization’ aimed at clarifying the requisite qualifications
for theoretical explanations to apply to six types of crime and proposes three phenomenological levels of
agency around which criminogenic factors tend to coalesce in the hope that new criminological theory
can emerge and their subsequent policies will be better informed given this re-organization.
Introduction
The word crime is derived from the Latin root cernō, meaning “I decide, I give judgment” (Klein, 1971)
while the term’s Latin cognate, crīmen, meant “charge” or “cry of distress.” The Ancient
Greek word krima (κρίμα), from which the Latin cognate derives, typically referred to an intellectual
mistake or an offense against the community, (Bakaoukas, 2005) rather than a private or moral wrong as
current legal theory suggests. (Cf. Garland, 2008: 56) This socio-legal construct has accumulated a
stigma (Cf. Goffman, 1963) since Ancient Greece whereby the criminal signified trended between the
imagery of the demonically possessed (Cf. Pfohl, 2009) and the imagery of “an anomaly, partly
pathological and partly atavistic, a revival of the primitive savage.” (Lombroso-Ferrero, 2009: xii)
Hence, criminological theory developed around the conception of the uncivilized creature committing
heinous acts on the street that needed to be disciplined and punished. (Cf. Foucault, 1977)
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Last updated: 3/15/2016 4:24 AM; Preparing for Submission to the British Journal of Sociology.
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Given this socio-legal construct, which by definition varies by jurisdiction, several scholars suggest
avoiding the issue by defining a category wider than ‘crime’ typically referred to as “social deviance”
(Felson, 2006: 33) yet that also has definitional issues. Instead, Felson goes on to later state that “Crime
is impelled by life itself. All people have a natural capacity to discover and enjoy what they are not
supposed to do. Sometimes people stumble across illicit opportunities quite by accident. Other times
they set out to find these opportunities, perhaps with care, perhaps without.” (2006: 357) Therefore the
question stumbled upon is not why people commit crime but to theorize what factors impose an
individual to be found in a setting where an action would provide the police with justification for
enforcing the law. The criminological literature organizes these factors into theories. When a factor that
tends to correlate an individual with the setting of a criminal act, the factor is considered to be
criminogenic.2 When an individual possesses an aggregate of these factors, they are said to have the
criminogenic character and are more likely to be found in a situation where the police would have to
enforce the law than individuals without such a character. The level of criminogenic agency, or the
location in which these factors orbit, can be organized at the individual level, the environmental level
and at the group level. This taken together with the type of crime to be explained will perhaps provide
further clarity on the relationships among the criminological theories to the extent they theorize crime
and not more general social behaviors.
Types of Crime
With the imagery of the demonic savage in mind, one might be led to think that criminological theory
tries to explain street crime (Cf. Hallsworth, 2005) and violence but in fact the body of criminological
theory is broader than that. Larry J. Siegel suggests that the types of crime can be clustered into six
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Rather than defining criminogenic as the tendency to cause crime or criminality, this paper asserts this definition.
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groups: (1) violent crime, (2) political crime, (3) property crime, (4) enterprise crime, (5) public order
crime, and (6) cybercrime. (Siegel, 2009: 299) The relationship between the type of offense and the type
of offender has become the study of criminal typologies. Historically, these typologies have become a
subject of study in their own right. (Cf. Roebuck, 1967; Meier, 1984; Clinard et al., 1994 [1967];
Garland, 2008; Hagan, 2009)
One of the more notable classification schemes for categorizing types of criminals comes from the work
of Clinard, Quinney, & Wildeman (1994 [1967]) where they develop nine types of criminal behavior
systems in relation to the five theoretical dimensions.3 Their scheme divides the types of criminals as
follows: (1) Violent Personal Criminal Behavior; (2) Occasional Property Criminal Behavior; (3) Public
Order Criminal Behavior; (4) Conventional Criminal Behavior; (5) Political Criminal Behavior; (6)
Occupational Criminal Behavior; (7) Corporate Criminal Behavior; (8) Organized Criminal Behavior;
and (9) Professional Criminal Behavior. (1994 [1967]: 15) Since this paper attempts to organize the
types of crime correlated with criminological theory stratified by the level of criminogenic agency, the
type of crime needs to become divorced from the ideal and empirical types of criminals. Given this,
Robert F. Meier published in 1984 an edited volume entitled Major Forms of Crime in which, through
the use of Clinard’s typology, different authors discuss the definitional issues in defining types of crime.
Within the following discussion, then, consider how the interaction of Clinard, et al.’s typology of
criminals with Meirer’s and other’s definitions & characterizations fit in with Siegel’s typology of crime
such that the degree of broadness falls within the “Goldilocks” zone.
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These theoretical dimensions are (1) Legal Aspects of Selected Offenses; (2) Criminal Career of the Offender; (3) Group
Support of Criminal Behavior; (4) Correspondence between Criminal and Legitimate Behavior; and (5) Social Reaction and
Legal Processing. (Ibid.: 14)
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Violent Crime
Discussions of violence and its illegitimate implications present the following qualifications:
1. “Crimes involving the use of force or the threat of force against persons (murder, manslaughter,
rape, assault, robbery) were considered violent.” (Heilbrun, 1979: 511)
2. “Violence refers to a broader class of action. In general, it refers to any transaction in which one
party uses physical force to manipulate another. Thus, violence includes a wide variety of
transactions: from group confrontations, such as riots and revolutions, to interpersonal struggles,
such as schoolyard scuffles and domestic fights; from legitimate encounters, in which the use of
force is legally approved, as when two men square off in a prizefight, to illegitimate encounters,
in which the use of force is disapproved, as when a man kills his unfaithful wife; and so forth.
These transactions share a fundamental quality: they are instances of coercion based on physical
force. Yet they are distinctive, involving different kinds of people, featuring different dynamics,
and eliciting different reactions from others.” (Luckenbill, 1984: 19)
3. “Felonious violent crimes against the person include acts in which physical injury is inflicted
against one or more others, including criminal homicide, aggravated assault, forcible rape or
attempts to inflict such injuries. What has been referred to as "suicide by proxy," where a
despondent and depressed person kills his or her loved ones and himself/herself in order to spare
them humiliation, falls into the same category (Livingston 1992, 165). So-called ‘assisted deaths’
(in the style of Dr. Jack Kevorkian), wherein one person aids and abets the death of another, have
been defined legally as homicides. Kidnapping involves the element of physical force, and child
abuse sometimes also involves the use of force and violence against the person. Armed robbery
involves an element of force, such as the use of a gun, knife or threat of violence in obtaining
money, jewelry or other items of value.” (Clinard et al., 1994 [1967]: 25)
Based on the intersections and interactions of these discussions then in regard to the issue at hand, the
condition required for selecting the applicability of a criminological theory to this crime type would be
whether it could explain what factors impose an individual or group to either coerce another through the
threat of physical injury or the induction of physical injury, lethal or otherwise.
Political Crime
Political crime as a category varies in its perception and definition in contrast to definitions of to some
scholarship that suggests white-collar crime should subsume these types of acts. The literature presents
the follow characterizations:
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1. “Illegal acts that are designed to undermine an existing government and threaten its survival.
Political crimes can include both violent and non-violent acts and range in seriousness from
dissent, treason, and espionage to violent acts such as terrorism and assassination.” (Siegel,
2009: 506)
2. Political crimes are “acts which officials treat as if they were political and criminal regardless of
their real nature and the motivation of their perpetrators.” (Ingraham, 1979)
3. Political crime is “whatever is recognized or anticipated by authorities to be resistance
threatening the established structure of differential resources and opportunities.” (Turk, 1984:
120)
4. “Political crimes—crimes by or against the government—are particularly difficult to view
objectively, for they always involve moral and ideological positions. Any discussion of political
crime is bound to be complicated by what are often conflicting views of a situation. A wide
variety of crimes against the government are crimes of omission, crimes such as evasion of
income tax laws, violations of customs regulations or operating or acting without a license when
one is required.” (Clinard et al., 1994 [1967]: 141-2)
5. “Political crime has been defined in a number of different ways but, apart from a broad definition
which sees all crime as political, most seek to make a distinction between political crime and
ordinary crime either because of the different motivations or ideology of the individuals involved
or the different context in which the crime takes place.” (Hillyard, 2006: 300)
6. “Similarly, state crime research distinguishes between political crimes— those illegal activities
committed by state actors for the fulfillment of personal goals or those of non-polity
organizations working within, and other state crimes. Political crimes, such as corruption and
election fraud, are typically done by state actors who use their access to state resources for the
accomplishment of the criminal act. Yet, motivational drives and criminal outcomes are focused
on personal enrichment and/or direct benefit to non-state groups, such as political parties. As
with occupational crime, I see the key trait of political crimes being individuals taking advantage
of their occupational positions of trust (Sutherland 1939) to enhance their own social status and
positions. Archetypical cases of this type of political crime include Boss Tweed's corruption of
Tammany Hall, the Teapot Dome Scandal of the Harding Administration, and the Watergate
break-ins ordered by the Nixon White House. Such scandals and abuses of power are nearly
omnipresent in modern states (see Ross's 2003 volume for a comprehensive list of criminal
corruption in modern democratic states). While others do classify this type of behavior as a form
of state crime, I view these as occupational crimes—for self-gain, not in pursuit of organizational
goals as such; they are out of the purview of what I consider to be forms of state crime.” (Rothe,
2009: 22)
Again, the question arises what these depictions have in common that would allow a criminological
theory suggest what factors qualify an individual or group to partake in a specific action that can
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legitimately be said to be motivated by a desire to affect a significant portion of society, including one
or another of its institutions, and it involves as one of the elements of its intention a rejection of the
legitimacy of calling the act a crime and an additional intention, that may or may not be carried out
depending on circumstances and ratios of cost to benefits, to treat the prosecution of the crime as itself a
political act.
Property Crime
Siegel’s classification of this crime type has subsumed two criminal typologies: those who commit such
crimes occasionally and those who commit such crimes professionally. Therefore, in order to acquiesce
upon property crimes’ constitution, consider the following characterizations:
1. “Crimes against property are those offenses in which the criminal steals or damages something
that belongs to someone else. These crimes are far more common than those involving violence:
on average, one occurs every 3 seconds. The main forms of this offense are burglary, which
involves an unlawful entry to commit a theft or other serious crime (one every 10 seconds);
larceny, or theft (one every 4 seconds); motor-vehicle theft (one every 24 seconds); and arson, or
maliciously setting fire to property.” (Robertson, 1988: 124)
2. Occasional Property Crime
1. “Criminal laws protect the material interests of the propertied classes. Specific laws
prohibit forgery, shoplifting, vandalism and auto theft.” (Clinard et al., 1994 [1967]: 18)
2. “There is general agreement that burglary, theft, fraud, and larceny are instances of
property crime, for the owner's illegal loss of property (that is, goods or money) is
apparent in such activities. Robbery and arson also result in property loss or damage, but
these criminal acts frequently are thought of as crimes against persons rather than as
property crimes, because they involve a threat of injury to persons. For our purposes,
however, property crime is defined to include any criminal behavior by which property is
damaged or by which possession of property is transferred, regardless of whether that
behavior involves the threat or use of physical force to accomplish that objective.”
(Hepburn, 1984: 73)
3. Professional Theft
1. “Professional theft traditionally refers to nonviolent forms of criminal behavior that are
undertaken with a high degree of skill, for monetary gain, and that exploit interests which
tend to maximize financial opportunities and minimize the possibilities of apprehension.
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As such, it is a highly specialized variety of crime, reflecting an occupational structure
similar to many of the ‘learned’ professions and other vocational pursuits. The most
typical forms of criminal activity engaged in by professional thieves include
pickpocketing, burglary, shoplifting, forgery and counterfeiting, extortion, sneak theft,
and confidence swindling.” (Inciardi, 1984: 223)
2. “The professional thief is one who steals professionally. This means, first, that he makes
a regular business of stealing. He devotes his entire working time and energy to larceny
and may steal three hundred and sixty-five days a year. Second, every act is carefully
planned. The selection of spots, securing of the property, making a get-away, disposing
of the stolen property, and fixing cases in which he may be pinched (arrested) are all
carefully planned. Third, the professional thief has technical skills and methods which are
different from those of other professional criminals. Manual skill is important in some of
the rackets, but the most important thing in all the rackets is the ability to manipulate
people. The thief depends on his approach, front, wits, and in many instances his talking
ability. The professional burglar or stickup man (robber with a gun), on the other hand,
uses violence or threat of violence even though he may on occasion use soothing
language in order to quiet people. Fourth, the professional thief is generally migratory
and may work in all the cities of the United States.” (Conwell & Sutherland, 1956: 3)
Given these portrayals, the question arises what these descriptions are collectively – meaning what
would let a criminological theory propose factors to qualify an individual or group to participate in a
specific action that can legitimately be said to be a ‘property crime’. Since the scope of this section is
focused on crimes and not criminals, the distinction between occasional and professional can be
eschewed although such a distinction frames the method and frequency by which the act is mediated – it
does not alter the fact that an act occurred. What this leaves the criminologist with is determining which
factors motivate offenders aimed at denying others their material interests.
Enterprise Crime
Several typologies of crime arrange notions of white collar, corporate and organized crime at different
levels of classification similar to how ‘occasional property crime’ and ‘professional theft’ are
subordinate to ‘property crime.’ For this crime type, Peter Gill suggests that the distinction of ‘enterprise
crime’ should be a subordinate category to ‘organized crime’ and not a superior classification. It appears
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Gill asserts this because for him, the literature suggests white collar crime is a category in its own right
and that ‘organized crime’ commonly draws the specific distinction “between ‘ordinary’ criminals, even
if in gangs, whose crimes are ‘predatory’, that is, concerned with the illegal redistribution of already
existing wealth, and criminal organizations committing ‘enterprise’ crime: the production and
distribution of new [wealth] though illegal, goods and services.” (2006: 280; Cf. Levi, 2002: 885)
Yet, Siegel appears to reconcile the subordination of white collar and organized crime (Siegel, 2009:
396) with the latter half of his textbook definition: “The use of illegal tactics to gain profit in the
marketplace. Enterprise crimes can invoke and both the violation of law in the course of an otherwise
legitimate occupation or the sale or distribution of illegal commodities.” (Ibid: 501) In order to properly
classify and induce the applicable criminological theories to this crime type, consider how the literature
characterizes what Siegel sees as sub-categories:
1. White Collar Crime
1. “The white-collar criminal is defined as a person with high socio-economic status who
violates the laws designed to regulate his occupational activities.” (Sutherland, 1949: 511;
Cf. Geis, 2007 for a discussion of Sutherland’s various attempts to define this.)
2. “Illegal acts that capitalize on a person’s status in the marketplace. White collar crimes can
involve theft, embezzlement fraud, market manipulation, restraint of trade, and false
advertising.” (Siegel, 2009: 512)
3. White Collar Crime is “a heterogeneous group of offences committed by people of relatively
high status or enjoying relatively high levels of "trust, and made possible by their legitimate
employment. Such crimes typically include fraud, embezzlement, tax violations and other
accounting offences, and various forms of workplace theft and fiddling in which the
organization, its customers or other organizations are the victims.” (Tombs & Whyt, 2006a:
462)
4. Corporate Crime
1.“White collar crime involving a legal violation by a corporate entity, such as pricefixing, restraint of trade, or hazardous waste dumping.” (Siegel, 2009: 498)
2.“The study of corporate crime examines the extensive illegal behavior of
organizations that are formally legal.” (Gill, 2006: 281)
3.“Illegal acts or omissions, punishable by the state under administrative, civil or
criminal law, which are the result of deliberate decision-making or culpable
negligence within a legitimate formal organization. These acts or omissions are based
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in legitimate, formal, business organizations, made in accordance with the normative
goals, standard operating procedures, and/or cultural norms of the organization, and
are intended to benefit the corporation itself.” (Tombs & Whyt, 2006b: 74-75)
2. Organized Crime
1. “This concept emerged first in the United States in the 1920s but is now used internationally,
for example, by the United Nations and G8 countries, as shorthand to describe a range of
serious crimes that are deemed especially difficult to control. It may be defined as the
ongoing activities of those collectively engaged in production, supply and financing for
illegal markets in goods and services.” (Gill, 2006: 280)
2. “Illegal activities of people and organizations whose acknowledged purpose is profit through
illegitimate business enterprise.” (Siegel, 2009: 505)
3. “The most essential feature of the criminal gang is that its members routinely engage in law
violation behavior.” (Knox, 1993:1)
Hence, the issue at-hand can be framed by finding the question within Gill’s statement, “Overall, the
enterprise model is at the heart of the common metaphor of the criminal ‘firm’” (Gill, 2006: 281) and
that is what is the crime in enterprise? This leaves the criminologist with the task of determining which
factors qualify an individual or group to participate in a specific action that can legitimately be said to be
the perversion of the legal rules of commercial conduct for illegitimate purposes.
Public Order Crime
This crime type is where controversy arises – as Victoria L. Swigert wrote, “There are other offenses,
however, in which the activities condemned seem less attuned to the reciprocal interests of the state and
individual or which involve harms that are much less self-evident.” (1984: 95) If there was anything
intrinsic to the offences discussed so far, ignoring Durkheim for a moment (1938: 70), here is where that
intrinsicality would evaporate. Swigert makes this argument very clear: “Not only are most people
breaking America's laws, but changes in the law convert conformists into criminals and criminals into
conformists at the stroke of a pen. Furthermore, there are perfectly legal behaviors that, upon closer
inspection, look like ones that are vigorously condemned. It does little good to study individual actors
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when the ultimate cause of their status as deviant or conformist lies in the rules themselves.” (1984: 107)
Nevertheless, during the midst of developing this framework, consider these characterizations:
1. “Acts that are considered illegal because they threaten the general well-being of society and
challenge its accepted moral principles.” (Siegel, 2009: 507-8)
2. “Specific criminal laws embody the moral sense of particular segments of the community. Such
offenses as prostitution, homosexuality, drunkenness and drug use are disturbing to some
community members. Many of the crimes are ‘victimless’ in that only willing participants are
involved. Yet it is easier for the power elite to outlaw these behaviors than to either accept them
or to change the social arrangements that produced the behavior.” (Clinard et al., 1994 [1967]:
18)
3. “There is an entire category of offenses from which nobody usually suffers directly, except
perhaps the offenders themselves. These are the victimless crimes, such as gambling,
prostitution, vagrancy, illicit drug use, prohibited sexual acts between consenting adults, and the
like. … Victimless crime is notoriously difficult to control. One reason, of course, is that there is
no aggrieved victim to bring a charge, or to give evidence, against the offender. Another reason
is that the offenders often regard the laws, not themselves, as wrong.” (Robertson, 1988: 125)
Given these depictions and Swigert’s formidable “stroke of pen” (representing law as the cause of
crime) and the wide variable nature of possible offenses, here criminologists are handed a brick wall to
run into. For if “stroke of pen” is the case, then criminological theory would not suffice and might
represent a call for a general theory of deviance and would be outside the scope of this analysis… (For a
discussion on how police deal with the “stroke of pen” in practice Cf. Manning, 2010: 209.) Therefore
the question determining which factors qualify an individual or group to participate in a specific action
purports to situate the calculus (however faulty) of the individual over the calculus (again, however
faulty) of society.
Cybercrime
While most of the offenses discussed so far have been occurring for centuries, this crime type is younger
than criminological theory. According to Mark Sherman of the Federal Judicial Center, “Cybercrime is
difficult to define because it ranges from crimes that cannot be committed without a computer or
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connected device to traditional crimes that are merely facilitated by computers or connected devices.”
(2000: 5) In light of this, examine these subsequent depictions:
1. One “might characterize information age crime as being illegal, immoral or antisocial
behavior that is directed either explicitly against computer resources, or that uses computers
in an incidental manner, or that could not be possible without the involvement of
computers.” (Barrett, 1997: 32)
2. “Cybercrimes are illegal acts committed with the assistance of, or by means of, computers,
computer networks, the Internet and web-based information and communications technologies
(ICTs).” (Jewke, 2006: 106)
3. “Cybercrimes are “criminal or harmful activities that are informational, global and networked.
They are the product of networked technologies that have transformed the division of criminal
labor to provide entirely new opportunities for, and indeed, new forms of crime which typically
involve the acquisition or manipulation of information and its value across global networks.”
(Wall, 2007: 4)
4. “The use of modern technology for criminal purpose.” (Siegel, 2009: 499)
5. “Law enforcement officers divide cybercrime into three categories: crimes in which a computer
is the target of the offense, crimes in which a computer is used as a tool in committing the
offense, and crimes in which a computer plays an incidental role in the commission of the
offense.” (Brenner, 2010: 39)
These depictions taken together, organized in historical order, suggests a new Pandora’s Box that
criminological theory is not prepared for. Susan W. Brenner’s characterization (No. 5 above)
emphasizes the distinction of the computer as either the means or the target. The implications for
criminological theory in terms of the computer/internet as the means, theory need not attempt explain
who the offender is because the factors that explain the ‘violent’ offender (Cf. Jolson, 2011) or
‘professional thief’ might as well explain the ‘e-offender’ since the act is still fundamentally personal
injury or the denial of another’s material interests. The computer/internet as the means basically allows
offenders to become more sophisticated with their methods:
“If ‘Slick’ Willie Sutton, the oft-quoted 1930s gentleman bank robber, was embarking on his
criminal career today he would, likely as not, be contemplating using the internet to commit his
robberies: 'because that’s where the money [now] is!’ The difference between then and now is
that Willie would no longer be planning arduous and dangerous million-dollar bank robberies
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because networked technologies enable him to commit millions of $1 robberies with much less
risk.” (Wall, 2007: 70)
However, the point where Pandora opens her box, has little to do with the electronic means approach
since the laws for various types of crime were simply modified to include the electronic means like
identity theft and cyber stalking. (Cf. Ibid, 69-102; Siegel, 2009: 472-8) Since the electronic means is
not the end goal, unlike where the computer is the target, there is some sort of extra-electronic action
occurring after the cyber act like the transfer of funds resulting from the theft of an identity. Thus,
current theories may still apply. The box opens when discussing the computer as the target. (Cf. Wall,
2007: 52-68) This is the relatively new category of crime. When the computer is the target, the digital
signature of the act itself is context-free and indistinguishable from cyber activism (Leonard, 2011b) or
coincidence. (Cf. Cross & Shinder, 2008; Leonard, 2011a) Aside from the fact that there has not been
enough “stroke of pen” in legislating conduct pertaining to the computer as the target, the law once
written, cannot keep up with the exponential growth of technology and its vulnerabilities to be exploited.
(Cf. Brenner, 2007) This taken together with the lag of development of computer forensics (Cf. Cross &
Shinder, 2008) makes proving criminal intent extremely difficult since the attack of computers, not
people, without a calling card, is indistinguishable from 1 person controlling a hundred computers or
100 people coordinated to attack one computer. This fact alone will make it difficult for criminologists
to collect data. The only foreseeable way to close Pandora’s Box is for criminological theory to
somehow determine or at least propose what factors qualify an individual or group to participate in a
specific action with criminal intent that can legitimately be perceived as targeting another person’s
computer.
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Summary
Now that the reality purported by the imagery of the demonic savage is to some extent shattered,
Siegel’s typology of crime with some personal touches on definitional issues appears after all to be
sufficient for the proposed level of analysis. In sum, for criminological theoretical explanations to apply
to a certain type of crime, it must answer what factors impose an individual or group, in terms of…
1. Violent crimes, to either coerce another through the threat of physical injury or the induction of
physical injury, lethal or otherwise.
2. Political crimes, to obtain a desire to affect a significant portion of society, including one or
another of its institutions, and it involves as one of the elements of its intention a rejection of the
legitimacy of calling the act a crime.
3. Property crimes, to deny others their material interests.
4. Enterprise crimes, to resonate in a specific action that results in the perversion of legal rules of
commercial conduct for illegitimate purposes.
5. Public Order crimes, in order for the calculus, however faulty, of the individual or subgroup, to
outweigh the calculus, again, however faulty, of society.
6. Cybercrimes, to resonate in a specific action to be conducted with criminal intent that targets
another’s computer.
The Levels of Criminogenic Agency
Now that some clarity is present on the crime typology this paper wishes to purport, it is time to examine
the levels of criminogenic agency. Although a brief content analysis of theoretical criminology
textbooks reveals a body of theoretical knowledge organized in various ways, it is generally unclear in a
prima facie glance, what types of crime these theories purport to explain. (Cf. Vold, et al., 1998; Curran
& Renzetti, 2000; Cote, 2002; Akers & Sellers, 2008; Miller, et al., 2008; Cullen & Agnew, 2011)
While it is true that some of these texts take a historical approach by presenting material in the order it
was developed and some present material organized by school of thought, the correlation of the types of
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crime these theories purport to explain at the phenomenological level at which factors orbit and exert
their social facts to correlate an individual with a criminal act is not altogether clear.
Take Curran & Renzetti’s Theories of Crime (2000) for example; it opens with a discussion of three
paradigms (Cf. Kuhn, 1962) – the classical school, the positivist school, and the Marxist/radical school.
Each of these schools of thought asserts some fundamental assumptions about human behavior:
1. Classical: “Human beings are rational hedonists; they seek out the greatest pleasure at the least
cost to themselves.” (Curran & Renzetti, 2000: 24)
2. Positivist: “Human behavior is more or less determined by internal factors or external
environmental factors. Human behavior is measurable/ quantifiable.” (Ibid.)
3. Marxist: “Humans are natural workers. The most basic human activity is laboring to meet one's
survival needs. While humans are born into particular circumstances that shape their behavior,
they are capable of acting back on and reshaping these conditions.” (Ibid.)
Curran & Renzetti assert that “Positivists seek to discover the causes of crime, which may be biological,
psychological, and/or social [compared to] Classicists [who] assume that human beings have free will
and, therefore, are responsible for their behavior, including crime, [while] Neo-Classicists emphasize the
importance of considering mitigating factors.” (2000: 25) While accepting the notion that paradigms are
intended to be broad, this theoretical organization asserts some fundamental assumptions concerning
human behavior that gives a reasonable person pause and thus cause to ask, “what is really going on
here and where is here?” Given this, I propose an alternative somewhat integrated approach considering
the age-old debate of human behavior.
The problem of “free will” vs. “determinism” is known to go back millennia. The SAGE Dictionary of
Criminology suggests defining the former as the “ability to choose a certain course of action against
another” (Westmarland, 2006a: 177) while “determinism can be taken in the sense of inevitability: once
the antecedents to an event are understood, so prediction of future similar events becomes possible.”
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(Hollin, 2006a: 124) Given that the discussion of determinism goes on to state, “regardless of whether
the antecedents are said to be inside the person or in the environment (or a combination of the two),
human action is a function of its antecedent conditions” (Ibid) then from a rational standpoint, for the
purposes of this discussion, free will can be considered ‘an antecedent condition,’ thus, merging
classism, neo-classism and positivism to a certain degree. This taken together with my conception of
signifying a factor as criminogenic4 suggests three levels of agency, the individual, environment and
group where factors tends to correlate an individual with the setting of a criminal act.
The Individual Level of Criminogenic Agency
The individual level of criminogenic agency is derived from notions of classicism, neo-classicism,
individual and sociological positivism. For the purposes of this paper, criminogenic factors are
deterministic insofar as such factors tend to correlate an individual with the setting of a criminal act. At
the individual level theoretical explanations tend to coalesce around four types of determinism. The
individualistic determinism of the criminogenic character can be (a) rational, (b) biological, (c)
psychological, (d) sociological, or a combination thereof.
Rational Determinism
Rational determinism is the coalescence of an inter-subjective view of rationality derived from
classicism and neo-classicism. Louise Westmarland succinctly summarizes the role individual
rationality plays in classicism:
“Individualism and self-interest are placed at the forefront of explanations about why some
people commit crime and how they should be punished. One of the first proponents of this
4
When a factor that tends to correlate an individual with the setting of a criminal act, the factor is considered to be
criminogenic. When an individual possesses an aggregate of these factors, they are said to have the criminogenic character
and are more likely to be found in a situation where the police would have to enforce the law than individuals without such a
character.
15
approach was the Italian philosopher Cesare Beccaria, with his work on the right to punish and
methods to prevent crime, first published in 1764. He argued that society should create laws that
may infringe upon the personal liberty of a few, but result in the greater happiness of the
majority. His approach to the prevention of crime was that the pain of punishment should be
greater than the potential pleasure resulting from the act. Hence, the punishment should be
proportionate to the harm it causes society.” (Westmarland, 2006b: 41; Cf. Vold, et al., 1998: 1421; Akers & Sellers, 2008: 17-19)
Neo-classicism on the other hand posits “a revised version of classical theory that acknowledges
individual and situational differences in motivation, rationality, and free will (that is, bounded free
will).” (Curran & Renzetti, 2000: 27) More contemporary neo-classicists describe the rationality of
offending in the misnomer of rational choice theory – the central thesis being that the “starting point [is]
an assumption that offenders seek to benefit themselves by their criminal behavior; that this involves the
making of decisions and choices, however rudimentary on occasion these processes might be; and that
these processes exhibit a measure of rationality, albeit constrained by limits of time and ability and the
availability of relevant information.” (Cornish & Clarke, 1986: 1; Cf. Akers & Sellers, 2008: 26-31)
This thesis is distinct from classicism in that it does not assume people are equally rational – thus
permitting other factors to coalesce in the rational determinism of criminal action. The intersubjectiveness of this rationality is clearer if this determinism is understood as a portion of individual
criminogenic agency in combination with a bio-psycho-sociological determinism.
Biological Determinism
Biological determinism is largely a product of Cesare Lombroso’s work presented in the classic 1876
The Criminal Man (Cf. Lombroso-Ferrero, 2009) and from the work that followed. (Cf. Akers &
Sellers, 2008: 48-52) According to Miller, et al., the significance of this is in that it “gave rise to
attempts to scientifically explain and understand behavior. This should be expected; however, since
several centuries ago people did not understand social influences on behavior or have very developed
ways of thinking about psychology. What was available was the body and people's behaviors. So when
16
we wanted to better understand how and why certain people acted in certain ways, we looked at what
was available for inspection: the body.” (2008: 56) While it is understandable at the time that theorists
work with what they had, biological determinism, as the beginnings of individual positivism, now
recognizes “that there are so many different characteristics of people, environments, and other
influences that one quality of a person cannot and will not control his or her behavior. Today's theories
that include biological components place these factors in a social context and emphasize that
physical/biological factors may make it more or less likely that someone will act in particular ways.”
(Ibid) The more recent work of Ellis and Walsh (Cf. 1997) and David Rowe (Cf. 2011) emphasize how
chromosomal makeup, inherited traits, or internal chemical composition provide a predisposition
towards various behaviors that is likely to be criminalized. (Cf. Vold, et al., 1998: 40-87; Akers &
Sellers, 2008: 53-69) It is this biological predisposition that determines the degree of applicability of
inter-subjective rationality as it interacts with possible socially situated triggers – and that is how
biology is deterministic.
Psychological Determinism
Psychological determinism expands upon earlier notions of individual positivism found within
biological determinism. “Psychologists working within positivist frameworks argue that there could be
an individual explanation in terms of personality characteristics which might predispose some people to
commit crime.” (Westmarland, 2006b: 41; Cf. Muncie, 2006a) While Akers & Sellers (2008: 71) note
that there is a broad range of psychological theories of crime and deviant behavior (behavioral,
neuropsychological, developmental et al.), other texts emphasize a psychoanalytic perspective (Valier,
2006: 320; Miller, et al. 2008) and personality theory (Cullen & Agnew, 2011) as the source of the
criminogenic character. According to Clive Hollin,
17
“The core of personality theory lies in attempting to understand the behavioral variance that can
be ascribed to factors internal to the person, as opposed to the effects of the environment. Thus,
personality can be thought of as the stable structure and pattern of an individual's thoughts and
feelings which, in turn, are related to distinctive styles of behavior. Personality theorists might
look for basic dimensions, or types, of personality that can be ascribed to distinctive
psychological factors such as beliefs or emotions.” (2006b: 293)
Hollin goes on to suggest that the personality theory of Hans Eysenck (Cf. 1977) is essentially a control
theory much like of psychoanalysis – as Miller, et al. writes “one way that psychoanalytic theory stands
apart from most other theories is in its assumption that people are basically antisocial from the start.
Most theories seek to explain why some people commit crime, which is thought of as the exception and
the ‘different’ behavior.” (2008: 65) However, more recent psychological research conducted by Caspi,
et al. across ‘countries, genders, races, and methods’ (1994) expands upon Eysenck’s work and argues
that the presence of “super-traits” given the social environment are criminogenic because “individuals
high in negative emotionality and low in constraint are more likely to interpret events as threatening and
act on those impulses.” Cullen & Agnew (2011: 69) recognize the relationship of these super-traits to
Gottfredson & Hirschi’s control theory, just like Hollin recognized Eysenck, but state that their concept
is ‘too simple’ and single-dimensional. Caspi, et al. also mention how Gottfredson & Hirschi (1990)
essentially ignore the advances in personality theory and assessment. Caspi, et al. justify this based on
the methodological problems that occurred in a range of previous studies. From reviewing the paper,
Personality and Crime: Are Some People Crime-Prone? resulting from their study, it appears these
methodological problems were addressed. As such, these ‘super-traits’ cannot be ignored, at the very
least, in the form of a psychological predisposition. And of course, it is this predisposition that
determines the degree of applicability of inter-subjective rationality as it interacts with possible socially
situated triggers – thus describing how psychology is deterministic.
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Sociological Determinism
Sociological determinism stems from the sociological positivism “first developed by philosophers such
as Comte and Saint-Simon in the early nineteenth century. Comte's insistence that society both predates
and shapes the individual psychologically provided the foundation for sociological criminology.”
(Muncie, 2006b) What is sociological per se was explicated by Emile Durkheim in The Rules of the
Sociological Method where he discusses the normality of crime as a social fact:
“Since there cannot be a society in which the individuals do not differ more or less from the
collective type, it is also inevitable that, among these divergences, there are some with a criminal
character. What confers this character upon them is not the intrinsic quality of a given act but that
definition which the collective conscience lends them. If the collective conscience is stronger, if it
has enough authority practically to suppress these divergences, it will also be more sensitive, more
exacting; and, reacting against the slightest deviations with the energy it otherwise displays only
against more considerable infractions, it will attribute to them the same gravity as formerly to
crimes. In other words, it will designate them as criminal.” (Durkheim, 1938: 70)
These notions of the ‘collective consciousness’ were later taken up by Eviatar Zerubavel in his
discussion of ‘thought communities’ in Social Mindscapes: An Invitation to Cognitive Sociology. (1999:
17-22) These thought communities lend themselves to a view of “cognitive sociology” where people
think, and thus make decisions, “(a) as individuals, (b) as social beings, and (c) as human beings.”
(Zerubavel, 1999: 5) This relies on a distinction between the subjective mind where the “individualistic”
mind produces “the unmistakably non-universal mental ‘software’ we use when we think” and objective
mind where the ‘universal,’ mind produces a remarkably detailed picture of how people are cognitively
‘hard wired.’” Thus, though “some aspects of our thinking are indeed either purely personal or
absolutely universal, [the fact is that] many others are neither.” A synthesis of these two views arrives at
an inter-subjective view of the mind. This entails the existence of an integrative social world that
transcends both subjectivity and objectivity and “can therefore be commonly shared by entire thought
communities.” Zerubavel argues that this explains the remarkably similar manner in which different
19
individuals actually perceive the world and classify its elements, focus their attention, reckon time,
assign meaning, and remember thoughts or experiences. (Zerubavel, 1999: 3) It is with this intersubjective view of the mind that adds clarity to the rational determinism I have proposed. It also follows
from this in that the individual level of criminogenic agency acts upon a social being and it is here that
one arrives at the need for a ‘cognitive sociology’ that is also phenomenological. In describing the faults
of the individually subjective view of the mind to justify such a form of sociology, Zerubavel
summarizes cognitive individualism as the “general vision of thinking on the image of a solitary thinker
whose thoughts are a product of his or her own unique personal experience and idiosyncratic outlook on
the world. In fact, if scientists were to study idiosyncratic thought patterns that apply only to particular
individuals, we probably would not even consider their findings ‘scientific.’” (1999: 2) Describing the
limitations of the objective view of the mind, Zerubavel writes:
“Cognitive universalism is clearly the dominant vision of the mind in modern cognitive science,
much of which revolves around the search for the universal foundations of human cognition.
Even psychologists, philosophers, linguists, and students of artificial intelligence who do not
study the brain itself nonetheless claim to explore the way humans think. As evident from their
general indifference to their research subjects’ biographical background, most cognitive
scientists today assume a universal, human mind. It is certainly such universalistic sensitivity
that allows cognitive scientists to unravel the universal foundations of human cognition. It is
precisely their concern with our cognitive commonality that has helped neuroscientists,
psychologists, linguists, and students of artificial intelligence to discover universal patterns in the
way we form concepts, process information, activate mental ‘schemas,’ make decisions, solve
problems, generate meaningful sentences from "deep" syntactic structures, access our memory,
and move through the various stages of our cognitive development. Yet it is precisely this
commitment to cognitive universalism that is also responsible for what is probably cognitive
science’s most serious limitation. While it certainly helps cognitive scientists produce a
remarkably detailed picture of how we are cognitively ‘hard wired,’ it also prevents them from
addressing the unmistakably non-universal mental ‘software’ we use when we think.” (1999: 3)
It is with this unmistakably non-universal mental ‘software’ that rational bio-psychological determinism
acts upon. Unlike classicism, naturalistic decision-making is not conducted by the non-social thinker but
by the social thinker, and that this is true about situations, like chess and when crimes are committed
20
that seem on the surface to be technical and radically individualized. The ‘social thinker’ is a ‘social
being’ whose,
“Inter-subjective, social world is quite distinct from the subjective world of the individual as well
as from the objective world of nature and logic. It is a world where time is reckoned according to
neither the sun or the moon nor our own inner sense of duration but rather, in accordance with
standard, conventional time-reckoning systems such as clock time and the calendar. It is a world
where the conventional categories into which we force different ‘types’ of books, films, and
music are based on neither our own personal sensations nor any objective logical necessity. Such
a world, of course, constitutes the distinctive domain of the sociology of the mind. The
epistemological effort to refrain from attributing objectivity to that which is only inter-subjective
has some important methodological implications. Since the social world is regarded as natural
only by those who happen to inhabit it and therefore take it for granted, the more we can gain
access to social worlds that are different from the one we have come to regard as a given the
more we will be able to recognize the social nature of both. Thus, in marked contrast to the
tendency among most psychologists, philosophers, linguists, and neuroscientists today to focus
on our cognitive commonality as human beings, cognitive sociology tries to promote greater
awareness of our cognitive diversity as social beings. The more we become aware of our
cognitive differences as members of different thought communities, the less likely we are to
follow the common ethnocentric tendency to regard the particular way in which we ourselves
happen to process the world in our minds as based on some absolute standard of “logic” or
“reason” and, thus, as naturally or logically inevitable.” (Zerubavel, 1999: 9-10)
This unmistakably non-universal mental ‘software’ is programmed by others within even the simplest
conversational encounter. Goffman eloquently describes the obligations co-participants have to each
other:
“Thus, as Adam Smith argued in his Theory of the Moral Sentiments, the individual must phrase
his own concerns and feelings and interests in such a way as to make these maximally usable by
the others as a source of appropriate involvement; and this major obligation of the individual qua
interactant is balanced by his right to expect that others present will make some effort to stir up
their sympathies and place them at his command. These two tendencies, that of the speaker to
scale down his expressions and that of the listeners to scale up their interests, each in the light of
the other's capacities and demands, form the bridge that people build to one another, allowing
them to meet for a moment of talk in a communion of reciprocally sustained involvement. It is
this spark, not the more obvious kinds of love, that lights up the world.” (Goffman, 1967: 116117)
21
These obligations constitute the self-regulation of the interaction ritual (Goffman, 1967: 44-45) and are
dependent on two conditions: (1) the imputation of sincerity to the other and a corresponding
willingness to be vulnerable on the part of each party; (2) meaning as an ongoing accomplishment. (C.f.
Garfinkel, 1967: 11) The social thinker who partakes in the interaction ritual is a description of how
individuals react to each other – beginning with those immediate present and how that presence lingers
after the end of the encounter and it is from here that the social bonds begin to form.
Travis Hirschi’s Causes of Delinquency integrated earlier varieties of social control theories (Cf. Nye,
1958; Reckless, 1955; Reiss, 1951; Toby, 1957) and asserted that social bonds are a means by restraint
is imposed on each other, stating that “delinquent acts result when an individual's bond to society is
weak or broken.” (1969: 18) Hirschi posited the elements of the bond consisted of attachment,
commitment, involvement and belief and was provided with at least 25 subsequent years of empirical
support. (Miller, et al., 159) Yet, some 20 years later, Gottfredson & Hirschi (1990) expressed a revised
position on Hirschi’s part. They define crime as “acts of force or fraud undertaken in pursuit of selfinterest” (1990:15) and are subsequently a result of a person with low self-control. Sampson and Laub
(1993) suggest that stability and change characterize the lives of people which place people on a life
course trajectory. The departure/development from Hirshi is that the “nature and strength of social bonds
changed over the life course” (Miller, et al. 2008: 166) and that the degree of self-control possible varies
throughout the life course. These things taken together – the social thinker within the interaction ritual
who develops social bonds and various degrees of self-control throughout the life course – with
Durkhiem’s theory of anomie, “human activity aspires beyond assignable limits and sets itself
22
unattainable goals” (1897: 241) where too many social facts exert pressure and this pressure5 is
criminogenic – and that is how sociology is deterministic at the individual level of criminogenic agency.
The Environmental Level of Criminogenic Agency
The environmental level of criminogenic agency is derived primarily from notions of sociological
positivism found within the Chicago School of Sociology. “Renowned for establishing links between
environmental factors and crime,” (Hayward, 2006: 37) the Chicago School’s line of enquiry began with
Robert Park's ‘theory of human ecology’ (Park, et al., 1925) where portions of Park’s theory later
developed into Social Disorganization Theory (Shaw and McKay, 1942). Miller, et al. generously
summarizes this perspective along with Routine Activities Theory:
“Theories that focus on the social ecology of crime offer something different from many of the
theories of crime that we have discussed so far. Rather than looking at how offenders differ from
non-offenders, these theories instead give attention to how situations or places with high levels
of crime differ from those with little crime. Social disorganization theory claims that
disorganization undermines ties and institutions within a community, thus making it impossible
for residents to work collectively to deal with crime problems in the area. Routine activities
theory gives its attention to the immediate situation where crime occurs, namely, situations
where motivated offenders are in proximity to poorly guarded suitable targets. Both theories
have received support in the empirical literature, and both at present are the focus of extensive
attention from criminologists. Another common theme for these theories is that neither proposes
the rehabilitation of people to prevent future crime from occurring, but they instead suggest that
best results might be obtained from changing the situation or the context.” (2008: 106; Cf. Cohen
and Felson, 1979)
Environmental Determinism
Environmental determinism is largely derived from Park’s human ecological theory and its subsequent
research like that of social disorganization theory. In order to avoid becoming a misnomer, by
Robert Merton later revived Durkheim’s concept in 1938. While Durkheim conceived of anomie as a problematic social
condition resulting from sudden and rapid social change, Merton saw it as an endemic feature of the everyday operation of
certain types of societies. (Curran & Renzetti, 2000: 114) This strain resulting from the pressure later developed into Strain
Theory and subsequently Agnew’s General Strain Theory.
5
23
‘environment’ it is meant the immediate physical space in which a community resides and that
communities are generally qualified by neighborhood locales. This is suggested largely by the body of
work of Robert J. Sampson. In these locales, there is a possibility for what Sampson calls ‘collective
efficacy’ which is defined as social cohesion among neighbors combined with their willingness to
intervene in each other’s social encounters on behalf of the common good. (Sampson & Wilson, 1995;
Sampson, et al., 1997) His research suggests that the lack of this factor, rather than its presence, is
criminogenic.
Furthermore, “human ecological theory facilitates an investigation into the way in which social structure
produces this convergence, hence allowing illegal activities to feed upon the legal activities of everyday
life.” (Cohen and Felson, 1979: 1) It is in this way that routine activities permit the environment to
present ‘poorly guarded suitable targets’ and Cohen and Felson suggest these targets particularly
criminogenic if a motivated offender comes across it.
The work of James Q. Wilson suggests that the phenomena of ‘broken windows’ in a neighborhood
environment are criminogenic and suggests in Varieties of Police Behavior that police need to perform
“order maintenance”. (1978: 16) For several fundamental semiotic and sociological reasons, this is
wrong because each of these signs in “order maintenance” have implicit within them arguments about
the nature of social order. Garfinkel suggests (C.f. 2002: 22-25) that the nature of social order should be
the primary study of sociology and he takes this discussion very seriously. In that tradition, from
readings of both Goffman and Garfinkel, the concept of disorder is not only foreign but not useful and
distracting from matter at hand. Wilson’s conception of “order maintenance” suggests that there is a
threshold from which, when crossed, the arrangement of orderly things becomes disarrayed and can be
restored. Perhaps, within frameworks of mathematical hierarchies this conception may be enlightening,
since for the necessity of arithmetic, the arrangement of numbers, thus their signifieds, is fundamental
24
for numbers to have meaning. Yet, for social science, and the study of criminal justice, given that the
arrangements of the events of history as occurred (and not written) cannot be changed, only re-written,
social occurrences and social facts are arranged in an array that is constantly changing much like that of
a game of chess in progress. After all, a game of chess can be examined at any given point yet reflects
history and the potential for the future. Occurrences happen within this array over an X period of time
and because time moves on, whether a second, minute or a week, some of these occurrences are
discovered by others (i.e. the police) who then attempt to incorporate each occurrence (i.e. a crime and
the resulting investigation) into their own biography. Perhaps, a given discovery is the result of
patrolling or a call for service, yet there is nothing ‘maintaining’ about it. The common apology, “I
know what I did was wrong, and if I could go back and change it, I would…” is beneficial to the merits
of this case. Relationships may be able to be fixed or mended but the actual arrangement of events
cannot be changed, only re-written. Any subsequent action occurring from patrolling social order merely
sustains the order itself; it reconstitutes it only insofar as by every second, as the world turns, more
events occur. Men and women act and the source of that action is at issue for many disciplines; whether
that act is considered criminal, as Durkheim suggests, is conferred by the collective consciousness, but
there is nothing intrinsic to the act itself that makes it criminal. (Durkheim, 1938: 70) Therefore, the
nature of social order is constituted by the arrangement of men, women and children, with their actions
and their biographies, some intertwined, some not aligned, but all arranged within their own respective
space and time. It is the relationship among these factors that is the social – how all these beings are
interdependent, for the appearance of no relationship is a relationship itself: every being exists in time
and space and that relationship alone is enough to be arranged within social order. Any remedy taken
would be analogous to the function of tort law, a treatment of some wrong-doing after the fact – merely
25
providing some form of compensation as a means to attempt ‘cooling the mark out’. (C.f. Goffman,
1952) 6
In sum, this paper theorizes that the environment is deterministic to the extent that this nature of social
order, taken together with the described social ecology, provides the medium for the factors orbiting the
individual level to be triggered so that they may express their agency in the form of criminal action.
The Group Level of Criminogenic Agency
The group level of criminogenic agency is derived from notions of sociological positivism much like the
notions operating at the environmental level. At the group level, theoretical explanations tend to
coalesce around a hierarchy four sub-levels of sociological determinism. This sociological determinism
lies within the social structure of the group and its respective size producing the criminogenic character
at either, (a) intimate personal groups, (b) subcultures, (c) institutions, (d) society, or a combination
thereof where the influence of such factors vary by their degree of proximity among the sub-levels
themselves (i.e. factors operating at level a and b are going to exert more influence than a and d).
Sociological Determinism at the Sub-Level of Intimate Personal Groups
The sociological determinism operating at the level of intimate personal groups is predicated upon how
meaning is established and shared at basic levels of social interaction. (Cf. Goffman, 1967; Zerubavel,
1999) In criminology, this is taken to be the underpinnings of Sutherland's theory of differential
association. First published in 1939, this is a statement of how normative conflict, in which crime is
The idea of restitution is crucial to Durkheim’s distinction between criminal and civil law, and it implies a sense of a greater
distinction than may be warranted. Thus, in civil law, order is restored because the victim of the tort or a violation of a
contract is compensated and thereby put back in their original condition. But it is clear that “restitution,” which assumes that
compensation is sufficient to reverse time (restore a prior order), is not satisfactorily exemplified by compensation. The latter
effectively buys off the complainant, it does not restore order. The fact that the tort occurred is itself a harm, or aspect of
harm, for which there is no remedy in the civil law any more than the victim of a crime can be put back, as it were, “whole.”
6
26
rooted, produces criminality in some individuals and not in others. (Sutherland, 1939: 1-9; Cf. Cressey,
1979) Sutherland emphasized within socialization, the process through which the interaction ritual is
learned, two basic factors – agency and content. With ‘agents’ acting as the ‘whom’ and ‘content’ acting
as the ‘what’, Sutherland formalized his theory into nine propositions with the 1st, 5th and 6th being of the
greatest import:
1st Proposition: “Criminal behavior is learned.” (Sutherland, 1939)
5th Proposition: “The specific direction of motives and drives is learned from definitions of legal
codes as favorable and unfavorable.” (Ibid)
6th Proposition: “A person becomes a delinquent because of an excess of definitions favorable to
violation of law over definitions unfavorable to violation of law.” (Ibid)
For Sutherland, intimate personal groups are the primary agents of socialization (3rd Proposition; Ibid)
and when the ‘content’ learned consists of techniques of committing the crime, which are sometimes
very complicated and sometimes very simple, and the specific direction of motives, rationalizations, and
attitudes (4th Proposition; Ibid), those within an individual’s intimate personal group are going to assist
that individual in becoming correlated with the setting a criminal act.
The main criticism of Sutherland’s theory is the ‘how’ the ‘who’ teach the ‘what’. Ronald Akers set out
to address this with his Social Learning Theory. The theory “offers an explanation of crime and
deviance that embraces variables that operate both to motivate and control criminal behavior, both to
promote and undermine conformity. … The probability of criminal or conforming behavior occurring is
a function of the balance of these influences on behavior operative in one’s learning history, at a given
time or in a given situation” (Akers & Sellers, 2008: 89-90) relying on differential association,
27
definitions, differential reinforcement and imitation as the operative variables in which an individual is
correlated with the setting a criminal act.
Therefore, with Sutherland and Akers taken together, intimate personal groups are sociologically
deterministic to the extent that intimate personal groups provide the opportunity for individuals to learn
the interaction ritual required for violating the law.
Sociological Determinism at the Sub-Level of Subcultures
The sociological determinism operating at the level of subcultures is predicated upon how the role of
image, style, representation and meaning is organized around symbolic communication, shared
aesthetics and collective identity (Ferrell, 2006: 104) that tend to repudiate societal standards (Miller et
al., 2008: 127) as an ongoing social accomplishment where the membership of this social group has
permanence, closure, and common pursuits that condone, promote, or otherwise make possible the
commission of delinquent acts. (Rock, 202: 73) Criminologically, this rose as a critique of Merton’s
strain theory and is swiftly summarized by Curran & Renzetti:
“Albert Cohen (1955) criticized Merton for making it appear as if individuals' reactions to strain
are uninfluenced by their interactions with other people around them. Cohen also took exception
to Merton's depiction of criminal (innovative) behavior as a rational means to a desired end or
goal, that is, as utilitarian. While this may be the case for some types of crime, Cohen argued, it
does not apply to most of the activities of delinquent gangs that are concentrated in lower-class
neighborhoods.” (2000: 118)
Miller, et al. (2008) traces the rise, demise, and re-rise of the subcultural perspective from the 1950s to
the 1990s where they arrive at the foremost contemporary statement on subculture and crime, Elijah
Anderson’s work, Code of the Street. (1999) This ‘code’ is seen a subculture of honor where requisite
retaliatory and defensive violence for protection and defense of social status threats and personal insults
occurs is contextually based in family and immediate group interaction. (2008:123-128)
28
Based on these considerations, subcultures are sociologically deterministic to the extent that an
individual’s membership requires the tendency to repudiate societal standards and assume a collective
identity sustained through honor and physical aggression. This means that if that ‘honor’ is perceived to
be ‘lost’ by a member of the collective identity, it can only be re-gained by correlating an individual
with an opportunity to use physical aggression to win back the honor lost.
Sociological Determinism at the Sub-Level of Institutions
The sociological determinism operating at the level of institutions within the United States coalesce
around two manifestations: institutional anomie and systematic labeling.
Institutional Anomie
Messner & Rosenfeld (2001) discuss how institutional anomie is sociologically deterministic in their
book, Crime and the American Dream. As an extension of the work of Durkheim, Merton, and Marx,
Messner & Rosenfeld seek to “rethink some basic assumptions and interpretations of anomie theory”
(Ibid: x) by identifying the “anomic tendencies of the American Dream and show how these tendencies
are both reflected and reproduced by an institutional structure dominated by the economy.” (Ibid: xi)
Their analysis focuses on four social institutions—the economy, the political system, the family, and the
educational system and recognizes that in the United States, there is an “inability of other social
institutions to tame economic imperatives [meaning that the …] institutional balance of power is tilted
toward the economy. (Ibid: 68) They substantiate this claim by identifying three symptoms of economic
dominance – “the devaluation of noneconomic institutional functions and roles, the accommodation to
economic requirements by other institutions, and penetration of economic norms into other institutional
domains.” (Ibid: 70) While this supports the existence of institutional anomie, this has yet to present the
case how it is sociologically deterministic. This case is made in the synthesis of two separate passages:
29
“As a result of this economic dominance, the inherent tendencies of a capitalist economy to
orient the members of society toward an unrestrained pursuit of economic achievements are
developed to an extreme degree. These tendencies are expressed at the cultural level in the
preeminence of the competitive, individualistic pursuit of monetary success as the overriding
goal—the American Dream—and in the relative de-emphasis placed on the importance of using
normative means to reach this goal—anomie. The anomie nature of the American Dream and the
institutional structure of American society are thus mutually supportive and reinforcing.” (Ibid:
76) The strength of capitalism lies, then, in the very fact of its support for anomie. But this
implies that the institutions which are increasingly capitalist are also increasingly weak. “Hence,
the very sociocultural dynamics that make American institutions weak also enable and entitle
Americans to defy institutional controls. If Americans are exceptionally resistant to social
control—and therefore exceptionally vulnerable to criminal temptations—the resistance occurs
because they live in a society that enshrines the unfettered pursuit of individual material success
above all other values. In the United States, anomie is considered a virtue.” (Ibid: 79)
It is here that Messner & Rosenfeld’s claim shines – when the institutional balance of power is tilted
toward the economy and anomie ensues to the extent that the individual experiences a lack of control at
the level of institutional relationships parallels and complements the lack of control at the cultural level
of social norms. This invites the individual to becoming correlated with the setting of a criminal act in
pursuit of material success above all else.
Systematic Labeling
At the institutional level, systematic labeling is characterized by “media, public, political and criminal
justice responses to crime and deviancy. These responses often stereotype, stigmatize, label, criminalize,
scapegoat and/or amplify the behaviors of certain individuals and groups.” (Duncan, 2006: 407) Lemert
(1951) undertook a study of sociopathic behavior and systematically analyzed the societal responses to
deviation. His book, Social Pathology: A Systematic Approach to the Theory of Sociopathic Behavior
asserts that social control created deviance:
“Distinguishing between original causes and effective causes, he argued that there were many
original causes of initial or 'primary' deviance, but that importantly this deviance was of little
consequence to one's self-concept. Societal reaction, however, was seen as the effective cause of
'secondary' deviance, whereby an individual used their deviant behavior or status to defend,
30
attack or adjust to the problems created by societal responses to primary deviance. Lemert
suggested that responses to deviation ranged from strong approval to indifference to strong
disapproval, but that sociopathic behavior was that which was effectively disapproved.
Furthermore, one's deviant identity was shaped by the level of deviation engaged in, its social
visibility, and the exposure, nature and strength of societal reaction. Recognizing both formal
and informal responses to crime and deviance, he argued that formal agents of social control
extended and formalized informal responses.” (Duncan, 2006: 407)
Bemburg, et al. (2006: 22) provides some recent empirical verification of Lemert’s theory. Their
examination analyzes “the short-term impact of formal criminal labeling on involvement in deviant
social networks and increased likelihood of subsequent delinquency. According to labeling theory,
formal criminal intervention should affect the individual’s immediate social networks. In many cases,
the stigma of the criminal status may increase the probability that the individual becomes involved in
deviant social groups. The formal label may thus ultimately increase involvement in subsequent
deviance. … Using measures from three successive points in time, the [study found] that juvenile justice
intervention positively affects subsequent involvement in serious delinquency through the medium of
involvement in deviant social groups, namely, street gangs and delinquent peers.”
The idea of the self-fulfilling prophecy is useful here – for example, a person accidentally commits
vehicular manslaughter and is sent to prison, where, for better or for worse, he is forced to associate with
‘criminals’ on a constant basis. Given that the crime this person is incarcerated for was an accident, it is
possible that this person never consciously considered breaking the law. This person gets out of prison
with a record and is forced to check the box on job applications concerning criminal offenses and it
subsequently turned down. Just like the blockbuster movie, Inception, the stigmatization of being a
convicted ‘criminal’ ‘plants’ the idea in the person’s mind that they are a criminal and as Goffman
(1967: 117) would suggest, “in the light of the other's capacities and demands” that person might try to
live up to those expectations. (Goffman, 1963: 27-31, 58)
31
With these considerations in hand, where people are labeled by criminal justice institutions, are
stigmatized, develop criminal identities, and are sent to prison, systematic labeling at the institutional
level is sociologically deterministic to the extent that societal reaction to an individual’s previous actions
excludes that individual from conventional, and likely legitimate, means of providing for oneself,
leading the individual little choice but to live up to the societal label provided.
The Institutional Manifestation
A fractal is a geometric pattern that is repeated at every scale and are typically wondrous to the to the
mind’s eye – just like how social scientists look at groups of individuals and zoom out. This analogy is
helpful here – since the degree of proximity among the sub-levels can represent the geometric pattern at
the scale of c within the geometric pattern at the scale of b within the same (but perceptually larger)
geometric pattern at the scale of a. C being the most proximate to the individual is going to exert more
determinism than that at scale a since as the degree of proximity zooms out, the less criminogenic
agency is based on inter-subjective rationality and individual bio-psycho-sociological predisposition and
the more criminogenic agency exerts influences that correlate the individual with the setting of a
criminal act (1) in pursuit of material success above all else, as Rosenfeld & Messner suggest, or (2)
because societal reaction to an individual’s previous actions excludes that individual from conventional,
and likely legitimate, means of providing for oneself, leading the individual little choice but to live up to
the societal label provided as Lemert suggests – and that is how institutions are sociologically
deterministic.
Sociological Determinism at the Sub-Level of Society
The sociological determinism operating at the level of society is predicated upon how inequality in
power and material well-being creates conditions of vast inequality that impoverishes many – and here
32
is where the fractal analogy is most useful as it is time to examine the pattern at its largest scale. For it is
only natural for an individual to hear the statement, “Society causes crime” and dismiss it out right
because how would it not sound ridiculous to the layperson’s ear? Yet, as critical criminology suggests,
(Cf. Vold, et al., 1998: 260-283) there is some merit to the case found within the work of Williem
Bonger. Ian R. Taylor, et al. (1973) in their discussion of Marx, Engles and Bonger on Crime and Social
Control take on the task of contrasting Bonger’s foundational work, Criminality and Economic
Conditions (1916) with formal Marxism, writing that,
“Bonger’s criminology is an attempt to utilize some of the formal concepts of Marxism in the
understanding of the crime-rates of European capitalism in the late nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries. Importantly, however, Bonger’s efforts appear, for us, not so much the
application of a fully-fledged Marxist theory as they are a recitation of a ‘Marxist catechism’ in
an area which Marx had left largely untouched—a recitation prompted by the growth not of the
theory itself, but by the growth of a sociological pragmatism. Bonger must, therefore, be
evaluated in his own terms, in terms of the competence of his extension of the formal concepts of
Marxism to the subject-matter, rather than in terms of any claim that might be made for him as
the Marxist criminologist.
In at least two respects, Bonger’s analysis of crime differs in substance from that of Marx. On
the one hand, Bonger is clearly very much more seriously concerned than Marx with the causal
chain linking crime with the precipitating economic and social conditions. On the other, he does
not confine his explanations to working-class crime, extending his discussions to the criminal
activity of the industrial bourgeoisie as defined by the criminal laws of his time. Whilst differing
from Marx in these respects, however, Bonger is at one with his mentor in attributing the activity
itself to demoralized individuals, products of a dominant capitalism.
Indeed, in both Marx and Bonger, one is aware of a curious contradiction between the ‘image of
man’ advanced as the anthropological underpinning of ‘orthodox’ Marxism and the questions
asked about men who deviate.”
Now that it is clear that Bonger himself, and not Marx, should be the subject of consideration, Bonger
frames and answers the problem as follows:
“The period of civilization during which the social modification mentioned above has taken
place is generally lauded to the skies, as compared with preceding epochs. In certain relations
this is justifiable. Technique has made immense progress during the last phase of civilization,
capitalism; the power of man over nature has advanced greatly; the productivity of labor has
33
been so increased that one class of men, exempted by this from permanent care for their daily
bread, are able to devote themselves to the arts and sciences. All this is indisputable. But the
development of the arts and sciences and of technique has only an indirect importance for the
etiology of crime. The question first of all to be asked is this: What influence has this
modification in the economic and social structure had upon the character of man? And the
answer to this question can only be the following: this modification has engendered cupidity and
ambition, has made man less sensitive to the happiness and misery of his fellows, and has
decreased the influence exercised upon men’s acts by the opinions of others. In short, it has
developed egoism at the expense of altruism.” (1916: 401)
Therefore, society is sociologically deterministic to the extent that the structure of social life, framed by
the tendency of industrial capitalism, produces social facts of ‘egoism’ rather than social facts of
‘altruism’ that coerce the individual into correlating with the setting of a criminal act.
New Directions for Criminological Theory
Given that crime is still rampant throughout society, and always will be, thanks to Durkheim, laws
change and subsequently change what is considered criminal behavior; the strength of theoretical
explanations of crime will wax and wane. Yet theoretical organization changes at a much slower pace
and has less re-organization than the roster of the United States Senate. Here, this paper presents the
case for a theoretical re-organization that identifies six categories of crime and three phenomenological
levels of agency around which criminogenic factors tend to coalesce. This identification produces a new
framework to reconsider the relationships among theoretical explanations and the social facts they
purport to organize. This grants provisions for possible integrative theoretical progress given the new
clarity revealed on types of crime and the integrative approach of classicism and neo-classicism, thus
unveiling a correlative determinism that is not absolute but perhaps enough grounds for some
reconsideration in public policy given the social thinker.
34
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