Why do people
commit Crimes?
Theories of Criminology
Positive Theory (Positivism)
 Criminals are born not made
 This is an example of nature, not nurture
 Focused on biological and psychological
factors to explain criminal behaviour
Positivist Theorists
 Cesare Lombarso (1835 – 1909)
 Italian physician and psychiatrist
 What did he think/do?
 Studied cadavers of executed criminals in an effort to
determine scientifically whether criminals were physically any
different from non-criminals
 He believed that people were born criminals and facial
features of criminals included things like enormous jaws and
strong canine teeth.
Pictures of
murderers
that Lambarso
believed
carried facial
features
tied to criminal
activity.
Murderer
Sean Penn
See any similarities!?
Does this mean Sean Penn is a Criminal?
Positivist Theorists cont…
 In the 1960s, positivist criminologists argued that criminal
behaviour lies in abnormal chromosomes
 The XYY theory argued that violent male criminals have an
abnormal XYY chromosome (XY is the normal pattern in males)
 However, researchers soon found out that this was not true and
that criminals had normal chromosomes and that non-criminals
also had abnormal chromosomes.
 The Positivist theory of criminals being born rather than made
died out. There were moral implications with this.
Modern Day Example
 Philippe Rushton
 University of Western Ontario
psychology professor
 Rushton's book Race, Evolution, and
Behavior (1995)tries to show that East
Asians and their descendants average a
larger brain size, greater intelligence,
more sexual restraint, slower rates of
maturation, and greater law abidingness
and social organization than do
Europeans and their descendants, who
average higher scores on these
dimensions than Africans and their
descendants.
Sociological Perspectives:
Theory of Anomie
 Sociological Theorist: Emile Durkheim (1858-1917)
 People who live in cities feel more anonymous and isolated (as
compared to rural life).
 No longer restrained by the strict norms of society (in rural life)
and given the anonymity in a big city certain individuals turned
to crime.
 Durkheim is also a father of functionalism (i.e., everyone has a
role/function in society and that is how society runs/functions.
 Durkheim believes that criminals have a role and are needed for
society to function
 If there were no crime, it would mean that everyone in society was
the same and agreed on everything. This is no ideal and society
would be too comforting – people need a release.
Anomie cont…
 Kitty Genovese
 Young woman stabbed to death on a street in New York City -1964
 As many as 37 neighbours and bystanders all heard her screams for
help.
 No one called the police because they all thought someone else
would take action.
 Sociologists call this Diffusion of Responsibility
 Kitty Genovese Article
Sociology cont…
Ecological School
 Believed that criminal behaviour was fostered and
encouraged in certain environments.
 They studied a number of poor neighbourhoods and
concluded that communities that suffered from high
rates of poverty and social disintegration were more
likely to condone criminal activity than more affluent
neighbourhoods.
Sociology cont…
Social Conflict Theory
 Karl Marx and Frederick Engels argued that the capitalist
society encouraged crime as people competed for
resources and wealth.
 Our society protects those with power and property. As a
result, people who are economically disadvantaged are
more likely to be punished by our justice system. The only way
to solve the crime problem is to eliminate the capitalist
system.
Social Psychological
Perspective
 Social psychology is the study of the relations
between individuals and people.
 They are interested in how ‘regular’ people can
commit atrocious crimes.
 Stanley Milgram was specifically interested in how
Nazi’s were able to commit horrible acts of
genocide – he focused on how people could do
this just by following orders.
 Milgram Experiment
 Torturing and killing innocent civilians
…In relation to torturing
article…
 Displacement of responsibility and dehumanizing the victim are two
categories of moral disengagement
 Bandura (1999) states, “People behave in ways they would normally oppose
if a legitimate authority accepts responsibility for the consequences of that
behavior. Under these conditions, people view their actions as the dictates
of authorities rather than their own actions.”
 According to reports in the article, the torture and abuse of the civilians was
approved and facilitated by the White House
 According to Bandura, (1999) person can justify torture by loosing empathy
for the victim while convincing himself that the victim lacks human qualities.
 Furthermore, once the victim is dehumanized, he is no longer viewed as a
person with feelings, concerns or hopes but as a subhuman object that is
easily tortured (Bandura, 1999).
Strain Theory (Sociology)
 Current societies stress the goals of acquiring wealth, success,
and power.
 However, the means to achieve these goals require education
and economic resources.
 These means are frequently denied or unavailable to those
who are economically disadvantaged or have little
opportunity for formal education.
 Example: The Wire, Season 4, Episode 8
 Young African American youth yearning for the chance to work
on the streets to sell drugs because they know this is the only way
they can make money.
Psychoanalytical Theory
 Sigmund Freud believed that all humans have
criminal tendencies.
 It is through socialization that these tendencies are
controlled during childhood.
 If a child has an identity problem with his/her
parent, this problem may cause the child to direct
its antisocial tendencies outward and thus
become a criminal.
 Psychological Human Development also comes
into play here
John Wayne Gacy Jr. –
How did he grow up to be a
murderer?
 Theorists consider moral behaviour to be self-regulated through
mechanisms of self-evaluation where one can approve or
disapprove irresponsible or inhumane behaviour
 It clear that Gacy showed a lack of moral behaviour and hence, in
the act was not able to disapprove his behaviour adequately to
avoid it completely.
 Bandura (1977), states that most violent acts and inhumanities
are perpetrated by people who, in other areas of their life are
quite considerate in their behaviour.
 This describes Gacy’s behaviour perfectly as he was very friendly,
well liked by the neighbours and was largely involved in the
community; no one would assume he was capable of such
casualties. Moreover, Gacy illustrated moral disengagement by
justifying his murderous acts
Cont…
 According to Sigelman and Rider (2009), children who are raised in
abusive environments can grow up to become abusers and to
learn that violence is an integral part of human relationships.
 Hence, it can be argued that Gacy’s immoral, violent and murderous
adulthood is rooted in the violence from his childhood. Furthermore,
abusers are often insecure individuals with low self-esteem
 Furthermore, abusers are often insecure individuals with low selfesteem. Abusers can form negative internal working models of
themselves and others, which are most likely rooted in unhappy
experiences in insecure relationships with parents and negative
experiences in romantic relationships
 although his father hurt him physically and emotionally, Gacy
desperately sought his father’s approval but was never able to
achieve it. This insecurity led him to failed marriages and more
interestingly, to his attraction to hiding himself under clown costumes
and make-up in order for the children in the community to like him.
John Wayne Gacy Jr.
 A&E Biography Part 1
 A&E Biography Part 2
 A&E Biography Part 3