UNIT 9 THEORIES Criminological Theories

Structure 9.1 Introduction 9.2 Objectives 9.3 The Study of Criminology 9.4 What is Criminology? 9.5 Brief of Criminology 9.6 Classical School of Criminology 9.6.1 Pre Classical School 9.6.2 Classical School of Criminology 9.6.3 Neo Classical School 9.7 Positive School of Criminology 9.8 Ecological School of Criminology 9.9 Theories Related to Physical Appearance 9.9.1 Phsiognomy and Phrenology 9.9.2 Criminal Anthropology: Lombroso to Goring 9.9.3 Body Type Theories: Sheldon to Cortes 9.10 Biological Factors and Criminal Behaviour 9.10.1 Chromosomes and 9.10.2 Family Studies 9.10.3 Twin and Adoption Studies 9.10.4 Neurotransmitters 9.10.5 Hormones 9.10.6 The Autonomic Nervous System 9.11 Psychoanalytical Theories of Crime 9.11.1 Psychanalytic Explanations of Criminal Behaviour 9.12 Sociological Theories of Criminal Behaviour 9.12.1 Durkhiem, and Modernisation 9.12.2 Merton’s Strain Theory 9.12.3 Sutherland’s Theory 9.13 9.13.1 Marxim and Marxist Criminology 9.14 Control Theories 9.14.1 Drift and Neutralisation 9.14.2 Hirschi’s Social Control 9.14.3 Containment Theory 9.14.4 9.15 9.15.1 Sellin’s Culture Conflict Theory 9.15.2 Vold’s Group Conflict Theory 9.15.3 Quinney’s Theory of the Social Reality of Crime 9.15.4 Turk’s Theory of Criminalisation 9.15.5 Chambliss and Seidman’s Analysis of the Criminal System 5 Theories and Perspectives 9.16 Summary in 9.17 Terminal Questions 9.18 Answers and Hints 9.19 References and Suggested Readings 9.1 INTRODUCTION Criminology is the scientific approach towards studying criminal behaviour. It is an interdisciplinary science which includes , , biology political science etc. There are different school of criminology like classical school, positive school, ecological school etc. One of the oldest scientific approaches in criminology theory emphasizes physical and biological abnormality as the prominent mark of the criminal. Sigmund Freud coined the term psycholoanalysis in 1896 and based an entire theory of human behaviour on it. Later Ernest Jones delineated seven major principles of Freud’s approach within the psychoanalytic perspective criminal and delinquent behaviours are attributed to disturbances or malfuctions in the ego or superego. Then there was of criminology whose main propounde was Durkheim. Apart from these, there is Control Theories and Conflict Theories of Criminology. 9.2 OBJECTIVES After reading this unit, you should be able to: • understand the crime and criminology; • known various theoretical explanations of criminality; and • discuss the dynamic interrelatedness in the formation and manifestation of criminal and delinquent behaviour and various socio-cultural factors and processes.

9.3 THE STUDY OF CRIMINOLOGY Concern about crime and the need to develop effective measures to control criminal behaviour have spurred the development of Criminology as an academic discipline. This discipline is devoted to developing valid and reliable information that addresses the causes of crime as well as crime patterns and trends and control of crime. Criminologists use scientific methods to study the nature, extent, cause, and control of criminal behaviour. Unlike media commentators, whose opinions about crime can be coloured by personal experiences, biases, and values, criminologists remain objective as they study crime and its consequences. The field of criminology has gained prominence as an academic area of study due to the constant threat of crime and the social problems it represents.

9.4 WHAT IS CRIMINOLOGY? Paul Topinard, a French Anthropologist is said to have coined the termed ‘criminology’ in 1889 to differentiate the study of criminal body types within the field of anthropology from other biometric pursuits. The word crime comes from the Latin, meaning “accusation”, “charge” or “guilt” and logy means “ the study of something”. Hence the term Criminology literally means “the study of crime”. 6 Criminology is the scientific approach to studying criminal behaviour. Sutherland Criminological Theories and Cressey state “Criminology is the body of knowledge regarding crime as a social phenomenon. It includes within its scope the process of making , of breaking laws, and of reacting toward the breaking of laws…” The objective of criminology is the development of a body of general and verified principles and of other types of knowledge regarding this process of , crime and treatment. Sutherland suggested that criminology consists of three “principal divisions” 1) The sociology of law 2) Scientific analysis of the causes of crime, and 3) Crime control Criminology is an interdisciplinary science which includes sociology, psychology, psychiatry, biology, political science, social work, law, economics etc.

Self Assessment Question 1) What do you understand by the term criminology? ......

9.5 BRIEF HISTORY OF CRIMINOLOGY During the middle ages (1200-1600), superstition and fear of satanic possession dominated thinking. People who violated social norms or religious practices were believed to be witches or possessed by demons. The witch doctor or medicine man or shaman became the interpreter of supernatural happenings. The prescribed method for dealing with the possessed was burning at the stake, Cruel torture to extract confessions was in use and those convicted of violent or suffered extremely harsh penalties, including whipping, branding, maiming, and execution, putting mask and dancing around the deviant victim, concoct a nauseous potion made up of saliva, fingernails, feces, pimple pus, urine, nose picking, hair and other obnoxious items and make the patent eat it, thereby making his or he body intolerable for the demons. On occasions “a sacrifice to the gods was made of a baby, a young virgin, a son or other persons in order to keep the tribe on good terms with god and spirits”. This practice survived till 17th Century. This was the spiritual explanation of crime and . The early Phoenicians and Greeks developed naturalistic explanations of crime far back. Hippocrates provided a physiological explanation of thinking by arguing that the brain is the organ of the mind. Plato said that the individual’s soul has three elements i.e. reasons, desire and spirit. The spirit being the agent used by reasons to overcome passion/desire. The lower part of irrational soul was located in the body below the diaphragm and rational soul which is a better part located in the heart and in mental faculties. Aristotle said that body and soul are different. Man is good by nature but when he fails to follow the reasons, sin results.

7 Theories and Perspectives Thomas Hobbes concluded that all phenomenons were subjected to scientific in Criminal Justice laws including human behaviour. According to Rene Descartes “natural laws governed not only events external to man but event occurring within him, so free will becomes more important than divine law in crime causation”.

9.6 CLASSICAL SCHOOL OF CRIMINOLOGY 9.6.1 Pre Classical School The formalising of this concept into “crime” probably had its early beginnings in the formalisation of court procedure at the Assize of Clarendon called by Henry II in 1166 A.D. when the jury system was structured essentially as it remains today. The construction of jails was approved, and the beginnings of classification of crimes as felonies and misdemeanors appeared. In 1215, King John under compulsion from his barons issued the Magna Carta as a symbol of a general movement toward civil and constitutional rights. 9.6.2 Classical School of Criminology Reasons behind the emergence of classical school of criminology:- 1) Just as Greek, Latin were first to communicate adequately in modern abstract thinking, similarly, this school of thought was the first relative adequate form or system of thinking in the area of criminology. 2) There may be many inconsistencies in the existing practices at that time. 3) Judges could introduce personal biases. 4) That’s why harsh rather than equitable justice.

Criminology emerged in 1764 in “Essay on Crime and Punishments” “Dei delitti e delle pene” by Beccaria. The motto was “Let the punishment fit from crime”. Man is hedonistic- seeking pleasure and avoids pain and had sufficient free will to choose between good and evil, when he knew what the consequences might be. Focus of the classical school was on crime and adopted legal approach.

Self Assessment Question 2) Explain the reasons behind the emergence of classical school of criminology......

Beccaria’s Recommendations 1) Laws are the conditions under which independent and isolated men get united to form a society. People sacrifice and the sum of all these portions of liberty sacrificed by each for his own good constitutes the sovereignty of a nation and their legitimate depository and administrator is the sovereign. The 8 tangible motives of punishment must be established against infractors of Criminological Theories the laws. 2) Only the laws can decree punishments for crime; authority for this can reside only with the legislator who represents the entire society united by a social contract. 3) Judges in criminal cases cannot have the authority to interpret laws. For every crime that comes before him, a judge is required to complete a perfect syllogism in which the major premise must be the general law. 4) Basis of all social actions must be utilitarian concept of the greatest happiness for the greatest number. 5) On the seriousness of crime he said that Crime must be considered an injury to society. 6) There must be a proper proportion between crime and punishments. 7) The more promptly and the more closely punishment follows upon the commission of crime, the more just and useful will it be. 8) One of the greatest curbs on crime is not the cruelty of punishments, but their infallibility. The certainty of punishment, even if be moderate, will always make a stronger impression than the fear of another which is more terrible. 9) Prevention of crime is more important than the punishment, which means that publishing the laws is very important. 10) Secret Accusations and tortures should be abolished in favour of humane and speedy trial. 11) Purpose of punishment is to deter rather revenge. 12) Imprisonment should be widely employed and it should be improved.

Beccaria’s principles were used as the basis for the French Code of 1791. The greatest advantage of this code was that it set up a procedure that was easy to administer. As a practical matter, however, the Code of 1791 was impossible to enforce in everyday situations, and modifications were introduced. These modifications, all in the interest of greater ease of administration, are the essence of the neo-classical school. Problems in Classical School 1) Ignorance of Individual differences. 2) Significance of particular situation. 3) First Offender and repeaters were to be treated similarly on the basis of criminal act. 4) Minors, idiots, insane and other incompetents were treated similarly. 9.6.3 Neo Classical School Classical theory was difficult to apply in practice; it was modified in the early 1800 and became known as Neo-Classical theory- 9 Theories and Perspectives 1) Modification of the doctrine of free will which could be affected by in Criminal Justice pathology, incompetence, insanity or other conditions. 2) Acceptance of the validity of mitigating circumstances. 3) Modification of the doctrine of responsibility in such cases like insanity, age etc. 4) “Knowledge and intent of man at the time of crime”. 5) Admission into court procedures of expert testimony on the question of degree of responsibility. More Developments in Criminology In England, Jeremy Bentham (1723-80) was the greatest leader in reforms of the . His Felicific Calculus or the idea that man’s objective is to achieve the most pleasure and the least pain was central in the criminal law. William Blackstone supported the work of the Bentham in preparation of English Criminal Code. Like Beccaria, Bentham focused on the potential held by punishment to prevent crime and to act as a deterrent for those considering criminal activity. He suggested 11 different types of punishments. 1) Capital Punishment, or death penalty 2) Afflictive punishment, which includes whipping and starvation 3) Indelible punishment, such as branding, amputation and mutilation 4) Ignominious punishment, such as public punishment involving use of the stocks or pillory 5) Penitential punishment, whereby and offender might be censured by his or her community. 6) Chronic punishment, such as banishment, exile, and imprisonment 7) Restrictive punishment, such as license revocation or administrative sanctions 8) Compulsive punishment, which requires an offender to perform a certain action, such as to make restitution or to keep in touch with a probation officer 9) Pecuniary punishment, involving the use of fines 10) Quasi-pecuniary punishment, in that the offender is denied services that would otherwise be available to him or her. 11) Characteristic punishment, such as mandating that uniforms be worn by incarcerated offenders. Paul J.A.Von Feurerbach, a German Jurist gave a theory “Psychological –Course or Intimidation (in order to conduct or influence) theory”:- 1) Protested vindictive (clear) Punishment (like same 14 years for theft, 5 year if for need and greed etc.) 2) Reformed German Law 3) Publicity in all legal proceedings as a deterrent 4) Forerunner of Modern efforts in the field of Comparative Law and said “no crime without law”, “no crime without punishment” and “no punishment 10 without crime” Contribution of Classical School Criminological Theories The heritage left by the classical school is still operative today in the following principles, each of which is a fundamental constituent of modern day perspective on crime and punishment. 1) Provides a justification for the use of punishment in the control of crime. 2) Rational Punishments 3) Written laws 4) Deterrent Principle 5) Equality before the Law

Self Assessment Question 3) Write a note on the contributions of classical school......

9.7 POSITIVE SCHOOL OF CRIMINOLOGY , proposed that criminals were biological throwbacks and used the term “atavistic”. He studied troublesome soldiers and criminals in Italian and identified following physical characteristics of a criminal:- 1) Slanting forehead 2) Long earlobes or none at all 3) A large jaw 4) Heavy supraorbital ridges 5) Excess hairiness or absence of hair 6) Extreme sensitivity to pain or lack of sensitivity to pain On the basis of his research Lombroso emphasized the need for direct study of the individual and his method was always objective and positive. Later he changed his assumption and pursued the basic idea of cause as ‘a chain of interrelated causes”. Lombroso classified criminals into three major categories: 1) The born criminals (atavist or biological throwbacks); 2) The insane criminal; 3) Criminaloids – under certain circumstances they indulge in criminal behaviour. Unlike Lombroso who gave more attention to biological than the social factors. Enrico Ferri gave more emphasis to the interrelatedness of social, economic and 11 Theories and Perspectives political factors. He argued that criminality can be explained by interactive efforts/ in Criminal Justice factor: 1) Physical factors – race, geography, temp 2) Individual factors – age, sex, psychological variables 3) Social factors – population, religion and culture. He said that crime can be controlled by social changes like subsidised houses, birth control, freedom of marriage and divorce, public recreation facilities etc. He attempted to integrate his positivistic approach to crime with political changes. In his book Sociologia Criminale, he had only five classes:- 1) The born criminal or Instinctive criminal 2) Insane criminal (mentally ill) 3) Passion criminal (prolonged and chronic mental problems or an emotional state) 4) Occasional criminal 5) Habitual criminal Raffaelo Garofalo published the first edition of “Criminology” in 1885 in Social Darwinian era. “How society could guarantee the survival of the fittest through criminal law and penal practice” Society is a ‘natural body’. Crimes are offences ‘against the law of nature’ and Criminal actions are against nature. He got some influence from the classical school and emphasized on reasoning. A natural crime violates two basic human sentiments found among people of all ages: • Pity – sentiment of revulsion against the voluntary inflictions of suffering on others • Probity – refers to the respect for the property rights of others Pity and probity is present in advanced form in all civilized societies. Sometimes physical abnormalities are present, sometimes not. True criminals lacked properly developed altruistic sentiments, in other words, had psychic or moral anomalies that could be transmitted through heredity. Garofalo gave this classification Table 9.1 Class Pity Probity Action

Murderer X X Would kill or steal when given opportunity Lesser Criminal √X √X Lacks sentiments either pity or probity Violent Criminals X √ Environmental factors like alcohol Thieves √ X Product of social factors Cynics/sexual Criminals X √ Low level of moral energy Society is a natural body (either adapt to the environment or be eliminated).He reasoned that true criminal action revealed an inability to live by the basic human 12 sentiments necessary for society to survive, they should be eliminated, their death Criminological Theories would contribute to the survival of the society. He suggested life imprisonment or overseas transportation (exile) for lesser criminals –For him and rehabilitation were secondary. He favoured ‘forced reparation’ and indeterminate sentences and modeled on psychic characteristics of the offender. By giving society or the group supremacy over the individual, Garofalo and Ferri were willing to sacrifice individual rights to the opinion of ‘scientific experts’ Table 9.2: Comparison of Classical and Positive School

Classical School Positive School Definition Legal Natural Focus Criminal act Offender Cause Rationality Pathology Nature Voluntary Determined Response to Crime Punishment Treatment Crime Prevention Deterrence Diagnosis and Classification Operation of Criminal Legal-Philosophical Scientific Justice System Criticism of Positive School Crime is an essential product of social organisation but initially positive school was ignoring the sociological aspect of criminal behaviour. Work of positivists was not very statistically sophisticated. Conclusions about real or significant differences between criminals and non criminals were in fact highly speculative.

Charles Goring (1913) studied 3000 English convicts and a control group of normal males. And after 8 years, Goring confirmed his hypothesis that criminals are biologically inferior. He did not find a physical criminal type.

Gabriel Tarde held that behaviour is learned including criminal behaviour and proposed association and learning as explanations of crime in contrast to the biological approaches of Lombroso. He referred the criminals as ‘Social excrement’ and thought that Courts only function was to determine the guilt or innocence of the accused person and a committee of doctors should determine the degree of his responsibility. He was also in the opinion that disposition should be on a psychological basis only.

9.8 ECOLOGICAL SCHOOL OF CRIMINOLOGY Ecological School of Criminology is also known as ‘The Chicago School of criminology’. The members of the Department of Sociology, University of Chicago attempted to pinpoint the environmental factors associated with crime and to determine the relationship among those factors. Clifford R.Shaw worked as probation and parole officer and became convinced that the problem of had its origin in the juvenile’s detachment from conventional groups rather than in any biological and psychological abnormalities.

Delinquency areas became the concern of Clifford R.Shaw (1929), who developed the theory that delinquency rates are high in the center of Chicago and 13 Theories and Perspectives progressively lower at greater distances from the center and from industrial areas in Criminal Justice It became obvious that the rate of delinquency in various areas of the city and different neighbourhoods varies widely and is tied to socio-economic and other factors. The problems of adverse condition of urban living have been recognised as coming from: 1) The economic insecurity and instability of urban social ; and 2) Individual and social efforts to become adjusted to the requirements and pressures of urban social and economic conditions.

Urban environmental influences promoting crime begin with the disorganisation of families in the blighted areas of urban decentralisation. In the absence of families in the blighted areas of urban decentralisation, poverty and emerging attitudes toward nonconformity combined with the exodus of the conforming middle class from the city to the suburbs intensify the social problems i.e. Suicide, commercialised vice, irregular sex relations, illegitimacy, mob-mindedness, social urban breakdown, such as congestion broken homes increasing complexity of social relationships and crime and delinquency The effect of the community on the individual is most apparent in the inner city, slum, and ghetto.

The concept of concentric circles throughout the city that describe where crime and delinquency occur began when the University of Chicago sociologists began studying delinquency and found that the areas of highest delinquency appeared in or adjacent to areas zoned for industry and commerce (Shaw and McKay, 1969). In Chicago, they occurred close to the central business district and also near the stockyards and the south Chicago steel mills. On the other hand areas of low delinquency occurred in areas zoned for residential purposes. The concentric circle idea arose when five were drawn at two-mile intervals from a focal point at the center of the city. The social data drawn from these two-mile zones indicated that the highest rate of community problems was in the central or first zone, and all problems decreased gradually with the distance from the center of the city to the outer or fifth zone.

Situational Context of Crime The term “situation” refers to the immediate setting in which behaviour occurs, and “situational analysis” refers to the search for regularities in relationships between behaviours and situations. Neighbourhoods are one situational context that can influence the occurrence of crime. These theories assume that there are always people around who will commit a crime if given a chance. They don’t explain the motivation to commit crime rather they explain the situations and circumstances in which motivated offenders find that they have the opportunity to commit a crime. Therefore, these theories sometimes are called “opportunity theories of crime”. Hindelang argued that the routine activities of some groups expose them to much greater risks of victimisation than others.

The Chicago school can be described as a gold mine that continues to enrich criminology today. As Meier and Miethe state that there is a “symbiotic relationship between conventional and illegal activities’ in such a way that “victims and offenders are inextricably linked in ecology of crime”. Thus, criminologists must look to the social contexts to understand the parallel processes by which victims come to experience the risk of crime and offenders come to be 14 motivated to commit crime. Criminological Theories 9.9 THEORIES RELATED TO PHYSICAL APPEARANCE One of the oldest scientific approaches in criminology theory emphasizes physical and biological abnormality as the distinguishing mark of the criminal. In this approach criminals are viewed as somehow different, abnormal, defective, and therefore inferior biologically. This biological inferiority is thought to produce certain physical characteristics that make the appearance of criminals different from that of non-criminals. Early criminologists studied the physical appearance of criminals in an attempt to identify these characteristics. The real explanation of criminal behaviour, in this view, is biological defectiveness and inferiority— physical and other characteristics are only symptoms of that inferiority. 9.9.1 Physiognomy and Phrenology Physiognomy deals with making judgments about people’s character from the appearance of their faces. In 1775, John Caspar Lavater, in the book, “Physiognomical Fragments”, systematised many popular observations and made many extravagant claims about the alleged relation between facial features and human conduct. For example, beardlessness in men and its opposite, the bearded woman, were both considered unfavourable trait indicators, as were a “shifty” eye, a “weak” chin, an “arrogant” nose, and so on. Such given classifications are of little significance today. The principal importance of physiognomy lies in the impetus it gave to the better-organised and logically more impressive view that came to be known as phrenology.

Phrenology focused on the external shape of the skull instead of the appearance of the face. Based originally on Aristotle’s idea of the brain as the organ of the mind, phrenologists assumed that the exterior of the skull conformed to its interior and therefore to the shape of the brain. Different faculties or functions of the mind were assumed to be associated with different parts of the brain. Therefore, the exterior shape of the skull would indicate how the mind functioned.

The eminent European anatomist Franz Joseph Gall (1758-1828) is generally given credit for the systematic development of the doctrines of phrenology, though he did not originate or make much use of that term. In 1791 he started publishing materials on the relations between head conformations and the personal characteristics of individuals. Closely allied with Gall in the development of phrenology was his student and one-time collabourator, John Gaspar Spurzheim (1776-1832). It was Spurzheim rather than Gall who carried their doctrines to England and America, lecturing before scientific meetings and stimulating interest in their ideas.

Gall listed twenty-six special faculties of the brain; Spurzheim increased the number to thirty-five. Their lists included faculties described as amativeness, conjugality, philoprogenitiveness (love of off spring), friendliness, combativeness, destructiveness, acquisitiveness, cautiousness, self-esteem, firmness, benevolence, constructiveness, ideality, and imitativeness. These were said to be grouped into three regions or compartments:- 1) “Lower” or active propensities, 2) Moral sentiments, and 15 Theories and Perspectives 3) The intellectual faculties. in Criminal Justice Crime was said to involve the lower propensities, notably amativeness, philoprogenitiveness, combativeness, secretiveness, and acquisitiveness. These propensities, however, could be held in restraint by the moral sentiments or the intellectual faculties, in which case no crime would be committed. Character and human conduct were thus conceived as equilibrium in the pull of these opposite forces. Animal propensities might impel the individual to crime, but they would be opposed by the higher sentiments and intelligence. Just as other organs were strengthened by exercise and enfeebled by disuse, so were the “organs” of the mind. Careful training of the child, and even of the adult, in right living would strengthen the “organs” of desirable faculties and inhibit through disuse the lower propensities with their concomitants of crime and vice.

The obvious scientific criticism of the phrenological theory of crime was that no one was able to observe the physiological “organs” of the mind or their relation to particular types of behaviour. The most serious obstacle to its acceptance by the public, however, was the deterministic nature of its analysis. If human conduct were the result of the organs of the mind, then people’s fate was in the hands of their anatomy and physiology. This view was rejected and opposed by teachers, preachers, judges, and other leaders who influenced public opinion, because it contradicted one of their most cherished ideas, namely that humans are masters of their own conduct and capable of making of themselves what they will. It was the need to show that humans were still masters of their fate (as well as to respond to criticisms of the fatalistic position implied by his earlier work) that led Gall to publish his Des Dispositions innces de l’ame et de l’esprit du materialisme (1811), in which he argued that phrenology was not fatalistic, that will and spirit were basic and supreme in the direction and control of human behaviour. 9.9.2 Criminal Anthropology: Lombroso to Goring Cesare Lombroso extended the tradition of physiognomy and phrenology by studying all anatomical features of the human body, not merely the features of the face or the shape of the skull. Lombroso went on to perform autopsies on sixty-six male criminals, and he found that these had a significant number of characteristics that were similar to primitive humans. He also examined 832 living criminals, both male and female, 390 non-criminal Italian soldiers, and ninety “lunatics.” These studies were presented in his book, L’uomo delinquente (The Criminal Man), which appeared in 1876. Some of the physical characteristics that Lombroso linked to crime included deviations in head size and shape, asymmetry of the face, large jaws and cheekbones, unusually large or small ears that stand out from the head, fleshy lips, abnormal teeth, recording chin, abundant hair or wrinkles, long arms, extra fingers or toes, or an asymmetry of the brain. Many of these characteristics were said to resemble lower animals, such as monkeys and chimpanzees.

However, a study by Charles Goring, begun in England in 1901 and published in 1913, was to some extent a response to Lombroso’s challenge. Goring’s study was strictly a comparison between a group of convicts–persons convicted of crimes and imprisoned – and a group of unconvicted persons who included university undergraduates, hospital patients, and the officers and men of units of the British army. Thus, no attempt was made to distinguish between “born criminals,” persons 16 with criminal tendencies, and normal persons. Also, Goring relied totally on Criminological Theories objective measurements of physical and mental characteristics, where Lombroso had objected to such total reliance, maintaining that many anomalies were “So small as to defy all but the most minute research”. He argued that these could be detected by the eye of the trained observer, but could not be measured. Finally the study, as it evolved, went well beyond any attempt to prove or disprove Lombroso’s theories, as Goring advanced his own theory of hereditary inferiority.

Lombroso had asserted that criminals, compared with the general population, would show anomalies (i.e., differences or defects) of head height, head width, and degree of receding forehead, as well as differences in head circumference, head symmetry, and so on. Goring, in comparing with the officers and men of the Royal Engineers, found no such anomalies. There were no more protrusions or other peculiarities of the head among the prisoners than among the Royal Engineers. Goring also compared other characteristics, such as nasal contours, color of eyes, colour of hair, and left-handedness, but found only insignificant differences. He compared groups of different kinds of criminals (burglars, forgers, thieves, etc.) on the basis of thirty-seven specific physical characteristics. He concluded that there wee no significant differences between one kind of criminal and another that were not more properly related to the selective effects of environmental factors.

The one general exception to his conclusion was a consistent “inferiority in stature and in body weight”. The criminals were one to two inches shorter than non- criminals of the same occupational groups, and weighed from three to seven pounds less. Goring was satisfied that these differences were real and significant, and he interpreted them as indicating a general inferiority of a hereditary nature. This interpretation agreed with his general thesis of hereditary inferiority (as measured by comparisons of mental ability and various other indices of hereditary influence) as the basis for criminal conduct. 9.9.3 Body Type Theories: Sheldon to Cortes Some of the more interesting attempts at relating criminal behaviour to physical appearance are the so-called body type theories. The body type theorists argue that there is a high degree of correspondence between the physical appearance of the body and the temperament of the mind. The book of William Sheldon, on delinquent youth, is a good example of a body type theory. Sheldon took his underlying ideas and terminology of types from the fact that a human begins life as an embryo that is essentially a tube made up of three different tissue layers, namely, an inner layer (or endoderm), a middle layer (or mesoderm), and an outer layer (or ectoderm). Sheldon then constructed a corresponding physical and mental typology consistent with the known facts from embryology and the physiology of development.

Sheldon’s basic type characteristics of physique and temperament are briefly summarized in the following scheme:

17 Theories and Perspectives Table 9.3 in Criminal Justice Physique Temperament

1) Endomorphic:relatively great 1) Viscerotonic; general relaxation development of digestive viscera; of body; a comfortable person; tendency to put on fat; soft round- loves soft luxury; a “softie” but ness through various regions of the still essentially an extrovert. body; short tapering limbs; small bones; soft, smooth, velvety skin.

2) Mesomorphic: relative predomi- 2) Somotonic: active, dynamic, nance of muscles, bone, and the person; walks, talks, gestures motor organs of the body; large assertively; behaves aggres- trunks; heavy chest; large wrists sively. and hands; if “lean”, a hard rect- angularity of outline; if “not lean”, they fill out heavily.

3) Ectomorphic: relative predomi- 3) Cerebrotonic: an intrivent; full nance of skin and its appendages, of functional complaints, aller- which includes the nervous sys- gies, skin troubles, chronic fa- tem; lean, fragile, delicate body; tigue, insomnia; sensitive to small, delicate bones; droopy noise and distractions; shrinks shoulders; small face, sharp nose, from crowds. fine hair; relatively little body mass and relatively great surface area.

Each person possesses the characteristics of the three types to a greater or lesser degree. Sheldon therefore used three numbers, each between 1 and 7, to indicate the extent to which the characteristics of the three types were present in a given individual. Foe example, a person whose somatotype is 7-1-4 would possess many endomorphic characteristics, few mesomorphic characteristics, and an average number of ectomorphic characteristics. Sheldon presented individual case , uniformly written according to a rigorous case outline, of 200 young males who had a period of contact, during the decade 1939-1949, with the Hayden Goodwill Inn, a small, somewhat specialised, rehabilitation home for boys in Boston. He found that these youths were decidedly high in mesomorphy and low in ectomorphy, with the average somatotype being 3.5-4.6-2.7. Sheldon had earlier studied 200 college students who were apparently nondelinquents, and had found that the average somatotype was 3.2-3.8-3.4. The difference between these two groups with respect to mesomorphy and ectomorphy is significant (p = 001). The association between mesomorphy and delinquency was also found in a study by the Gluecks, who compared 500 persistent delinquents with 500 proven non- delinquents. The two groups were matched in terms of age, general intelligence, ethic-racial derivation, and residence in underprivileged areas. Photographs of the boys were mixed together and then visually assessed for the predominant body type. By this method 60.1 per cent of the delinquents, but only 30.7 per cent of the non-delinquents, were found to be mesomorphs. The analysis included 18 a study of sixty-seven personality traits and forty-two socio-cultural factors to Criminological Theories determine which of these were associated with delinquency. The Gluecks found that mesomorphs, in general, were “more highly characterised by traits particularly suitable to the commission of acts of aggression (physical strength, energy, insensitivity, the tendency to express tensions and frustrations in action), together with a relative freedom from such inhibitions to antisocial adventures as feelings of inadequacy, marked submissiveness to authority, emotional instability, and the like.” They also found that those mesomorphs who became delinquent were characterised by a number of personality traits not normally found in mesomorphs, including susceptibility to contragious diseases of childhood, destructiveness, feelings of inadequacy, emotional instability, and emotional conflicts. In addition, three socio-cultural factors — careless household routine, lack of family group recreations associated with delinquency in mesomorphs. The Glueck study has been criticized because there was no control for the rapid body changes that occur in adolescence, because the method of somatotype involved only visual assessment and not precise measurements, and because the delinquent population included only institutionalised youth. In an attempt to overcome these problems Cortes used a precise measurements technique to somatotype 100 delinquents, of whom seventy were institutionalised and thirty were on probation or under suspended sentence. He also somatotype 100 private high school seniors who had no record of any delinquency, and twenty institutionalised adult felons. He found that 57 per cent of the delinquents were high in mesomorphy, as compared to only 19 per cent of the no delinquents. The mean somatotype of the delinquents was 3.5-4.4-3.1, and the mean somatotype of the criminals was 2.8-5.4-3.1. To determine whether body type was associated with temperament, Cortes had seventy-three boys who were clearly classified as to body type (i.e., whose predominant rating was at least 4.5 and exceeded the other two ratings by at least one-half unit) describe themselves in terms of a set of traits associated with the three temperaments. The results of this experiment show that there was a strong tendency for boys with mesomorphic physics to describe their temperaments in terms that Sheldon had called “somotonic”. Similarly, boys with endomorphic physiques used “viscerotonic” terms and those with ectomorphic physiques used “cerebrotonic” terms to describe their temperaments. This is exactly the relationship predicated by Sheldon. This procedure was repeated with 100 college girls and with the twenty convicted adult felons, with similar results. Finally, using Mcclelland’s Test for Need for Achievement, Cortes found that mesomorphy was associated with need for achievement (in Ach) and with need for power (n Power). Cortes concluded.

Delinquents and possibly criminals differ from non-delinquents and non-criminals in being physically more mesomorphic, more energetic and potentially aggressive temperamentally, and in showing higher need for achievement and power motivationally.

Cortes’s conclusion may be criticized on several counts. The small number of subjects in the experiments makes such a broad generalisation at least somewhat questionable. The differences in mesomorphy between the groups in this study may reflect differences in socioeconomic class rather than in criminality, since the non-delinquent group was from a private high school, and thus probably 19 Theories and Perspectives upper class, whereas most criminal and delinquent groups are predominantly in Criminal Justice lower class. The experiments did not actually measure the temperament of the different body types, but measured self-perception of temperament, and no theoretical case is made that those who perceive themselves as energetic (mesomorphs) are more potentially aggressive than those who perceive themselves as tense and anxious (ectomorphs). The study does not directly relate delinquency and criminality to temperament and motivation. Rather, delinquency and criminality are shown to be related to mesomorphy, and mesomorphy is shown to be related to certain temperaments and motivations. The experiments linking mesomorphy to the “energetic” temperament included only seven delinquents and twenty adult criminals, an extremely small sample. It was found that mesomorphy was related to a higher need for achievement, but no significant differences between the delinquent and non-delinquent groups were observed. Delinquents were significant higher in need for power than non-delinquents, but no significant differences were found between body types of the non-delinquents. This appears to be rather a mixed bag of results to support such a strong conclusion.

9.10 BIOLOGICAL FACTORS AND CRIMINAL BEHAVIOUR Early biological theories in criminology took the view that structure determines function — that it, individuals behave differently because of the fundamental fact they are somehow structurally different. These theories tended to focus strongly on inherited characteristics. Modern biological theories in criminology, in contrast, examine the entire range of biological characteristics, including those that are environmentally induced. In addition, modern theories do not suggest that biological characteristics directly “cause” crime. Instead, they argue that certain biological conditions increase the likelihood that an individual will engage in maladaptive behaviour patterns (e.g., violent or antisocial behaviour), and that those behaviour patterns can include actions that are legally defined as criminal. Finally, modern theories increasingly focus on the interaction between biological characteristics and the social environment, rather than looking solely at the effects of biology itself. These are called biosocial theories of crime, and most biological criminologists recognise that this is where the field must go in the future. 9.10.1 Chromosomes and Crime Normal males have one X and one Y chromosome which is an XY while normal females have two X chromosomes, or XX. The sex of an individual is determined at conception. Persons with normal male characteristics always have the Y chromosome; females never have the Y chromosome. There have been many abnormal combinations and mosaics and these sometimes cause difficulty in defining roles in society for example an XXY may think he is female and may have been brought up that way and yet find difficulty in accepting the female role. Conversely the XXY may have been brought up as a male but have reservations about the role this is why sex change operations are becoming more common in modern society. The recent theory is that the presence of XYY chromosomes in the male produces an overly aggressive “super male” who finds himself in conflict with the law more frequently than do his XY brothers. Some 20 have suggested that this finding will revive the effort to look for the bad for the Criminological Theories bad seed. The first finding of the XYY chromosome in the adult male (an American) was reported in the English medical journal Lancet published in August 26, 1961.

Self Assessment Question 4) Write a note on chromoses and crime......

9.10.2 Family Studies Explanations of human behaviour in terms of heredity go far back in antiquity and are based on the common sense observation that children tend to resemble their parents in appearance, mannerisms, and disposition. Scientific theories of heredity originated around 1850 and were more extensively worked out over the next fifty or seventy-five years. In connection with the development of the theory of heredity, new statistical methods were devised by Francis Galton and his students (notably Karl Pearson) to measure degrees of resemblance or correlation. Charles Goring used these new statistical techniques in the analysis of criminality, arriving at the conclusion that crime is inherited in much the same way as are ordinary physical traits and features.

Goring found that there were high correlations between the frequency and length of imprisonment of one parent and that of the other, between the imprisonment of parents and that of their children, and between the imprisonment of brothers. Goring argued that these findings could not be explained by the effect of social and environmental conditions, since he found little or no relationship between the frequency and length of imprisonment and such factors as poverty, nationality, education, birth order, and broken homes. He also argued that these findings could not be explained by the effect of example among people who were closely associated with each other. For example, the imprisonment of one spouse could not be explained by the example of the other spouse, since most of them were already engaged in crime at the time they got married. Goring therefore concluded that criminality (i.e., frequent or lengthy imprisonment) was associated with inherited, but not with environmental, characteristics and recommended that to reduce crime, people with those inherited characteristics not be allowed to reproduce.

There are serious problems with each of Goring’s arguments. The most important problem concerns the fact that Goring attempted to establish the effect of heredity by controlling for and eliminating the effect of environment. To accomplish that, it is necessary to have accurate measurement of all the environment factors involved, which he obviously did not have. Goring dealt with only a few environmental factors, quite imperfectly, and these were roughly measured. The failure to measure environmental influence adequately has the result of 21 Theories and Perspectives overemphasising the significance of the influence of heredity. Later studies of in Criminal Justice the families of criminals have been faced with a similar problem. Ellis reviewed these studies and found remarkably little evidence for the widespread belief that crime tends to “run in the family”. The evidence that does not exist suggests that it is less rampant than is commonly believed.

In spite of these shortcomings, the significance of Goring’s work should not be underestimated. Whereas others had argued that crime was caused either by environment or by heredity, Goring was the first to postulate that it might be result of the interaction between the two, a view that is held by many criminologists today. Although his findings emphasized hereditary factors, Goring did not reject the influence of the environment as a cause of crime. He maintained only that empirical evidence was required to support this view, and that such evidence was not found in his study. His major contribution, however, was his use of statistical methods in a comparative study of criminals and non-criminals. Karl Pearson correctly pointed out that anyone who wished to refute Goring’s arguments would have to adopt Goring’s methods to do so. Pearson concluded, “Strange as it may seem, the contradiction of his conclusions would be a small matter compared with the fundamental fact that Goring’s methods have ploughed deeply the ground, and traced firmly the lines on which the scientific criminologist of the future will be compelled to work.” 9.10.3 Twin and Adoption Studies Studies attempting to address the hereditary bases of criminality by examining traditional families have largely been abandoned, since it is essentially impossible to disentangle the effects of nature (such as genes) from those of nurture (environment). The study of the relative criminality of twins a clear-cut distinction between identical and fraternal twins. Identical twins (monozygotic) are the product of a single fertilized egg and have identical heredity; fraternal twins (dizygotic) are the product of two eggs simultaneously fertilized by two sperms, and therefore have the same relation as ordinary siblings. Differences in the behaviour of identical twins therefore may not be attributed to differences in heredity, and presumably similarities of behaviour could be attributed to their identical inheritance. Obviously this need not be true, since the similarities could be due to similarities in training. But any general tendency to greater similarity of behaviour when heredity is identical sets up a strong presumption that the similarity is due to the influence of heredity.

A number of investigators have used this approach in trying to determine the role of heredity in criminality. One of the earlier and more dramatic of these studies was that of the German physiologist Johannes Lange, published in 1929. He found that, in a group of thirteen pairs of adult male identical twins, when one twin had a record of imprisonment, the other similarly had been imprisoned in 77 per cent of the cases; whereas in a comparable group of seventeen pairs of fraternal twins, when one twin had been imprisoned, the other had a prison record in only 12 per cent of the cases. In a matched control group of 214 pairs of ordinary brothers of nearest age, when one brother had a prison record, the other brother of the matched pair had a prison record in only 8 per cent of the cases. Lange’s conclusion is seen in the dramatic title he gave his book, which translates as “crime as destiny”. In similar studies a variety of results have been reported but all tend to show greater similarity, of criminal behaviour among identical 22 than among fraternal twins. A much broader study was done by Hutchings and Mednick, who examined the Criminological Theories records of all non-family male adoptions in Copenhagen in which the adoptee had been born between 1927 and 1941. First, the authors grouped the boys according to whether they had criminal records, and then looked at the criminal records of the biological fathers. A total of 31.1 per cent of the boys who had no criminal record had biological fathers with criminal records, but 37.7 per cent of the boys who had committed only minor offenses and 48.8 per cent of the boys who themselves had criminal records had biological fathers with criminal records. These figures indicate adopted boys are more likely to commit crime when their biological fathers have a criminal record.

Walters performed a meta-analysis of thirteen adoption studies published between 1972 and 1989, finding significant evidence for heritability of crime and antisocial behaviour. However, two limitations of adoption studies might be mentioned:- 1) In several of the studies, adoptive parents engaged in criminal behaviour at much lower rates than the normal population. This makes it difficult to generalise about the effects of family environment, and to examine the interaction between environment and genetics in its potential joint influence on behaviour. 2) Several studies found hereditary effects for petty and property offenses, but not for more serious and violent offenses. But this result may reflect the fact that petty and property offenders are more likely to be frequent offenders. Thus, hereditary effects would be much easier to find with those offenders than with serious and violent offenders, who commit crimes very infrequently. 9.10.4 Neurotransmitters Neurotransmitters are chemicals that allow for the transmission of electrical impulses within the brain and are the basis for the brain’s processing of information. As such, they underline all types of behaviour, including antisocial behaviour.

Scerbo and Raine performed a meta-analysis of studies on the relationship between neurotransmitter levels and antisocial behaviour. They reported that twenty-eight studies, on average, found that antisocial people have significantly lower levels of serotonin than normal people. Studies of norepinephrine and dopamine did not show any overall differences in these transmitter levels across the groups of subjects, but when only studies using a direct measure of neurotransmitter functioning were considered, an effect of norepinephrine on antisocial behaviour was also found. The authors concluded that it is important to control for alcohol abuse when examining the effects of neurotransmitters, since alcoholism itself is associated with differences in neurotransmitter levels. Investigators also have isolated DNA from blood samples to identify specific genetic features that may be involved in the link between neurotransmitters levels and antisocial behaviour. Genetic defects in two neurotransmitters, dopamine and serotonin, have been identified in violent individuals and certain types of excessive and compulsive behaviours that are associated with violence.

23 Theories and Perspectives 9.10.5 Hormones in Criminal Justice Much research has been generated relating to the effect of hormone levels on human behaviour, including aggressive or criminal behaviour. Interest in hormones dates back to the mid-1800s, when biochemists were first able to isolate and identify some of the physiological and psychological effects of the secretions of the endocrine glands (hormones). Most recent paid to hormone levels and aggressive or criminal behaviour relates to either testosterone or female premenstrual cycles. The role of testosterone in the aggressiveness of many animal species has been well documented, but a question remains as to whether testosterone plays a significant role in human aggressive and violent behaviour. Raine reviews some of this literature, finding mixed results. Effects of testosterone on aggression are slight when aggression is measured using personality questionnaires, but much stronger when behavioural measures of aggression are employed.

Although most research on hormones and crime focused on males, some work has examined the role hormones play in female crime, especially in connection with the menstrual cycle. Biological changes after ovulation have been linked to irritability and aggression. Research is mixed on the strength of this linkage, but Fishbein’s recent review of the literature suggests that at least a small per centage of women are susceptible to cyclical hormone changes, resulting in a patterned increase in hostility. This patterned increase is associated with fluctuations in female hormones and a rise in testosterone, to which some women appear to be quite sensitive. 9.10.6 The Autonomic Nervous System The ANS is especially active in a “fight or flight” situation, when it prepares the body for maximum efficiency by increasing the heart rate, rerouting the blood from the stomach to the muscles, dilating the pupils, increasing the respiratory rate, and simulating the sweat glands. Lie detectors measure these functions and use them to determine whether the subject is telling the truth. The theory is that, as children, most people have been conditioned to anticipate punishment when they tell a lie. The anticipation of punishment produces the involuntary fight or flight response, which results in a number of measurable changes in heart, pulse, and breathing rate, and, because sweat itself conducts electricity, in the electric conductivity of the skin.

9.11 PSYCHOANALYTICAL THEORIES OF CRIME Sigmund Freud coined the term psychoanalysis in 1896 and based an entire theory of human behaviour on it. He observed that most patients talk freely without being under hypnosis, and he developed the technique of free association of ideas. By encouraging patients to say anything they had in their minds without regard to relevancy or propriety, he found that disturbing events discussed with anguish earlier could be discussed later with relative ease, and the sources of psychological pain eventually surfaced into the consciousness, thereby losing their crippling effect. Ernest Jones delineated seven major principles of Freud’s approach:- 1) Determinism-psychical processes are not chance occurrences; 24 2) Affective processes have certain autonomy and can be detached and Criminological Theories displaced; 3) Mental processes are dynamic and tend constantly to discharge the energy associated with them; 4) Repression; 5) Intrapsychic conflict; 6) Infantile mental processes- the wishes of later life are important only as they ally themselves with those of childhood; 7) Psychosexual trends are present in childhood.

The central idea of psychoanalysis was free association: The patient relaxed completely and talked about whatever came to mind. By exploring these associations the individuals was able to reconstruct the earlier events and bring them to consciousness. Once the patient was conscious of these events, Freud argued that the events would lose their unconscious power and the patient would gain conscious control freedom in his or her life.

Freud later revised his conceptions of the conscious and unconscious, in a sense redefining the conscious as ego, and splitting the unconscious into the id and superego. Id was a term used to describe the great reservoir of biological and psychological drives, the urges and impulses that underline all behaviour. That includes the libido, the full force of sexual energy in the individual, as diffuse and tenacious as the “will to live” found in all animals. The id is permanently unconscious, and responds only to what Freud called “the pleasure principle”— if it feels good, do it. The superego, in contrast, is the force of self-criticism and conscience and reflects requirements that stem from the individual’s social experience in a particular cultural milieu. The superego may contain conscious elements in the form of moral and ethical codes, but it is primarily unconscious in its operation. The superego arises out of the first great love attachment the child experiences, that with his or her parents. The child experiences them as judgmental, and ultimately internalises their values as an ego-ideal — that is, as an ideal conception of what he or she should be. Finally, what Freud called the ego is the conscious personality. It is oriented toward the real world in which the person live (termed by Freud the “reality principle”), and attempts to mediate between the demands of the id and the prohibitions of the superego.

Given this basic organisation of the personality, Freud explored how the ego handles the conflicts between the superego and the id. The basic problem is one of guilt: The individual experiences all sorts of drives and urges coming from the id, and feels guilty about them because of the prohibitions of the superego. There are a variety of ways the individual may handle this situation. In sublimation the drives of the id are diverted to activities approved of by the superego. For example, aggressive and destructive urges may be diverted to athletic activity. Sublimation is the normal and healthy way the ego handles the conflicts between the drives of the id and the prohibitions of the superego. In repression, in contrast, those drives are stuffed back into the unconscious and the individual denies that they exist. This may result in a variety of strange effects on behaviour. One possible result is a reaction formation, such as when a person with repressed sexual desires becomes very prudish about all matters. Another result might be 25 Theories and Perspectives projection, in which, for example, a person with repressed homosexual urges in Criminal Justice frequently sees homosexual tendencies in others.

Freud believed that these basic conflicts were played out in different ways at different points of the life cycle. Of particular interest to him were the experiences of early childhood. He argued that each infant goes through a series of phases in which the basic drives were oriented around, first, oral drives, then anal drives and finally genital drives. During the genital stage (around the ages of 3 and 4) the child is sexually attracted to the parent of the opposite sex and views the same-sex parent as competition. This is the famous Oedipus complex in boys, and the comparable Electra complex in girls. If the guilt produced by these urges is not handled adequately by the ego, it leaves a lasting imprint on the personality that affects later behaviour. The major tool Freud used to treat these problems was transference, the tendency for past significant relationships to be replayed during current significant relationships. As the relationship with the analyst takes on increasing significance in the patient’s life, the patient will tend to replay with the analyst the earlier relationships that are presently generating with problems. For example, if a patient’s problems stem from an earlier traumatic relationship with a parent, the patient will tend to create a similar traumatic relationship with the analyst. Treatment then consists of straightening out the current relationship between analyst and patient, which has the effect of also straightening out the earlier relationship the patient had with the parent. 9.11.1 Psychoanalytic Explanations of Criminal Behaviour Psychoanalytic theory provides the basic orientation for psychoanalytic explanations of criminal behaviour. Within the psychoanalytic perspective criminal and delinquent behaviours are attributed to disturbances or malfunctions in the ego or superego. The id, in contrast, is viewed as a constant and in born biologically based source of drives and urges; it does not vary substantially among individuals. Freud himself did not discuss criminal behaviour to any great extent. He did, however, suggest that at least some individuals performed criminal acts because they possessed an overdeveloped superego, which led to constant feelings of guilt and anxiety. There is a consequent desire for punishment to remove the guilt feelings and restore a proper balance of good against evil. Unconsciously motivated errors (i.e., careless or imprudent ways of committing the crime) leave clues so that the authorities may more readily apprehend and convict the guilty party, and thus administer suitably cleansing punishment. This idea was extensively developed by later Freudians. Criminality of this type is said to be appropriate for treatment through psychoanalysis, since it can uncover the unconscious sources of guilt and free the person from the compulsive need for punishment.

While excessive guilt from an overdeveloped superego is one source of criminal behaviour within the psychoanalytic framework, August Aichhorn, a psychoanalytically oriented psychologist, suggested alternate sources for crime and delinquency based on his years of experience running an for delinquents. He found that many children in his institution had underdeveloped superego, so that the delinquency and criminality were primarily expressions of an unregulated id. Aichhorn attributed this to the fact that the parents of these children were either absent or unloving, so that the children failed to form the loving attachments necessary for the proper development of their superegos. 26 Aichhorn treated these children by providing a happy and pleasurable Criminological Theories environment, so as to promote the type of identification with adults that the child failed to experience earlier. He commented that most training schools “attempted through force, through fear of punishment, and without rewards of love to make the delinquent socially acceptable. Since most of their charges belong to the type just described, they only exaggerated what the parents had already begun and consequently they were doomed to failure.” Freud approved of these techniques in his foreword to Aichhorn’s book, and concluded that they, rather than psychoanalysis per se, were appropriate in the case of young children and of adult criminals dominated by their instincts.

Aichhorn also suggested that other types of delinquents existed, including those who, from an overabundance of love, were permitted to do anything they wanted by overprotective and overindulgent parents. He did not find that there were many of these, but they required different treatment techniques than the delinquents created by the absent or excessively severe parents described above. Finally, there also were a few delinquents who had well-developed superegos but who identified with criminal parents. Again, these required very different treatment techniques.

Criticism Cleckley made the following comment: In addition to these criticisms of psychoanalytic theory in general, several criticisms also have been made about psychoanalytic explanations of crime. The central assertion of this explanation is that at least some crime is caused by “unconscious conflicts arising from disturbed family relationships at different stages of development, particularly the oedipal stage”. This argument may apply to some crimes that would appear “irrational”, but many crimes seem quite conscious and rational and therefore not caused by unconscious conflicts. In addition, as a treatment technique, psychoanalysis requires a lengthy and usually quite expensive process that simply is not available to ordinary criminals. To date, psychoanalysis has not been particularly useful in either understanding crime or responding to it.

9.12 SOCIOLOGICAL THEORIES OF CRIMINAL BEHAVIOUR 9.12.1 Durkhiem, Anomie and Modernisation Emile Durkheim (1858-1917) has been called “one of the best known and one of the least understood major social thinkers”. Presenting his thought is no easy take, “the controversies which surround this thought bear upon essential points, not details”. For this reason it is best to approach his work by first considering the political and intellectual climate century it evolved. Durkheim’s publication of two articles as a result of these studies led to the creation of a special position for him at the University of Bordeaux, where in 1887 he taught the first French university course in sociology. In 1892 Durkheim received the first doctor’s degree in sociology awarded by the University; of Paris, and ten years later he returned to a position at the university; where he dominated sociology until his death in 1917.

27 Theories and Perspectives Durkheim’s theories are complex, but his influence on criminology has been in Criminal Justice great. The concept of anomie emerged with Durkheim in 1897 as the loss of individual identification with one’s cultural group. Merton (1938) had considered anomie as an explanation of deviant behaviour early in 1938. In 1949, he suggested that the condition of anomie would be a good explanation for deviant behaviour in any society. In 1955, he elabourated on anomie as central in juvenile delinquency (Witmer and Kotinsky, 1955). Because criminal behaviour grows out of a contradiction between the culture and the social structure and, in addition, between the cultural values and the means provided for achieving them, the individual dissociated from his cultural group may well exhibit deviant behaviour. Merton further elabourated and refined this concept in 1957.

Durkheim’s analysis of the process of social change involved in industrialisation is presented in his first major work, De la division du travail social (The Division of Labor in society), written as his doctoral thesis and published in 1893. In it he describes these processes as part of the development from the more primitive “mechanical” form of society into the more advanced “organic” form. In the mechanical form each social group in society is relatively isolated from all other social groups, and is basically self-sufficient. Within these social groups individuals live largely under identical circumstances, do identical work, and hold identical values. There is little division of labour, with only a few persons in the clan or village having specialised functions. Thus there is little need for individuals’ talents, and the solidarity of the society is based on the uniformity of its members.

Contrasted with this is the organic society, in which the different segments of society depend on each other in a highly organised division of labour. Social solidarity is no longer based on the uniformity of the individuals, but on the diversity of the functions of the parts of the society. Durkheim saw all societies as being in some stage of progression between the mechanical and the organic structures, with no society being totally one or the other. Even the most primitive societies could be seen to have some forms of division of labour, and even the most advanced societies would require some degree of uniformity of its members. Law plays an essential role in maintaining the social solidarity of each of these two types of societies, but in very different ways. In the mechanical society law functions to enforce the uniformity of the members of the social group, and thus is oriented toward repressing any deviation from the norms of the time. In the organic society, on the other hand, law functions to regulate the interactions of the various parts of society and provides restitution in cases of wrongful transactions. Because law plays such different roles in the two types of societies, crime appears in very different forms. Durkheim argued that to the extent a society remains mechanical, crime is “normal” in the sense that a society without crime would be pathologically over controlled. As the society develops toward the organic form, it is possible for a pathological state, which he called anomie, to occur, and such a state would produce a variety of social maladies, including crime. Durkheim developed his concept of “crime as normal” in his second major work, The Rules of the Sociological Method, published in 1895, only two years after The Division of Labor; he went on to develop anomie in his most famous work, Suicide, published in 1897. These concepts will be explored in the following sections.

28 Crime as Normal in Mechanical Societies Criminological Theories Mechanical societies are characterised by the uniformity of the lives, work, and beliefs of their members. All the uniformity that exists in a society, that is, the “totally of social likeliness”, Durkheim called the collective conscience. Since all societies demand at least some degree of uniformity from their members (in that none are totally organic), the collective conscience may be found in every culture. In every society, however, there will always be a degree of diversity in that there will be many individual differences among its members. As Durkheim said, “There cannot be a society in which the individuals do no differ more or less from the collective type.”

To the extent that a particular society is mechanical, its solidarity will come from the pressure for uniformity exerted against this diversity. Such pressure is exerted in varying degrees and in varying forms. In its strongest form it will consist of criminal sanctions. In weaker forms, however, the pressure may consist of designating certain behaviours or beliefs as morally reprehensible or merely in bad taste.

Durkheim argued that “society cannot be formed without our being required making perpetual and costly sacrifices”. These sacrifices, embodied in the demands of the collective conscience, are the price of membership in society, and fulfilling the demands gives the individual members a sense of collective identity, which is an important source of social solidarity. But, more important, these demands are constructed so that it is inevitable that a certain number of people will not fulfill them. The number must be large enough to constitute an identifiable group, but not so large as to include a substantial portion of the society. This enables the large mass of the people, all whom fulfill the demands of the collective conscience, to feel a sense of moral superiority, identifying themselves as good and righteous, and opposing themselves to the morally inferior transgressors who fail to fulfill these demands. It is this sense of superiority, of goodness and righteousness, which Durkheim saw as the primary source of the social solidarity. Thus criminals play an important role in the maintenance of social solidarity, since they are among the group of those identified by society as inferior, which allows the rest of society to feel superior.

The punishment of criminals also plays a role in the maintenance of the social solidarity. When the dictates of the collective conscience are violated, society responds with repressive sanctions not so much for retribution or deterrence, but because without them those who are making the “perpetual and costly sacrifices” would become severely demoralised. For example, when a person who has committed a serious crime is released with only a slap on the wrist, the average, law-abiding citizen may become terribly upset. He feels that he is playing the game by the rules, and so everyone else should too. The punishment of the criminal is necessary to maintain the allegiance of the average citizen to the social structure. Without it the average citizen may lose his over-all commitment to the society and his willingness to make the sacrifices necessary for it. But beyond this, the punishment of criminals also acts as a visible, societal expression of the inferiority and blameworthiness of the criminal group. This reinforces the sense of superiority and righteousness found in the mass of the people, and thus strengthens the solidarity of the society.

29 Theories and Perspectives Crime itself is normal in society because there is no clearly marked dividing line in Criminal Justice between behaviours considered criminal and those considered morally reprehensible or merely in bad taste. If there is a decrease in behaviours designated as criminal, then there may be a tendency to move behaviours previously designated as morally reprehensible into the criminal category. For example, not every type of unfair transfer of property is considered stealing. But if there is a decrease in the traditional forms of burglary and robbery, there then may be an associated increase in the tendency to define various forms of white-collar deception as crime. These behaviours may always have been considered morally reprehensible, and in that sense they violated the collective conscience. They were not, however, considered crime. Society moves them into the crime category because criminal sanctions are the strongest tool available to maintain social solidarity. Since the institution of punishment serves an essential function, it will be necessary in any society. Imagine a society of saints, a perfect cloister of exemplary individuals. Crimes, property so called, will there be unknown; but faults which appear venial to the layman will create there the same scandal that the ordinary offense does in ordinary consciousnesses. If, then, this society has the power to judge and punish, it will define these acts as criminal and will treat them as such. For the same reason, the perfect and upright man judges his smallest failings with a severity that the majority reserves for acts more truly in the nature of an offense. Thus a society without crime is impossible. If all the behaviours that are presently defined as criminal no longer occurred, new behaviours would be placed in the crime category. Crime, then, is inevitable because there is an inevitable diversity of behaviour in society. The solidarity of the society is generated by exerting pressure for conformity against this diversity, and some of these pressures will inevitable take the form of criminal sanctions. The abnormal or pathological state of society would be one in which there was no crime. A society that had no crime would be one in which the constraints of the collective conscience were so rigid that no one could oppose them. In this type of situation crime would be eliminated, but so would the possibility of progressive social change. Social change is usually introduced by opposing the constraints of the collective conscience, and those who do this are frequently declared to be criminals. Thus Socrates and Jesus were declared criminals, as were Mahatma Gandhi and George Washington. The leaders of the union movement in the 1920s and 1930s were criminalised, as were the leaders of the civil rights movement of the 1960s. If the demands of the collective conscience had been so rigidly enforced that no crime could exist, then these movements would have been impossible also. Thus crime is the price society pays for the possibility of . In a similar way individual growth cannot occur in a child unless it is possible for that child to misbehave. The child is punished for misbehaviour, and no one wants the child to misbehave. But a child who never did anything wrong would be pathologically over-controlled. Eliminating the misbehaviour would also eliminate the possibility of independent growth. In this sense the child’s misbehaviour is the price that must be paid for the possibility of personal development. In this way Durkheim concluded his theory. From this point of view, the fundamental facts of criminality present themselves to us in an entirely new light. Contrary to current ideas, the criminal no longer 30 seems a totally unsociable being, a sort of parasitic element, a strange and Criminological Theories unassimilable body, introduced into the midst of society. On the contrary, he plays a definite role in social life. Crime, for its part, must no longer be conceived as an evil that cannot be too much suppressed. There is no occasion for self- congratulation when the crime rate drops noticeably below the average level, for we may be certain that this apparent progress is associated with some social disorder.

Anomie as a Pathological State in Organic Societies To the extent that a society is mechanical, it derives its solidarity from pressure for conformity against the diversity of its members. The criminalising of some behaviours is a normal and necessary part of this pressure. But to the extent that a society is organic, the function of law is to regulate the interactions of the various parts of the whole. If this regulation is inadequate, there can result a variety of social maladies, including crime. Durkheim called the state of inadequate regulation anomie.

Durkheim first introduced this concept in The Division of Labor in Society, where he argued that the industrialisation of French society, with its resulting division of labour, had destroyed the traditional solidarity based on uniformity. But this industrialisation had been so rapid that the society had not yet been able to evolve sufficient mechanisms to regulate its transactions. Periodic cycles of overproduction followed by economic slowdown indicated that the relations between producers and consumers were ineffectively regulated. Strikes and labour violence indicated that the relations between workers and employers were unresolved. The alienation of the individual worker and the sense that his division of labour was turning people into mere “cogs in the wheel” indicated that the relation of the individual to work was inadequately defined.

Durkheim expanded and generalised his notion of anomie four years later with the publication of his most famous work, Le Suicide. In it he statistically analysed data that showed that the suicide rate tends to increase sharply both in periods of economic growth. Whereas suicide in a time of economic decline might be easily understood, the key question is why suicide would increase in a time of prosperity. Durkheim proposed that society functions to regulate not only the economic interactions of its various components, but also how the individual perceives his own needs. Durkheim’s theory of anomie has been used as the basis for later explanations of crime and a variety of other deviant behaviours. Because of its importance in criminology and sociology, the theory is presented here at some length, and in Durkheim’s own words. 1) No living being can be happy or even exist unless his needs are sufficiently proportioned to his means. In other, if his needs require more than. Which can be granted or even merely something of a different sort, they will be under continual friction and can only function painfully. 2) In the animal, at least in a normal condition, this equilibrium is established with automatic spontaneity because the animal depends on purely material conditions. 3) This is not the case with man, because most of his needs are not dependent on his body….A more awakened reflection suggests better conditions, seemingly desirable ends craving fulfillment....Nothing appears in man’s 31 Theories and Perspectives organic nor in his psychological constitution which sets a limit to such in Criminal Justice tendencies….they are unlimited so far as they depend on the individual alone…Thus, the more one has, the more one wants, since satisfactions received only stimulate instead of filling needs. 4) A regulative force must play the same role for moral needs which the organism plays for physical needs…. [Society alone can play this moderating role; for it is the only moral power superior to the individual, the authority of which he accepts…It alone can estimate the reward to be prospectively offered to every class of human functionary, in the name of the common interest. 5) As a matter of fact, at every moment of history there is a dim perception, in the moral consciousness of societies, of the respective value of different social services, the relative reward due each, and the consequent degree of comfort appropriate on the average to workers in each occupation….under this pressure, each in his sphere vaguely realises the extreme limit set to his ambitions and aspires to nothing beyond….Thus, an end goal are set to the passions. 6) But when society is disturbed by some painful crisis or by beneficent but abrupt transitions, it is momentarily incapable of exercising this influence: thence come the sudden rises in the curve of suicides which we have pointed out above. 7) In the case of economic disasters, indeed, something like a declassification occurs which suddenly casts certain individuals into a lower state than their previous one. Then they must reduce their requirements, restrain their needs, learn greater self-control….So they are not adjusted to the condition forced on them, and its very prospect is intolerable. 8) It is the same if the source of the crisis is an abrupt growth of power and wealth. Then, truly, as the conditions of life are changed, the standard according to which needs were regulated can no longer remain the same; for it varies with social resources…The scale is upset; but a new scale cannot be immediately improvised. Time is required for the public conscience to reclassify men and things. So long as the social forces thus freed have not regained equilibrium, their respective values are unknown and so all regulation is lacking for a time. The limits are unknown between the possible and the impossible, what is just and what are unjust, legitimate claims and hopes and those which are immoderate. Consequently, there is no restraint upon aspirations….Appetites, not being controlled by a public opinion, become disoriented, no longer reorganise the limits proper to them. Besides, they are at same time seized by a sort natural erythrism simply by the greater intensity of public life. With increased prosperity desires increase. At the very moment when traditional rules have lost their authority, the richer prize offered these appetites stimulates them and makes them more exigent and impatient of control. The state of de-regulation of anomy is thus further heightened by passions being less disciplined, precisely when they need more disciplining.

Durkheim went on to argue that French society, over the previous100 years, had deliberately destroyed the traditional sources of regulation for human appetites. 32 9.12.2 Merton’s Strain Theory Criminological Theories Durkheim had analysed anomie as a breakdown in the ability of society to regulate the natural appetites of individuals. Merton, in an article first published in 1938, argued out that many of the appetites of individuals are not “natural”, but rather originate in the “culture” of American society. At the same time, the “social structure” of American society limits the ability of certain groups to satisfy those appetites. The result is “a definite pressure on certain persons in the society to engage in nonconformist rather than conformist conduct”.

Merton argued that because all persons cannot be expected to achieve the goals of the culture, it is very important that the culture place a strong emphasis on the institutionalised means and the necessity of following them for their own value, these means must provide some intrinsic satisfactions for all persons who participate in the culture. This is similar to the situation in athletics, in which the sport itself must provide enjoyment, even if the person does not win. The phrase “It’s not whether you win, its how you play the game” expresses the notion that the primary satisfaction comes from following the institutionalised means (rules) rather than achieving the goal (winning). For certain groups, then, a severe strain on the culture values arises because:- 1) The culture places a disproportionate emphasis on the achievement of the goal of accumulated wealth and maintains that this goal is applicable to all persons, and 2) The social structure effectively limits the possibilities of individuals within these groups to achieve this goal through the use of institutionalised means. This contradiction between the culture and the social structure of society is what Merton defines as anomie.

There are various ways in which an individual can respond to this problem of anomie, depending on his attitude toward the culture goals and the institutionalised means.

Merton’s Five “Modes of Adaptation” 1) Conformity Merton recognises conformity as the most common type of the five modes. During this mode, people strive to obtain success by the most pure conventional means available.

2) Innovation During innovation, Merton identifies a miniscule, but substantial change in the perspective of the people whose mode is still in conformity and that of whom has shifted to innovation. The people continue to seek success; however by innovation they strive to obtain the success by taking advantage of illegal goals available to them in place of less promising conventional means in order to attain success.

3) Rebellion Merton suggests that by the time people reach the mode of rebellion, they have completely rejected the story that everybody in society can achieve success and 33 Theories and Perspectives have loomed into a rebellious state. They neither trust the valued cultural ends in Criminal Justice nor the legitimate societal means used to reach success. Instead, these people replace such ideas with irrational objectives to include the violent overthrow of the system altogether.

4) Retreatism Identified by Merton as the escapist response of the five modes, retreatism occurs when people become practically dropouts of society. They give up all goals and efforts to achieve success because they view it as an impractical, impossible, almost imaginary, and irrational possibility. Merton attributes this mode as the one to which drug addicts, alcoholics, vagrants, and the severely mental ill function because their reactions to not being able to obtain success by legitimate means represses them from society.

5) Ritualism During ritualism, the final mode, people realise that they have no real opportunity to advance in society and accept the little relevance that they have. It is in this mode that people concentrate on retaining what little they possibly gained or still have in place of concentrating on a higher yield of success. They return to adhering to conventional norms in hopes of maintaining the few possessions or possible gains that they have attained. For many members of the urban lower socioeconomic populous and disadvantaged minorities this period of short-lived and slightly increased gains takes nearly a lifetime to obtain and to recognise its worth in a modern industrial society. 9.12.3 Sutherland’s Differential Association Theory The Theory of Differential Association proposed by Edwin H. Sutherland in 1939 in his third edition of principles of criminology was the first major sociological theory of criminal behaviour to have attracted sufficient following and generated sufficient discussion to constitute a viable approach to explaining crime on the part of individuals. It has been considered to be the first purely sociological theory that centered attention on the frequency, intensity, and meaningfulness of social relations rather than on the qualities or traits of the individuals or the characteristics of the external environment. Differential Associations fits into the ecological approach of the Chicago School in that high delinquency areas tend to have more delinquents because they associate with more delinquents. The neighbourhood and gang phenomenon provides association with others of similar interests and needs. The morphological development of individual careers still goes from the small to larger and more complex activities, whether criminal or otherwise.

Differential association refers to the patterns of behaviour to which an individual is exposed. As such, it is not simply a “bad company” theory, although it has been so interpreted on occasion. Its commonsense appeal has undoubtedly helped to make it popular. Essentially, it says that crime is learned behaviour that is imparted by other persons with whom one associates.

The Theory of Differential Association or Learning Theory The theory of differential association was introduced by Sutherland in the following form: 34 1) The processes which result in systematic criminal behaviour are Criminological Theories fundamentally the same in form as the processes which result in systematic lawful behaviour. 2) Systematic criminal behaviour is determined in a process of association with those who commit crimes, just as systematic lawful behaviour is determined as a process of association with those who are law-abiding. 3) Differential association is the specific causal process in the development of systematic criminal behaviour. 4) The chance that a person will participate in systematic criminal behaviour is determined roughly by the frequency and consistency of his contacts with the patterns of criminal behaviour. 5) Individual differences among people in respect to personal characteristics or social situations cause crime only as they affect differential associations or frequency and consistency of contacts with criminal patterns. 6) Cultural conflict is the underlying cause of differential association and therefore of systematic criminal behaviour. 7) Social disorganisation is the basic cause of systematic criminal behaviour.

The first theory of differential association proposed in 1939 indicated that crime was basically due to social disorganisation, which resulted from the social processes of mobility, competition, and conflict. In the 1947 revision of his Principles of Criminology, Sutherland modified his theory by adding other materials. His final theory of differential association had taken shape. It included the following points: 1) Criminal behaviour is learned. 2) Criminal behaviour is learned in interaction with other persons in the process of communications. 3) The principal part of learning of criminal behaviour occurs within intimate personal groups. 4) When criminal behaviour is learned, the learning includes: • Techniques of committing the crime, which are sometimes very complicated, sometimes very simple; • The specific direction of motives, drives, rationalisations, and attitudes. 5) The specific direction of motives and drives is learned from definition of the legal codes as favourable or unfavourable. 6) A person becomes delinquent because of an excess of definitions favourable to violation of law over definitions unfavourable to violation of law. 7) Differential association may vary in frequency, duration, priority, and intensity. 8) The process of learning criminal behaviour by association with criminal and anti criminal patterns involves all of the mechanisms that are involved in any other learning.

35 Theories and Perspectives While criminal behaviour is an expression of general needs and values, it is not in Criminal Justice explained by those general needs and values since non criminal behaviour is an expression of the same needs and values.

9.13 CRITICAL CRIMINOLOGY The term “critical criminology” has been described as “an umbrella designation for a series of evolving, emerging perspectives” that are “characterised particularly by an argument that it is impossible to separate values from the research agenda, and by a need to advance a progressive agenda favoring disprivileged peoples”. 9.13.1 Marxim and Marxist Criminology (1818-1883) wrote in the immediate aftermath of the massive social changes brought about by the Industrial Revolution. In one lifespan (approximately 1760-1840), the world as it had been for a thousand years suddenly changed. Marx attempted to explain why those profound changes had occurred when they did, and to give some sense of what was coming next. His theory linked economic development to social, political, and historical change, but did not deal with the problem of crime in any significant way.

The principal conflict that Marx presented in his theory, and on which the theory is based, was the conflict between the material forces of production and the social relations of production. The term material forces of production generally refer to a society’s capacity to produce material goods. This includes technological equipment and the knowledge, skill, and organisation to use that equipment. The term social relations of production refer to relationships between people. These include property relationships, which determine how the goods produced by the material forces of production are distributed – that is, who gets what.

Production of the means of social existence involves, for Marx, three basic things: A) The Forces of Production: These “forces” involve such things as: 1) Land, 2) Raw materials, 3) Tools / Machines, 4) Knowledge (scientific / technical and the like), 5) People (or, more correctly, their labour). In the above, all we are noting is that such things are necessary – at various times in the social development of any society – if commodities are to be produced.

B) The Relations of Production: People cannot produce anything without entering into various social relationships and this idea simply encompasses the different kinds of social relationships into which people have to enter at various times in order to produce commodities. This involves both individual / personal relationships (for example, in the 36 Middle Ages the main productive relationship was between a Noble / Lord who “owned” land and the peasant / serf who worked on the land. In our Criminological Theories (Capitalist) society, the main productive relationship is between an employer and an employee) and, most importantly, group relationships. In Capitalist societies such as our own, it’s possible to identify different broad social groupings – groups of people who share a basically similar position in the production process. Marx called these groups “social classes” and we will look at their theoretical significance in more detail in a moment.

C) The Means of Production:

The third, very significant element, relates to those parts of the Forces of production that can be legally owned — for example, in Capitalist societies, land raw materials and, in some cases, Knowledge, but not such things as “people”.

According to Marx, different historical periods have different dominant means of production: 1) In Feudal society, land was the most important means of production. 2) In Capitalist society, land is still significant, but the most important means of production are things like factories, machines and so forth. Marx argued that your relationship to the means of production objectively determined your and, if we accept this idea for a moment, it follows that he initially identified two great classes in Capitalist society: a) The Bourgeoisie (Upper or Ruling class). Those people (a minority) who owned the means of production. b) The Proletariat (Lower or Working class). Those people (the majority) who did not own the means of production. For Marx, the concept of social class was of fundamental significance, precisely because it could be used to explain the basis of social change (in a way that contemporary theorists could not). Marx argued that all societies involved conflict – sometimes open but more usually submerged beneath the surface of everyday life – that was based upon fundamental inequalities and conflicts of interest. Marx did not discuss the problem of crime or its relation to the economic system at length, although he did address the subject in several passages. First argues that Marx’s idea of crime centered on the concept of demoralisation, Marx believed that it was essential to human nature that people be productive in life and in work. But in industrialised capitalist societies there are large numbers of unemployed and underemployed people. Because these people are unproductive, they become demoralised and are subject to all forms of crime and vice. Marx called these people the lumpenproletariat.

9.14 CONTROL THEORIES 9.14.1 Drift and Neutralisation The concept of drift occurs when a lower class young person finds it unnecessary to make a definite commitment either to delinquency or to legal conformity. He or she may “drift” in an unidentified area between these two opposing commitment 37 Theories and Perspectives and making use of extenuating circumstances to justify delinquency. Many in Criminal Justice persons, especially in the lower socioeconomic class, take advantage of the fact that criminal laws may not be rigidly enforced and that considerable discretion is left to and courts in their application. Consequently, the delinquent extends the legal boundaries to the extenuating circumstances that fit his or her own situation and justify the delinquency behaviour. The group or gang can then expand its concept of self defense to cover aggressive attacks on another gang under the implicit justification that the other gang is threatening the attacking gang. Because of the uncertainty in the application of the law, an individual or gang may drift delinquency without any definite decision or commitment having been made. Most delinquents eventually drift out of this delinquency as they mature; only a limited number of juvenile delinquents become committed to an adult life of crime.

Matza repudiated positivistic theory and expanded the concept of neutralisation in making it a key element in drift. Neutralisation allows drift because it is process by which the delinquent is freed from the moral bind of law. Hindelang (1970) pointed out that because delinquents are more committed to their misdeeds than are non delinquents, the concepts of drift and neutralisation are not necessary for delinquency.

The concept of neutralisation was originally developed by Sykes and Matza. According to this theory, a person is able to rationalise himself out of the moral bind of his childhood development and justify his delinquent behaviour. Sykes and Matza (1957) identified five types of neutralisation: 1) Denial of Responsibility – The person learns to view himself as more acted upon than actor – he is the victim of circumstances. 2) Denial of Injury – The person feels that nobody is really hurt by his actions– auto theft is “borrowing” and gang fighting may be seen as a private duel. 3) Denial of the Victim – The injury is not seen as wrong in view of the circumstances (assaults of homosexuals and other who have been seen as “out of place”. “ He asked for it”). 4) The Condemnations of the Condemns – The person sees condemns as hypocrites, deviants in disguise, impelled by personal spite; by attacking others, the wrongsness of his own behaviour is confused. 5) The Appeal to Higher Loyalties – Sacrificing demands of larger society may be neutralised by the demands of smaller groups for loyalty, fidelity, and protection.

Sykes and Matza indicated that delinquents’ value system is not consistently opposition to the dominant social order; however, they are able to situational qualify behavioural norms in which they believe, which allows them to engage in disapproved behaviour. Much delinquency is essentially an unrecognised extension of defenses to crimes, in the form of justifications for that are seen as valid by the delinquent.

Reckless and Shoham (1963) identified norm erosion as supplementary to neutralisation. In this process, norm erosion is a “give” in moral and ethical resistance. Drug use and alcohol, cheating on examinations, taking things from 38 store counters, extramarital sex behaviour, and similar deviations can be attributed Criminological Theories to norm erosion. Norm erosion and neutralisation represent a diminution of inner containment, thereby facilitating involvement in deviation and criminal behaviour.

The forms of justification for deviance are seen as valid by the delinquent but not by the legal system or society as a whole. The criminal law itself already includes a major component of what has been called “flexibility”, in that many rules are not held to be binding under all conditions.

Self Assessment Question 5) Write a note on Drift and Neutralisation...... 9.14.2 Hirschi’s Social Control Hirschi’s calls for policy implications that would strengthen a person’s bond to society and thus give them strong reasons not to break the law. They would decide not to break the law because they either have to much to lose, little time to break the law because of legitimate involvement in non-criminal activity, because they feel bonded with other members of society and are too attached to victimise those people. or perhaps because they believe in and respect the laws which prohibit them from breaking the laws. All of these ideas are the elements of social bonding which Hirschi believes to prevent people from engaging in criminal behaviour.

One of Hirschi’s bonding elements is attachment or the idea of how strong one is tied to the needs and interests of others. Most criminologists make the association that attachment relies on the role of the family including the family factors that may or may not leave a person with the sense of attachment. Programmes that would encourage a person’s sense of attachment would have to help families become closer and form environments healthy to a growing child. Perhaps family counselling services would assist in addressing the problems that sometimes exist within certain family environments. For example, some programmes might address problems such as child abuse or drug use that occurs within a dysfunctional family. Perhaps free parenting classes as well as drug rehabilitation programmes are the answer to this problem. Society should also find ways to encourage parents to stay together thereby eliminating the problems that may arise in single family homes where a mother or father figure are not present. Programmes that would encourage a more normal functioning family might help with delinquency among our youth.

The next variable Hirschi identifies as important to the formation of bonding between a person and society is commitment. The large majority of criminologist tends to associate commitment with peer relationships. It is thought that children that have trouble developing a significant amount of normal peer relationships 39 Theories and Perspectives tend to have trouble identifying with others and will often develop significant in Criminal Justice disciplinary problems. Programmes to help these youths would have to find away to help the child learn how to develop normal relationships with their peers. Perhaps at a young age children should be involved in things like summer camps that would allow them to have enjoyable experiences in a large peer group setting.

Another important factor outlined in Hirschi’s theory is involvement. Involvement pertains to the amount of time spent with regards to school and recreational activities. According to Hirsute, someone who is deeply involved with school or recreational activities develop a mind set were their goals become so important to them they are afraid to become involved in criminal activity out of fear that their goals would be hindered. Parents and teachers should make strong attempts to stress the importance a strong education on a young child. Helping a struggling student develops academic strengths and to work on their academic weaknesses could help children feel like they have the ability to meet the high standards that have been set for them. After school tutoring as well as fun activities that might make school more fun for children might be the answer. Parents and schools should also set up reward systems for students who meet certain academic goals they are more than capable of realising. Perhaps if children are given incentives, they will be more likely to become academically involved in school. Recreationally parents and teachers should encourage kids to become involved in after school sports activities. Even if a child is not particularly athletically gifted coaches should be able to find a place on the team for any child. Sports can help a child develop admirable qualities like teamwork and sportsmanship and may also give them an outlet to display their frustrations.

The final element important to the development of a strong social bond is Belief. A strong belief in society can be developed by making a child understand the importance of morals and values to the structure of a good society. This can be achieved from good parenting as well as good teaching. Children need to understand that there are certain rules and values they need to live by in order to become a healthy adult. Parents must teach children what these rules are and deliver the consequences if the rules are broken. Children must be disciplined to the point were they come to the realisation that the long term consequences outweigh the short term benefits of breaking the rules. this means stricter parenting and strong consequences from educators to students who decide not to follow the rules.

Hirschi’s social control theory has been a widely studied and widely accepted theory in the field of criminology. In fact, it is the official theory accepted by the Department of Justice. While Hirschi does have many critics is must be said that his theory may be one of the most important theories in the field of criminology. 9.14.3 Containment Theory Containment theory, as proposed by W.C. Reckless (1961), is based on an inner control system and an outer control system. Pushes and pulls toward delinquent or conforming behaviour, both internal and external, are basic to containment theory. If inner pushes and outer pulls are toward delinquent behaviour, then delinquent behaviour will result. Inner containment involves good self-control, ego strength, well developed superego, high frustration tolerance, high resistance to diversions, high sense of responsibility, goal orientation, ability to find 40 substitute satisfactions, and tensions-reducing rationalisations. Outer containment Criminological Theories is the structural buffer in a person’s immediate social world that holds him or her within the social norms. The presentation of a consistent moral front, existence of a reasonable set of social expectations, effective supervision and discipline of children, provision for a reasonable scope of activity, opportunity for acceptance, outlets for the expression of tension and frustration, identity and belongings are all factors in containment. Inner and outer containment apparently occupy a central position between the pressures of the external environment of a person and his or her inner drives.

Environmental pressures may be conditions associated with poverty or deprivation, conflict, external restraint, minority-group status, limited access to success in an opportunity structure, and other stresses. Distractions, attractions, temptations, patterns of deviancy, and advertising are some of the pulls of the environment.

External containment can consist of an effective family life, interest in the activities of the community, membership in organisations, and good companions. Internal containment involves the control of drives, motives, frustrations, restlessness, disappointments, rebellion, hostility, feelings of inferiority, and freedom of expression; it involves the ability to withstand the pushes and pulls, to effectively resolve conflicts to divert individuals from exciting risks and enable them to stay out of trouble. Internal containment is more important in a mobile, fluid society because alienation makes it hard for persons to participate in the group life that has the potential to hold them in line.

A similar theory was proposed by Belly (1945) that categorised as : a) Personal factors that enfeeble self-control: 1) Inherited or acquired physical and physiological handicaps; e.g., in physique, stature, deformities, and defects. 2) Physical injury or disease; e.g., accidents, occupational or other, tuberculosis, syphilis. 3) Inherited or acquired mental handicaps; e.g., feeblemindedness, psychopathic personality. 4) Mental and psychosomatic disorders; e.g., psychosis, psychoneurosis, mental conflicts, emotional disturbances. 5) Personal disorganisation from excesses; e.g., sex, alcohol, narcotics, gambling. 6) Character structure: e.g., ignorance, naivete, inadequate life organisations. b) Social factory that enfeeble social control: 1) “Sick” societies; e.g., Great Britain and its mining community. 2) Inherent defects in economic order; e.g., poverty, unemployment, depression, aggression, exploitation. 3) Urbanisation; e.g., mobility, anonymous life in cities. 4) Changing mores in group conflict; e.g., with regard to sex, use of alcohol, tobacco.

41 Theories and Perspectives 5) Family disorganisation; e.g., death of a parent, divorce, nonsupport, faulty in Criminal Justice discipline, incompatibility, internal conflict. 6) Community and neighbourhood disorganisation; lawless gangs. 7) Overlapping and conflicting governments; e.g., municipal, town, country, state, federal. 8) Inherent limitations of the criminal law, substantive and adjunctive; e.g., obsolete, unenforceable, and conflicting laws. 9) Maladministration of the criminal justice; e.g., the breakdown of law enforcement, prosecution, and the courts; incompetent administration; corruption in patrol administration; organised crime and racketeering. 10) Inadequate education activities; e.g. amount, quality and rigidity of secular, religious, and vocational instruction. 11) Inadequate avocation facilities; e.g., unwholesome leisure interests, commercialised amusements. 12) Opinion making and control; e.g., press, film, radio, television. 13) Interpersonal and inter group conflict; e.g., ethnic, religious, economic. Reckless (1973) elabourates on his theory in a chapter called “The Pressures and pulls behind Involvement in Crime,” presenting seven tests of validity as follows: 1) Containment theory is proposed as the theory of best fit for the large middle range of cases of delinquency and crime. It fits the middle-range cases better than any other theory. 2) It explains crimes against the person as well as crimes against property, that is, the mine run of murder, assault, and rape as theft, robbery and burglary. 3) It represents a formulation which psychiatrists, psychologists, and sociologists, as well as practitioners, can use equally well, these entire experts look for dimensions of inner and outer strength and can specify these strengths in their terms. Differential association and/or pressure of the environment leave most psychiatrists and psychologists cold and an emphasis on push theory leaves the sociologists for the most part cold. But all of the experts can rally around inner and outer weaknesses and strengths. 4) Inner and outer containment can be discovered in individual case studies. Weaknesses and strengths are observable. Containment theory is one of the few theories in which the microcosm (the individual case history) mirrors the ingredients of the macrocosm (the general formulations). 5) Containment theory is a valid operational theory for treatment of offenders: for restructuring the milieu of a person or beefing up his self. The most knowledgeable probation workers, parole workers, and institutional staff are already focusing to some extent on helping the juvenile or adult offender build up ego strength, develop new goals, internalise new models of behaviour. They are also working on social ties, anchors, supportive, relationships, limits, and alternative opportunities in helping to re-fashion a new containing world for the person. 42 6) Containment theory is also an effective operational theory for prevention. Criminological Theories Children with poor containment can be spotted early. Programmes to help insulate vulnerable children against delinquency must operate on internalisation of stronger self components and the strengthening of containing structure around the child. 7) Internal and external containment can be assessed and approximated. Its strengths and weaknesses can be speechified for research. There is good promise that such assessments can be measured in a standard way.

Containment theory is a balance between inner pushes and outer constraints and can account for all behaviour, including criminal behaviour. The breadth of containment theory tends to negate the importance of narrow approaches used in crime control and in treatment programmes because the pushes and pulls include poverty, unemployment, guilt feelings, criminal subcultures, mass media, and many other factors not controlled by known treatment methods. Like many other theories, there are so many uncontrollable variables that it cannot realistically be tested. Consequently, they can be examined in a prediction model much more easily than in a treatment model. 9.14.4 Labeling Theory Labeling theory is apparently based on the concepts developed by Frank Tennenbaum in 1938, Lemert in 1951, Becker in 1963, Turk in 1969, and Quninney in 1970. According to this concept, nothing is criminal, but certain things have been so defined and labeled by society. Persons become criminal primarily on the basis of visibility of offending behaviour and the labeling process by the system of criminal justice. Scharg (1971) identified steps in the labeling process: - 1) No act is intrinsically criminal but is made so by the law. 2) Criminal definitions are enforced in the interest of powerful groups by their representatives, including the police. 3) A person does not become a criminal by violating the law, but by the labeling process by which authorities confer this status upon him. 4) Dichotomizing people into criminal and non criminal categories is contrary to common sense and empirical evidence. 5) Only a few persons are caught in violation of the law, while many may be equally guilty. 6) While the sanctions used in law enforcement are directed against the total person and not only the criminal act, the severity and consequences of the penalty vary according to the characteristics of the offender. 7) Criminal sanctions also vary according to other characteristics of the offender, such as minority groups, transients, the poorly educated, residents of deteriorated urban areas, and other factors. 8) Criminal justice is based on a stereotyped concept of the criminal as a willful wrongdoer who is morally bad and deserves condemnations. 9) Once labeled as a criminal, it is difficulty for an offender to “live down” the label and restore himself to respected status in the community. 43 Theories and Perspectives As Tannenbaum pointed out in 1938, the dramatisation of evil or the heralding in Criminal Justice of famous and well-known criminals proclaims criminal careers at least as one way of gaining public attention and, further, develops a reputation that keeps the individual in the criminal role. Al Capone, for example, would hardly have been accepted to study for the priesthood.

The point of the labeling theory is that is the social definition of crime and deviance that makes certain things criminal and deviant. Becker (1963) has indicated that deviance is not a quality of the act but a consequence of the application by others or rules and sanctions so that the person may be labeled as deviant. Sociologists are less interested in law than are lawyers, so sociologists focus greater attention on the informal mechanisms of social control beyond the narrow.

According to Crease and Ward (1969) the labeling process can be identified on the basis of the following:- 1) In the eyes of the child, behaviour that is proper as play may include breaking windows, climbing over roofs or, generally “raising hell”. 2) Demands for suppression of the “bad” behaviour are made on the child by community members, sometimes including parents. 3) In the face of this reaction by adults, the child may feel that an injustice is being done to him and, more importantly, that his community and perhaps his parents consider him different from “good children” 4) Parents, police, and others may then scrutinize and look with suspicion upon all of the youngster’s activities, his companions, his speech, and his personality, thus reinforcing the definitions of him as “bad”. 5) Once the child discovers that he has been defined as bad and that even his efforts to be good are interpreted as evidence of his badness, he may become even more “predisposed toward individualised crime” or even more closely integrated with his play group, which has been redefined as a “delinquent gang.” 6) Once the community has defined a youngster as bad, it knows how to cope with him; it does not, in fact, know how to deal with him until it defines him as bad. A good example of labeling that appears frequently in the criminal justice system occurs when somebody indicates that a person “looks like” a homosexual. Indirect evidence in the form of a rumour is frequently translated into decision making regarding the treatment of individuals so labeled. It is easy and dangerous to stereotype people in this manner. In modern society, the social significance of labeling becomes increasingly dependent upon circumstances social and personal biography, and the bureaucracy of the organised agency of control.

Police officers have been given considerable discretion in apprehending youths; and it has been observed that certain youths, particularly from minority racial and think groups or those dressed in the style of “toughs” were treated more severely than others for comparable offenses. This discretion is practiced by juvenile officers as an extension of the juvenile court philosophy. The observations made by Piliavin and Briar in this study indicate that the official delinquent is the product of social judgment and that how this judgment is accepted by the police is critical in the prevention or initiation of a delinquent career. 44 The “Self-fulfilling prophecy” that emerges from labeling was discussed by Criminological Theories Merton (1957). But whether a persons becomes delinquent because he has been so labeled or whether a competent expert has made a correct diagnosis and prognosis is a central question stereotyping, generally at the point where in grouping within the delinquent gang and out-grouping through the rejection of the gang by society makes the deviant behaviour manifest and attracts the attention of society.

Labeling in delinquency control programmes is dangerous. In the first place, it is not clear in terms of results whether doing something is better or worse than doing another. Second, because developments in the juvenile field are leading to a category of people who are “in need of service” rather than “ delinquent” the implication that labeling is a legal category makes a difference in the way juveniles might be treated.

9.15 CONFLICT THEORIES In the consensus view, society is said to be based on a consensus of values among its members, and the state is said to be organised to protect the general public interest. To the extent that societies are composed of groups with conflicting values and interests, the organised state is said to mediate between these conflicting groups and to represent the values and interests of society at large. The basic argument of is that there is an inverse relation between power and official crime rates: people with less power are more likely (a people with more power are less likely) to be officially defined and proceeded as criminals. 9.15.1 Sellin’s Culture Conflict Theory In 1938, Thorsten Sellin presented a criminology theory focused on the conflict of “Conduct norms”. Conduct norms are cultural rules that require certain types of people to act in a certain ways in certain circumstances. Sellin defined “Primary cultural conflicts” as those occurring between two different cultures. These conflicts could occur at border areas between two divergent cultures; or, in the case of colonisation, when the laws of one culture are extended into the territory of another, or, in case of migration, when members of one cultural group moves into the territory of another. “Secondary cultural conflicts” occur when a single culture evolves into several different subcultures, each having its own conduct norms. 9.15.2 Vold’s Group Conflict Theory Vold’s theory is based on a view of human nature that holds that people are fundamentally group involved beings whose lives are both a part of and a product of their associations. Groups are formed out situations in which members have common interests and common needs that can best be furthered through collective action. New groups are continuously being formed as new interests arise, and existing groups weaken and disappear when they no longer have a purpose to serve. There is a more or less continuous struggle to maintain, or to improve, the place of one’s own group in the interaction of groups. Conflict is therefore one of the principal and essential social processes in the continuous and ongoing functioning of society. The conflict between groups seeking their own interests 45 Theories and Perspectives is especially visible in legislative politics, which is largely a matter of finding in Criminal Justice practical compromises between antagonistic groups in the community. The general situation of group conflict gives rise to the familiar cry “There ought to be a law!” 9.15.3 Quinney’s Theory of the Social Reality of Crime Richard Quinney’s theory of “the social reality of crime” expressed in six proportions.

a) Definition of Crime Crime is a definition of human conduct that is created by authorised agents in a politically organised society.

b) Formulation of Criminal Definition Criminal definitions describe behaviours that conflict with the interest of the segments of society that have the power to shape public policy.

c) Applications of Criminal Definitions Criminal definitions are applied by the segments of society that have the power to shape the enforcement and administration of criminal law.

d) Development of Behaviour patterns in relation to criminal Definitions Behaviour patterns are structured in segmentally organised society in relation to criminal definitions, and within this context persons engage in actions that have relative probabilities of being defined as criminal.

e) Construction of Criminal Conceptions Conceptions of crime are constructed and diffused in the segments of society by various means of communication.

f) The Social Reality of Crime The social reality of crime is constructed by the formulation and application of criminal definitions, the development of behaviour patterns related to criminal definitions, and the construction of criminal conceptions. 9.15.4 Turk’s Theory of Criminalisation Austin Turk proposed a conflict analysis of how power groups achieve authority and legitimacy in society. Turk argued that social order is based in a consensus- coersion balance maintained by the authorities. Turk’s theory of criminalisation specified “the conditions under which cultural and social differences between authorities and subjects will probably result in conflict, the conditions under which criminalisation will probably occur in the course of conflict, and the conditions under which the degree of deprivation associated with becoming a criminal will probably be greater or lesser. Turk first distinguished between cultural norms and social norms. Cultural norms are associated with verbal formulations of values (e.g. the law as written), and social norms with actual behaviour patterns (e.g. the law as enforced) Turk argues about three factors-

46 1) The primary factor will be the meaning the prohibited act or attribute has Criminological Theories for the first line enforcers (i.e. the police), and the extent to which the higher level enforcers (i.e., the prosecutors and judges) agree with the evaluation of police. 2) The second factor affecting criminalisation will be the relative power of the enforcers and resisters. 3) The third factor affecting criminalisation rates is “realism of the conflict moves”, which relates to how likely an action taken by the subjects and authorities may improve the potential for their ultimate success. 9.15.5 Chambliss and Seidman’s Analysis of the Criminal Justice System Chambliss and Seidman analysed that how consensus perspective and the conflict perspective provide radically different versions of how the criminal justice system actually functions. They describe power of the state as “a value neutral framework within which conflict can be peacefully resolved”. Chambliss and Seidman maintain that “the higher the group’s political and economic position, the greater is the possibility that its views will be reflected in the laws”. The authors summarize their theory in the following points:

The agencies of law enforcement are bureaucratic organisations. An organisation and its members tend to substitute for its official goals and norms of the organisations ongoing policies and activities, which will maximise rewards and minimise the strains on the organisation. The goal substitution is made possible by: 1) The absence of motivation on part of role occupants to resist pressures towards goal substitution. 2) The pervasiveness of discretionary choice permitted by the substantive criminal law, and the norms defining the role of the members of the enforcement agencies. 3) The absence of the effective sanctions of the norms defining the roles in those agencies.

Law enforcement agencies depend for resource allocation on political organisations. It will maximise rewards and minimise strains for the organisation to process those who are politically weak and powerless, and to refrain from processing those who are politically powerful. Therefore it may be expected that the law enforcement agencies will process a disproportionately high number of the politically weak and powerless, while ignoring the violations of those with power.

9.16 SUMMARY • The study of criminology is a separate discipline devoted to developing valid and reliable information which deals with the causes of crime as well as its trends and the ways of controlling crime. The classical school of criminology found to be difficult to apply in practice and hence modified and known as classical theory. But even in the modern day philosophy of 47 Theories and Perspectives crime and punishment, we see the imprint of classical school for example, in Criminal Justice the principle of equality before law written laws etc. Then there developed positive school & ecological school of criminology. Some early theories of even held the view that it is the structure of a person which defines. function that, individuals behave differently beacuase of the fundamental fact they are somehow structuraly different. Modern biological theories on the other hand examines the entire range of biological characteristics.

9.17 TERMINAL QUESTIONS 1) Write a note on classical school of criminology. 2) Compare classical and positive school of criminology 3) Write a note on ecological school of criminology. 4) What are the criticisms for psychological theory? 5) Write a note on the theory of Differential Association. 9.18 ANSWERS AND HINTS Self Assessment Questions 1) Refer to Section 9.4 2) Refer to Sub-section 9.6.2 3) Refer to Sub-section 9.6.3 4) Refer to Sub-section 9.10.1 5) Refer to Sub-section 9.14.1 Terminal Questions 1) Refer to Section 9.6 2) Refer to Sub-section 9.7 3) Refer to Sub-section 9.10 4) Refer to Sub-section 9.11.3 9.19 REFERENCES AND SUGGESTED READINGS 1) Coffery; A.R. (1974), Administration of Criminal Justice: A Management's System Appr. 2) Cohn and Udolf; R.(1979), The Criminal Justice System and its Psychology 3) David; M (1967), Jurisprudence 4) Dwivedi; Jawhar Lal, Evolution of Criminal Justice Administration in India. 5) Gardiner; J.A. (1975), Crime and Justice 6) Iyer; V.R.K. (1980), Perspective of Criminiology: Law and Social Change. 7) Joel Samaha; (1988), Criminal Justice 8) Johnson; E.H. (1978), Crime, Correction and Society

48 9) Mehrajuddin; (1980), Criminal Justice System: Crime, Police and Criminological Theories Correction. The Academy Law Review. Vol. IV Nos. 1 & 2. 10) Mehrajuddin; (Jan-Mar 1981), Crime and Correctional. Civil and Military Law Journal Vo. 17, No. 1 11) Mehrajuddin; (Mar 1981), The Administration of Criminal Justice System; Srinagar Law Journal, Vol. III 12) Mehrajuddin; (1984), Crime and Criminal Justice System in India. 13) Mehrajuddin (July 1984), Community Participation in Social Defense. Indian Journal of Criminology. Vol. 12 No.2 14) Mehrajuddin; (1988), Criminogenic Effects of the Penal Institutions: A Critical Analysis Applied Criminology, Bonn, Germany.

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