Crim 2301 Final Notes PDF

Class 2 - Overview of Theory Classes Tuesday = Theory Classes Thursday = Solution What’s the point? - What's the need for theory? - Explain behaviours or events - What is a theory? - Explanations, more informe...

Class 2 - Overview of Theory Classes Tuesday = Theory Classes Thursday = Solution What’s the point? - What's the need for theory? - Explain behaviours or events - What is a theory? - Explanations, more informed explanation - Qualitative work often on experimental accounts - Theories can be grounded not all are abstract - Offering an advanced explanation - Based on this be able to provide solutions to address the issue - Theorise on a daily basis based on opinions Four Themes 1. Mistrust - Cautious of gossip, certain individuals who told positions of power (religion, finance) gender based power, racialised power - be mindful of these sources of power and could manipulate or distort information or hide information. Ask questions about both what information is and isn’t being told. - Draw on objective sources of information - Question all sources of information due to biases 2. Relativity of Truth - Recognition of no universal truth - Truth is a standard of creation and a construct - Depends on who’s telling the story and perception - Truth is messy when it comes to crime, everyone interprets things differently - Victim truth, perpetrator truth, family and friends of both truth, bystander truth - Interpretation - Emotions influence perception and truth 3. Criminology/Sociology Many theories based on sociology - Interpersonal relations - The different angles people's behaviours are viewed or interpreted - Take into consideration immediate connections, who is influencing, typically relatives or friends - Theory will be micro in both solution and explanation - Group membership - Takes into consideration social relations, geographic dimensions, neighbourhood influence, community.  - Social structure - Within a positivist paradigm, circumstances and societal conditions that place people at greater risk for offending or vulnerability - Cultural, economic, political inequalities - Through positivist lens is limited compared to critical or marxist, band aid solution inside of eradication, macro to a level 4. Criminological Problems - Problems: problems are constructed, various interests in what is a problem or not, certain behaviours that were not always considered legal problems, some things were not recognised in the legal code and are now. - Allowable for a man in marriage to physical harm and sexual assault - The instrument had to be no more than the width of his thumb - Problem? Based on whose construction, whose interests are being served - Criminological: Broader social issues is the focus, social work, human rights, legal spheres, education (systems), focusing on criminological problems because of the ways “problems” have been defined Theory Construction 1. Social Situation / Phenomenon - Identify the problem. Responding to issues that are affecting people on a daily basis - What is the problem that you are trying to solve? 2. Concepts - Draw on concepts to define or describe the circumstances that we’re focusing on - Emphasis on qualitative work (focus groups, interviews) people's experiences in recent decades - Ex. Property crime to a researcher you think macro level, broad concepts = socioeconomic conditions and break that down into subconcepts = unemployment rates and barriers that presents = income levels - Ex. Interpersonal violence, broad concepts = mental health - Ex. Violence against women = patriarchal power, misogyny 3. Hypothesis - Start to project and anticipate the expected relationship between the concept and the issue being addressed - Form of a statement or a question - Theory is two layers. Explanation of crime and solution that is provided or proposed - Ex. Property crime, concepts = socioeconomic = employment = income levels. Theorists will identify and assume a relationship  - Statement: Hypothetically, socioeconomic barriers do contribute to property crime. - Question: is there a relationship between socioeconomic conditions and property crime? 4. Theory is Formulated Sequence on the Search for Answers 1. Why?Who?When?Where?What?How? - Point of departure 2. Search for explanation 3. Criminology = Answer Paradigms - Basic unit of consensus - Fundamental image of the subject Difference between theory and paradigm - Paradigm: Superhero (positivism, critical, marxism) - Theories: Sidekick (feeblemindedness) How are they related? -. Role of Paradigms - Define and legitimate problems - Define rules of research activity - Draw practitioners into the community Positivist Paradigm insert image from class 2 Class 3 - Introductory Review Major Paradigms Demonic Perspective - Structure = Church (God and Divine Law - Experts = Religious authorities - Deviance = Sin (temptation or possession) - Cause = Supernatural - Response = Trails, Torture (lex talionis) - Critique = Reliance on belief (not fact) - Critique = Untestable - Critique = Torturous Mutilation - Critique = Assumption of Consensus  - Presumed agreement of dominant morals/values/laws - Excludes other views and critiques - Limits progress by perpetuating inequalities Classical Criminology - Beccaria - Structure = State and Legislative Power - Social Contract - Consensus - Experts = Philosophers; social reformers - Crime = Utilitarian Calculus; Free will; Individual Act - Cause = Hedonism ( Gain > , Pain ) - When areas are organised people tend to be organised - Obey rules Disorganised Areas = people disobey rules (>motivation) - Opposite Social Changes -> impacting social order: - Migration: - Instability, migration rates too high, resources couldn’t keep up - Industrialisation: - Displacement from moving, higher rates of unemployment, quality of life impacted - Urbanisation: - Cities growing and trying to build infrastructure, communities and neighbourhoods became more segmented and separated geographically - Centralisation:  -Related to others and interconnected, cities growing and provinces and states, seeing problems in local sense of community with large government and own committees mutually supporting each other - Strangers - Communication: - Progress = telephones, but less access in rural spaces, strain on communication - Relation: cities becoming segmented affected equal abilities to interact and collaborate with community, key to ensuring everyone's needs were met. Chicago School: sociological diagnosis of the instability resulting from the changes - Tried to make sense of what is happening at a societal level from socio-politics and socio-economics, recognising implications on people's behaviours - Observed strain and pressure on the social system Ideal Outcome: Adjustment to Changes 1. Social Organisation 2. Cultural Transmission of Organisation 3. Personal Organisation 4. High Conformity Breakdown: No Adjustment to Changes or a challenge 1. Social Disorganisation 2. Cultural Transmission of Disorganisation 3. Persona; Disorganisation 4. Higher Deviance - Either or scenario Chicago School Rapid rates of social change made it impossible to maintain consensus and coordination - Problem = Transience - A person who is staying or working in a place for only a short period of time - Can shift over time - Not always a problem, depends on circumstances, for this theory it’s destabilising - Deviance = By-product of change, social change - Solution = Temporary Adjustment: Assimilate ‘Disorganised’ People - Ways to organise one’s world were not considered by the theorists in this school of thought, further critiques Societal Changes Migration - Suburbs - Transients in centretown Transient: A person who is staying or working in a place for only a short period of time Demographic - Baby boom - Young people = high % of population Cultural Values - Challenges of social system - Community = difficult to organise - Consensus breakdown Results - Transient Cultural Lag: Incomplete Adjustment / Confusion - Disorganisation remains Social Learning Theory - Reading Most tested theory and the theory most frequently used bu academic criminologists - Social learning theory: integrates the sociological principles of the theory with principles of social behaviourism in psychology - Reformulation of Sutherland's Differential Association Theory of Crime Sutherland’s Differential Association Theory - Sutherland primarily focused on sociological studies of pro theft and white collar crime - Best known for the differential association theory - Explanation of individual criminal behaviour, compatible with “differential social organisation” Differential Association Theory 1. Criminal behaviour is learned 2. Criminal behaviour is learned through communication 3. Learning occurs within intimate groups (friends or family) 4. The learning includes a) Techniques of committing crime b) Motives 5. Motives are learned as favourable or unfavourable 6. Delinquents get more out of the result than the punishment - Principle of differential association - Rationalisation - Definitions learned are favourable to violation of the law 7. Crimes may vary 8. Criminal behaviour is taught the same way all learning is taught 9. Criminal and non-criminal behaviour is both expressed through needs and values Modalities of Association - If a person is exposed first (priority), more frequently and a longer duration of time with greater importance in their life to law-violating definitions, they are more likely to commit crime Aker’s Social Learning Theory - Kept the principles of differential association theory, combined them with learning principles of behavioural learning theory - Explains criminal behaviour more thoroughly Behavioural learning theory concepts: 1. Differential Reinforcement - Operant (voluntary) actions of someone is conditioned or shaped by rewards and punishments 2. Classical/Respondent Conditioning - Involuntary reflex behaviour 3. Discriminative Stimuli - Environmental and internal stimuli that can provide cues for behaviour 4. Schedules of Reinforcement - Rate and rate in which rewards and punishments follow behaviour response Symbolic interaction - The theory that social interaction is mainly the exchange of meaning; people imagine themselves in the roles of other and incorporate this into the conception of themself Soft behaviourism: - imitation , anticipated reinforcement, and self-reinforcement seen in social learning theory - Assumes human agency and soft determinism - Theory is cognitive/behavioural as opposed to radical or operant behaviourism The Central Concepts and Propositions of Social Learning Theory Learning: How criminal behaviour is acquired Differential Association - Has both: - Interactional dimension: the direct interaction with others who engage in certain kinds of behaviours - Normative dimension: The different patterns of norms and values to which the individual is exposed through this association Online friends have overlap with face-to-face interaction – “virtual peer group” Online groups – “Virtual differential Association” Definitions = Opinions One’s own attitudes or meanings that are attached to a given behaviour - Ex, I drink coffee mormons do not General Definitions/ Negative Definitions of criminal behaviour - Include religious, moral, and other conventional values that favour conforming behaviour Specific Definitions - Little wrong with smoking marijuana, but would not commit theft. Not laws as a whole, but picks and chooses. Positive Definitions - Beliefs that make behaviour seem morally desirable or permissible - Radical terrorists Neutralising Definitions - Favour crime by justifying or excusing it Differential Reinforcement The balance of anticipated or actual rewards and punishments that follow given behaviour - Based on the past, present, and anticipated future of given action Positive Reinforcement - With repeated rewarding outcomes (money, approval, food), the probability of the act happening again will increase Negative Reinforcement - Action will likely be repeated if the person was able to avoid or escape adverse of unpleasant events Social Reinforcement - Peer, family or other social context effect curtain acts as pleasurable vs unpleasurable - Ex. drug or substance use Social Reinforcement - Highly valued. Effects can come from ideological, religious, political, or other goals Nonsocial/Self Reinforcement - Reinforces or punishes ones behaviour when alone Positive/Direct Punishment - Painful or unpleasant consequence Negative/Indirect Punishment - Reward removed Modalites of Reinforcement - amount, value and frequency the behaviour is positively reinforced that greater the likelihood of it being repeated Imitation: The engagement of behaviour after observation The Social Learning Process: Sequence and Feedback Effects - When opportunity for crime the social learning processes reciprocal and feedback effects - Reciprocal effect are not seen as equal - Learned beliefs vs anticipated reinforcement - Facilitative effects = repetition of the acts based on the variables of punishment and reinforcement The Functionalist Perspective: Cybernetics, Negative Feedback, and the Benefits of Deviance Introduction: Functionalist views deviance as contributing, rather than threatening, a given order of roles, rules, and regulations Cybernetics: A theoretical viewpoint which depicts society as a goal-directed mechanism that deploys information to command needed energetic actions - Society depends upon crime, and other forms of deviant behaviour in the same manner, as The Judge, in Genet’s play, depends upon the actress playing The Prostitute playing The Thief Theoretical Images The functionalist perspective emphasises the positive contributions of deviance - Something is defined as functional if it has positive consequences for society - Negative consequence = dysfunctional - Deviance = functional because it strengthens the bonds of the existing social order Durkheim: Searching for the Moral Integration of Social Organisms - Durkheim viewed sociology as a scientific solution to social disruption - A science of morals - Religion and philosophy was no longer capable of providing a sense of collective order A Pathological Society A society in which normas were paradoxically too strong or too weak - Too strong, society would be overly conformist, unable to adapt to changing environmental circumstances - Too weak, society too loosely defined and too weakly joined to do basic tasks needed for its own survival Deviance as Normal: Contributions to Moral Integration Durkheim argued that: - A social phenomenon was normal if; - If it the universal - Meaning it must be present in all societies of the same type  - If it was necessary - Meaning it was needed for the continued existence of society - A product of determining conditions necessitated for its existence Deviance contributes to social order by: - Setting moral boundaries - Boundary Setting Function - Deviance helps distinguish between right and wrong - Laws to guide the dues and don'ts - Moral map - Specific forms of deviance, although deviant definitions vary, take form and must exist in every society - Without deviance there will be no moral boundaries, and without such boundaries there can be no society - Strengthening ingroup solidarity - Group Solidarity Function - Collective opposition - Strengthening bonds against ‘outsiders’ - Allowing for adaptive innovation - Innovation Functions - Recognises that overly strict boundaries limit society's adaptability - Ex, North Korea - Successful in creating and controlling conformity - Appears strong - But, weakened in its capacity to adapt to changing external environment - Locked into outdated traditions - But, Deviance is needed to challenge outdated rules - Rule-breaker = Rule maker - Martin L.K: Deviated from a racist and segregated society, in doing so, him and his followers tested the boundaries of race relations in the U.S. - Reducing internal social tensions - Tension-Reduction Function - Useful for functioning as a safety valve for strains within society - Society projects its problems onto devient (minority) groups - Scapegoating minorities helps society temporarily drain some of its own self-produced contradictions and tensions - Feast of fools: One day a year to deviate from routine rules Latent Functions and Manifest Functions Latent: Unrecognised and unintended contributions Manifest: Recognised and intended consequences Ex, The Corrupt Big-City Political Machine - Robert K. Merton  - Manifestly - Lawless practices were dysfunctional to society ordered by the rule of law - Latently - Helped to create order by integrating people who were integrant and by meeting the needs of marginal urban subgroups As a provider of services, it maximised the political privileges of the “underdogs” and “topdogs” Ex, Study of Prostitution - Kingsley Davis - Manifest - The married couple expresses combined sexual goals of reproduction and sentimental attachment, the prostitute defies both goals and is manifestly condemned and subject to criminal sanctioning The oldest profession in history - Latently - Higher male need for sexual adventure and experimentation - Sexual need met by an ‘ineligible’ female: no love triangle, no arguments, no divorce, sex for money, not love - Prostitution protects emotional bonds and preserves marriages An increase in swinging - 1960s - Sexual gratification for both parties without penalization on the emotional aspect of the marital bond Identifying Functional Deviance - Society as a system of interrelated parts - How does each structure affect each other and the operation as a whole - Parsons: relating all problems explicitly and systematically to the total system According to Durkheim: For something to be properly scientific. It must separate the cause of the social phenomenon from the examination of its consequences - For deviance: - Observations of deviances universal presence had to be distinct from the cause or determining conditions - Stronger in principle than practice - Durkheim's analysis of the actual phenomena proved the need to assert the integration of causes of a particular event - This resulted in the problems of: - Tautology: circular reasoning  - Deviance is functional because it exists in every society is circular logic. If it exists its functional, if it didn't exist not functional, it wouldn't exist. - False telcology: The assertion that things like deviance happen in order to realise the goals of the system, without specifying how exactly the system causes these functional activities to arise in the first place Determining Conditions - Durkheim's explanation confuses cause with that of function Robert K. Merton - Provided a methodological guide designed to eliminate the short-comings of previous functionalist theorists According to Merton: Functionalist researchers must avoid all assumption regarding 1. The harmonious integration of all parts of a social system 2. The relationship between the existence of social phenomenon and the belief that it must contribute to the maintenance of the social whole 3. The idea that genuine societal needs can only be served by the structural unit which appears to positively or functionally contribute to the fulfilment of such needs Important because: - Not assuming integration of all parts of the system - Functional for some people (the ones who benefit from organised society) - Dysfunctional for those who do not benefit (i.e. those being condemned, punished as deviants) Net Balance - Ex, why does our society rely so heavily on correcting the deviant rather than on changing the societal conditions out of which deviance grows or generating efforts to reconcile offenders and the offended? - The sum of the functions and dysfunctions According to Merton a proper functionalist analysis must: 1. Provide a specific description of the form of deviance or social control being studies 2. Indicate the range and type of alternatives excluded by the dominant pattern of dominance or social control -> structural context 3. Assess the meaning of the deviant or social control activity for those involved 4. Discern the motives for conforming to or deviating from a particular dominant interaction pattern 5. Describe patterns not recognised by participants but which appear to have consequences for either the particular individuals and/or other patterns of regulatories in wider social context These steps avoid circular reasoning and falsely teleological problems made by durkheim  The Functionalist Approach Main Tenets Functionalism Theorist: - Emilie Durkheim Influence: - Structure Crime and Deviance: - Adaptation - Normal response to abnormal circumstances Explanation: - Organisation of the whole society - Social structure The Social System Interconnectedness - As a whole - System of interrelated parts - ‘Functional’ contributions of all parts Functional Prerequisites for Social System Survival - Adaptation - Integration - Goal Attainment - Pattern Maintenance Social Boundaries - Define a range of activity - Pattern of constancy and stability - Reference point for people - Dependency Functionalism and Crime “CRIME IS... NECESSARY… IT IS BOUND UP WITH THE FUNDAMENTAL CONDITIONS OF ALL SOCIAL LIFE AND BY THAT VERY FACT IT IS USEFUL.” - Emilie Durkheim Breakdown: - Deviance = negative feedback = secure societies lawful boundaries  - Functionalism = optimistic viewpoint - Society = ‘goal-directed’ system = guides its members behaviour - To help system sty on course (< social order) Durkheim and Deviance: Deviance = Functional = Normal = Necessary = Universal Deviance = determining condition Durkheim and Functions 1. Boundary-Setting Function - Moral Boundaries - ‘Right’ & ‘Wrong’ 2. Group Solidarity - Us vs. Them: - ‘Us’ = ‘Insiders’ - ‘Them’ = ‘Outsiders’ 3. Innovation Function - Political and Social Dissent - Revision of Societal Rules 4. Tension-Reduction Function - Safety valve for Strains within Society - Drain off the Tensions within Society 5. Latent Function - Unintended or Unrecognised Contributions of Deviance According to Durkheim: - Excessive Deviance is NOT normal but is seen as rather pathological Functionalist Application and Assessments Practical Implications Mechanisms of Social Control 1. Socialization 2. Profit 3. Persuasion 4. Coercion - Interrelated / Interdependent CJS Critical Assessment Positive - Unique view of cause and solution - Innovation Middle Ground - Macro level analysis (partially) Negative - Synchronic - Consensus-Based (conservative bias) - Overly mechanistic image of society - Circularity of functional analysis - Optimistic bias - Positivist (determinism & difference) - Dichotomizes “us” vs. “them” The Functionalist Approach Main Tenets Functionalism Theorist: - Emilie Durkheim Influence: - Structure Crime and Deviance: - Adaptation - Normal response to abnormal circumstances Explanation: - Organisation of the whole society - Social structure The Social System Interconnectedness - As a whole - System of interrelated parts - ‘Functional’ contributions of all parts Functional Prerequisites for Social System Survival - Adaptation - Integration - Goal Attainment - Pattern Maintenance Social Boundaries - Define a range of activity  - Pattern of constancy and stability - Reference point for people - Dependency Functionalism and Crime “CRIME IS... NECESSARY… IT IS BOUND UP WITH THE FUNDAMENTAL CONDITIONS OF ALL SOCIAL LIFE AND BY THAT VERY FACT IT IS USEFUL.” - Emilie Durkheim Breakdown: - Deviance = negative feedback = secure societies lawful boundaries - Functionalism = optimistic viewpoint - Society = ‘goal-directed’ system = guides its members behaviour - To help system sty on course (< social order) Durkheim and Deviance: Deviance = Functional = Normal = Necessary = Universal Deviance = determining condition Durkheim and Functions 1. Boundary-Setting Function - Moral Boundaries - ‘Right’ & ‘Wrong’ 2. Group Solidarity - Us vs. Them: - ‘Us’ = ‘Insiders’ - ‘Them’ = ‘Outsiders’ 3. Innovation Function - Political and Social Dissent - Revision of Societal Rules 4. Tension-Reduction Function - Safety valve for Strains within Society - Drain off the Tensions within Society 5. Latent Function - Unintended or Unrecognised Contributions of Deviance According to Durkheim: - Excessive Deviance is NOT normal but is seen as rather pathological  Functionalist Application and Assessments Practical Implications Mechanisms of Social Control 1. Socialisation 2. Profit 3. Persuasion 4. Coercion - Interrelated / Interdependent CJS Critical Assessment Positive - Unique view of cause and solution - Innovation Middle Ground - Macro level analysis (partially) Negative - Synchronic - Consensus-Based (conservative bias) - Overly mechanistic image of society - Circularity of functional analysis - Optimistic bias - Positivist (determinism & difference) - Dichotomizes “us” vs. “them” The Functionalist Perspective: Cybernetics, Negative Feedback, and the Benefits of Deviance Introduction: Functionalist views deviance as contributing, rather than threatening, a given order of roles, rules, and regulations Cybernetics: A theoretical viewpoint which depicts society as a goal-directed mechanism that deploys information to command needed energetic actions - Society depends upon crime, and other forms of deviant behaviour in the same manner, as The Judge, in Genet’s play, depends upon the actress playing The Prostitute playing The Thief Theoretical Images The functionalist perspective emphasises the positive contributions of deviance - Something is defined as functional if it has positive consequences for society  - Negative consequence = dysfunctional - Deviance = functional because it strengthens the bonds of the existing social order Durkheim: Searching for the Moral Integration of Social Organisms - Durkheim viewed sociology as a scientific solution to social disruption - A science of morals - Religion and philosophy was no longer capable of providing a sense of collective order A Pathological Society A society in which normas were paradoxically too strong or too weak - Too strong, society would be overly conformist, unable to adapt to changing environmental circumstances - Too weak, society too loosely defined and too weakly joined to do basic tasks needed for its own survival Deviance as Normal: Contributions to Moral Integration Durkheim argued that: - A social phenomenon was normal if; - If it the universal - Meaning it must be present in all societies of the same type - If it was necessary - Meaning it was needed for the continued existence of society - A product of determining conditions necessitated for its existence Deviance contributes to social order by: - Setting moral boundaries - Boundary Setting Function - Deviance helps distinguish between right and wrong - Laws to guide the dues and don'ts - Moral map - Specific forms of deviance, although deviant definitions vary, take form and must exist in every society - Without deviance there will be no moral boundaries, and without such boundaries there can be no society - Strengthening ingroup solidarity - Group Solidarity Function - Collective opposition - Strengthening bonds against ‘outsiders’ - Allowing for adaptive innovation - Innovation Functions - Recognises that overly strict boundaries limit society's adaptability - Ex, North Korea - Successful in creating and controlling conformity - Appears strong  - But, weakened in its capacity to adapt to changing external environment - Locked into outdated traditions - But, Deviance is needed to challenge outdated rules - Rule-breaker = Rule maker - Martin L.K: Deviated from a racist and segregated society, in doing so, him and his followers tested the boundaries of race relations in the U.S. - Reducing internal social tensions - Tension-Reduction Function - Useful for functioning as a safety valve for strains within society - Society projects its problems onto devient (minority) groups - Scapegoating minorities helps society temporarily drain some of its own self-produced contradictions and tensions - Feast of fools: One day a year to deviate from routine rules Latent Functions and Manifest Functions Latent: Unrecognised and unintended contributions Manifest: Recognised and intended consequences Ex, The Corrupt Big-City Political Machine - Robert K. Merton - Manifestly - Lawless practices were dysfunctional to society ordered by the rule of law - Latently - Helped to create order by integrating people who were integrant and by meeting the needs of marginal urban subgroups As a provider of services, it maximised the political privileges of the “underdogs” and “topdogs” Ex, Study of Prostitution - Kingsley Davis - Manifest - The married couple expresses combined sexual goals of reproduction and sentimental attachment, the prostitute defies both goals and is manifestly condemned and subject to criminal sanctioning The oldest profession in history - Latently - Higher male need for sexual adventure and experimentation - Sexual need met by an ‘ineligible’ female: no love triangle, no arguments, no divorce, sex for money, not love - Prostitution protects emotional bonds and preserves marriages An increase in swinging - 1960s  - Sexual gratification for both parties without penalization on the emotional aspect of the marital bond Identifying Functional Deviance - Society as a system of interrelated parts - How does each structure affect each other and the operation as a whole - Parsons: relating all problems explicitly and systematically to the total system According to Durkheim: For something to be properly scientific. It must separate the cause of the social phenomenon from the examination of its consequences - For deviance: - Observations of deviances universal presence had to be distinct from the cause or determining conditions - Stronger in principle than practice - Durkheim's analysis of the actual phenomena proved the need to assert the integration of causes of a particular event - This resulted in the problems of: - Tautology: circular reasoning - Deviance is functional because it exists in every society is circular logic. If it exists its functional, if it didn't exist not functional, it wouldn't exist. - False telcology: The assertion that things like deviance happen in order to realise the goals of the system, without specifying how exactly the system causes these functional activities to arise in the first place Determining Conditions - Durkheim's explanation confuses cause with that of function Robert K. Merton - Provided a methodological guide designed to eliminate the short-comings of previous functionalist theorists According to Merton: Functionalist researchers must avoid all assumption regarding 1. The harmonious integration of all parts of a social system 2. The relationship between the existence of social phenomenon and the belief that it must contribute to the maintenance of the social whole 3. The idea that genuine societal needs can only be served by the structural unit which appears to positively or functionally contribute to the fulfilment of such needs Important because: - Not assuming integration of all parts of the system  - Functional for some people (the ones who benefit from organised society) - Dysfunctional for those who do not benefit (i.e. those being condemned, punished as deviants) Net Balance - Ex, why does our society rely so heavily on correcting the deviant rather than on changing the societal conditions out of which deviance grows or generating efforts to reconcile offenders and the offended? - The sum of the functions and dysfunctions According to Merton a proper functionalist analysis must: 1. Provide a specific description of the form of deviance or social control being studies 2. Indicate the range and type of alternatives excluded by the dominant pattern of dominance or social control -> structural context 3. Assess the meaning of the deviant or social control activity for those involved 4. Discern the motives for conforming to or deviating from a particular dominant interaction pattern 5. Describe patterns not recognised by participants but which appear to have consequences for either the particular individuals and/or other patterns of regulatories in wider social context These steps avoid circular reasoning and falsely teleological problems made by durkheim The Structural Perspective Summary Notes on Robert K. Merton's: Social Structure and Anomie (1938) Key Concepts: 1. Anomie: - Defined as a breakdown of social norms where individuals become detached from normative standards. - Occurs when societal norms fail to regulate behaviour, often due to a disconnection between cultural goals and institutional means. 2. Strain Theory: - Merton's theory explains deviant behaviour as a result of structural pressures in society. - Deviance arises when there’s an inconsistency between culturally prescribed goals (e.g., success, wealth) and the legitimate means available to achieve them. 3. Cultural Goals vs. Institutionalised Means: Cultural goals: Values like wealth and success that are widely endorsed.  Institutionalised means: Legitimate, accepted methods to achieve these goals (e.g., education, employment). Strain results when access to these means is limited, leading individuals to seek alternative (often deviant) ways of achieving these goals. 4. Typology of Adaptations: - Merton identifies five adaptations to strain: - Conformity: Adherence to societal norms despite strain. - Innovation: Acceptance of cultural goals but using unapproved methods to achieve them (often associated with crime). - Ritualism: Abandonment of cultural goals but strict adherence to institutional means. - Retreatism: Rejection of both cultural goals and institutional means (e.g., drug addiction). - Rebellion: Rejection and replacement of both societal goals and means with alternative ones. 5. Structural Causes of Anomie: - Inequality and restricted access to opportunities contribute to societal strain. - Crime is more likely in societies where there is a high emphasis on success without providing equal opportunities for success. 6. Social and Economic Implications: - Economic disparities and the pressure to achieve success contribute significantly to deviant behaviour. - Social policies should address inequalities in access to legitimate means to reduce strain and deviance. Key Arguments: - Deviance is influenced by social structure, not just individual pathology. - Societal pressure valuing success over legitimate means creates strain and encourages deviance. - Reducing structural inequality could help mitigate deviant behaviour by aligning goals with accessible, legitimate means. Structural (Strain) Theories Main Tenets - Lecture Durkheim: Anomie: - Deregulation - Normlessness  - Absence of Values -> confusion does not = consensus Suicide: = Symptom of social malady - Sense of alienation and loneliness Terms: - Anomie - Pathological state of organic society - Inequality - Normal and inevitable - Crime - Normal and inevitable yet ‘pathological’ Anomie -> Inequality -> Strain -> Crime Strain Theories Merton - Crime = adaptation - Normal response to abnormal conditions - “Causal” force = social structure (macro) Social Pressures - Merton rejects social need for deviance - Merton argues: Certain groups subjected to specific pressures Structural Arrangements Merton Individuals are ‘normal’, but 1. Rates of deviance are not consistent across all socio-economic ‘classes’ 2. Highest rates were consistently found in ‘lower class’ areas and among ‘lower class’ people Strain: Cultural goals vs. Approved means  - Merton rejects notion that deviance is “simply” socially disapproved behavior - Merton considers option of ‘differential opportunity’ “Some” deviance = New pattern of behavior Normative Order 1. Cultural or Structural Order - Sets culturally accepted GOALS that motivate social behavior 2. Institutional Means - Made available to, and approved by, the social structure for achieving these goals Anomie = Lack of fit between goals & means Merton - Strain Explanation of Crime - Social structure systematically restricts access to approved means - So people turn to “crime” to mitigate the strain Assumption - Everyone has a common goal, but some people can’t attain that goal - Problem = strain Merton’s Typology of Adaptations to Anomie Cultural Goals Acceptable Means Conformist + + Innovator + - Ritualist - + Retreatist - - Rebel +, - +, - Conformity - Most Common - People accept both cultural goals and cultural means (consensus) - Goal = wealth via approved ‘middle-class’ values and methods - Society’s goals and values = internalised  - Accept legitimised means to achieve goals - Poses no particular problem to society - Ex: Education -> employment -> $ success Innovation - Most Common Deviant Response - Most crime takes the form of innovation - Goals are accepted - Approved means by which to achieve such goals = lacking - Develops ‘new’ but socially unapproved means by which to achieve wealth - Found among “lower class” people - Social structure limits access to the means = “an intense pressure for deviance” - Does not pose a threat to the social order - Their adaptation reinforces cultural goals - Ex: Fraud, stealing, selling drugs Ritualism - Scaling down of expectations of success - Rejects the possibility of achieving wealth - But retains loyalty to norms of hard work, honesty - Individual cannot disregard the rules and develop alternative means - Found among “lower middle working class” people - Achieves minimum level of success through legitimate institutionalised means - Satisfied with less - This adaptation = consequences of high status on achievement; anxiety about status to achieve produces fear - Avoids/escapes potential frustrations - Poses no threat to social order - Ex: 9-5 factory workers; minimalists Retreatist - State of anomie generates internal conflict, frustration and defeat - Individual “drops out” - Retreatists do not contribute to the functioning of society - “In” society but not “of” society - Least common but most “reviled” (marginalised) - Us vs them (function) - Ex: People labelled as: drug “addicts”, “vagrants”, “mentally ill”, “alcoholics” = escapes Rebellion  - Replaces socially legitimised values with new ones - Adaptation to a situation in which the “institutional system” = barrier to success - Rebel seeks to modify social structure by changing both goals and means - Rejects cultural goals and acceptable means - New values may be political via violent means, spiritual means, scholarly means - Often ceases to function as a member of larger existing social order - Alternative culture or counterculture - Only adaptation which can threaten existing social order - Ex: revolutionaries, cults, intellectuals, spiritual and political leaders Anomie and Strain Theories - Reading - 202-228 Introduction: Anomie theory is similar to social disorganisation theory Similarities - Propose that social order, stability and integration are conductive to conformity - Disorder and malintegration = crime and deviance - Both prose the less social cohesion the more crime there will be in a society - Both explain high crime rates in disadvantaged lower class and ethnic groups Differences - The mechanism by which disorder produces higher crime rates Social disorganisation theory - Disorder weakens a communities ability to control its citizens behaviour and allow for the criminal values in conflict with conventional values, increasing the probability of crime to occur - Macro/micro - variations in neighbourhoods or communities Anomie theory - Marginalisation weakens the moral hold that laws have on members of society, crime is coupled with limited or blocked access to economic goals - The anomic structural condition produces strain on those within the system creating criminal behaviour - Macro - variations in culture and structure Classic Anomie/Strain Theories Merton’s Theory of Social Structure and Anomie - Anomie: Refers to lack of social regulation in society that promoters higher rates of deviant behaviour - Applied Durkheim approach - An integrated society maintains a balance between social structure (social means) and culture (goals)  - Anomie = societal malintegration when there is a dissociation between goals and social norms - Goal (culture) = success - Not a strong emphasis on approved means of achieving this goal - The American Dream - When success goals are overemphasised the, the norms of attaining success become weakened - An anomie - The American Dream creates the notion that everybody has the same chance at success, disadvantaged and lower class groups do not have an equal chance, socialised to hold these aspirations. This anomic condition produces strain: pressure to take advantage of whatever means to income they can find, legal or not. Cohen: Status Deprivation and the Delinquent Subculture - Applied Merton's theory specifically to delinquent adolescent lower-class males - Recognised that the delinquent subculture plays a role in influencing lower class boys to become involved in crime - Wanted to explain why it existed in the first place - Cohen’s version is in basic agreement with Merton’s on anomie/strain theory Similar - Both perceive blocked goals as producing deviance-inducing strain Difference - Merton = inability to gain material success - Cohen = inability to gain status success and acceptance in conventional society Middle class standards are placed on students from al class backgrounds in society - Good manners, focus on good grades, non aggressive attitudes, good behaviour Lower-class males cannot meet this standard = status deprivation -> status frustration - The delinquent subculture is a direct response to this frustration - The nature of delinquent activities are formed as results from reaction formation Criteria for acceptability  - Lower-class boys gaining success from gangs by adhering to malicious values in opposition to conventional standards - Nonaggressive < aggressiveness - Polite student < distributive Argued that Merton’s image of deviatients turning to illegitimate means because of deprivation of legitimate means being too nationalistic to apply the “non utilitarian” delinquent subculture - Example, most property crimes committed by youth are not intended to produce income but rather gain approval from their delinquent peers Cloward and Ohlin: Differential Opportunity and Delinquent Subcultures - Theory derived from Merton strain and Cohen’s subculture theory, Shaw and McKay’s social disorganisation theory and Sutherland’s social disorganisation theory - Developed to account for the types of delinquent subcultures Cloward and Ohlin on Theories - Merton’s theory incorrectly assumed that lower-class people who were denied access to legitimate opportunities, automatically have access to illegitimate opportunities - Sutherland, Shaw and McKay’s theories were said to have focused on the cultural transmission of a delinquent thus demonstrating the importance of illegitimate opportunities Their Theory - Proposed that deviance is explained by location in both legitimate and illegitimate opportunities - Motivation is not deviancy, the person must be in devient or conforming learning environments - Just as there is unequal access to role models and opportunities, there is unequal access to illegal roles and opportunities What kind of delinquency comes from the deprivation of legitimate opportunities depends of what access is denied Specialised Delinquent Subcultures - Gang develop specialised delinquent subcultures depending on the illegitimate opportunities in their neighbourhoods 1. Criminal Subculture - Commit income producing offences - Theft, extortion, and fraud - Innovation adaptation (Merton) - Gangs found in lower class ethnic organised neighbourhoods around stable adult criminal patterns and values 2. Conflict Subculture - Fighting gangs - Status gained through violence, toughness, and able to fight  - Found in lower class neighbourhoods with few role models (deviant or conformity) - View adults as weak - Unable to gain skills needed for legal or illegal economic success so they turn to violence for social success in their gangs 3. Retreatist Subculture - Consumption of drugs and alcohol - Given up on both means and goals - No neighbourhood specified, but members termed “double failures” - Not good academically or criminally - Sustain themselves from a nonviolent hustle - Status gained by getting high and maintaining a drug habit Miller: Focus Concerns of Lower Class Culture - Miller concentrated on the delinquency of lower class male gangs (called them street corner groups) - Agreed with strain/anomie theorists that delinquency is caused by an attempt to gain desired ends. Theory Proposed: - Delinquency is an adaptation to lower class culture to gain acceptance according to class expectations Lower class values: Called - focal concerns - Trouble (law violations) - Toughness (physical power) - Smartness (ability to con) - Excitement (seek danger) - Fatalism (being lucky or unlucky) - Autonomy (freedom from authority) Research on Class Anomie/Strain Theories - Merton’s theory of social structure and anomie = explanations at both macro and micro level - Testing has shown macro-level propositions are rare - Investigation into the impact of goal disjunction on instructmental crimes (robbery, larceny, auto-theft) showed mixed results Questions Answered: 1. Are Crime and Delinquency Concentrated Among Lower Class and Minority Individuals? - Inverse relationship between social class and lawbreaking, by extension, a higher incidence of crime in those who belong to disadvantaged minority groups and lower socioeconomic classes - Self reporting: Self reporting does not include high-frequency offenders. There may be little difference by class and race in low-frequency minor offences, but large class and race differences in high-frequency serious offences 2. Gang and Delinquent Subcultures - Lower class non-white gang boys perceive to have more illegitimate opportunities and less legitimate opportunities than white middle class non-gang boys - It is not clear if these perceptions result from gang membership - Gang members agree with conventional values but neutralise their behaviour that violates them - Linked to social learning definitions - Researchers have not been able to prove the three major types of delinquent subcultures located in specific kinds of neighbourfood opportunity structures - Some evidence to prove offence specification, but doesn’t match with the subcultures identified - Gangs commit a range of crimes - The retreatist gang has not been identified, drug trafficking does not count 3. School Dropout and Delinquency - If Cohen’s theory of the realities faced by lower class individuals in school caused strain, dropping out of crime would reduce the strain to commit illegal acts - This is true, study proved delinquency was higher before dropout and reduced drastically after, but delinquency is still lower for highschool graduates - The effects of dropping out of school depend on the reasoning and the race, age and gender. - When these variables come into play the relationship between dropping out and delinquent behaviour become statistically non significant 4. Perceived Discrepancy Between Aspirations and Expectations - At a psychological level, strain can be measured between one's aspirations and expectations - Aspirations: ones hopes to achieve (economically, educationally, career) - Expectations: what one believes is realistically possible to achieve  - Anomie/strain would say the greatest the discrepancy, the more likely one is to violate the law - Weak effects of the disjunction between aspirations and expectations - Possession of money only serves to fuel an appetite for more, leading to criminal conduct Contemporary Anomie/Strain Theories Merton’s Theory Goes Two Ways - 1980s Institutional-anomie theory - Approaches theory from a macro-structural perspective and extends the analysis to a variety of institutions in the social structure General strain theory - Takes a social psychological approach and expands on the connection between sources of strain, strain-induced negative emotions, and individual criminal behaviour Messner and Rosenfeld’s Institutional-Anomie Theory Used Merton’s theory of social structure and anomie as the framework - Specifically, the discussion of culture and the American dream They argued: Contains for orientations conductive to criminal behaviour 1. A strong achievement orientation - Creates a culture where you are viewed based on failures or how much you’ve achieved, thus creating pressure to achieve at any cost 2. Individualism - Encourages people to make it on their own, breeding ground for competiveness 3. Universalism - Expectation that all members of American society must strive for the same goal 4. Fetishism of money - Monety as the sole metric of success, stronger than the possession it can buy or the power it can wield This theory extends to view roles played by different social institutions - Economic , political, family, educational in specific The dominance in the economy forces 1. Devaluation - The functions of noneconomic institutions become devalued - Schools underfunded, educators underpaid 2. Accommodation - Non-economic institutions must accommodate the requirements of the economy - Family life revolves around work schedules  - Schools tailoring curriculum to the needs of business and corporate interest 3. Penetration - Occurs whereby economic norms penetrate noneconomic institutions - Education = commodity, students = consumers of knowledge - Schools, governments and families adopting corporate models of operation Argued that: - Economic dominance is the institutional balance power weakens the social control functions of noneconomic institutions - When combined with values that stimulate criminal motivations, criminal behaviour is a natural occurrence of American society - When institutions are devalued, forced to accommodate and penetrated by the economy it becomes more difficult to provide supervision and discipline - Competitive individualism, encourages people to resist weak noneconomic institutions - The universal expectation to compete and win requires that success be reached with minimum interference Broadened the theory: - Beyond American society stating, institutional imbalance, not only balance of the economy, produce high rates of criminal activity - Societies of different institutional dominance foster different forms of crime - Economic dominance = material gain crimes - Political dominance = diminishment of well-being of others = hate crimes The Hypothesis - Decommodification of labour: crime should be lower when society can provide citizens with social welfare making them less dependent on the economy for their survival - Sampled 45 countries - Findings: - Quality and quantity of social welfare is directly related to homicide rates Agnew’s General Strain Theory of Crime and Delinquency - Micro-level revision - Socio psychological perspective Approach: - Broaden the concept of strain beyond aspirations and expectations to encompass several sources of strain or stress According to Agnew: - Crime and delinquency are an adaptation to stress, whatever the source of the stress Major types of deviance-producing strain: 1. Failure to Achieve Positively Valued Goals  - Three subtypes 1. Disjuncture between aspirations and expectations - Includes not only ideal or future goals but present goals as well - Failure = blocked opportunities & inadequate skills 2. Gap between expectations and achievements - When one anticipates rewards or benefits that fail to materialise 3. Discrepancy between what one views as a fair or just outcome and the actual outcome - The positive consequences of an activity or relationship are not perceived as comparable to the amount of effort put into it and are viewed as unfair when compared to others 2. Removal of Positively Valued Stimuli - Loss of something or someone of great worth and impact - Changing school, immediate family death, breakup 3. Confrontation with Negative Stimuli - An individual's confrontation with negative actions by others - Child abuse, crime victimisation, bullying - Reacts in a deviant way because the individual can’t legally escape parents or school Coping with strain to mediate - Exercise, prayer, music Some although not all strain produces anger - The impact on delinquency is questionable Studies focus on “trait” anger, rather than “state” anger - Studies have shown that situational (state) anger is a more consistent mediator of the strain–delinquency relationship supporting predictions of general strain theory Specification of what types of strain lead to criminal coping - Strains that 1. Seen as unjust, 2. Are high in magnitude, 3. Emanate from situations in which social control is undermined, and 4. Pressure the individual into criminal associations Measuring strain that meet these criteria - Parental rejection, bullying at school, abusive peers, and criminal victimisation Victimisation has a large relationship to drug use, property crime and violent offending Strain broadened to also includes - past , present, vicarious and anticipated strain - Subjective Strain - Reported as particularly stressful, have been no more predictive of crime - Same out for objective strains (universally stressful) (not predictive of crime Not been investigated much - Vicarious strains: witnessing others experience strain or stress - Anticipated strain: the individual evaluates their risk of future stressors Crime over a lifetime argument proposal: - Argues that certain stressors exert an influence on delinquency or criminal coping at critical stages in the life course - Ex, need for autonomy in middle-late teen years - Sex, alcohol, tobacco, curfew violations Racialized General Strain Theory - RGST - Predicted upon the assumption that African Americans face disadvantaged social position relative to whites, thereby increasing the likelihood that African Americans will experience certain types of strains, which are conducive to crime (police injustice) Gender in General Strain Theory - Both men and women experience strain equally but the type of strain differ - Black women are more likely to experience financial, health, and relational strains and men were more likely to experience strains related to racial discrimination in the workplace - Significant gender differences in reference to emotional strain (depression, anxiety) - Strain effects males and females the same way in terms of anger - Still left unexplained, why do men, who are equally as likely to experience strain as women, who also use alternative coping skills, more likely to commit crime and deviant actions. Agnew’s Model - Strain does not lead directly to delinquency - It is linked to delinquency by the negative emotions an individual may experience as a result of strain - Even when strain generates anger, a person may not choose to be deviant - The connection between strain, anger, and delinquent behaviour are further influenced by a variety of “conditioning factors” - Coping resources, social support, temperament, prior learning variables, normative beliefs Programs Based on Anomie and Subcultural Theories - The policy implication of any structural theory is that basic social changes need to be implemented to remove criminogenic features of economic, political, and social institutions in society  - Implication of anomie theory is the integration of cultural goals and approved means and the redistribution of opportunities in the class system - Many control and prevention policies are linked to anomie and subcultural theories - Working with delinquent gangs, enhancing economic opportunities and offering training programs - Limited success, not due to the theory, but have inspired similar jobs, youth opportunities, and gang programs The Boston Mid-City Project - 1950s - Based on Miller’s lower-class culture theory All-out, community coordinated effort to combat delinquency and illegal activities among gangs in the central city Three project facets 1. Direct social work services to families with delinquent children or families experiences other problem that put their children at risk for delinquency 2. Community neighbourhood program 3. A detached worker (grad students in sociology, anthro, and social work) program with juvenile gangs - Detached worker was the only one put into operation Project never completed because of conflict over goals, strategies and ideologies between agencies involved Mobilisation for Youth - 1960s - New York City New York's lower east side - Organised to increase the ability of the lower class youths to gain access to legitimate means of success through job opportunities, education, and skills training. - Detached workers hired to interact directly with youth on the street Goal: redirect gang members away from delinquent activities and values and toward participation in conventional sports, and community service. Problems: - Political opposition - Conflict among community agencies - Ignored the theories link to types of delinquent subcultures and types of neighbourhoods Success could not be adequately judged based on problems and early termination Policy Implications of Contemporary Anomie/Strain Theories Messner emphasises that enhancing legitimate opportunities for all is likely to backfire - Fuels the desire for greater monetary wealth and ultimately increases the pressure to succeed at any cost Recommend strengthening noneconomic institutions (Messner) - Implementing pro-family economic policies such as family leave - Loosening the strong ties between academic performance and future economic prospects - Limiting the costs of crime control through the use of intermediate sanctions in the community - Creating broader social and civic participation through national service programs (military) Recommended prevention programs based on learning and bonding theory (Agnew) - Reduce the adversity of the youth’s social environment and train parents in parenting skills for better supervision and discipline and rewards - Provide social skills training for children and youth to reduce individuals tendency to do or say things that provoke negative reactions from others - Increase social support for youth through counselling, mediation, and advocacy programs - Increase the teenagers ability to cope with negative stimuli in a nondelinquent way through training in anger control, problem-solving, social skills and stress management Subcultural Lecture Recap SOCIAL DISORGANISATION THEORIES - Deviance = Result of community disorganisation DIFFERENTIAL ASSOCIATION THEORIES - Deviance = Learned in association with others STRUCTURAL / ANOMIE THEORIES - Deviance = Strain between legitimate means and dominant goals Historical Context - Social Disorganization, Functionalism, Strain/Anomie and Differential Association = Inadequate explanations/solutions to post-WWII crime - Problem = Big city adolescent gangs - Rebelliousness of gang-affiliated youth = sign of fundamental challenge to social order - Urbanization = divided neighbourhoods = urban decay → gangs Subcultural Perspectives - Attempt to overcome/move beyond the inadequacies of previous theories  - Integrated/Combined the “best” elements of: 1. Merton’s Structural/Anomie theory 2. Sutherland’s Differential Association 3. Shaw & McKay’s Social Disorganization - Subcultural Theories = Change of focus - Not viewing subcultures as a social problem - But viewing subcultures as a solution to dilemmas “Folk Devils” Stanley Cohen (1972) Ideological construct: = perceived embodiment of all that is wrong in society = perceived carrier of all evil, immorality and social disorder - Main Example: Subcultural Youth - Other examples? ▪ Hell’s Angels ▪ Deported Gang Members “Delinquent Boys” Albert Cohen (1955) - 1st attempt to explain delinquent subcultures - values of subcultures differ from those of the mainstream culture = thus, socialisation to conformity “to mainstream culture” = less likely Cohen - Gang delinquency = NOT a rational act = emotional act; = subcultural response to the failure of living up to middle class values - Delinquent subcultures = “reaction-formation” Children / people of “lower” and “working” “class” = NOT prepared for jobs held by “middle/upper class” = weak hold on values of long-term individual success = ‘enjoy it now’ attitude (consumption and leisure) = use and value physical aggression = problem-solving technique How the “value strain” of “lower class” youth is turned into subcultural deviance MIDDLE CLASS MEASURING ROD = school system that is run by middle class teachers/values = “working class” boys fail to adjust to middle class values DO NOT MEASURE UP TO MIDDLE CLASS EXPECTATIONS = arouse disapproval, rejection and punishment which undermines their self-esteem = frustrated and rejected youth turn to gangs for emotional solidarity Gang involvement → ‘deviant’ careers & contact with ‘criminal’ subcultures Walter Miller Class Analysis (1958) - Miller rejects Cohen’s emotional interpretation of gang delinquency - Distinct “lower class” subculture evolved via American industrialization and assimilation of immigrants from Europe Long term effect: - “lower class” culture = specific norms & values = / → gang delinquency ▪specific characteristics or behaviours = entirely appropriate to “lower class” subcultures even though they violate moral and legal codes - behaviour of “lower class” gang members = consistent with / “conforming” to values of many American “lower class” communities Six Major Focal Concerns - Trouble, toughness, smartness, excitement, fate, autonomy Cloward and Ohlin - Differential Opportunity (1960) 1. They retained the notion of determinism and difference (positivism) 2. They retained the sociological focus on situations 3. They attempted to go beyond Merton and Sutherland and Shaw & Mackay From Merton: blocked opportunities - C & O: apply strain to subcultures - C & O: unequal access to illegitimate means From Shaw & McKay: spatial variation - C & O locate gangs in certain urban areas From Sutherland: association and interaction - C & O apply ‘association’ to subcultural interaction Five Key Question from Cloward and Ohlin 1. WHAT are we trying to explain? - delinquent subcultures 2. WHERE (& WHO) do we find deviant subcultures? - urban areas among adolescent males in “lower class” areas (→ greater access to “illegitimate opportunities”) 3. WHY do some people not conform? - adjustment problem is driving people away from the consensus = strain 4. WHY do gangs commit certain kinds of deviance? - group response / collective solution to shared problem - range of opportunities for illegitimate solutions depends on economic position, age, gender, ethnicity, personality  - What is the reason for people coming together? - What is the possibility for people to come together? 5. WHY do delinquent subcultures persist or change? - depends if the collective solution continues to solve the adjustment problem (recruitment & success of integration) Biological and Biosocial Theories Introduction Social structural and social psychological theories - Either ignore or exclude biological or psychological factors in crime - Assumption that biological and personality variations among individuals are within a normal range Traditional biological theories - Focus on anatomical, physiological, or genetic abnormalities - Deny the effect of social environmental factors in crime Recent theories - Emphasise the interplay of biological, social, and psychological variables in crime Lombroso and Early Biological Theories 1800s - The classical school of criminology - Persons rationally calculate pleasure and pain during the exercise of free will to commit or refrain from crime - Humanistic; focused on crime itself 1870s - Biological positivism - Crime is not a rationally reasoned behaviour that will occur unless prevented by the proper threat of punishment but rather is the result of inborn abnormalities - Mental and psychological makeup causes one to violate the rules of society - Environmental situations can provoke or restrain behaviour, but they do not cause crime - Criminals are born with criminal traits - No matter the punishment a born criminal will always deviate from law - Seen as “biologically inferior,” “inherently defective” - Biological positivism was scientific and concentrated on the measurable characteristics of the individual criminal Cesare Lombroso’s Theory of the Born Criminal - Observed the physical characteristics of prisoners vs soldiers  - Determined criminals to be physically different based on these comparisons - Head, body, arms, skin (biological causes of criminal behaviour) An Atavism - A born criminal - Physical makeup, mental capacity and instincts as a primitive man - Unsuited for civilisation and will inevitably violate social and legal rules Stigmatas - Certain visible characters of a born criminal - Asymmetry of the face or head, large monkey-like ears, large lips, receding chin, twisted nose, excessive cheek bones, long arms, excessive skin wrinkles, extra fingers or toes - Male with five+ physical anomalies = born criminal - Female with three+ = born criminal Police used physical characteristics to identify people until fingerprinting Lombroso and Ferrero - Male > female born criminals due to natural selection The Insane Criminal - Idiot, imbecile, epileptic, and psychotic, is mentally unfit for society - No more capable than born criminals at controlling criminal tendency - Do not possess the criminal stigmata of evolution Criminaloid - Motivated by passion or emotion to commit crime The born criminal is the most dangerous to society Lombroso on born criminal population - Originally, thought a large % of criminals were born criminals - Later, 35% of male and 14% of female criminals - Added more social, economic and political conditions as factors The Criminal as Biologically Inferior Charles Goring - Took physical measurements of inmates and compared them to everyday people - Found no significant difference - Included head sizes, eye colour, facial features - Concluded, no physical criminal type by appearance or measurable stigmata Found significant differences in body stature and weight - Prisoners shorter and thinner than civilians - Lower intelligence (on impression not IQ) Concluded - All criminals suffer from both a defective physique and defective intelligence as well as moral defectiveness Hooton - 17,000 subjects in different states - Measurements of physical characteristics: prisoners vs citizens - Differences found were small - Did not take into account people who were selected for jobs based on their body type (firefighters, police officers) - More variation prisoner vs. prisoner than prisoner vs. civilian - Concluded sociological factors not important because criminals are organically inferior - Conclusion was a circular reasoning of tautology, can’t falsify theory, which was true because he assumed it to be William Sheldon Proposed delinquents = mesomorph (muscular) body type - Biologically inferior and less mentally able Summary: - Criminals, at least the most serious and dangerous, were born, not made; they were criminal by nature rather than nurtured into criminality by their social environment - Did not behave different, they were inherently different with an inferior or defective biology that predetermined their criminal behaviour Recognizing the Inadequacies of Early Biological Theories - Criticised for not giving attention to social, economic, and environmental factors - Methodological flaws in biological research, tautological reasoning, the empirical evidence did not support the theories, racist and sexist - By 1950s, biological theories discredited - Early biological theories served as justification for unjust policies of exclusion and eugenics which many of the earlier biological theories advocated Modern Biological and Biosocial Theories of Crime and Delinquency: Interaction of Biological and Environmental Variables Contemporary biological theories New biological explanations are founded on newer scientific discoveries, technical advances in genetics, brain functioning, neurology, nutrition, and biochemistry - New theorists not nature vs. nurture but instead the biological makeup of the human and the interaction with the physical and social environment - Nature via nurture Proposal:  - Behavioural potentials and susceptibility can be triggered by the interaction of environmental and biological factors - Few biological factors are viewed as having fixed effects on delinquency - But, may interact with and be affected by the physical and social environment C. Ray Jeffery - Proposed that criminal behaviour results from the interaction of biology, behaviour, and the environment Lee Ellis, Anthony Walsh and Kevin Beaver - Point to the compatibility of modern biological explanations as mainstream criminological theories that rely on sociological and psychological factors For this reason, - Theorists (Elllis, Mednick and Sarnoff) prefer that their theories be known as “biosocial” Neurobiological Approaches to Crime Biochemistry: Testosterone and Criminal Aggressiveness - No distinctive connection and none has been proposed Booth and Osgoode - Found link between testosterone and male deviance (violent and nonviolent) - Reduced by social integration and by prior delinquency, correlation became weak - Proposed testosterone levels were proposed to be related to dominance not aggressiveness Evolutionary Neuroandrogenic Theory (ENA) - Ellis Proposal - Aggression is a natural product of human evolution and exposure to androgens, including fetal testosterone, affects brain neurochemistry - The alteration of the brain's neurochemistry is responsible for increasing an individual's likelihood for aggression and engaging in risk-seeking Results - Small overall effect Neurophysiology: Mental Functioning and Delinquency - Feeblemindedness and learning disabilities as a biological explanation for crime has no empirical support - Childhood intelligence does not predict adolescent delinquency - Parental discipline, family cohesion, religious upbringing, and a child’s exposure to delinquent peers are more effective predictors - Overall, weak correlation between IQ and delinquent behaviour Herrnstein and Murray Proposed - Persons with low IQ have a “cognitive disadvantage” which disproportionately leads them to crime and other types of undesirable behaviour and is highly resistant to effects  of nutrition, education, socioeconomic status, family, and other environmental factors throughout life Found that IQ is more strongly related than social class to crime - Reanalyzed and found to be weak Race and IQ - Race an IQ is an unsettled debate IQ measured at an earlier age does not predict future delinquency Found recently that IQ and delinquency are curvy-linear, not strictly linear in which both low and high IQ can be related to delinquency - IQ is not immutable, and is the result of both the result of solisation, education and biologics, this supports non-biologic theories Moffitt, Lynam, and Silva - Neuropsychological model of male delinquency - Arguing it does not apply to female delinquency - Used aspects of mental functioning - Verbal ability, visual-motor integration, and mental flexibility Life-course-persistent - proposed for - Antisocial behaviour delinquencies that begin by age 13 and continue into later life Adolescence-limited-delinquency - not proposed for - Onset or acceleration of delinquency after the age of 13 that does not persist into adulthood Delinquency at the age of 15 and 18 was found to be correlated to verbal ability and memory at the age of 13 Neurophysiology: ANS functioning and arousal - Medrick ANS: autonomic nervous system - Medrick hypothesised that the susceptible individual inherits an ANS that is slower to react to stimuli, those who inherit slow arousal potential learn to control aggressive behaviour slowly or not at all. Thus they are at a greater risk of becoming law violators Research has shown a correlation between a low resting heart rate and crime Research has shown a correlation between religiosity and delinquency Genetically Transmitted Criminal Susceptibility: Behavioral and Molecular Genetics Behavioural genetics focuses on the interplay between genetic and environmental influences on individual traits. Rowe - Hyposised the prefrontal cortex of the brain affects low attention span, sensation-seeking, low self-control  - Whether these affect tendency of criminal behaviour depends on their exposure to shared environment - Class, parents, religion - And, non-shared environments - Differences in family, siblings, peer groups and teachers Genetics influence behavioural reactions and environment creation Adoption studies - Study found that sons with biological and adopted father criminal records were more likely to become criminal, those with biological father criminal record but not adopted > those with adopted but not biological - Flawed study, inconclusive Twin studies 1. Researchers can reliably and accurately determine twin types (DZ vs. MZ). 2. The genes of MZ twins are 100% identical and the genes of DZ twins are approximately 50% identical. 3. The percentages of genes shared by different types of twin pairs remain the same over the life course. 4. Phenotypic variation can be demarcated into genetic (G), shared environmental (C), or unshared environmental (E) components. 5. The relevant genes exert effects additively. 6. The likelihood of receiving a diagnosis or label for a phenotype (e.g.,criminal conviction) is the same among the twin and the non-twin population (generalizability). 7. The risk of receiving the diagnosis or label is the same among MZ and DZ-twins. 8. The phenotype (e.g., criminality or self-control) can be modelled as a quantitative trait. 9. The environments of MZ co-twins are no more similar than that of DZco-twins (“equal environment assumption”) Central concept in twin research = concordance - Measure of how much a behaviour or attribute of one twin matches the other Critiques - Equal environment assumption - EEA - Specifically, when including same sex and opposite sex twins - Measurement for self-control, delinquent peers, victimisation Conclusions - Delinquency is best explained by the combined effects of heredity and family environment - Twin studies of adult male offenders find substantial effects - Twin studies of delinquency in adolescence show little genetic influence Molecular genetics  - Heritability only informs about the extent to which genes are implicated in a trait of interest, they cannot tell us which genes, for this molecular genetics are needed, which involves DNA testing and analysis - Genes provide code for the amino acid sequences in proteins, for some genes there are different forms referred to as alleles, which are pairs of genes found in specific locations in the chromosomes and come in different repeats - Research attempts to show which repeated alleles relate to which patterns of behaviour in interaction which social and psychological variables Religion, genetics and delinquency DAT1 - Transporter gene for dopamine DRD2 - D2 receptor gene Conclusion - Presence or absence of a repeat pattern in the DRD2 gene had no relationship to delinquency by itself or among highly religious people - It was related to delinquency among adolescents with little or no religious commitment - Supports hypothesis that genetic tendencies are expressed only among certain social psychological characters + interaction in certain social environments Evolutionary Psychology and Criminality Evolutionary psychology - Focuses on universal behaviours or on behaviours specific to males and females of a species over evolutionary time that affect the chances of survival and reproduction such as aggression Rape as an evolutionary crime - Reproductive advantage, increases the chances that the genes oof the rapist will be transmitted to the next generation - Males have more to gain genetically than female from multiple sex partners - Sexual aggression = techniques for achieving advantage - Rapists have more active sex lives and produce more pregnancies than voluntary men - Low involvement with offspring high involvement with many partners = cads - Fewer sexual partners, higher investment in children = dads r/K selection - R end if the continuum = quantitative, mating, reproduce often very little in raising offspring - R strategy = propagate their genes by producing - K end = qualitative, parenting, reproduce less, fewer sexual partners, more time with offspring - K strategy = manifested in altruism toward kin