Lecture 4 Theory PDF

Theories There actually are only a very few theories of violence. Most are theories of crime or delinquency, of which some violence is part, but they are not the same thing. The first theories of crime and violence were biological theories. There can be a wide range of causes here, included but no...

Theories There actually are only a very few theories of violence. Most are theories of crime or delinquency, of which some violence is part, but they are not the same thing. The first theories of crime and violence were biological theories. There can be a wide range of causes here, included but not limited to: inherited, genetic, hormonal, brain disorders, chemical imbalances, and so on. This is not really a theory per se, but just a focus on biological causes. While most theories deal with crime, and not so much violence, biological explanations primarily look at biological influences on aggression (which has a large overlap with violence). So let’s just do a rapid exploration of a variety of biological causes of violence: Birth complications such as anoxia, too little oxygen, can lead to violence later in life for a child. Malnourishment of pregnant women who have boys after the malnourished pregnancy are shown that the boys are more likely to be violent teens than boys whose mothers were well fed (or girls of fed and malnourished mothers) Hormonal explanations: Testosterone is linked to aggression, but hard to say violent crimes are committed by folks with more of it. This is a measurement failure, criminals’ levels of testosterone are not measured during their crimes. The next ‘new thing’ is neurotransmitters such as dopamine and serotonin. These are most associated with low impulse control, which is a strong correlate of all crime, including violence. Psycho-physiological causes, link between body and mind, usually do with arousal levels. Some physical conditions, brain, heart, hormones, cause people to be under aroused. So to seek normal levels of arousal, these people seek extreme behaviors. They are unaware of the reasons, fear seeking, violence aggression are just manifestations of seeking to equalize stimulation. Wilson and Herrnstein Crime and Human Nature These authors integrate biological, social, rational choice, social structure and process theories, into a unified theory of offending. They believe that behavior is guided by perceived consequences of the action, a rational choice perspective that weigh the costs and benefits, both for criminal behaviors and non-criminal behaviors. They assume that biological and psychological traits help this process of deciding the value of certain behaviors. They link bio/psychological traits like intelligence, body type, genetic influences like parental criminality, and personality types with social factors like family life, school performance, and deviant subcultures. To them, the solution is not harsh punishment, but fixing American social factors, particularly the family. James q. Wilson later says that as long as we tolerate illegitimate children, teenage pregnancy, divorce and single parents, will always have high crime because those social conditions lead to the conditions for crime, including biological influences. Freudian theory This is not a lot specifically about violence, but is important because it is first to focus on the importance of early childhood development, how childhood influences the rest of a person’s life. He also developed the idea of subconscious that there are parts of the mind that control behavior that you are unaware of, unknown impulses Freudian theory has great importance in theoretical development, and parts of the criminal justice system, but limited explanations of violence. Freud, like everyone else we study, was a product of his time and place. He developed his theories, it seems, to not only advance science, but to keep rich women coming to his office for therapy so he could fund his research. Let’s look at his ideas. The starting assumptions of psychodynamic theory: 1 Human nature is inherently antisocial. People aren’t naturally good, they are naturally self-centered and animalistic. 2 Good behavior requires effective socialization. People are naturally bad, and have to be taught by others how to be good. 3 People’s personality is determined by age 5. Freud was first person to develop a scientific analysis of the personality. It consisted of three elements: the ‘id’, ‘superego’ and the ‘ego’. id - These are individualistic urges, self centered, animalistic, and pleasure oriented (not simply sexual pleasure, but any pleasure, like comfortable shelter, food, etc.). This is what your are born with, this is your natural state, if you weren’t taught differently, this is the only part of your personality that would exist, like a wild animal. This is part of your subconscious. You are not aware of its power. This is the little devil on your shoulder telling you to do things that benefit your pleasure seeking drives. superego This element of the personality is a socialized, an internalized control system. You have to be taught this, but after a while it is internalized. This is your conscience, but is result of outside rules. This is also part of your subconscious. This is the little angel on your shoulder, or Jiminy Cricket. You have to be taught rules, and then they get internalized, and then you know what is right and wrong: example: you cannot go to the bathroom in your pants in class, no matter how much you want to, you have internalized that it is wrong. DO NOT CONFUSE CONSCIOUS/SUBCONSCIOUS WITH CONSCIENCE! ego- This is your conscious personality, the manifestation of the battle between superego and id, the self that you are aware of. Your “I” --DO NOT CONFUSE CONSCIOUS/SUBCONSCIOUS WITH CONSCIENCE Freud also was the first person to say that people develop in stages (such as infant, toddler, kid, pre teen, teen, young adult, adult, middle aged, senior citizen, etc). Now that seems so obvious, but no one thought of it until Freud. In order to go to the next stage of development, Freud says you must successfully finish the previous one. If the stages are not successfully completed, disorders later in life will develop. Intelligence Theories of intelligence generally find association between low intelligence and crime, but can’t say it causes violence. DOJ summary: “Abstract In arguing that IQ is a significant cause of crime, the researchers cite studies to indicate that criminal populations generally have an average IQ of about 92, 8 points below the mean. They also note that the relationship of IQ to criminality is especially pronounced in a small fraction of the population, primarily young men, who commit a disproportionate amount of crime and that high intelligence provides some protection against lapsing into criminality for persons who are otherwise at risk. Nonetheless, explanations of crime based on race, genetics, or biology have been shunned since the 1930's. From a sociology of knowledge perspective, the idea that traits, including IQ, are passed on through genes instead of through cultural transmission (learned behavior) is considered by many individuals to be empirically absurd and politically incorrect. Hence, a significant amount of controversy has been generated by researchers who contend that crime is based on low IQ. Critics point out that crime rates vary dramatically between and even within the same generation. They further indicate that, because IQ is not likely to increase or decrease in such a short span of time, IQ does not have a measurable bearing on crime. These critics insist that explanations of crime must be found elsewhere and emphasize traditional theories linking environmental factors such as culture, socioeconomic status, neighborhood, and peers with crime and delinquency. Many criminologists argue that intellectually disadvantaged persons are not more likely to commit crimes and indicate that efforts to link IQ, race, genetics, or biology to crime result in mean-spirited and repressive policy conclusions.” The Frustration Aggression Theory 1939, Dollard, Doob, Miller, Mowrer, and Sears Frustrating events always caused aggressive responses. Aggressive behavior was always a result of frustrating events. Frustrations were blockages of desired outcomes. They were not merely denial of a good, but denial of an anticipated good. Aggressive reactions to frustrations were not, however, always immediate and apparent. The aggressive responses to frustrating events could be "temporarily compressed, delayed, disguised, displaced, or otherwise deflected from their immediate and logical goal," but they were not destroyed The target could be inanimate or animate, and the aggression could also be undirected, such as cursing after an injury. But the crucial point was that all aggression occurred as a result of some event that interfered with a goal directed activity. 1. The greater the anticipated satisfaction from a goal that is being blocked, the more aggressive people will become; 2. The strength of the aggression that follows a frustration will be mitigated by partial gratification of the anticipated satisfaction; and 3. Frustrations can be cumulative. Residue of frustrations can build up and increase the severity of later aggressive responses. Aggression becomes additive. Aggression after a frustrating event could, however, be inhibited. Frustrated people do not always attack available targets if they feel such behavior would lead to punishment. There is aggression, but it is not "overt." Anticipated social control leads to "non-overt" forms of aggression, or can even be held in check until a more suitable target is found We are getting into social theories of crime now, have done biological and psychological theories, which are traits of the individual, but now we are focusing more on functions of social conditions. This notion started in the 1930's or so, in America, Chicago in particular, and ruled criminological thought completely until the late 60's or so. The biggest social factor that might relate to crime that we are going to study is economic structure. The American economic structure is very diverse. We have a very complex division of labor (DOL) that includes many different jobs, and everybody relies on other people for goods (you don’t consume just what you produce). Lots of division of labor does not mean necessarily that there is economic inequity. In an ideal communist or socialist system, you still can have a complex DOL, but everyone is rewarded the same, so there is no economic disparity. It’s not like that in our system, complex DOL leads to stratification. This is a ranking system of worth placed on each job, those more valuable rewarded more than those less valuable. Two ways of rewarding, number one is money, most important, number two is prestige. We can have low prestige, high money jobs, like used car salesman, or low money, high prestige ones, like college professor, but generally, prestige and money match each other. We split the economic worth of people into classes, upper, middle, and low. Basically, America is country of middle class, with lots of variation in the middle class (lower middle, middle, upper middle, etc). Very few upper class, about 15% are lower class, if use poverty line as a measure of that. Is gradual change, not sudden precise changes between groups. Middle class is the norm in America, lower has a stigma attached to it. Most in poverty are young: the very poor have kids they cannot afford, and this is a repeating cycle. From the text in the Criminology course 6% of white are kids very poor, 50% of black kids are. 85% of black kids in female headed households are below poverty line. The best predictor of crime rates in a neighborhood actually is the percentage of female headed households. The poverty rate for blacks is 3 times that of the white population. There is a difference in where people can live based on money, generally in worse areas, higher crime, less resources. Poverty also strongly related to mental illness, depression, illnesses, infant mortality alcoholism, shorter lifespan (40% of males in Harlem live to 65, 55% of males in Bangladesh- the poorest country in the world- do) etc. This can lead to a culture of poverty which produces apathy, cynicism, helplessness, mistrust of government, and a reliance on a belief of fate or luck (the figure that they are poor by bad luck, and the way to get un-poor is through good luck, like lottery), or strong belief that since this world is bad, the next one will be better, and religions that promote a pleasurable afterlife. Social Disorganization theories of crime These theories go back to the University of Chicago, first stared by Shaw and Mckay, a sociologist and demographer A popular theory of crime at the time was Social Darwinistic, that the lower classes were more criminal because they were less developed, and were in the lower classes for the same reason, they didn’t have the ability to make it out of the lower classes, and the social structure was reflection of ability. Another popular notion of the time was related to this, people who made up policies were the rich upper class folks who had been in the country for a while. They came from rural backgrounds, farmers, small town residents who got money, then cities grew rapidly, they lived in cities, but still held rural life ideal. Did not like city life, or those who lived in cities, thought it corrupted people morals. So an anti-urban theory. Shaw and Mckay studied the geographical distribution of crime in the city, and the social conditions associated with areas of high delinquency. They collected lots of data using various methods, such as: court records, personal interviews, police data, etc. They were the first to plot crimes by address on maps. They found that most crimes concentrated in certain areas of the cities the run down, poor areas that bordered the heavy industry center, where newly arrived immigrants lived. At first glance, this supported idea that certain groups of people are more criminal than others, based on ethnic characteristics, or that being in most urban densely populated parts of the city caused crime. Before we get to social disorganization theory, we must discuss the concentric zone theory. Sort of like this zone 1 is the center of the 7 rings, the actual bull’s-eye, it is the center of city, it has heavy industry, no one lives there. zone 2 zone of transition, it borders zone 1, it is where the poorest of the city live, primarily new immigrants. It is called the zone of transition because people do not live there very long, they move out as soon as they can. In zone 2, 24.5 per 100 boys are delinquent, outer areas in the suburbs, zone 7, 3.5 per 100 boys are. zone 3 still poor and densely populated, but more stable, people lived in these apartments longer zone 4-7 the further from the center of the city, the less densely populated, the more $$, and the less crime High delinquency areas had certain social conditions as well (unemployment, dense population, etc). The physically deteriorated areas had populations in a state of flux, people left as soon as they could, and the racial and ethnic distributions changed. These areas also had other social ills, high infant mortality, tuberculosis, adult crime too, all from center city outward. 7 So, it looked like it was the evils of the city that caused delinquency, just like the Chicago upper class said, that people needed rural influences, or that the lower classes were more criminal, they lived in the center city, so it was defective culture or genes. But how could this be, Shaw and Mckay asked? The populations moved. First the Germans, Irish and English lived in there, then the Poles, then Italians, Jews, Blacks, etc. When they moved to outer areas, their crime rates decreased, but were still high in the inner city where the new people lived. If it were the ethnicity, the crime would occur wherever certain groups lived, not just in zone 2. Delinquency had more to do with the area of the city than the ethnicity. Social Disorganization theory: 5 postulates of their theory 1 the deteorized areas of the city produce social disorganization--no sense of community, people moving in and out, different ethnicity, just want to move out, different cultures clash with each other. No informal social control. 2 socially disorganized neighborhoods lead to lack of social control over kids-- no common community goals, too many conflicting influences, parents, community do not provide direction or control over kids 3 loss of social control encourages the development of street gangs---80% of the boys in their sample had committed their delinquent acts with other boys, not alone 4 delinquent traditions are passed on from one generation of delinquent boys to the next-- older boys teach younger ones 5 delinquent traditions produce high delinquency rates in these areas This theory had a big impact on policy. It was no longer the fault of race or biology, or psychological development, but attributable to the way society is organized, this is the beginning of social theories and social policies. It wasn’t the poverty, or the ethnic mix, or physical deterioration that caused crime, only if these lead to social disorganization The solutions are to build better communities, more ties, you don’t have to get rid of poverty etc, just strengthen communities. 8 Later, this is seen as a small ineffective step in the right direction, have to get rid of root causes of disorganization, poverty etc, not just strengthen ties. Shortcomings of the Social Disorganization Theory: 1. There is no evidence that inner cities really less organized than outer areas. They may be differently organized, not unorganized. Differential social organization became the new phrase, emphasized the competing norms of different groups, out of the mainstream 2. Does not explain delinquency in suburbs, rates are lower than inner city, but don't disappear. If delinquency is a product of disorganization, then organized areas shouldn’t have any crime. 3. It doesn’t explain why most boys in this inner city area still are not delinquents. Remember, 25 out of 100 boys in zone 2 are delinquent. What about the other 75? If delinquency is caused by disorganization, shouldn’t everyone in the disorganized areas be delinquent? This became very important, but then by 50's not as popular, other theories developing. In 80's some theoretical and research developments brought it back into prominence. Now similar theories are called social ecology, say that physical environment effects how a community is organized. Deteriorated areas, people have no pride in surroundings, don’t go out much, don’t know neighbors, are afraid to go out, afraid of crime, don’t monitor their neighborhood for inappropriate behaviors, criminals recognize this, come to these areas to do crimes. Deteriorated areas are magnets for crime because it is a visible cue that no one cares about the area, not a cohesive, organized community. Have vagabonds, homeless, rowdy teenagers, abandoned buildings, hookers, closed down businesses, etc. You get a lot of fear developing, even if actually crime hasn’t gone up yet. It affects the quality of life. 9 Strong correlates that are related to disorganization are poverty and unemployment. So it might not be the disorganization, but the poverty or unemployment. Disorganized areas have less opportunity for good jobs, might lead to crime for economic reasons, or expressive reasons: lash out against frustration. But areas of disorganization don’t have the structure to support a healthy economy, if it did, it would not be disorganized. This turns into a cycle where people who do get decent jobs in these areas move out as soon as possible, a drain of all middle class folks, happened in Chicago as new groups replaced older ones, is happening in inner cities around the country now, the wave in the 80's was white flight, white middle class moved out of cities to go to suburbs, in 90's trend was middle class blacks moving out of inner cities. For example: Washington DC’s population declined by about 30-50,000 a year, most of them are middle class blacks moving to suburbs What does this do to a city, it is a resource drain, the best producers are leaving, all that is left are very poor, who are drain on system, can’t support system without money, disorganization, poverty, unemployment increase, causes those who can move out to do it even more, feeds upon itself, city gets worse and worse. Strain Theories These are also called anomie theories, from Durkheim (late 1800's). Anomie, to Durkheim, meant normlessness, that the norms of a society were in a state of flux, that things were constantly changing. He studied it in two main aspects of culture, and how it related to suicide (this will return when we study suicide) First was economic conditions. There are 4 basic economic conditions. 1 Stable good economic conditions, 2 Stable bad economic conditions, 3 Changing from good to bad, 4 Changing from bad to good What period had the most suicides? Times of change. He says that people don’t like change, it is a disruption or normal times, and people don’t react well to that. People have difficulty adjusting, get frustrated, dissatisfied, and leads to deviance, like suicide. It’s the change, not bad times, that leads to normlessness. He also compared suicide rates of different religions: Jewish, Catholic and Protestant. Now think about those religions, which one of the three would have highest suicide rates according to Durkheim, which has most flux, not stable constantly over time? Protestant 10  But the anomic strain theories of crime start with Robert K. Merton, in 1938. He starts with the assumption that people are inherently social, and that delinquency is an expression of shared values and standards. Young people who are delinquent their behavior represents an effort to adjust to society’s organization. This explains why delinquency is mainly lower class. But the motives are not unique to the delinquents, they share the same motives as the greater society. This is not a subcultural explanation, is a cultural explanation Delinquents support the same ideals and goals of the middle class values crime is not evil. It is not depravity of the individual, but due to organization of the society. In America, he says, there is a consensus on the importance of achievement and success, especially when measured by money, then prestige. There is a standard means of achieving this: Hard work, education, delayed gratification, start at bottom and work your way up, pull yourself up by your bootstraps. Lower class youths have limited opportunities to achieve the American dream, so they use criminal means to either try to achieve it, or to lash out against it. This is Mertonian anomie. He says that human kind is not inherently deviant, but deviant impulses are socially induced, such as the American dream. People are faced with a dilemma: you could accept the goals or reject them, accept or reject means of getting them. Because of the way America is organized, or even disorganized, for lower class, the goals are difficult to achieve, they do not have the same opportunity structure as the middle class, cannot succeed the same. They have the same desires, but not same opportunity to succeed. Either the lower class members must give up the goals of succeeding, or find illegal means for success. This strain is class based, it is structural, poor people as a class have opportunities blocked. This is not an individual level theory, it is not designed to explain why one person delinquent, and one is not, is differences among classes of people. Crime then isn't generally inherently evil, but an adaptation to the circumstances to achieve normative goals. Merton presents 5 modes of adapting to strain caused by restricted access to the socially approved goals and means to achieving those goals. 11  Goals Means conformist yes yes innovator yes no retreatist no no ritualist no yes rebellious new new (substitute new goals and means, revolutionary) If people accept both the means and goals, then by definition they are a conformist. Also by definition, within a society, most people are conformists. If most people went against the norms, then the norms would change, and they’d be conformists. The emphasis on accepted goals and means is maintained even if the means are restricted. So most people within a society follow this pattern. They want what they are supposed to, and go about getting it the way they are supposed to. Those with blocked opportunities will still keep reaching for the goal. The most common deviant type of reaction is innovation. These folks still want the same goals (money, success, etc), but they use disapproved of means of achieving these goals. The ends justify the means to them. Why does a drug dealer sell drugs? To bring down his neighborhood? To promote social awareness of the poor? Of course not. To make money. Criminals who engage in their crimes for the same goals that non-criminals work had, go to school, invest, etc., are the ways those with blocked opportunities can achieve the American Dream. The next responses are much less common than the first 2. Ritualism, here the goals are rejected, but the means are kept. This is a person who keeps working at his job for the jobs sake, not to advance any. They just go through the motions, not ambitious, just put in your 8 hours and go home, never expect to improve. Retreatists reject both the goals and means, they quit trying to get ahead, but don’t want to do the method to get ahead either. These are societal dropouts: vagrants, homeless, alcoholics, drug addicts. Merton said this is the least common type of reaction to strain. The final reaction is totally different. Rebellion. The other modes reject or accept standard goals and means, but rebellion substitutes new goals and means of achieving them. They are revolutionary. Think of a communist in America. His goal is not to get rich and powerful, but to get rid of capitalism altogether. And the means to do this is not by going to school and working hard, but by promoting an overthrow of the economic system itself. Old goals are replaced with new ones, and old means to achieve these goals are replaced by new ones too. 12 Merton’s Strain explains more than just common street crimes, but all criminal deviance, even bureaucratic white-collar crimes. These are also people wanting to get ahead, but who don’t always have the proper opportunities to do so. In short, Merton’s anomie theory explains how the social structure itself contributes to the creation of deviance on all levels, but primarily at the lower classes. Because of the disjunction between goals and means to achieve these goals are a result of structural organization, the lower class is more likely to engage in disapproved adaptive behaviors. In a bit we will look at some theories from the 1950's that sort of use this as a starting point, but go more into cultural differences and crime, but now we will get to a modern Strain theory In 1985 was an elaboration of strain theory, General Strain Theory by Robert Agnew, tries to explain why individuals who are feeling strain will react the way they do. (It is similar to frustration aggression theory. It is pretty much the same theory Agnew presents 50 years later). Agnew says that strain produces negative affect (emotion), which leads to a lashing out reaction, crime strain --> negative emotions---> violence The key here, like Frustration Aggression, is that the outcome has to be something you want. If you block opportunity that isn’t important to the individual, won’t have an effect. If you are told you can’t be a foot model because your toes are funny, do you care? How much strain did you feel when you didn’t compete in the last Olympics? It was a blocked opportunity, but not important Agnew says you can also reduce strain if you replace a blocked opportunity with other goals (if you can’t get into one college, and got into another just as good, that reduces strain). There is good empirical support for this, but it still doesn’t explain gender differences in crime. Females just as strained, if not more strained, than males, they may have more 13 blocked opportunities, and certainly did in the past, but they are less criminal. Remember, a theory needs to look at when people don’t commit crimes as much as when they do. This theory cannot explain the low levels of female offending. Derived from strain theories is the Relative Depravation theory This is the idea that it is not having it bad that changes your behavior, like being poor, but seeing how bad you have it relative to other people. If everyone is poor, then it’s not a problem, because in reality, no one is poor, since poverty is a relative term. But if some folks are poor and some rich, then the poor are not happy because they see that they have it worse than others. It’s not the depravation, it’s the relative depravation, relative to other people. A historical example: the Army Air Corps (Air Force) in WW2 verses the regular Army. The Army promoted people a lot more and a lot faster than Air Force did. The Army had a lot more casualties, and every time anyone with rank got killed, someone got promoted to fill that spot. The Air Force rarely promoted because rank went with a skill set (pilots were of one rank, tail gunners another, and so on. If a pilot got killed, the gunner didn’t get promoted to his rank and position). So, who were more unhappy about promotions, folks in the Army who saw lots of it, or folks in the Air Force who saw very little of it? Army. With lots of promotions, every time someone got promoted, many others didn’t and they felt slighted or overlooked. In the Air Force, where no one got promoted, no one felt it was unfair since no one got promoted faster or ahead of anyone else. So based on relative depravation theory, crime is a result of the have-nots seeing what the haves have, and feeling strained because of the disparity, and then taking what the haves have. Subcultural theories These theories also look at how society is organized, and how that effects behavior. Reactions to this organization are group phenomenon, and small groups that are different from majority, middle class norms are subcultures, have unique responses to their unique social conditions. 1955 Cohen, direct offshoot from Mertonian strain theory, is a link between strain 14 theories and subcultural theories tries to explain 2 facts 1 delinquent subculture 2 concentration of this subculture among male, working class segments of society is generally a theory to explain delinquency among lower class boys Cohen says that 1. Lower class Americans embrace the middle class ethic. There is not a distinct subculture for the lower class, the lower class accepts the American dream, and all the major norms of the middle class. 2. But, lower class children are socialized by their parents differently than middle class kids are socialized by their parents. Middle class parents stress rationality, self discipline, and age-graded demands of childhood (kids should act like kids, not young adults. Kids shouldn’t smoke, drink, or engage in sex), they abhor violence, and value education and delayed gratification. Lower class parents are more permissive, care less about self discipline, less importance is placed on education, peer pressure is very important, and there is less focus on middle class age-appropriate behaviors. Basically, at school these lower class boys are held up against the middle class measuring rod, use education as the scale of measurement. These kids’ parents did not support the importance of education early on, so they aren’t as socialized for school as middle class kids are. They give up. Education is the key to success in America. They have blocked educational opportunities because of the way their parents raise them. This inability to compete at school causes strain Boys join with others like themselves who are strained The boys then form delinquent subcultures, and become delinquents Miller - cultural deviance Around the same time, another theorist, Miller went even further, and said that the extreme lower class (or under-class) was a distinct sub-culture, that it had very different values than those of the middle class. Not just in terms of education (like Cohen would say), but in all major aspects of values. He calls the values of the lower class cultural deviance. 15 trouble, getting into fights, drinking, sex, school trouble, etc. Are evaluated by peers for real or potential trouble making abilities. Get prestige if handle trouble well, like being a good fighter. Toughness, can’t be soft or sentimental, no crying, value strength, fighting, athletic skill, man or sissy smartness, streetwise, not book smart of school, out con people, outsmart the law excitement, life in the lower class is drab, so need to spice it up, fighting, gambling, getting into trouble fate, lower class people feel no control over lives, that they are the pawns of greater forces, resign themselves to their lot in life, don’t fight it, only way out is more fate, get lucky, lottery, gambling, etc. Autonomy, don’t like being told what to do, by police, teachers, wives, etc, have little control over lives, don’t want to lose any little bit, lose control, and appear weak. All of these values are contradictory to the middle class American values, and cause the lower class to commit more crimes, and come into conflict with the middle class. Wolfgang and Ferracuti’s Subculture of Violence, 1967 This theory is very different from other previous subcultural theories, because it integrates sociological and psychological theories, and is not purely sociological. theory: though members of a subculture hold values different from those of the central society, they are not totally different or in total conflict with the central society. Those in a subculture of violence learn a willingness to use violence, and hold favorable attitudes towards the use of violence most used to describe the southern subculture of violence, that up until last few years, south has always had higher rates of violent crime than any other region of the country. This theory says that is due to a southern subculture of violence.. People in the South have chivalry and honor, etc. and if you offend someone, they are required to uphold their honor with a violent response, offshoot of the southern belle, agrarian society, has remained in place, and strengthened by losing civil war, have 16 cultural shame, and want violent revenge. In early 1970's, Loftin did a study that compared homicide rates by region, looked at this idea, it is not southernness, but poverty. this is a really popularly supported idea, seems intuitive that some subcultures use violence more than others, some studies look at it find some support, but never measure membership in a subculture, or acceptance of subcultural norms, just correlates that ex post facto causes, southern is high crime, then is southern subculture causing it. Some studies that look at this, are really explaining lifestyles theory (see below). Singer looked at how same demographics are offenders and victims, same people, principle of homogamy, that is lifestyle of interaction, not shared beliefs, never measured belief, just assumed it. Problems with Subcultural theories (all of them) The theories do not deal with non-lower class delinquency The theories assume too much. Such as the internalization of American dream, There is no documentation that everybody shares these goals Failure in school, is related to delinquency among all classes, not just the poor, related to delinquency of girls also, and failure in school might be the result of delinquency, not the cause sense of strain, difficult to prove that these blocked opportunities cause this psychological state, strain studies show that blocked opportunities might not be enough, have to have the desire for the goal first, can also substitute goals for the ones blocked and a discovery of a solution in a subculture, delinquency don’t say why some choose delinquent subculture, others choose other reactions there is no evidence of these subcultures, with shared attitudes and beliefs failure to address female delinquency don't girls have the same, if not more blocked opportunities to achieve the major 17  goals of America? Can they get rich and famous as easily as boys? Wouldn’t this suggest that female delinquency should be higher than male, but it is significantly lower. And there is no mention of delinquent girl subcultures, that when girls commit crimes, it is solitary, so the mechanisms for delinquency, blocked opportunity to strain to subculture to delinquency is different for girls, but never explained These theories assume human nature is inherently social, and that the delinquent will follow rules if given the opportunities to succeeded within their boundaries. They assume a moral consensus, but this consensus of goals promotes delinquency because not everybody has the opportunities to achieve these shared goals. These theories say that there is no such thing as a bad person, that crime is the result of the failure of the social order Social /Psych Symbollic Interactionist theory This is a social psychological theory that says that they don't believe children are cast into certain molds, unable to change but human behavior reflects changing concepts of self and social order. People’s personalities are flexible, and because people are flexible, cultural norms are flexible, and can change over time. Not only is human nature malleable, but social order is not a monolithic set of rules with universal consensus, it changes, so what is deviant and what is conformist changes. A key idea here is that children acquire a view of themselves based on relations with parents, but these views change over time as kids interact with other people. The different roles people play influence their delinquent interactions, in different settings, with different people. The motivation for delinquency is the rationalizations and techniques supplied by small intimate groups. Two criminological theories are derived from Symbolic Interactionism: Labeling and Differential Association. Labeling theory 18 This theory is not so much concerned with the initial causes of delinquency, but with the societal reactions to it, and then how the reactions cause later offending. It assumed human nature is very flexible, able to be changed. These theorists are not interested in original delinquency, but the stigma attached with arrest and adjudication. These theorists say that criminals are normal people, since most folks criminal do it anyway (came out same time as self report data are revealing that everybody engages in crime, different from police data that show only certain types of people get arrested for crime) The serious delinquent gets that way because of a reaction to the way they are treated by the juvenile justice system. Delinquency is not a property inherent to the individual, but is a property conferred on them by others. All kids are mischievous, petty vandals, etc. But the community doesn’t like this, when kids get caught, they are stigmatized as delinquent. If they get caught a lot, system gets really tough on them. The theory says that the kids who commit these acts are labeled as evil, not the acts, but the kids committing the acts. The community’s view of the kid as evil has a long and destructive effect on the kid, kid comes to believe he is a delinquent, because he is being constantly told that he is. dramatization of evil-a self fulfilling prophesy, tell a kid he is delinquent enough, will accept it and become it The solution to delinquency according to proponents of this theory is systemic non- Interventionism. This means the less the system says about the kid as a delinquent, the better, says the reaction to delinquency causes more delinquency primary deviance- delinquency that isn’t known or punished by authorities, are what other theories try to explain its what everybody does, normal will not develop delinquent self identity. use techniques of neutralization (we will get to this in just a bit) to limit this self identity secondary deviance- but if the kid gets caught and labeled as delinquent, and see themselves as a delinquent, they will commit other delinquent acts, this crime is a result of the label 19 So the event goes from primary deviance, then kids get caught a few times, overreaction by justice system, then dramatization of evil, kids develop delinquent self identity, and the secondary deviance occurs, kids think they are seen as bad, might as well act that way. The Social Interactionist Theory The basic premise of the Social Interactionist model is that people behave in response to interpretations of interactions. The behavior of one party in an interaction influences the responding behavior of the other. Each action by a participant in an interaction is a function of the other person's behavior. Behavior is not a collection of stimuli and responses, as in the Frustration Aggression model, but is a cognitive process of interpretation and interaction. Aggression, then, is a goal oriented behavior It is a means to retaliate against a perceived intentional attack, to save face to gain status, to deter future and to punish Violence, then, is often the result of situationally determined interpersonal interactions Violence is the end result of a process of interaction and negative interpretation. Often, a violent response is the result of the victim's behavior. The victim commits some deed that the other person in the interaction perceives as insulting, threatening, or having a similar negative interpretation. This causes the insulted or threatened person to attack There are two reasons why a behavior that is interpreted as insulting can lead to a violent counterattack. First, the person who has been insulted is released from social rules and is no longer required to be polite to the person who insulted him. Second, the initial insulting or threatening behavior casts the target in a weak and incompetent light, and a successful counterattack eliminates this negative casting, and returns his image of strength and courage. It is easy to see how these attacks feed on each other, and increase in magnitude. If a person does not act politely towards another, this could be interpreted as an offense this is an important, yet understudied aspect of violent encounters. He says that any theory trying to explain aggression as a result of interactions should study "the ability of individuals to be polite, and thus support the social rules" People who are intoxicated often violate the rules of being polite in interactions, as do people under stress These people "may find it difficult to feign positive emotion, and their mood may reduce interest in showing deference, creating behavior that others may consider inappropriate or even aggressive," and this could lead to "an aggressive interaction" Another related explanation as to why violations of interactive norms, Perceived offenses can lead to social control, or punishment,, in these cases, a violent response. The violent behavior of one actor is in direct response to the norm violating behavior of the other. Violence here is an expression of disapproval of the first actor's behavior; it is a form of extra-legal self-help (An interesting addition that Black makes is that the social control used to punish those who violate norms does not have to be a physical 20 confrontation with the offender himself. The punishment could be in the form of "confiscation or destruction of property," such as burglary, theft, or vandalism Most violence to him is self help, homicide is private capital punishment Differential Association Sutherland 1947 Differential association, took ideas of Symbolic Interactionism and applied them to criminology 9 propositions (only presenting key ones here) 1 criminal behavior is learned people not inherently anti social, have to learn to violate law 2 criminal behavior is learned in interactions with other persons in a process of communication need positive motives to offend, not absence of control, need a language to justify the activity 3 most of the learning of criminal behavior occurs within intimate personal groups the person is not separable from his close personal relationships, need intimate approval, not movies or media 4 when criminal behavior is learned, it includes 1. techniques of committing the crime 2. motives and 3. rationalizations to commit it 8 process of learning criminal behavior by associations with criminal or non criminal patterns involves the same mechanisms for any other type of learning Later development evolves this theory into the Social Learning Theory, which incorporates rewards and punishment to behaviors learned, a psychological part of a sociological theory. 21 The next theory is called Lifestyle theory, and it is perhaps my favorite theory. Why? A few reasons. First, it is simple. We are going to look at a lot of complicated theories that muddle what they are trying to do in convoluted twists and turns, and like machinery, too many moving parts means they are easy to break. Less parts, less to go wrong. There seems to be a bias in criminology against simple explanations, that people want to be sold a complicated theory for it to be impressive. This is silly. I also like it because it is one of the few theories that addresses both offending and victimization. The huge majority of theories only look at offending, but as we will see, offending and victimization are so inter-related that it is false to separate them, and if a theory can only explain one and not the other, it is half a theory. Whatever explains offending must explain victimization, and vice-versa. The majority of criminology and criminologists refuse to admit that the two are the same, and miss the possibility of using a theory that actually works. Lifestyles works. This is generally a micro theory, but it can be expanded to macro when looking at lifestyles of aggregate populations. This is a simple theory. It basically says that: where you spend your time, with whom you spend your time, and what you spend your time doing will predict your risk of victimization. Certain places, people, and activities are riskier than others. Crime occurs to certain people more than others because their lifestyles place them in riskier situations. Certain groups of people have riskier lifestyles. Two of the riskiest lifestyles are living a deviant or criminal lifestyle. Other related risk factors are being single, hanging out with young men, going to saloons, drinking, living in urban areas, or doing drugs. One way to look at this is to divide it into 3 hypotheses: Equivalent group hypothesis: criminals and victims share the same characteristics because they are the same people. They trade in roles as victim and offender, so young males more likely to offend and be victims because are the same people Proximity hypothesis: lifestyles have poor people living in high crime areas, and they 22 have to spend lots of time in risky places, so time and place increase chance of victimization. Deviant place hypothesis: Places that are outside the norm are often high risk places. A crackhouse would be an extreme example of this, as would an illicit club that serves alcohol to minors. Here is something I wrote a few years ago about Lifestyles: We start with Jensen and Brownfield’s (1986, p. 87) idea that "offense activity can be considered as a characteristic of a lifestyle...which increases the risk of victimization because of the motives, vulnerability, or culpability of people involved in those activities" as a conceptual starting point. The Lifestyle theory of Hindelang, Gottfredson, and Garofalo (1978) examines how the lifestyle of offending increases the risk of victimization, and contends that the way people routinely distribute their time, whether at work, at leisure, or with certain other people, has a direct effect on their risks of victimization (Hindelang, et al., p. 241, 245). Variations in lifestyle implies variations in exposure to high risk situations such as people, places, or times, and of the “convenience, the desirability, and vincibility of the person as a target for personal victimizations" (Hindelang et al., p. 264). A key factor is the individual’s personal associations, which are created and maintained frequently with people of shared lifestyles (Hindelang et al., 1978, p. 264). Additionally, an individual's risk of victimization is dependent upon the degree to which the individual shares demographic characteristics with those of offenders (Hindelang, et al., p. 257). While some elements of the Lifestyle theory are similar to subcultural theories, the current study will be unable to determine if the sharing of group values and the individual's internalization of those values are causes for risky behavior (see Wolfgang and Ferracuti, 1967, pp. 154-163; Williams and Flewelling, 1988). This next paragraph is the key: There are a number of reasons that offending may increase the risk of victimization. First, engaging in criminal activities increases the risk of victimization because of frequent interactions with other criminals, thus increasing exposure to offenders. Offenders and victims are often homogenous because people interact with people similar to themselves in both demographic and behavioral characteristics, which may lead to alternating the roles of offender and victim. Second, engaging in criminal activities reduces a person's access to protection from legal authorities since the offenders -as-victims do not want the authorities to become aware of their transgressions. This view can be traced back to Von Hentig's (1948) hypothesis that criminals make ideal targets for other criminals because they cannot rely on legal protection for fear of "himself coming too close to the crime-repressing agencies" (Von Hentig, 1948, p. 386). Sparks (1982) predicted that offenders become victims because of what he labeled "impunity" (Sparks, 1982, p. 31). Certain people are at an elevated 23 risk of being victimized because crimes against them are easy to get away with; the victims have "limited access to the usual machinery of social control" (Sparks, p. 31). A third possible reason that a person's criminal activities could result in victimization from others is that the victimization is a form of censure from others, a form of informal (yet criminal) social control. This explanation is touched on by Wolfgang (1958) when he discussed victim precipitation, but is better explained by Black (1983), who said that crime is an expression of a grievance against the victim and is a form of social control. Black described this type of informal control as "self help" (Black, p. 34) since formal authorities were not consulted to settle grievances. Black even claimed that "most intentional homicide in modern society may be classified as social control," (Black, p. 36). Offenders, then, are at an increased risk of social control both by the people they've victimized (this social control does not necessarily have to occur during the initial interaction, as Wolfgang proposed) and from friends, relatives, or neighbors of those they've victimized (for qualitative support, see Miller, 1998, p. 47). While these three potential paths between offending and subsequent victimization are presented to explain the possible link between offending and subsequent victimization, the current research will not be able to determine which of these paths is more prevalent. When non-offending and offending routines were entered into a regression equation together, only the offending routines explained a significant proportion of the variance (Jensen and Brownfield, p. 93). The authors hypothesized that the criminogenic potential of certain routines (such as frequenting bars) explained its victimogenic effects: that people who went to bars were victimized because people who went to bars were also offenders. It was the offending, not the bar-going itself, which lead to victimization. “ Males, then, were more likely to be victims of crimes because of their greater offending histories. The authors concluded that "for personal victimizations, those most likely to be the victims of crime are those who have been most involved with crime; and the similarity in the characteristics of victims and offenders reflects that association" Lifestyles did not spontaneously occur in this model, but had pre-existing, external origins. The starting point in determining a person's lifestyle was the demographic characteristics: age, sex, race, income, marital status, education and occupation. 24 In summary: Reasons a Lifestyle of Offending Increases Victimization Risk (1) offenders have more interactions with other offenders, young male offenders (for the most part, but can be any group) hang out with other young male offenders (or other group), and they prey upon each other. There is no honor among thieves. If you lie down with dogs, you get fleas. Birds of a feather flock together, etc. etc. (2) offenders are likely to be the recipient of an expression of grievance or self- help (retaliation, either from the victim (such as victim precipitated crime), or someone close to the victim, or the town in general). Criminals make enemies. Eventually, someone responds to the criminal in the only way the criminal understands, criminal offending (3) offenders have less access to legal protection (a drug dealer can’t call the police if he gets robbed, so he makes a great target to rob). These hold true for property crimes as well as violent crimes, both offending and victimization (for example, an offender might have his car vandalized, or some of his property stolen in response to his offending) so property crime could be a form of retaliation. Some results from my research (that supports research from quite a few other well respected researchers, and my research has also been supported by top researchers) clearly shows that the most important variable in predicting victimization is previous offending behaviors. While we have learned that variables such as race, gender, and age are crucial to predicting victimization, they are actually only important because those variables predict offending. Offending causes victimization more than any other variable, and only the Lifestyles theory incorporates this. 25 These then are related to: Victim based theories The idea of victim based theories started actually a while ago, but haven’t caught on until recently. In 1948 Hans von Hentig pointed out that crime was a duet between two roles, one of offender, one of victim, that both have to do their part correctly or the crime is not going to occur. It’s a metaphorical ‘dance’. Imagine an armed robbery. There are things both the offender and the victim have to do for this event to turn into a crime. The robber has to go out, has to find a victim, and has to convince the victim to take him seriously (with a weapon, for example). The victim has to make himself available, intersect with the robber, and believe he is being robbed. What if he runs? What if he fights back? (We always hear of the “fight or flight” reflexes, like I mentioned here, but there are 3 reflexes in the natural world to risk: fight, flight, or fright. What does a ‘possum do?) What if the victim has a heart attack? Then the robbery is not successful. Von Hentig says that all crimes with a victim have to go through this exchange to be a successful crime. He is the first to note the behavior of the victim as being a necessary part of the criminal event. In the 1950's, another theorist, Marvin Wolfgang, took the role of the victim a bit further. He calls his theory victim precipitation theory, in which the victim actively causes his own victimization. The victim actively provokes the offender into committing crime against him. This is sometimes a controversial idea, but it makes sense. Who is the victim in a homicide? The person who dies. But could they have caused it to happen? What caused Wolfgang to develop this theory was looking at homicide data. Upwards of 25% of all homicides are caused by some activity of the victim. This still holds true. If a robber is shot and killed during a robbery, he is the homicide victim, but he triggered (pun) the entire event. If man A pushes man B, and man B beats the stuffing out of him, who is the victim? Who started it? The victim can start it, that is a notion that is hard for some folks (particularly first grade teachers...) to understand. Being a victim does not grant you status of ‘innocent.’ If you leave your keys in your ignition and your windows rolled down, do you have a causal role in your car being stolen? Of course. This is not a theory assigning moral blame, be careful not to fall in this trap. It is not ‘blaming the victim’ it simply is assigning a causal role to the victim’s behavior. 26 Can you think of other examples where the behavior of the victim causes their own victimization? Remember Bruce Willis’ character in Die Hard 3, where he had to wear the racist sign in Harlem? Would he have caused his own beating? This theory is not about justifying the victimization, just linking the behavior of the victim to their own victimization. If you left all your doors open over night and your TV got stolen, did you have any precipitave role? What is the one crime where if gets extremely difficult to discuss victim causation? Not for scientific reasons, but for political reasons? What makes this one crime so different than all others? We mentioned it in class. If we look at it as a crime from a scientific perspective, and not an ideological one, then the behaviors of the victim are just as causal as all other crimes. Again, not all crimes, not even the majority of crimes, are victim precipitated, but there certainly are a non-trivial amount that are. Other theorists have divided Wolfgang’s original precipitation into two categories: Active precipitation: this is pretty much what Wolfgang said, that the victim actively causes their own victimization through their behavior. Passive precipitation: in this scenario, the victim unknowingly has characteristic that causes their victimization. An example of this would be a hate crime. The victim didn’t do anything, but there was some characteristic they possessed that caused the offender to commit the crime against them. Control Theories Control theories ask a different question than most other theories. Not: why do people commit crime, but rather, Why do people NOT commit crime? The assumption is that offending is the natural state, and something needs to happen to 27 control people from committing crimes. Social Control Theory SCT says that family and other social forces combine to control criminal impulses. 1969 Travis Hirschi did not agree that people are inherently moral or a blank slate upon which socialization imprints, but thought people were self centered and anti social at the core subject to animal impulses. This traces back to original types of control theory, Freud. Why do people refrain from crime, according to Hirschi? It is because of a social bond People are bonded to others, socialized to the needs of others, share their beliefs, norms, so conform, and are not delinquent, don’t want to hurt people you identify with. This assumes that everyone in a society shares the same norms and goals, is consensus theory. Hirschi thinks people have a common value system, at least concerning more serious crimes. Everybody agrees on what are the most serious crimes, predatory crimes, there is a consensus. Violent crime is deviant behavior in this model. The social bond has four elements 1 attachment ties kids have with others, parents, teachers, peers strong attachments reduce the risk of delinquency attachment to parents most important, since they do most of the socialization process not the description of the family, divorced, single parent, typical two parent household, etc that is important, but the quality of the ties after parents, there is a short time bond to school/teachers is important, and then is quickly replaced by bonds to friends. 2 commitment how the kid is committed to ideal of culture, education, delayed gratification, high stakes in conformity, to deviate would jeopardize their stakes, both internally and externally. People don’t misbehave because they have too much to lose. 3 involvement how much kids participate in normative behaviors is related to delinquency. There are two major reasons. First the more involved, the less delinquent 28  because the kids are getting cultural values reinforced, like in scouting or sports. Second, they don’t have time to get into trouble, they are busy with scouting or sports, etc. 4 belief if the kids see the greater values as intrinsically moral, as right, not arbitrary rules, they will be less delinquent. if you support a law, you don’t break it So the more a person is tied to the community, more he shares the beliefs and supports them, the less likely he is to become a violent criminal. This is a theory of conformity, not delinquency. Delinquency needs no explanation, since everybody is naturally inclined to do it, what needs explaining is why people DONT become delinquent Generally, people have a stake in conformity, it costs too much to deviate, both in stigma and actual tangible costs. But then, if everybody agrees that crime is wrong, how do people still commit crime and justify it to themselves, psychologically? Techniques of neutralization denial of responsibility, offender not at fault. They did it, but don’t think it is their own fault. " gun went off" “my parents didn’t love me” etc. denial of injury didn’t really hurt anyone, wasn’t serious crime, victim could afford the loss denial of the victim, either victim deserved the act, or there was no real victim condemnation of the condemners question the motives of those who disapprove of the act, everybody’s picking on me, those in charge are corrupt and evil themselves, why focus on little old me appeal to higher loyalties social rules take a back seat to other loyalties, never squeal on a friend, protect your gang’s honor, etc. So criminals know it is wrong, but can explain it away, and not feel guilty. 29 Biggest flaw: bonds to delinquents don’t reduce delinquency. General Theory of Crime Gottfredson and Hirshi modify some of Hirschi’s ideas from social control theory. The General Theory is a control theory that also incorporates biosocial, psychological, routine activities, and rational choice theories What makes people crime prone (or better, likely to engage in behaviors that are illegal)? Lack of self control and being impulsive leads to crime’ How does a person become impulsive? Most importantly is low control at early ages, they are not monitored by parents, so that later in life they don’t think that they will get caught for doing things, don’t develop sense of consequences, they only think about the here and now, not future consequences of behaviors. There are other factors that influence impulsivity, but the most important is early parental monitoring and response to misbehavior (or the lack of parental monitoring and response). These people develop to want easy pleasures, like a rational choice model, want instant gratification, not interested in working hard, delaying and investing. Want it now. Impulsive. It is a control theory, but self control. Have to be able to control impulses All crime, to G&H is explained by lack of self control. Gender and class differences, white collar verses street crime, all can be explained by impulsivity. They say white collar crime is less frequent because type of people who get to those positions do not have low self control. But most common white collar crimes are actually committed by the same people who commit street crime, impulsive people steal from the till at their low paying unskilled labor jobs. 30 Studies have shown that delinquent kids have lots of correlates of low self control, smoking, drinking., sex , drugs, risky behavior. Rational Choice Model: According to this, when a person is about to commit a crime, he weighs personal factors (need for money, revenge etc) with situational (how protected is the target), and weighs the potential rewards against the potential costs. This theory has its history based in economic theory, instead of social philosophy. Idea is an economic one of costs and losses. To explore the validity of this theory, we need to answer 2 questions: is crime rational? And are people rational? Some crimes it is easy to point out are rational, most white collar and corporate crime, which tend to have low risks of getting caught, high yield in return. so won’t really look at those, but what about the more common street crimes? Most of these types of crime are not planned or well thought out, does that prevent them from being rational? Most crimes are situational, if someone sees keys in car, will steal it, not planning on stealing a car for a long time, just does it. Is rational to do it impulsively, it is easy, low chance of getting caught. Burglaries, choose easiest targets, no one home, no security, The chances of getting caught for most crimes is very low (police clear about 10% of the Index offenses reported to them), for rewards that are pretty high, most crime can be considered rational, even if not monetary reward. In violent crime, offenders still look for easiest targets, they mostly will not attack well armed person in middle of day. They kill people for rational reasons, self protection, bad business deal (drugs), revenge. Very little violent crime is just for thrill seeking, most has some reward for it, still very small chance of getting caught. A lot of crime may appear irrational on the first look, but when get deeper into the scenario, seems like a calculated decision to maximize rewards over costs. 31 Rational choice theorists are not saying that criminals sit around all day and plan the perfect crime. Not like that at all. Crime opportunities pop up in daily life, and are either taken advantage of or are not. Not a career usually, just as opportunities present themselves. Immediate or situational variables guide most criminal behavior. The rewards for crime are not always tangible (either money, prestige, or protection). For some it is the thrill itself, the “Seductions of crime” as Jack Katz calls it. Thrill of doing something wrong and getting away with it. Can shoplift something, that you don’t need or want, throw it away, but still get rewarded by the thrill of stealing and beating the system, not getting caught. So it seems that in a lot of cases, crime is a rational activity. Get rewards, either money, property, safety, revenge, popularity, thrill seeking, whatever. With a very low probability of getting caught and punished. Rational choice theories aren’t very good at explaining why there isn’t more crime than there is, if it’s rational and risk is low, more people should do it. Does this idea of criminal free will and rational choice make sense? Do criminals decide their own behavior? Should they be held responsible for own actions, or is there other factors, upbringing, poverty, etc, that is responsible? What about special populations, kids, mentally challenged, etc? Deterrence The idea here is that the threat of future punishment prevents people from committing crime. It assumes that criminals think about the consequences of their activities, and are rational enough to incorporate the idea of costs verses rewards in their mind. For deterrence to work, it must be certain, the offender has to think they will get caught, it is not the actual risk of getting caught, it is the perceived risk, does he think he is going to get caught. severe Is the punishment severe enough (and not too severe) to dissuade the offender. If it is too severe, it might backfire. For example, look at the issue later for 3 Strikes programs. 32 And finally the least important factor for deterrence is to make sure it is swift, so that the offender can link the crime and punishment cognitively. FHP example General Deterrence where the punishment of one person serves as an example to everyone else (when you see someone pulled over, you slow down, because you don’t want a ticket) Specific deterrence where the punishment of an individual scares him, and him alone, to not re-offend (you don’t speed anymore because you got a ticket, and don’t want another). Neither are successful overall. General fails most egregiously because only 10% of known crimes end in an arrest, let alone the crimes the police don’t know about. So the odds of getting caught are very low. Evidence that specific deterrence fails is the recidivism rate. 70% of people released from prison or jail will return. So deterrence is a bad model to rely on to reduce or prevent violence. 33