This is a movement in the study of criminology which was pioneered by Auguste Comte. As briefly mentioned in a previous lesson, Comte advocates the use of the scientific method to develop our understanding of humanity and society.
As mentioned in the video, positivist sociology is "the study of society based on systematic observations of social behavior." Essentially, this school of thought posits that crime and criminality should be explained through factors that are external to the offender. Under this school of thought, the phenomenon of criminality is explained through the lens of societal conditions and specific circumstances.
These theories are most numerous amongst the groups of theories that attempt to explain crime and criminality. Some of them are as follows:
As mentioned in the video, this was a theory proposed by Gabriel Tarde. In the context of criminology, this translates to people being attracted to criminal activity by the example of other criminals.
Proposed by Travis Hirschi, the theory states that people's tendency towards criminality is controlled by their social attachments. When one has these attachments, there is less tendency towards crime. Those who are not attached commit more crimes. These attachments can be towards parents, teachers, and to the school.
According to Hirschi, people who do not commit crimes have been properly socialized. They can no longer commit crimes as they have a well-developed sense of morality that keeps them from hurting people.
This is a theory by Walter Reckless that assumes that every individual possess internal and external structures that provide protection against delinquency.
This was proposed by Frank Tannenbaum, Edwin Lemert, and Howard Becker.
As the name implies, this theory states that people become who they are by the influence of what society marks them as. If a person is labeled as brilliant, then they become brilliant. If a person is labeled as criminal, then they become criminal.
This was a theory proposed by Emile Durkheim. The theory assumes that crime is a natural phenomenon in society. Anomie is what happens when there is a breakdown of social norms because of the loss of standards and values. This then provides a setting conducive to crimes and other deviant acts.
Strain is essentially defined as frustrations. This can come from goals and dreams that a person is unable to attain.
Robert Merton proposed the Strain Theory and argued that the real problem is created not by sudden social change but by a social structure that holds out the same goals to all its members without giving them equal opportunity by creating social pressure. The failure of a person to achieve a higher status causes them to commit crimes as they see it as a shortcut towards goal attainment.
Similarly, Robert Agnew suggested the General Strain Theory. He argued that the individual's actual or anticipated failure to achieve positively valued goals and actual or anticipated presentation of negative stimuli all result in strain, thereby creating criminality.
This was proposed by Stephen F. Messner and Richard Rosenfeld. The "American Dream" is a commitment to material success that is being advanced by popular media and society at large. This, however, is said to have corrupted American values as the focus of each individual has become the pursuit of financial success instead of a real pursuit of happiness. According to Messner and Rosenfeld, this distortion has resulted in the degradation of the individual, thereby creating criminal behavior.
Culture is all that is transmitted socially rather than biologically, representing the norms, customs, and values against which behavior is judged by the majority.
Cultural deviance theories posit that society consists of various groups and subgroups, each with its own standards of right and wrong. Behavior that is considered appropriate in one group may be considered deviant in another. This set of theories attributes crime to a set of values that exist in disadvantaged neighborhoods.
Subcultures
A subculture is a division within the dominant culture that has its own norms, beliefs, and values. Subcultures may form among members of racial and ethnic minorities, among prisoners, among occupational groups, and among ghetto dwellers.
Albert Cohen is a proponent of the Subcultural Theory of delinquency which claims that members of the lower class cannot socialize effectively as middle-class in what is considered as appropriate middle class behavior.
The idea of reaction formation suggests that delinquency among lower class youths is a reaction against the social norms of the middle class. The lower classes thus gather together to share their common problems forming a subculture that rejects middle-class values.
These theories emerged from the Chicago School and developed to account for delinquency among lower class males, especially for one of its most important expressions - the teenage gang. The primary focus is on juvenile delinquency because theorists believe that, if this pattern of offending can be understood and controlled, it will break the transition from teenage offender into habitual criminal.
The Chicago School, sometimes called the Ecological School, was the first major body of work that specialized in urban sociology. It emerged during the 1920's and the 1930's.
Major Cultural Deviance Theories
Social Disorganization Theory Proposed by Henry Mckay and Clifford R. Shaw, this theory focuses on the development of high-crime areas in which there is a disintegration of conventional values caused by rapid industrialization, increased immigration, and urbanization. Social disorganization is basically the breakdown of effective social bonds, including family and neighborhood associations.
Differential Association Theory It maintains that people learn to commit crime as a result of contact with antisocial values, attitudes, and criminal behavioral patterns. This was proposed by Edwin Sutherland. It additionally states that crime is learned through social interactions.
Culture Conflict Theory It states that different groups learn different norms and that these norms may clash with conventional middle-class rules. It was suggested by Thornsten Sellin and focuses on the source of these criminal norms and attitudes.
This theory combines the strain theory and social learning theory. It was proposed by Richard A. Cloward and Lloyd B. Ohlin. It attempts to explain why people initially engaged in crime and why they continue participating in it.
It holds that society is based on conflict between competing interest groups, e.g. rich vs poor, management vs labor, whites vs minorities, men vs women, adults vs children. It was proposed by George Vold.
Freidrich Engels submitted the idea that crime is a function of competition or struggles between the different social classess. The capitalist system's emphasis on competition and wealth produces an economic and social environment in which crime is inevitable.
This was based on the utilitarian, classical school philosophies of Beccaria which were popularized by Bentham. They argued that punishment, if certain, swift, and proportionate to the crime, was a deterrent for crime, with risks outweighing possible benefits to the offender.
As mentioned in a previous lesson, this theory states that crime happens because the following elements are present:
a motivated offender
a suitable target
and a lack of a capable guardian
This was proposed by Lawrence Cohen and Marcus Felson.
These theories basically state that crime is in the mind. That is, as the basic ideas of the psychological theories of crime state, crime can happen because of:
failures in psychological development
learning aggressive and violent behaviors
lack of intelligence
being afflicted by mental illness
One of the main psychological theories that could explain crime is Sigmund Freud's Psychoanalytic Theory. According to Freud, an individual's personality has three parts: the id, the ego, and the superego.
The id is the unconscious part of the human psyche that is dominated by the drive for pleasure and inborn sexual and aggressive impulses.
The ego is the rational part of personality that grows from the id.
The superego holds the individual's moral code, norms, and values.
Freud also believed that people developed on different psychosexual stages:
Oral Stage 0 to 18 months
During this stage, the infant's source of id gratification is the mouth. Infants get pleasure from sucking and swallowing. Later, when they have teeth, the infant enjoys the aggressive pleasure of biting and chewing. If unfulfilled, the child might become pessimistic, envious, and suspicious during adulthood.
Anal Stage 18 months to three years
When parents decide to toilet train their children during the anal stage, children learn how much control they can exert over others with anal sphincter muscles. Children can acquire immediate pleasure from expelling feces, but that may cause parents to punish them.
This demonstrates the conflict between the id, which is receiving pleasure from the expulsion of bodily wastes, and the superego, which is realizing that certain instances of expulsion results in punishment as it is outside expected behavioral norms. If the parents are too lenient during this conflict, it results in disorganized, reckless, and defiant child. Conversely, a child may become neat, stingy, and obstinate.
Phallic Stage three to six years
At this stage, the genitals start to become the primary source of pleasure for a child and the erotic pleasure mainly comes from masturbation, or the self-manipulation of the genitals. This is the time when children initially develop sexual attraction to the opposite sex. Albeit, boys can sometimes develop unconscious desires for their mothers and become rivals with their fathers for her attention.
Latency Stage six to 11 years
Sexual interest becomes relatively inactive during this stage. Sexual energy is instead sublimated and converted into interest in school work, physical activity, and imaginative play.
Genital Stage 11 years onwards
At this stage, individuals begin puberty. There is renewed interest in obtaining sexual pleasure through the genitals. Masturbation often becomes frequent and leads to orgasm for the first time. Sexual and romantic interest in others also become a central motive
The following are the main elements of Freud's theories:
Human nature is inherently antisocial. Every child possesses a set of primitive antisocial instincts, or the id.
Good behavior comes through adequate socialization.
The life-long features of human personality originate in early childhood.
Delinquent behavior is the result of a defective superego.
This theory claims that people with low intelligence are easily led into law-breaking activities by the wiles of smart people.
In other words, people with low-IQ are easily persuaded by smarter people to commit illegal acts. These low-IQ individuals follow higher-IQ people because the low-IQ people trust that the higher-IQ ones know the best and are supposed to be intelligent.
This was created by Benjamin Mendelson who also created his own classifications of victims.
Penal Couple is a term that describes the relationship between the victim and the criminal. Victimal describes the victim counterpart of the criminal. Victimity signifies the opposite of criminality.
Hans von Hentig, another contributor to victimology, created the following general classes of victims:
young
female
old
mentally defective
immigrant
minorities
While working independently, Adolphe Quetelet and Andre Michel Guerry studied the relation of crime to factors such as poverty, age, sex, race, and climate.
Cartographers are scholars who employ maps and other geographic information in their research. Those who employ these methods to study crime are called cartographic criminologists.
This is the study of the relationship between the people and their environments. The major proponents are Robert Ezra Park and Ernest Burgess.
Also called, critical, new, and Marxist criminology, it sees crime as a reflection of class struggle - a kind of primitive rebellion with criminals behaving as rebels without a clue.
Radical feminism theory contributed to the study of child sexual abuse, domestic violence, and prostitution.
It focuses on the reasons why people of the working class prey upon one another. That is, people victimize others of their own race and kind. Jock Young, one of the contributors of this theory, suggests that there are four (4) elements that must be considered when addressing crime: the victim, the offender, the state, and the general public.
It promotes the idea of peace, justice, and equality in society. Peacemakers suggest that mutual aid, mediation, and conflict resolution rather than coercive state control are the best means to achieve a harmonious, peaceful society. It advocates humanistic, nonviolent and peaceful solutions to crime.
It examines the location of a specific crime and the context in which it occurred in order to understand and explain crime patterns.
A statement that states that there is no crime if there is no criminal law. Hence, all crime can be eliminated by abolishing all criminal laws.