CHAPTER
7
As mentioned in the previous Assignment, social
structure theories have two main weaknesses. First, they ignore crime outside
the lower class communities and they fail to explain why some people who are
living in the same social structure become delinquent and others do not.
Consequently, some criminologists believe that the onset and maintenance of
delinquency is a consequence of the quality of socialization in the life of the
individual. Socialization is a lifelong event
that describes the process of learning the norms and values of society through
social interaction with significant individuals such as family and important
institutions such as schools. It is during this socialization process that
criminal and non-criminal tendencies develop according to these theorists. Social Process theorists believe that poor
quality of socialization leads to anti social behavior. There are three branches of social process theories as organized in our text. Learning theory says that criminal behavior is learned
through close relationships with others. People are born good but learn to be
bad. Control theory says that people are born
with criminal tendencies and must develop attachments to conventional society
to avoid criminal behavior. In other words, people are born bad and must be
controlled to be good. Social Reaction theory says
that whether good or bad, people are controlled by the reactions of others.
LECTURE NOTES
LEARNING THEORIES:
Differential Association Theory: (Edwin Sutherland, 1939)
Premise: People learn criminal behavior through social interaction. They will become delinquent if they are exposed to more criminal definitions than non-criminal definitions.
This is one of the first learning theories and was
developed by Edwin Sutherland who has been referred to as the dean of American criminology. Probably
more than any other person he was responsible for the promotion of the
sociological explanations of crime in
Differential Reinforcement Theory (Robert Burgess and Ronald Akers, 1977)
Premise: Criminal behavior occurs when an individual experiences more positive reinforcements to engage in the behavior than negative reinforcements not to engage in the behavior.
Like differential association theory, this theory proposes that people learn their behavior but it goes beyond DA and also suggests how the learning process takes place. It is based on behavior theory that says that people will engage in behaviors that provide them with positive reinforcement and will avoid those that are reinforced with pain. Over time, people are conditioned by these positive and negative social and non-social reinforcers. For example, a child may find that marijuana brings them pleasure and seeks out other persons who use marijuana. These other users further help to positively reinforce the marijuana use. That same child may experience negative reinforcement by rejection of non-smoking friends, punishment by parents and possibly the criminal justice system. Whether the child continues to smoke will depend upon the importance that child places on the relationships with the smoking peers and those opposed to the drug use. The more contact the child has with the drug using group, the more likely that the drug use will continue.
This theory provides us with only a small part of the answer. It may help us to understand how learning takes place but it really leaves us wondering how two people exposed to the same reinforcers can react the opposite. For example, one sibling exposed to parents drug use may find such behavior as reinforcing for their own drug use while another sibling may react negatively to their parent's use and not use the drug at all.
Neutralization Theory or Theory of Drift (David Matza and Gresham Sykes, 1964)
Premise: Most criminals hold conventional values and attitudes but they are able to master techniques that enable them to neutralize these values and drift back and forth between illegitimate and conventional behavior.
Matza and Sykes did not believe that criminals have a different set of values than non-criminals. They pointed out that most criminals know their behavior is wrong and are remorseful. How then can they ignore their values and commit crimes? They developed these so-called techniques of neutralization as explained on page 226. Have you ever disobeyed a traffic law by rationalizing your actions? You were late to class so you drove over the speed limit. You knew the law and yet you disobeyed. According to Matza and Sykes, you have neutralized your values! Does it make sense for all crimes—probably not because some offenders that do, have a set of values that are anti-social. Chronic offenders may verbalize conventional values but just how deeply do they feel about them? Neutralization theory is probably limited to explaining the criminal behavior of the occasional and less serious offender.
CONTROL THEORIES
Social Control theories are the most favored among American criminologists. According to the control theorists, all people have the propensity to commit crime. Crime is committed because of the absence of some type of social control that if there would have prevented the act. The controls suggested by this group are termed social controls developed and strengthened through the socialization process.
There are two components of social control.
Self
control within the individual which could include a pro social value system
(for example, criminal activity is avoided because of a strong anti-criminal
belief system)
Commitment
to conformity: Those who develop strong bonds or attachments to pro social
institutions, individuals and processes and when those bonds do not exist or
are weakened it will allow for criminal activity.
If you will recall, social disorganization theory says that crime is a result of the inequalities built into the social structure and that crime is a result of the lack of attachment to pro social institutions and individuals. The control theories of the 1960's featured a second component, self-control, to explain the individual differences within the socially disorganized communities. Control theories therefore attempt to explain crime across all social classes. There were many social control theories but we will only be studying one in this section.
Social Control Theory (Travis Hirschi, Causes of Delinquency, 1969)
Premise: Criminal behavior is linked to the bond an individual maintains with conventional society and crime occurs when those bonds are weakened or broken.
This theory says that people are naturally selfish and predisposed toward crime but through the socialization process we develop bonds to individuals and institutions. He proposed that the social bond is made up of four elements: attachment, commitment, involvement and belief (belief refers to the pro-social value system). Refer to page 230 of your text for their descriptions.
As with most theorists, once a theory is proposed, it must be validated through research. Most sociologists use self-report surveys to do this. Hirschi surveyed about 4,000 high school students and found some support for his theory. There have been a large number of studies conducted on social control theory by other researchers as well. Some research has found support for it but others have found weaknesses.
Evaluation: On page 231 are the important findings of his research. Then on page 232 you will find the summaries of studies criticizing the theory. It is interesting to note that Hirschi later abandoned this theory and developed a new concept of self control integrating a wide range of concepts including choice theory, and biological and psychological perspectives. Though his general theory of crime is a control theory, the authors of the text chose to present it as a developmental theory which will be discussed in a later assignment.
SOCIAL REACTION THEORIES: (Labeling theory)
Premise: Youths are locked into a delinquent career when their behaviors are labeled as delinquent by agents of the criminal justice system and they reorganize their identities around a deviant one.
Our text equates social reaction with labeling theory. I will refer to it as labeling theory from this point on. Labeling theories became very popular in the liberal era of the 1960's. It had been suggested by Frank Tannenbaum as early as the 1930's that the process of making a criminal was one of "tagging" an offender with a label as a criminal and the offender then begins to act the part. But it was not until the 1960's that the more radical viewpoints found a voice in the liberal universities. Those who hold this view are sometimes termed as radical criminologists because they are so far from the mainstream perspectives. In 1967 the President's Commission on Law Enforcement and the Administration of Justice declared that negative labeling by the juvenile justice system was preventing arrested youth from being able to overcome the stigma of labeling. Therefore, the Federal government instituted policies that attempted to control labeling including greater use of diversion especially for the status offenders.
Labeling today has few supporters among criminologists at least as an explanation of criminal behavior. Few of its concepts have been supported by research and it tends to be more of a political position than a true attempt to explain people's behaviors. Liberals tend to accept it and conservatives reject it. Therefore I plan to spend little time on it. You should study figure 7.5 on page 233 to understand how the labeling process works and then read the section on Crime and Labeling Theory on page 234 followed by the section entitled "Is Labeling Theory Valid?" on page 237.