Exam 2 - Criminological Theory

Two questions of Sutherland’s work

1. How do we explain variation in crime rates across different groups or areas?

2. How do we explain why, in the same area, a particular individual is criminal while another is not?

How do we explain variation in crime rates across different groups or areas?

Differential Social Organization

What does Sutherland argue working off the idea of Thorsten Sellin?

• Our society is made up of different groups with different values

• Differential power - not every group’s values are supported by law

• Groups whose values are not supported by law are more likely to break the law

• Groups whose values are supported by the law are less likely to break the law

What is the theory of differential association based on?

Symbolic Interaction - developed around the idea that human behavior is understandable as the product of the communication that occurs between people

What is Symbolic Interaction communication based on?

Social symbols - it is the meaning of objects that we get from social symbols that shapes our behavior. Called social symbols because the meaning of an object is not innate.

What are the three basic premises of Symbolic Interaction?

1. People act towards objects according to the meaning those objects have for them

2. People learn the meaning of objects in interaction with others

3. People have the ability to reinterpret and redefine meaning for themselves

From Symbolic Interactionism, Sutherland gets the ideas that…

We must understand how people “see” or interpret the world if we want to understand their behavior. People learn meaning in interaction with others.

What are the four major concepts of Ronald Akers Social Learning Theory

1. Differential association

2. Definitions

3. Differential Reinforcement

4. Imitation (modeling)

Differential Association

Behavioral dimension - interactional dimension, association with people

Normative dimension - exposure to definitions, norms and values favorable or unfavorable to law violation

Definitions

Attitudes or meanings attached to a behavior.

General - religious or moral codes

Specific - concern over a specific act

Positive definitions - make the behavior morally desirable or permissible

Neutralizing definitions - justify or excuse the act

Differential Reinforcement

Balance of anticipated or actual rewards and punishments that follow or are the consequences of the act. Most reinforcements are social but can be non social (self reinforcing)

Modeling/Imitation

Engaging in behaviors after observing similar behavior in others

Salient models and media - who among our primary group is important to you

Initiation - potentially affects maintenance and cessation/desistance

Typical Initiation Process

Differential associations → learned definitions, imitation, anticipated rewards/punishments → initiation

Typical Continuation Process

Behavior → actual rewards/punishments → continuation/frequency

Akers - 4 Different social structure attributes that affect social learning

1. Differential social organization - structural correlates of crime in the community that affects rates of crime

2. Differential location in the social structure (niches) - ones sociodemographic characteristics differentially affect risk of being in contact with definitions favorable to violation of the law

3. Theoretical structural variables - class oppression, social disorganization, anomie

4. Differential social location in groups - membership in groups

Sykes and Matza Techniques of Neutralization

This theory emerges partially in response to two problems with differential association - what is a definition? the suggestion that delinquents hold different beliefs from those who do not commit crimes.

What do Sykes and Matza argue and what are their reasons?

Argue that delinquents do hold the same beliefs as everyone else.

1. Delinquents sometimes feel guilty about what they have done

2. They often admire conventional others

3. They often limit who they victimize

4. Most of the time, they are involved in conventional activities

If delinquents hold the same values as non-delinquents, how do they commit crimes?

The techniques of neutralization allow them to weaken the hold that conventional values have over them

What are the Techniques of Neutralization

• Denial of responsibility

• Denial of injury

• Denial of victim

• Condemnation of condemners

• Appeal to higher loyalties

Where do the techniques of neutralization come from?

Subterranian values

What are social/self control theories?

Mostly about controls that prevent us from engaging in delinquency

Albert J. Riess

“Delinquency as the failure of personal and social controls.”

• Social controls (external) - ability of groups to make individuals follow the rules

• Personal controls (internal) - ability to meet goals in ways that conform to convention

Ivan Nye

Works include Family Relationships and Delinquent Behavior.

• Direct controls

• Indirect controls

• Internal controls

Walter Reckless

Containment theory

• Internal and external controls but also pushes (poverty, aggressiveness) and pulls (excitement, delinquent peers)

• Self concept of “good” and “bad” kid

What is Containment Theory

Explains why only some kids in high risk areas become delinquent. “Self concept” is the only component that has been systematically tested.

Travis Hirschi’s Social Control Theory

• Works include Causes of Delinquency

• Instead of questioning why people commit crime he asks why do people conform

Elements of Hirschi’s control theory

Social bond - weak tied “groups” are not able to control their members and are more likely to deviate

• Attachment - emotional element of the bond

• Commitment - rational component of the bond

• Involvement - in conventional activities

• Beliefs - values regarding law and the legal system

Why do Sykes and Matza argue that delinquents do hold the same beliefs as everyone else?

1. Delinquents sometimes feel guilty about what they have done

2. They often admire conventional others

3. They often limit who they victimize

4. Most of the time, they are involved in conventional activities

Sampson and Laub Age Graded Theory

• Integrate social control concepts with age appropriate attachments

• Structural vs. process variables

• Quality of social bonds vs. existence

• Produced Crime in the Making and Shared Beginnings, Different Lives

• Life course perspective is one of the theoretical driving forces

Developmental/Life Course Perspective

• Initiation

• Continuation/persistence/escalation

• Specialization

• Desistance - age crime curve

Michael Gottfredson and Travis Hirschi Self Control Theory

• Works include A General Theory of Crime

• Argues one variable explains crime across all cultures, places, time periods, and behaviors analogous to crime

Defining and describing crime

• Use of force or fraud to achieve goals

• Vast majority of crime is easy, requires no particular skill, usually done with little foresight or planning

What are traits of those who do not consider long term consequences of actions?

• Impulsive

• Risk-takers

• Prefer immediate gratification

• Physical as opposed to mental activity

• Self-centered

• Hot tempered

What are the causes of low self-control?

Inappropriate socialization (monitoring behavior, punish inappropriate behavior, reward positive behaviors) by parents, schools

The Chicago School

• J.D. Rockefeller - established University of Chicago

• Albion Small - First sociology textbook, founded American Journal of Sociology, established first sociology department

• Robert Park - viewed Chicago as a natural laboratory (poverty, street crime, organized crime, prostitution, gambling)

• “Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion”

• Moved away from “bad” person explanations

What is the Rule of the Chicago School

To understand something, measure it/plot or map it

Shaw and McKay

• Geographic study of delinquents - Chicago data from police, courts, and commitments to institutions from 1900 to 1940

• Plotted with pin maps

• Pin maps - overlaid with grids, density of delinquency, compute rates

What are Concentric Zones?

• Central business district

• Zone in transition - recent immigrant groups, deteriorated housing, factories, abandoned buildings

• Zone of working class - single family tenements

• Zone of middle class - single family homes, yards/garages

• Commuter zone - suburbs

What are the social conditions related to crime?

• Poverty

• Population turnover

• Racial/ethnic heterogeneity

• Physical deterioration

• Other social ills - infant mortality, mental illness, morbidity

Social Disorganization Theory

Social conditions create social disorganization

• Inability of neighborhoods to control its residents

• Gangs develop

• Criminal traditions are transmitted across generations

• Moves us away from “bad people” explanations

Rob Sampson and William Julius Wilson

• Macro social forces - segregation, housing discrimination, change in the economy (all interact)

• Community level factors - population turnover, economic disadvantage, family disruption reduces informal social control which increases crime

• Structure → “cognitive landscapes” (shapes attitudes, beliefs, behavior)

• Cultural isolation from mainstream society develops subculture

• From individual efficacy to collective efficacy - neighbors willingness and ability

• “Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods”

Levels of Social Control

• Individual - family, peers, neighbors

• Parochial - neighborhoods and schools, civic leagues, churches

• Public - police, other city departments

Chicago Area Projects (CAP)

• One major objective - mobilize local informal social organization among law abiding residents

• Counteract the effects of social disorganization and work against criminal norms

• Neighborhood organization - local groups/clubs run by prosocial adults in the community

• Other suggestions - neighborhood watch program, community policing, restorative justice and peacemaking criminology, Fair Housing Demonstration program

Sutherland’s Differential Association theory is routed in

A. The classical school of criminology

B. The positivist tradition

C. Symbolic interactionism

D. Bandura’s psychological social learning theory

According to Sutherland, when criminal behavior is learned, the learning includes two major things. They are…

A. Techniques of committing the crime

B. The specific direction of motives, drives, rationalizations, and attitudes

C. Both a and b

D. None of the above

Which of the following statements is found in Sutherland’s theory?

A. Criminal behavior is learned when it is differentially reinforced over conforming behavior in intimate personal groups

B. Differential associations vary in frequency and consistency

C. A person becomes delinquent because of an excess of definitions favorable to violation of law over definitions unfavorable to violation of law

D. A person becomes delinquent because of an excess of imitation of law violators over imitation of law abiders

Proposition 8 of Sutherland’s theory state that “The process of learning criminal behavior by association with criminal and anti-criminal patterns involve all of the mechanisms that are involved in any other learning.” One criticism of the theory overall, and this proposition in particular is that…

A. Learning criminal behavior is the same as learning other sorts of behavior

B. It is pretty vague and doesn’t say much about how criminal behavior is learned

C. It suggests that learning to be a criminal is like learning to be a police officer or a professor and that makes little or no sense

D. None of the above

Of the following, which seems to be the biggest limitation of differential association theory?

A. It only applies to a limited number of crimes

B. It is too parsimonious

C. It is difficult to directly test

D. There is very little empirical evidence to support the theory

The concept of definitions favorable and unfavorable to criminal behavior in social learning theory includes all of the following except?

A. Neutralizing definitions

B. Positive definitions

C. Negative definitions

D. Supporting definitions

“Nonsocial reinforcements” refers to

A. Monetary reinforcement

B. Material reinforcement

C. Symbolic reinforcement

D. Physiological reinforcement

The four major concepts in Akers’ social learning theory include all but which of the following?

A. Differential association

B. Social controls

C. Definitions

D. Differential reinforcement

E. Imitation

If the social learning of criminal behavior is a “complex and ongoing process,” then, according to your professor, you would need ___ to properly test the theory.

A. Qualitative data and analyses

B. Quantitative data and analyses

C. Longitudinal data and analyses

D. Cross-sectional data analyses

E. None of the above, there is no “proper” way to test social learning theory

According to Akers’, his version of social learning theory…

A. Is unrelated to differential association theory

B. Is not in conflict with differential association theory

C. Holds different assumptions than differential association

D. Has great scope than differential association

E. None of the above

The first social control theorist we discusses was Al Reiss who wrote “Delinquency as the failure of personal and social controls.” He distinguished personal controls from social controls, which he identified as…

A. Personality and familial controls

B. Inter-individual and formal controls

C. Informal and formal controls

D. Internal and external controls

The second social control theorist we discussed was Ivan Nye who wrote the book “Family Relationships and Delinquent Behavior.” His version of control theory included all but which of the following…

A. Direct controls

B. Formal controls

C. Indirect controls

D. Internal controls

The third social control theorist we discussed was Walter Reckless. How was he different than most other social control theorists?

A. He was the only one that included formal social controls in his theory

B. He was the only one who focused on macro level social controls

C. He included the pushes and pulls that affected crime and delinquency

D. He included both quantitative and qualitative data analyses

The fourth social control theorist we discussed was Travis Hirschi who wrote the book “Causes of Delinquency.” Why did your instructor argue that the title is somewhat inappropriate?

A. Because he focused more on adult crime and delinquency

B. Because he was only interested in middle class delinquency and he should have stated that clearly in the title

C. Because he only focused on delinquency in poor, inner city neighborhoods, and he should have made that clear in the title

D. Because he argued that the most pressing question is not “why they do it” but “why most of us do not engage in much delinquent behavior”

Which of the following would best be used as a survey item to measure “commitment to school” with a standard “strongly agree, agree, disagree, strongly disagree” response set?

A. Would you rather work on your homework or tar a room in 100 degree weather?

B. Do you work hard at school?

C. How many hours do you spend on your homework?

D. I work very hard on my school work

According to Matza’s “drift theory,” youths who become delinquent…

A. Have histories of chronic family neglect that permit them to drift into deviant ways

B. Are hedonists who seize opportunities for immediate gratification whenever they present themselves

C. Get caught up in delinquent subcultures whose values run counter to those of conventional society

D. Are not strongly committed to deviant values, rather they exist in a kind of limbo between conventionality and crime

According to Gottfredson and Hirsschi’s general theory of crime, self-control…

A. Can be measured at birth and varies tremendously across individuals

B. Is developed early in the life course and remains relatively stable after the age of 10ish

C. Varies over the life course and resembles the age-crime curve

D. Is a key concept developed by the early sociological control theorist, but largely ignored today in favor of social control

Which of the following would be least likely considered a major component of self-control?

A. Impulsivity

B. Self-centeredness

C. Delinquent/criminal peers

D. Hot temper

E. Risk taking

Gottfredson and Hirschi attribute low self-control to…

A. Childhood experiences of frustration in school

B. Ineffective supervision and nurturance of children by their parents

C. Disturbances of the central nervous system that render some children hyperactive and more difficult to train or “parent”

D. Lack of experiences in childhood that give youths a sense of mastery or control over their environments

E. A welfare system that promotes feelings of helplessness

According to Gainey and consistent with other scholars, the most serious deficiency of self-control theory is that…

A. It is such a new theory that there has not been time to test it

B. It lacks clear implications for social polict

C. It could be seen as tautological

D. It is too parsimonious

E. Although it explains impulsive crimes, it is unable to explain offenses that are carefully planned

According to Gottfredson and Hirschi, how large is their theory in terms of scope?

Their theory can explain the vast majority of crime/deviance, might have a hard time explaining white collar crime

Social disorganization theory was originally developed by?

A. Robert Park in his rural and religious hometown

B. Shaw and McKay at the University of Chicago

C. Robert Merton at Columbia

D. J.D. Rockefeller in collaboration with Albion Small

According to your professor, the “rule” of the Chicago school was, in order to understand something you need to…

A. Find the root causes

B. Plot or map it

C. Link it to theoretical underpinnings

D. Determine exactly how it is disorganized

E. Uncover its function(s) in society

Social disorganization theory links several social conditions to crime, they include all but which of the following…

A. Poverty

B. Population turnover

C. Racial and ethnic heterogeneity

D. Social solidarity

Following the early founders of social disorganization theory, much research focused statistically linking (correlating) the three structural variables with various types of crime and social deviance. Sometime other structural variables were added, they included:

A. Urbanization

B. Family disruption

C. Social bonds to neighbors

D. A & B

E. B & C

Social disorganization theory was brought back into scholarly popularity with a “new mediation model” where mediating (intervening variables) were added to the model. Test of this model included all but which of the following:

A. Sparse local friendship networks

B. Deviant peer associations

C. Unsupervised teen age peer groups

D. Low organizational participation

Sampson and Wilson built on social disorganization theory by putting the theory into a larger context and focusing on other macro social forces including:

A. Changes in the economy

B. Housing discrimination

C. Segregating

D. All of the above

Sampson and Wilson’s newer view on urban crime recognizes that SDT emphasizes ___ but they also see ___ element.

A. Cultural factors, an autonomous

B. Structural factors, a recreational

C. Structural factors, a cultural

D. Cultural isolation, a pluralistic

Sampson and Groves renewed interest in SDT by testing a much fuller model that included intervening variables (e.g. sparce local friendship networks, unsupervised teens, and low organizational participation). With other colleagues, he also introduced a new concept to social disorganization theory. It was:

A. Residential mobility

B. Self-fulfilling prophecy

C. Self-control

D. Collective efficacy

E. None of the above

Albert Hunter introduced the idea of institutions (or organizations representing institutions) at three different levels. Which of the following was the most macro level that he discussed?

A. Societal

B. Private

C. Public

D. Parochial

E. Intercity

We discussed several programs linked to SDT. Which of the following programs discussed in class might be viewed as the hardest to connect with the theory?

A. The Chicago Area Projects (CAP)

B. Neighborhood watch programs

C. Community policing programs

D. Moving to opportunity for Fair Housing Demonstration (MTO) program

What are Sutherlands propositions?

Proposition 1 - criminal behavior is learned

Proposition 2 - criminal behavior is learned in interaction with others via communication

Proposition 3 - the principle part of the learning of criminal behavior occurs within intimate personal groups

Proposition 6 - one becomes criminal because of an excess of definitions favorable to law violation over definitions unfavorable to law violation

Proposition 7 - differential associations vary in frequency (how often), duration (how long), priority (when things were learned, impressionable), intensity (enforcement)

Proposition 9 - although criminal behavior is an expression of general needs and values it is not explained by those general needs and values since noncriminal behavior is an expression of the same general needs and values