4 - Criminological theories

CRIMINOLOGICAL THEORIES

Key Question: How to explain crime?
- In the past 150 years, criminologists aimed to understand crime and criminal behavior.
- Understanding criminal behavior can assist in controlling crime, rehabilitating offenders, tailoring treatment, enacting appropriate legislation.
- Understanding crime problems helps formulate effective solutions.

Definition of Theory: Explanations that make sense of observations.
- Theories help explain phenomena and answer questions: Why? By what process?
- Theories are generalizations explaining relationships between events and conditions (Williams & McShane, 2018).
Characteristics of Theories:
- Explain why some commit crimes.
- Identify risk factors for committing crimes.
- Address how and why certain laws are created and enforced.
- Must be evaluated based on scientific criteria, focusing on empirical validity.
Causality in Theories:
- Traditional causality (necessary/sufficient conditions) may not apply to criminology.
- Probabilistic Causality: The presence of X makes Y more probable.
- Variations in criminal behavior correlate with changes in explanatory variables.

Purpose of Theories: Explore aspects of offenders and crimes, understand causes, identify risk factors (Miller, 2012).
Classification Categories:
- Sutherland’s Definition: Criminology studies the lawmaking, lawbreaking, and law enforcing processes.
  - Type 1: Theories of law and criminal justice (making/enforcing laws).
  - Type 2: Theories of criminal behavior (lawbreaking).
    - Two questions:
      1. Variations in group crime rates?
      2. Differences in individual crime propensity?
Macro vs. Micro Theories:
- Macro-theories focus on societal/group patterns.
- Micro-theories focus on individual differences (Alexander et al., 1987).
Alternative Classifications:
- Social Structural Theories: Variations in crime rates due to social/cultural makeup.
- Social Process Theories: Individual experiences, traits, and situations lead to criminality.
Models Classifications (Burke, 2009):
- Rational Actor Model: Classical idea of free will, rational choices to commit crime.
- Predestined Actor Model: Behavior governed by internal/external factors.
- Victimized Actor Model: Social injustices lead to labeling and further criminalization.

Classical School of Criminology:
- Philosophical critique of established order in the 17th and 18th centuries inspired this perspective, especially Beccaria and Bentham.
Basic Premise: Individuals make rational choices based on perceived risks (deterrence doctrine).

Rational Choice Theory: Decisions based on maximizing benefits/minimizing costs.
Decision influenced by context and motivations (moral, emotional rewards).

Expected Utility Principle: Decisions based on maximizing utility.
- Crime chosen when expected benefits outweigh potential costs/punishments.
Key Propositions:
1. Most criminals utilize normal reasoning.
2. Individuals differentiate means/ends accurately.
3. Rational actors weigh costs/benefits.
4. Choosing actions based on cost-benefit analysis.
5. Prior causes are not considered.

Crime cannot be understood without the context of opportunities for criminal/noncriminal behavior.
10 Principles of Crime Opportunity:
1. All crime stems from opportunities.
2. Opportunities are highly specific.
3. Opportunities concentrate in time/space.
4. Movements of activities define opportunities.
5. One crime generates opportunities for others.
6. Some products tempt crime more.
7. Social/technological changes create new opportunities.
8. Crime prevention through opportunities reduction.
9. Reducing opportunities usually doesn’t displace crime.
10. Focused opportunity can lead to wider crime declines.

Positivist Approach to Criminology: Focus on differences between criminals/non-criminals, promoting scientific methodologies.
Predestined Actor Model: Behavior influenced by determinants beyond free will.

Early Biological Theories:
- Crime due to inborn abnormalities (Lombroso's theory on physical features as indicators).
Modern Biosocial Theories:
- Embrace interactions between biology and the environment.

Few stand-alone psychological theories exist; psychological variables are commonly integrated into other theories.

Focus on socialization and interaction with significant others to explain behavior.
Types of Social Process Theories: Social Learning Theory, Social Control Theory.

Core Concept: Individuals criminalized due to association with unjust social structures targeting marginalized communities.

Suggests societal reactions are crucial to understanding crime; behavior is labeled criminal based on societal definitions.
- Societal Reactions: Stigmatization leads to increased deviance, creating self-fulfilling prophecies.

Marxist View: Law and criminal justice favor ruling classes over proletariat, perpetuating capitalism.
Criminal behavior can be traced to capitalist system influences.

Aims to address power imbalances in society, including feminist approaches and cultural criminology perspectives.
Cultural Criminology: Emphasizes the socio-cultural dimensions of crime and deviance.