Psychological positivism

Differential Association

Chicago school Criminology

  • Social disorganisation and differential association

  • Social-structural theories

  • Based on the systematic longitudinal analysis of geographic distributions of factors and ethnographic interviews (the study of people and their experiences. Impact of communities on behaviour)

Social disorganisation

  • Shaw and McKay (1942)

  • Social disorder, stability and integration conducive to conformity

    • A social system is organised if a strong value consensus exists between members

  • Disorder, mal-integration conducive to crime and deviance

    • A social system is disorganised if social control, cohesion and integration are disrupted

  • An inverse relationship between solidarity, cohesion, integration and control and the rate of crime and deviance in a given population

Formal control:

  • Social organisation

    • Work effectively to reinforce acceptable behaviour

    • Mutual respect and cooperation

  • Social disorganisation

    • Breakdown in operation and/or scope

Informal control:

  • Social organisation

    • Effective socialisation of community expectations, rules and values

    • High level of respect for formal institutions

  • Social disorganisation

    • Low levels of social cohesion around conformity

Social capital

  • Social organisation

    • High levels of collective efficacy and community engagement

  • Social disorganisation

    • Lack of engagement

    • High levels of crime cues and negative role models

Values

  • Social organisation

    • Accept conventional values

  • Social disorganisation

    • No real commitment to conventional values

    • Wide diversity of norms

Social disorganisation

  • Delinquency was higher near the inner city and decreased as distance increased

  • Declining delinquency as distance increased was present across every ethnic group

  • Delinquency keyed to ecological and cultural risks

  • High rate of delinquency was maintained within inner city across decades yet the ethnic composition of such areas changed substantially across time

  • Wave 1: Norther European immigrants (1900-1906)

  • Wave 2: Southern European immigrants (1917-1923)

  • Wave 3: African Americans (1927-1933)

  • Structural and cultural intersect

  • Cultural transmission (Shaw and McKay 1942)

    • “This tradition is manifested in many different ways. It becomes meaningful to the child through the conduct, speech, gestures, and attitudes of persons with whom he has contact. Of particular importance is the child’s intimate associations with predatory gangs or other forms of criminal or delinquent organisation.” (ibid, 1942 p. 436)


Differential Association

  • Acquisition of delinquent techniques and values

  • “A person becomes delinquent because of an excess of definitions favourable to violation of the law.. The specific direction of motives, drives, rationalisations and attitudes” (Sutherland ,1947 p. 6)

  • Exposure is not equal

    • Social disorganisation increases exposure

    • Increased exposure increases likelihood of association

  1. Criminal behaviour (CB) is learned

  2. CB is learned in interaction with other persons in a process of communication

  3. The principle part of learning of CB occurs within intimate personal groups

  4. When CB is learned, the learning includes (a) techniques of committing a crime, (b) the specific direction of motives, drives rationalisations and attitudes

  5. The specific direction of motives and drives is learned from definitions of the legal code as favourable or unfavourable

  6. A person becomes delinquent because of an excess of definitions favourable to violation of the law

  7. Differential association may vary in frequency, duration, priority and intensity

  8. The process of learning criminal behaviour by association with criminal and anti- criminal patterns involves all of the other patterns that are involved in any other learning

  9. While criminal behaviour is an expression of general needs and values, it is not explained by those needs and values, since noncriminal behaviour is an expression of the same needs and values

    (Sutherland and Cressy, 1970 pp. 75-76)

Key points

  • Chicago School Criminology focused on social structural explanations

    • Social Disorganisation

    • Differential Association

  • Crime rates are a function of the ability of public, community and family networks to provide the types of social capital and values necessary for the maintenance of control

  • Social disorganisation is a structural and social phenomenon

    • SD provides the conditions for the learning of crime through DA

Social Learning

  • Social Learning Theory (Akers & Burgess 1966); (Akers 1998)

    • Explains criminal and delinquent behaviour more thoroughly than DAT

    • Aligns with the principals of operant conditioning

    • Accounts for definitional differential

    • Individual elements can be separated and tested for significance

  • Retains elements of social structural approaches

    • More detailed focused on micro factors

  • The most complete psychological theory of crime

  • Individuals learn techniques and definitions through interaction with others:

    • Individuals learn definitions that are favourable, neutralising or unfavourable to criminal behaviour

    • Individuals imitate techniques or behavioural styles

    • Such processes are dependent upon cariations in reinforcement

      1. Differential association

      2. Definitions

      3. Differential reinforcement

  • Differential association

    • Largely dictated by principles of social disorganisation

    • Must account for indirect association

  • Definitions

    • Conventional beliefs are negative to criminal behaviour

      • Cultural monopoly

      • Individually entrenched

    • Definitions favourable to the commission of criminal behaviour are pro-crime or neutralising

      • Meso group variation (DA)

    • An excess of pro criminal definitions is a risk factor by it is not casual

      • Micro cognitive variation

    • Matza (1964) techniques of neutralisation:

      1. Denial of responsibility

      2. Denial of injury

      3. Denial of victim

      4. Condemnation of the condemners

      5. Appeal to higher loyalties

  • Differential reinforcement

    • Behaviour is shaped and maintained by its consequences (Skinner 1953)

      • Behaviour os the result of the past and present stimuli

      • The mechanisms of reinforcement and punishment determine int he frequency of a given behaviour is increased or decreased, maintained or abandoned

      • A) Antecedent conditions prompt particular…

      • B) Behaviour that, in tern, produces…

      • Consequences

  1. Criminal behaviour is learned according to the principles of operant conditioning

  2. Criminal behaviour is learned both in non-social situations and through social interaction

  3. The primary part of criminal learning occurs via the individual's major source of reinforcement

  4. The learning of criminal behaviour is a function of effective reinforcement

  5. The specific class of behaviour learned is a function of the reinforcement available

  6. The strength of criminal behaviour is a direct function of the amount, frequency and probability of its reinforcement

  • Empirical research tends to return moderate to strong significance of the individual SLT variables (cf. Osgood & Anderson, 2004; Durkin et al., 2005)

  • The relationship between the variables and delinquency, deviance and criminality is again moderate to strong

  • Most research conducted in the US but wider testing has also returned positive results (cf. Junger-Tas, 1992; Zhang & Messner, 1995)

  • Pratt & Cullen’s (2000) meta review found strong support for two SLT variables: differential association and definitions


Personality Theories

Psychoanalysis

  • Influential in the early 20th century

  • Views humans as antisocial

    • Mirrors the hedonistic principle

  • The tripartite personality

    • Id

    • Ego

    • Superego

  • Personality develops via interaction

    • Development is sequential

  • Criminality?

    • An expression of buried internal conflicts resulting from childhood trauma or deprivation

  • Primary assumption is that poor parental socialisation causes later criminality

  • Secondary assumption that psychic disruption results in some adult offending

The ID

  • All human beings have strong sexual and aggressive drives that are biologically based

    • The id is the storehouse for all the sexual-aggressive energy

    • Pleasure principle — maximisation of pleasure and the minimisation of pain in the immediate situation

  • Motivation for all human behaviour

    • Unconscious aspect oof personality

    • Must be regulated to ensure normal development

The EGO

  • Emerges from the id through reinforcement and punishment

  • Children learn that certain behaviours will not be tolerated

    • Limits are placed on most all pleasurable things

    • Conditioning teaches the child to cooperate with others

  • Conscious ego functions include rational analysis and consideration of alternate courses of action that maximise pleasure and minimise pain

The SUPEREGO

  • Superego emerges from the ego

    • The reaction to behaviours

    • Identification with intimate authority figures

  • Considered to be the single most important determinant of moral conduct

  • Consists of two elements:

    1. Conscience - representations of behaviour that will be punished

    2. Ego-ideal - representation of valued behaviour

Criminal personality types

  • Weak Superego Type

  • Weak Ego Type

  • Normal Antisocial Offender

  • Neurotic Offender

Critique

  • Lacks many of the requirements of positivism

    • How do we measure the unconscious?

  • Timing of stages does not match our data

    • Age-dependent offending

Cognitive Biosocial Theory

Hans Eysenck (1916-1997)

  • Capacity to learn via conditioning is influenced by biological factors

  • Personality is the result of an interaction between certain environmental conditions and inherited features of the nervous system

  • Links physical typology to personality traits

  • High N, high E – greater predisposition towards crime:

    • (High E) Need more stimulation and seek it through crime, violence and drugs

    • (High N) More impulsive and emotionally unstable

  • (Most people don’t take part in criminal behaviour because they have made strong connections between deviant behaviour and aversive consequences

  • Those who haven’t made the connection, either because of low arousal (extraverts and neurotics) or because the opportunity wasn’t presented (inadequate socialisation), are more likely to be criminals


Critique

  • Wealth of research to experimentally test the theory

  • Findings ambiguous

  • Better at explaining expressive rather than acquisition crime

  • Some personality traits do not correlate with crime

  • Over-emphasis on genetic factors