Theories of Crime Causation

What are the major sociological theories?

1. Social Disorganization Theory
Social disorganization refers to the breakdown in traditional social control and
organization in the society, community, neighborhood, or family so that deviant and criminal
activity result. It states a person's physical and social environments are primarily responsible
for the behavioral choices that a person makes. At the core of social disorganization theory, is
that location matters when it comes to predicting illegal activity. It is most often applied to
urban crime. It simply focus on the immediate social environment like the family, peer group,
and school.
This is a macro theory looking across different communities or neighborhoods
because it focused on the larger social environment, especially the community and the total
society. It attempts to explain why some groups-like communities and societies-have higher
crime rates than other groups.
It seeks to explain community differences in crime rates by identifying the
characteristics of communities with high crime rates and draws on social control theory to
explain why these characteristics contribute to crime.
Characteristics of communities where crime is more likely to happen:
1. economically deprived
2. large in size
3. high in multiunit housing like apartments
4. high in residential mobility (people frequently move into and out of the community)
5. high in family disruption (high rates of divorce, single parent families).
Proponents: Clifford R. Shaw and Henry D. McKay
Profile: sociologists at the University of Chicago (1920s and 1930s)
What was the research of Shaw and McKay all about in relation with social disorganization
theory?
A spatial mapping to examine the residential locations of juveniles referred to court was
conducted and it was found out that patterns of delinquency were higher in areas characterized by
poor housing, poor health, socio-economic disadvantage and transient populations. They were able to
establish a pattern that the highest rates of deviance concentrated in the inner city and diminishing
outward from the core of the city. With their findings they suggest that crime was a function of
neighbourhood dynamics and not due to individual actors and their actions. Factors in a city that have
been examined by others include the poverty rate, unemployment rate, percentage of female-headed
households, percentage of those under the age of 18, and various measures of community
involvement.
2. Strain/Anomie Theory
Proponent: Emile Durkheim
Profile: One of the founding fathers of sociology
This theory explains the breakdown of social norms that often accompanies rapid social
change. A concrete example is when old rules or values are no longer relevant and new values or
rules are in direct conflict with old rules and values. It is also on this context that, criminal behaviour
arises when confronted with the inability to achieve success and when faced with the strain that
ensues following the realization that personal talents, training, or desires cannot achieve that which is
desire.
Merton states that, "Anomie refers to a psychological state of confusion caused by rapidly
changing industrial evolution and accompanying social dislocation and the effect this change has on
people. This state is popularly conceptualized as "normlessness". It is a feeling, an attitude, a
psychological perspective that causes those who experience to feel confused, frustrated, annoyed
angry, hostile, embarrassed, and even resigned or doomed. He contended that those who feel this way
may attempt to relieve themselves by committing deviant acts while others may resort to an extreme
aggravated resolution and commit suicide. It can be said as an overreaction but many are ill equipped
with the pushes and pulls they face and for some, those extreme measures described by him may
have been the only viable solution.
According to Robert Merton (1957), an American sociologist drew on this idea in explaining
criminality and deviance in the USA arguing that crime occurs when there is a gap between the
cultural goals of a society (e.g. material wealth, status) and the structural means to achieve these (e.g.
education, employment). This strain between means and goals results in frustration and resentment,
and encourages some people to use illegitimate or illegal means to secure success. He saw that
psychological stress results from a perceived inability to successfully compete for social capital. To
illustrate, those who have access or successfully compete for social capital (money), are more
contented (have less anomie), where those who do not are less satisfied and therefore experience
more anomie.
People experience strain or stress, they become upset, and they sometimes engage in crime as
a result. They may engage in crime to reduce or escape from the strain they are experiencing. For
example, they may engage in violence to end harassment from others, they may steal to reduce
financial problems, or they may run away from home to escape abusive parents. They may also
engage in crime to seek revenge against those who have wronged them. And they may engage in the
crime of illicit drug use to make themselves feel better.
Merton developed the concept of 'anomie' to describe this imbalance between cultural goals
and institutionalised means. He argued that such an imbalanced society produces anomie - there is a
strain or tension between the goals and means which produce unsatisfied aspirations.
 Merton argued that when individuals are faced with a gap between their goals (usually
finances/money related) and their current status, strain occurs. When faced with strain, people have
five ways to adapt:
1. Conformity: pursing cultural goals through approved means. unapproved
2. Innovation: using socially socially unconventional means to obtain culturally approved or
goals. Example: dealing drugs or stealing to achieve financial security.
3. Ritualism: using the same socially approved means to achieve less elusive goals (more
modest and humble).
4. Retreatism: to reject both the cultural goals and the means to obtain it, then find a way to
escape it.
5. Rebellion: to reject the cultural goals and means, then work to replace them.
Strain Theory: Robert Agnew (1992)
Strain may result from the failure to attain a variety of goals. The theorists focus on the
failure to achieve three related goals: money, status/respect, and for adolescents autonomy from
adults. It explains that the failure to achieve one's goals, strain may result when people take
something one values or present one with noxious or negative stimuli. Such negative treatment may
upset or anger people and crime may be the result.
Research Findings:
1. a range of negative events and conditions increase the likelihood of crime.
2. crime has been linked to child abuse and neglect, criminal victimization, physical punishment by
parents, negative relations with parents, negative relations with teachers, negative school
experiences, negative relations with peers, neighborhood problems, and a wide range of stressful life
events-like the divorce/ separation of a parent, parental unemployment, and changing schools.
Major Types of Strain Theory (Agnew)

(1) Others prevent you from achieving your goals, and

(2) Others take things you value or present you with negative or noxious stimuli.
3. Subcultural Theory
This theory is linked to anomie and strain exemplifying concepts of status frustration and
differential opportunity, which North American subcultural theorists used to explain the delinquent
activities of disadvantaged groups in the 1950s and 60s.
In the study of Albert Cohen in relation with status frustration, he argued that lower-class
youths could not aspire to middle-class cultural goals and so, frustrated, they rejected them to create
their own subcultural system of values.
Richard Cloward and Lloyd Ohlin (1960) built on these ideas, pointing to the differential
opportunity structures available to lower-class young people in different neighbourhoods: criminal
(making a living from crime), conflict (territorial violence and gang fighting) and retreatist (drugs
and alcohol).
4. Social Control Theory
This theory does not address the causes of crime, but rather focuses on why people obey the
law. In other words, it explains conformity rather than deviance. This theory is associated with the
work of Travis Hirschi (1969), an America social scientist who proposed that people general
conform to social norms due to strong social bonds. Conversely, they engage in delinquent acts when
these bonds are broken or weak. It is non traditional criminological perspectives because they seek to
explain why individuals conform to societal norms, and not why they commit crime.
It simply suggests that individuals will commit criminal or delinquent acts when their ties
(bonds) to society are weakened or have broken. When the bonds are strong, an individual will
refrain from criminal activity.
Key components of social bonds are:
1. Attachment
How strong or weak is an individual's relationship with others? Do these others
expect certain kinds of behaviour (such as obeying the law) from this individual? The
stronger the attachment and the stronger the expectations, the more likely it is that the
individual will conform.
2. Commitment
The more an individual commits his/herself to a particular lifestyle (for example,
being married, being a parent, having a job), the more he/she has to lose if he/she becomes
involved in crime (and so deviate from the lifestyle).
3. Involvement
This component comes down to time - the more time the individual spends engaging
in law abiding behaviour, the less time he/she has to engage in law breaking behaviour.
4. Belief
This relates to upbringing. If an individual has been brought up to be law abiding,
they are less likely to become involved in crime.
5. Differential association theory
Proponent: Edwin E. Sutherland
This theory emphasized that crime is a result of social learning by engaging in deviant
behaviors by those with whom we socially interact. It is a learning theory that concentrates on one's
associates and the normative definitions one learns from them.
Sutherland's Propositions for Differential Association Theory
1. Criminal behavior is learned.
 2. Criminal behavior is learned in interaction with other persons in a process of
communication.
3. The principal part of the learning of criminal behavior occurs within intimate personal
groups.
4. When criminal behavior is learned, the learning includes (a) techniques of committing the
crime, which are sometimes very complicated, sometimes very simple, and (b) the specific direction
of motives, drives, rationalizations, and attitudes.
5. The specific direction of motives and drives is learned from definitions of the legal codes
as favorable or unfavorable.
6. A person becomes delinquent because of an excess of definitions favorable to violation of
law over definitions unfavorable to violation of the law.
7. The process of learning criminal behavior by association with criminal and anti-criminal
patterns involves all of the mechanisms that are involved in any other learning.
8. Although criminal behavior is an expression of general needs and values, it is not
explained by those general needs and values, because noncriminal behavior is an expression of the
same needs and values.
9. Differential association varies in frequency, duration, priority, and intensity. The most
frequent, longest running, earliest and closest influences will be most efficacious or determinant of
learned behavior.
6. Cultural deviance theory
This theory signifies that conformity to the prevailing cultural norms of lower class society
causes crime. Lower class subculture has a unique set of values and beliefs, which are invariably in
conflict with conventional social norms. Criminality is an expression of conformity to lower class
subcultural values. Members of the working class commit crimes as they respond to the cultural
norms of their own class in an effort to deal with problems of social -middle class- adjustment.
7. Social Learning Theory
This theory underscored that people learn to engage in crime, primarily through their
association with others They are reinforced for crime, they learn beliefs that are favorable to crime,
and they are exposed to criminal models They view crime as something that is desirable or at least
justifiable in certain situations. Juveniles learn to engage in crime in the same way they learn to
engage in conforming behavior: through association with or exposure to others Primary or intimate
groups like the family and peer group have an especially large impact on what we learn. In fact,
association with delinquent friends is the best predictor of delinquency other than prior delinquency.
However, one does not have to be in direct contact with others to learn from them; for example, one
may learn to engage in violence from observation of others in the media.
The primary version of social learning theory in criminology is that of Ronald Akers and the
description that follows draws heavily on his work. Akers's theory, in turn, represents an elaboration
of Edwin Sutherland's differential association theory.
Three mechanisms by which individuals learn to engage in crime
1. Differential reinforcement of crime.
Individuals may teach others to engage in crime through the reinforcements and punishments
they provide for behavior.
What are the instances wherein crime is more likely to occur?
(a) is frequently reinforced and infrequently punished;
(b) results in large amounts of reinforcement (eg.. a lot of money, social approval, or pleasure and
little punishment; and (c) is more likely to be reinforced than alternative behaviors.
Positive vs. Negative Reinforcement
a. Positive Reinforcement
The behavior results in something good-some positive consequence like money, the
pleasurable feelings associated with drug use, attention from parents, approval from friends,
or an increase in social status.
b. Negative Reinforcement
The behavior results in the removal of something bad-a punisher is removed or
avoided.
Example: Suppose one's friends have been calling her a coward because she refuses
to use drugs with them. The individual eventually takes drugs with them, after which time
they stop calling her a coward. The individual's drug use has been negatively reinforced.
2. Beliefs favorable to crime.
Other individuals may not only reinforce our crime, they may also teach us beliefs favorable
to crime. Most individuals, of course, are taught that crime is bad or wrong. They eventually accept
or "internalize" this belief, and they are less likely to engage in crime as a result. Some individuals,
however, learn beliefs that are favorable to crime and they are more likely to engage in crime as a
result.
Three categories of beliefs favoring crime.
1. Some people generally approve of certain minor forms of crime, like certain forms of
consensual sexual behavior, gambling, "soft" drug use, and for adolescents-alcohol use,
truancy, and curfew violation.
2. Some people conditionally approve of or justify certain forms of crime, including some
serious crimes. They believe that crime is generally wrong, but that some criminal acts are
justifiable or even desirable in certain conditions.
Example: Fighting is generally wrong, but that it is justified if you have been insulted or
provoked in some way.
 3. Some people hold certain general values that are conducive to crime. These values do not
explicitly approve of or justify crime, but they make crime appear a more attractive
alternative than would otherwise be the case.
3. The imitation of criminal models.
Behavior is not only a function of beliefs and the reinforcements and punishments individuals
receive, but also of the behavior of those around them. Individuals often imitate or model the
behavior of others-especially when they like or respect these others and have reason to believe that
imitating their behavior will result in reinforcement.
Example: Individuals are more likely to imitate others' behavior if they observe them receive
reinforcement for their acts.
3. Environmental Criminology
Environmental criminology is the study of crime, criminality, and victimization as they
relate, first, to particular places, and secondly, to the way that individuals and organizations shape
their activities spatially, and in so doing are in turn influenced by place-based or spatial factors.
Further it is a positivist theory that suggests crime is influenced, if not caused, by a person's spatial
environment which include space (geography), time, law, offender, and target or victim.
Proponents: Paul and Patricia Brantingham