Week 1

Part 1:
Theory and
Methodology in
Criminology 1002
Criminology
Outline of this lecture

Part 1: What is criminology theory? What are the major

methods of criminological research?

Part 3: The Durkheimian Tradition: Social glue and

Anomie

Part 4: Strain Theories

 • What is criminology?
• What is the sociological and criminological
imagination?
Overview • What is criminology theory?
Part 1 • What is the relationship between theory and
methodology?
• What are some methods of criminology?
 Sutherland, 1939:

What is "Criminology is the body of knowledge

regarding crime as a social
Criminology phenomenon. It includes within its
? scope the processes of making laws, of
breaking laws, and of reacting toward
the breaking of laws…"
What is the Sociological
Imagination?
• C. Write Mills, 1959:
• ‘the awareness of the relationship
between personal experience and the
wider society.’ It includes the ability to
connect ‘personal troubles to public
issues’
• It involves an individual developing a deep
understanding of how their biography is a
result of historical process and occurs
within a larger social context
• Individual  Society
 • Understanding how the (1) making of law,
(2) the breaking of law, and (3) the reaction
to the breaking of law is connected to larger
social forces and contexts
The
• Crim 1001: Control, learning, developmental,
Criminologica deterrence, labeling—all theories of
l Imagination individual acting within society
• Crim 1002: Structural, Critical, Conflict,
Criminal justice- how society impacts
individual
 What is criminology
theory?
• An idea or set of propositions that seeks
to explain something about crime or
criminal justice Theory

• Scientific theory: hypothesis that can be

tested by collecting empirical data
Research
• Empirical data: something you can analysis
question
observe

• Sounds simple: but full of debates and

fault-lines!
data methods
• Underlying assumptions/premise:
Consensus v. conflict
• Social process v. social structure
Tensions and
• The danger of ‘overtheorizing’
behaviour and the problem of Agency debates within
• Criminology as a normative discipline criminological
(i.e. how the world should be) theory
• Epistemology and methodology (how
you think about knowledge)
Ways of doing criminology/Epistemologies

Interpretive
inductive deductive
subjective experience of test a hypothesis
phenomena rely on what you can
Deep, thick description observe and replicate
and analysis Looking for universal
(often) qualitative principles
(often) quantitative and
statistical

Positivist
Examples
Positivist
• What is the relationship between age and
crime?
• Analysis of arrest data
• Does increased severity of punishment reduce
reoffending?
• Analysis of official data
• Is policing more aggressive in communities of
color compared to white communities?
• Survey methods, interviews, observations
Interpretive
• How does a young person ‘age out of crime’?
• Interviews
• How do former prisoners experience re-entry
into the community?
• Interviews and participant observations
• How do young men in overpoliced communities
navigate their relationships?
• Participants observations, interviews
Method:
Ethnography and participant
observation

• Classic research on gangs, deviant subcultures

• Deeply immersed
• Small samples, complex data
• Narratives of people’s lives and everyday struggles
• Understanding ‘situated interaction’ or the multilayered
contexts in which people interact with others in the
world.
Method:
Interviews

• Semi structured and in depth interviews

• Narratives of people’s lives
• Small samples, rich data
• Centres people’s voices
Method: Surveys

• Self report studies of crime and deviance

• Self report of victimization
• Public opinion about crime and punishment
• Large samples, cross-national, comparative
• Test for statistical associations, identify the relationship
between x and y
• approximate causal inferences
Method: Longitudinal
studies
•Cohorts followed over time
•school to adult
•Life course criminology
•Study of continuity and change
•Laub and Sampson also an example of mixed methods
Method: Statistical
analysis of aggregate data
• Census
• All police recorded crimes
• All data about specific group
• Comparative data
Method:
Historical

• Long term trends

• Comparative
• Penal policies
• See change over time

.
Method: Experimental/
Randomised Controlled Trials
• Test policy interventions
• Causality
• High level of control
• Control group and experimental group
• Examples: Restorative Justice in the ACT;
Police Body-worn cameras in WA; Plastic
beer cups in Wales
Method: Content/discourse analysis

• Media: film, news, magazines, music

• Government or administrative
archives
 The criminological imagination asks you to see the relationship between
the individual and society as it pertains to
The breaking of The reaction to the
The making of laws
laws breaking of laws

Criminology theories have underlying epistemologies that govern how

Summary research questions are asked and answered

The many varieties of criminological research methods

Part 2: The
Durkheimian
Tradition in
Criminology
Criminology 1002
Emile Durkheim

Sociology as a scientific/positivist
discipline

Functionalist: Seeking to understand

‘social glue’ of society

Structural Change
• Industrial Revolution
• Political upheaval
• Breakdown of predictable social conditions

Sources of solidarity

This Photo by Unknown author is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND.

 Mechanical Solidarity Organic Solidarity
Sources of
Solidarity: • Pre-capitalist, pre-industrial • Capitalist,
societies industrial societies
what binds • Connections based on • Connections based on
us together sameness difference
• Clearly defined rules and • Freedom = loneliness
norms, sense of belonging • Declining forms of
• Clear punishments for rule integration (how we
breakers connect and relate to each
other) and regulation
(how we define and
enforce norms)
 On the one hand, crime is
normal

Durkheim
and Crime But too much is a sign that
society is dysfunctional- not
well integrated/regulated:
anomie
Crime as normal (1)
• Helps create boundaries, teaches us about what we think is
right and wrong
• Solidarity through punishment
• Even in an imaginary society of 'saints' we will find acts and
people to view as deviant....
Crime as normal (2)

• Points to boundaries
where society norms are
evolving
• Examples: civil
disobedience, debate
over BLM/anti-colonial
protests and destruction
of property/toppling
statues
 • Anomie = normlessness
• A state of under-regulation
and integration. Norms and
values are contested and in
Crime/deviance flux
as Dysfunction: • Example (19th century): mass
urbanization, the rise of the
Anomie factory, the development of
the capitalist class, migration
• Note these are structural
forces, a shift away from
individual explanations of
behavior
Durkheim's
study of Suicide
• Traditionally seen as the most
‘individualistic’ of acts, Durkheim
wanted to show the social roots
• Analysed suicide rates across
Europe
• Variation in integration and
regulation (too much or too little
of each) is linked with rates of
suicide at particular times
• Northern Europe, single people,
economic volatility, peacetime
 Deviance stems from weak moral integration and poor social
regulation

Deviance is a social fact that is patterned and regular when

viewed in aggregate.

Social change, such as the transition to modernity, can often

Durkheim generate anomie and with this an increase in levels of crime

Key Insights The criminal law reflects the cultural values of a society and
helps uphold our moral and social order

Crime generates emotional responses and is perceived as a

violation of a moral code

We 'need' crime because we 'need' punishment- ritual and

expressive elements
 Arguably underplays the way in which systems
of punishment are shaped by the nature and
distribution of power within society

Assumed consensus which underpins the

notion of conscience collective

Criticisms arguments about the functional utility of crime

may not apply to all types of crime (are we
really so outraged at drug use, graffiti, etc.)

(We will come back to all of this in the next few

weeks on conflict and cultural theories)
 Examined social bonds in (a) in times of very rapid social change,
and (b) in societies which are highly internally differentiated

21st Century sources of anomie: technological revolutions?

Relevance
Climate Change? Gender and sexuality fluidity? Lockdown life
and new social norms arising?

today? Is the new global order breaking down all the old certainties?
Will these new social arrangements bring with them the collapse
of social structures? Are we losing the ability to regulate
behaviour and maintain order?

Next: how Merton developed Durkheim’s ideas into Strain

Theory
Strain
Theories
 Criminological imagination: social,
historical, political context of people's
lives, behaviors, and decisions

Structural Durkheim’s anomie: ‘normlessness’

due to under regulation and lack of
theories integration

Merton: writing in the 1940s, taking

Durkheim's ideas to the next level in
terms of analyzing crime in modern
society
 2 important elements of culture and structure:
Culturally defined goals, purposed, The defined, regulated, and accepted
interests. (“things worth striving for”) means of reaching these goals

Structural
Strain: Society runs well when these two elements are
integrated.

Merton
What happens when they are not integrated?
 As emphasis on goals comes to dominate, a society becomes
unstable
• Develops anomie
• Leads to valuing ends over means

Contemporary social values and goals are criminogenic

Merton's • institutionalized norms will weaken
Structural • US (and Aus?): culture places an extraordinary emphasis on 'dream' economic
success

Theory • The structure of society limits access to legitimate means for all
• Results: many people have a goal that they cannot reach through conventional
means

Structurally-induced Strain
• Ex: Global financial crisis- risky speculation, irresponsible lending and borrowing
• Make as much money as you can, worry about the impact later
• Representation of contemporary Australian values?
 (Drug dealing, other
(Uni students?)
acquisitive crimes)

(Defeated worker) (Drug user)

(Activist)
 the pursuit of success
Merton brings back Institutionalized no longer guided by
Durkheim norms weakened normative standards
of right and wrong

Innovative conduct
Anomie and deviance
becomes especially
are mutually
prevalent as anomie
reinforcing
intensifies

Back to Anomie
 Extend Merton’s approach

Status
Investigated how strain could be applied to
Discontent the study of juvenile gangs in urban areas
and
Delinquency: Merton- disjunction between means and
goals causes crime
Cloward and
Ohlin How do these values/goals and means (both
legitimate and illegitimate) get passed down?
How does this actually work?
 Different neighborhoods have different opportunities

Cloward & Working class youths lack legitimate means– the opportunity–
to be successful and earn status (strain of status discontent)

Ohlin, Opportunities are limited are frequently not based on ability

but on class, ethnicity and sex.
Differential The outcome is that a proportion of the population feel anger
Opportunity at their unreasonable exclusion

(1960) The solution again is the rejection of core middle-class values

Also, must have access to illegitimate means- not equally

distributed geographically
 Messner and Rosenfield: Institutional Anomie Theory
(early 2000s)

Later Strain Overt critique of capitalism

Theories
‘the American Dream itself exerts pressures toward crime
by encouraging an anomic cultural environment, an
environment in which people are encouraged to adopt
an “anything goes” mentality in the pursuit of personal
goals’ (2001: 61)
Later Strain
Theories Examples of Agnew’s Strains
parental erratic/harsh child abuse/neglect
rejection supervision
• Agnew: General Strain
theory (1990s) bad school abusive peers low-level/
• Move from structural to experiences unemployment
social-psychological
marital failure to poverty
• Redefines strain as instances problems achieve goals
where one is: treated in a
negative manner, loses victimisation homelessness discrimination
something they value, or are
unable to achieve their goals
• Leads to ‘negative emotions’
and crime
 Focus on social, cultural and economic
circumstances that lead to crime

They point to the necessary links between

Assessing how society is organised and different
levels of crime
strain clear critique of individual economic
theories achievement and capitalism

appeals to the ‘liberal sensibilities of much

sociological criminology’, because it
focuses on vulnerability and poverty
 Tends to ignore the crimes of the powerful/ the
state

Exaggerates the consensus that financial success

Criticisms is the top socially and culturally defined objective;
there are other ways success can be measured
of strain Overlooks role of agency
theory
For the critical theorist, anomie theory fails to
look closely enough at the socio-political
circumstances of crime
 “It is as though individuals in society are playing a
gigantic fruit machine, but the machine is rigged
and only some players are consistently rewarded.
The deprived ones then either resort to using
foreign coins or magnets (innovation) or play on
mindlessly (ritualism), give up the game (retreatism)
or propose anew game altogether (rebellion). But…
Critique nobody appears to ask who put the machine there
in the first place and who takes the profits. Criticism
of the game is confined to changing the pay-out
sequences so that the deprived can get a better deal
(increasing educational opportunity, poverty
programmes). What at first sight looks like a major
critique of society ends up by taking the existing
society for granted.’ (L.Taylor 1973). Merton –
‘cautious rebel’ (Taylor, Walton, Young 1973).
 Merton: lack of integration Multiple modes of
of goals and means leads to adaptation- crime is a form
‘structural strain’ of ‘innovation’ or ‘rebellion’

Summary
Later Strain theories: how
deviant norms are
developed/passed down; Next week: The Critical
critique of capitalist cultures; tradition- conflict theories
social psych theory of
negative emotions