Explaining Crime• Classical-Neoclassical

– General Deterrence– Rational Choice– Routine Activity

• Positivist– Social Disorganization– Social Learning– Neutralization– Strain– Control

• Other/Real World Application

Which do you agree with most?

Classical-Neoclassical

General Deterrence

General Deterrence• Severity

– Exceed the amount of damage done to society

• Celerity– Swiftness-promptness of punishment after

crime

• Certainty– Commonsense? The more likely

punishment is the more fearful the offender of being caught

Rational Choice• Builds on deterrence, started neoclassical school• Assumes

– Every crime has a purpose– Criminals choose to commit crime based on limited ability

to weigh benefits and risks

• Three parts– Initiation (leads up to first offense)– Habituation (continued offending)– Desistence (becomes noncriminal or changes crime)

Routine Activity

• Focus on why crimes occur at specific places and times

• Posits that crime is the function of the space-time convergence of a motivated offender, suitable target, and lack of capable guardianship.

Routine Activity

CriminalCriminalPropertyProperty

Not GuardedNot Guarded

Positivist

Social Disorganization

• Rapid changes in an areas characteristics allows crime to occur.

• People in areas of residential mobility lack a mutual trust with neighbors.

• Higher crime occurs when neighbors don’t know each other well.

Social Learning• Criminal behavior is learned• Delinquency occurs when more conditions are

favorable to breaking the law than unfavorable

• A person becomes a criminal when more of their friends are criminals or support them

• Criminals learn – Motive– Attitude– Technique

Neutralization

• People believe crime is wrong, commit it anyway, and still believe crime is wrong

• Offenders rationalize actions, creating exceptions for their actions

Strain 1 (Merton)

• Americans want the dream and work ethic• Strain is the disjunction between goals and

means, and provokes response– Innovate by rejecting tradition (steal, etc.)– Turn to ritualism (keep working with limited

results)– Retreat and turn to drugs– Rebel – create new goals and means (sometimes

forming new community)

Strain 2 (Cohen)

• Also known as status frustration• Goals based on status, not

finances• Middle class is the standard• Lower classes humiliated, seek

status elsewhere

Strain 3 (Cloward-Ohlin)• Youth look for alternative goals• If illegitimate alternative supports skills,

may join criminal group (gang).• If illegitimate alternative does not support

skills, may join a conflict group (gang).• If neither criminal nor conflict associations

work, may resort to retreating (drugs).

Strain 4 (Agnew)• Strain is caused by

–Removal of positive valued stimuli–Presentation of negative stimuli–People commit crimes when they

lose something they like or someone does something they don’t like

Control 1 (Hirschi)• Focus on why people aren’t criminal• Four social factors affect delinquency

– Attachment (affection for parents/school)– Commitment (investment in criminal

activity)– Involvement (if no free time, no

opportunity)– Belief (belief/consensus that a thing is

wrong prevents us from doing it

Control 2 (Gottfredson-Hirschi)

• Poor child-rearing is the root cause of all crime as it results in low self-control

Other

• Critical theory – crime is a normal function of certain groups

• Marxist theory – conflict exists between upper-lower classes

• Feminist theories – females less likely to commit crimes

• Life course theories – teenage youth account for most crime

Real World Application

Which do you agree with most?Which do you agree with most?

• General Deterrence• Rational Choice• Routine Activity• Social Disorganization• Social Learning• Neutralization• Strain• Control

• General Deterrence• Rational Choice• Routine Activity• Social Disorganization• Social Learning• Neutralization• Strain• Control

Text message or Internet

Internet vote http://tinyurl.com/theory4860

Text vote

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Internet vote http://tinyurl.com/theory4860

Text vote

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Review

• Scientific v. non-scientific theory• Assumptions made in neoclassical school• Which theory focuses on why people

don’t become criminals• What part of Strain theory describes

crime for money?

That’s all . . .