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
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Internet vote http://tinyurl.com/theory4860
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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 . . .
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