Lesson Proper for Week 4

THEORIES OF CRIME 20TH CENTURY

EARLY 20TH CENTURY

This is the period of Psychological Criminology and the Rise of the Sociological
Perspectives on crime and criminals. This era was a shift of the blame for crimes on
human behavior and the social and environmental circumstances.

An Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist born in May 6, 1856 and died in September 23,
1939 who founded the Psychoanalytic School of Psychology. In criminology, he is best
known for his Psychoanalytic Theory.

The Psychoanalytic criminology is a method of studying crime and criminal behavior

that draws from psychoanalysis theory of Freud. It examines the personality and the
psyche of a person (particularly the unconscious) for motive in crime. Other areas of
interest in this perspective are the fear of crime and the act of punishment. According to
this theory, criminal behavior is attributed to maladjustment and dysfunctional
personality.

Psychoanalysis is used to refer to many aspects of Freud's work and research,

including Freudian therapy and the research methodology he used to develop his
theories. Freud relied heavily upon his observations and case studies of his patients
when he formed his theory of personality development.

According to Freud’s psychodynamic theory, the human mind performs three separate
functions:

1. the CONSCIOUS Mind – that part of the mind that people are most aware of; it
contains sensations and thoughts like hunger, thirst, and desire
2. the PRECONSCIOUS Mind – holds elements of experiences that are out of our
awareness but can be brought back to our consciousness at any given time
through memories and experiences, like love, fear, hatred and even dreams and
other feelings experienced before.
3. the UNCONSCIOUS Mind – contains biological desires and urges that cannot
be readily experienced as thoughts. These are hold feelings about sex and
hostilities, which individuals keep below the surface of consciousness by process
called repression.
Psychodynamic theory also reveal that man’s personality has a three-part
structure

1. ID – the most primitive part which is present at birth, representing unconscious

biological drives for sex, food, and other life-sustaining necessities. ID follows the
PLEASURE Principle, which requires instant gratification and has no concern for
the rights of others.
2. EGO – compensates for the demands of the ID by helping the individual guide
his actions to remain within the boundaries of social convention. The EGO is
guided by the REALITY principle, which takes into account what is practical and
conventional by social structures.
3. SUPEREGO – develops as a result of incorporating within the personality the
moral standards and values of parents, church, religion, community, school and
significant others. The superego is divided into two parts: the conscience which
tells us what is right and wrong; and it forces the ego to control the id and directs
people into morally acceptable and responsible behaviors, which may not be
pleasurable and illegal; and the other part is the ego which refers to the person’s
idealized self-image.

EMILE DURKHEIM- a French sociologist, born in France 1858. According to him, crime
is part of human nature because it has existed during periods of both poverty and
prosperity. Crime is normal because it is virtually impossible to imagine a society in
which criminal behavior is totally absent. He believed that the inevitability of crime is
linked to the differences (heterogeneity) within society. He also argued that crime can
be useful and on occasion, even healthy for society. He held that existence of crime
paves the way for social change and social structure is not rigid or inflexible. A rising
crime rate can signal the need for social change and promote a variety of programs
designed to relieve the human suffering that may have caused crime in the first place.

ROBERT EZRA PARK was an American sociologist, born on February 14, 1864,
Pennsylvania. He is a major contributor in the field of American sociology; however, he
is best known for his Human Ecology Theory.

Human Ecology Theory is the study of the Inter-relationship of people and their
environment, a way of looking at the interactions of humans with their environments and
considering this relationship as a system. The biological, social, and physical aspects of
the people
are considered within the context of their environments. In this context, the human
created environments affect our behavior, and how individuals and families in turn,
influence these environments. Thus, in this perspective, the person and the
environment are viewed as being interconnected in an active process of mutual
influence and change.
EDWIN H. SUTHERLAND was an American Sociologist, born on August 13, 1883,
Nebraska, United States, and died in 1950. He is best known for his Differential
Association Theory (DAT) and for defining white-collar crimes.

Sutherland has been referred to as "the most important criminologist of the twentieth
century” because his explanation about crime and criminal behavior can be seen as a
corrected extension of social perspective. For this reason, he was famous as the "Dean
of Modern Criminology".

Differential Association Theory Refers to the way we respond to any given situation,
depends on the culture in which we have been reared. In other words, to a very large
extend the social influences that people encounter determine their behavior. Whether a
person becomes law-abiding or law violator, depends on contacts with criminal values,
attitudes, principles, and behavior patterns. This theory is one of the most important
theories of crime causation in the field of Criminology.

ERNEST W. BURGESS was an American Sociologist, born on May 16, 1886 in Tilbury,
Ontario and died December 27, 1966. He was educated at Kingfisher College in
Oklahoma and took graduate studies in sociology at the University of Chicago and
became one of the prominent contributor as Urban Sociologist at the university. He
collaborated with sociologist. Robert Ezra Park and came out with Introduction to the
Science of Sociology, which became one of the most influential sociology books, even
referred as the "Bible of Sociology".

ERNEST KRETSCHMER was a German Psychiatrist, born on October 8, 1888, in West

Germany. He served as director of the neurological clinic of the University of Marburg
(1926-46) and became the Director of the neurological clinic of the University of
Tubingen, Germany, in 1946. He became popular in the field of criminology for his work
on body physique and character in 1925, which advanced the theory that certain mental
disorders were more common among people of specific physical types. The idea of
somatotyping was originated from his work, who distinguished three principal types
of physique as:

1. Asthenic - lean, slightly built, narrow shoulders

2. Athletic - medium to tall, strong, muscular, course bones

3. Pyknic - medium height, rounded figure, massive neck, broad face

He suggested that the lanky asthenic, and to a lesser degree the athletic types, were
more prone to schizophrenia, while the pyknic types were more likely to develop manic-
depressive disorders. According to him, pyknic persons are friendly and interpersonally
dependent (manic types). The thin physique is associated with introversion and timidity
(withdrawn types).

MIDDLE TWENTIETH CENTURY

EARNEST A. HOOTON was a Physical anthropologist, born on November 20, 1887 in,
Wisconsin, United States. As a physical anthropologist, he began his tenure at Harvard
University in 1930, and eventually became a highly respected professor. He taught and
published at Harvard until his death in 1954.

Although not a criminologist, he is popularly known in the field of criminology for his
Criminal Physical Inferiority Theory. The underpinnings of his ideas concerning the
physical inferiority of criminals The are reflected in one of his earlier works, "The
Asymmetrical Character of Human Evolution," in which he argues that human
development has not been uniform, but rather that some traits have developed
differently for different subsets of people. It was his anthropological background which
led him to the study of criminals and criminal behavior as linked to physically inherited
characteristics.

WILLIAM H. SHELDON was an American psychologist, born on November 19, 1898,

Rhode Island, United States. He was best known for his theory associating physique, as
personality, and crime or delinquency known as Somatotyping Theory outlined in his
book The Varieties of Human Physique, published in 1940.
He likewise studied SOMATOTYPE and came up with a theory that establish a link
between different body types and criminality categorizing them into three groups
together with their corresponding temperament;

Classification of Body Physique by Sheldon

Type Temperament/
Behavior

Endomorphic – Viscerotonic –
short limbs, generally relaxed,
roundness of loves comfort and an
body and small extrovert
bones
Mesomorphic – Romotic – active,
muscular, lean, dynamic, aggressive,
strong hands and and most likely to
body become criminal
Ectomorphic – Cerebrotonic – loner,
lean, sickly, sensitive to noise,
small body and hates crowd but the
predominance of most intelligent
skin
WALTER C. RECKLESS was an American Sociologist and Criminologists. He was
born on January 19, 1899 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S. and died on September
20, 1988. He is popularly known for his Containment Theory of Delinquency, in his
Juvenile Delinquency, which was published 1932.

Containment Theory is a broad analysis of the relationship between personal and

social controls. This theory is a form of control, which suggests that a series of both
internal and external factors contributes to criminal behavior (Schmalleger, 1998). The
theory assumes that for every individual there exists a containing external structure and
a protective internal structure, both of which provide defense, protection or insulation
against crime or delinquency.

In this theory, Reckless argued that there are inner and outer forces of containment that
restrain a person from committing a crime: the inner forces stem from moral and
religious beliefs as well as from a personal sense of right and wrong while the outer who
forces come from family members, teachers, or others who influence the individual to
some degree. The effectiveness of containment forces can be influenced by external
factors such as effective supervision and internal factors such as a good self-concept.

LATE 20th CENTURY: CONTEMPORARY PIONEERS

ROBERT K. MERTON - An American Sociologist, born on July 4, 1910 in Philadelphia,

Pennsylvania. He published a several works that broadened the realms of sociology
and helped develop new genres of study within the field such as crime and deviance
related research.

He is considered the premier sociologist of the modern days who, after Durkheim, also
related the crime problem to anomie. According to Merton, anomie can be separated
into two specific categories: macroside - caused when society fails to establish clear
limits on goals and is unable to regulate the conduct of members in the society
and microside more commonly referred to as strain, stresses its attention towards the
breakdown of society and the increase in deviance associated with this declining
change that produces a stronger pressure among members of society to commit crimes.
ALBERT K. COHEN was an advocate of the Sub-Culture Theory of Delinquency. He
published Delinquent Boys: The Culture of the Gangs in 1955. He claims that the lower
class cannot socialize effectively as the middle class in what is considered appropriate
middle-class behavior. Thus, the lower class gathered to together share their common
problems, forming a subculture that rejects middle class values. Cohen called this
process as reaction formation. Much of this behavior comes to be called delinquent
behavior; the subculture is called a gang while the kids are delinquents. He put
emphasis on the explanation of prevalence, origins, process and purposes as factors to
crime.

GRESHAM SYKES -Advocated the Neutralization Theory. This theory maintains that
an individual will obey or disobey societal rules depending upon his or her ability to
rationalize whether he is protected from hurt or destruction. People become law abiding
if they feel they are benefited by it and they violate it if these laws are not favorable to
them.
LLOYD OHLIN (1928)-The proponent of the Differential Opportunity Theory. This
theory explained that society leads the lower class to want things and society does
things to people. He claimed that there is differential opportunity, or access, to success
goals by both legitimate and illegitimate means depending on the specific location of the
individual within the social structure. Thus, lower class groups are provided with greater
opportunities for the acquisition of deviant acts.

EARL RICHARD QUINNEY Advocated the Instrumentalist Theory, a Marxist capitalist

rule idea. He argued that the state exists as a device for controlling the exploited class -
the class that labors for the benefit of the ruling class. He claims that upper classes
create laws that protect their interest and the same time the unwanted behavior of all
other members of society. Quinney's major contribution is that he proposed the shift in
focus from looking for the causes of crime from the individual to the examination of the
Criminal Justice System for clues.

TRAVIS HIRSCHI Advocated the Social Control Theory. Specifically, in his Causes of
Delinquency, published in 1969, he explained the Social Bond Theory. He argued that
delinquency can be explained by the absence of social bonds such as and social
attachments (e.g., to parents, teachers, and peers), involvement in conventional
activities, acceptance of social norms (such as the norm that criminal acts should be
avoided), and recognition of the moral validity of law are most likely to prevent
delinquency.

ROBERT AGNEW-Advocated the General Strain Theory influenced by the works of

Durkheim and Merton. The General Strain Theory revised the strain theory and
addressed many of the criticisms of the original strain theory. According to the original
strain theory, an increase in aspirations and a decrease in expectations should lead to
an increase in delinquency; however, this was not found to be the case according to
Agnew. Also, the original strain theory predicted a concentration of delinquent behavior
in the lower class, but research proved that delinquency was also common in the middle
and upper classes as per Agnew's findings..

HOWARD S. BECKER- Advocated the Labeling Theory also known as Social

Reaction Theory, which is based on the idea that a social deviant is not an inherently
deviant individual, rather they become deviant because they are labeled as such. Social
groups create deviance by making rules whose infraction create deviance, and by
applying those roles to particular people and labeling them as outsiders. From this point
of view, deviance is not a quality of the act the person commits, but rather a
consequence of the application by another of rules and sanctions to an offender. The
deviant is one to whom that label has been successfully applied; deviant behavior is
behavior that people so label. In other words, an act becomes deviant only when others
(society) label them as deviant.

OTHER THEORISTS AND PIONEERS

KARL H. MARX -A German philosopher, economist, socialist and historian. In the

context of criminological thoughts, together with Friedrich Engels, they advocated the
Social Class

Conflict and Capitalism Theory. They claimed that the ruling class in a capitalist society
is responsible for the creation of criminal law and their ideological basis in the
interpretation and enforcement of the laws. All are reflected in the ruling class; thus,
crime and delinquency are reflected on the demoralized surplus of population, which is
made up of the underprivileged usually the unemployed and underemployed.

CHARLES R. DARWIN- Popularized the Evolution Theory which laid the foundation
of anthropological criminology. He claimed that humans, like other animals, are
parasite. That man is an organism having an animalistic behavior and is dependent on
other animals for survival. Thus, man kills and steal to live. This Social Darwinism idea
was influential to Lombroso's anthropological work on the "born criminal".
CHARLES B. GORING-He was known for his The English Convict: A Statistical Study
one of the most comprehensive criminological works of its time. It was first published in
1913, and set out to establish whether there were any significant physical or mental
abnormalities among the criminal classes that set them apart from ordinary men, as
suggested by Cesare Lombroso. He analyzed over 3,000 English convicts and
ultimately concluded that "the physical and mental constitution of both criminal and law
abiding persons, of the same age, stature, class, and intelligence, are identical. There is
no such thing as an anthropological criminal type." And so, he contradicted the
Lombroso's idea that criminality can be seen the through physical features.
Nevertheless, he accepted that criminals are physically inferior to normal individuals in
the sense that criminals tend to be that be shorter and have less weight than non-
criminals.

ADOLPHE J. QUETELET-A Belgian Statistician who pioneered Cartography and the

Carthographical School of Criminology that placed emphasis on social statistics.
Through statistical

analysis, he gained insight about the relationships between crime and other social
factors. Among his findings were strong relationships between age and crime, as well
as gender and crime. He also discovered that crimes against persons tends to increase
during summer while crimes against property tends to increase during winter (may be
considered as seasonal crimes.