The Explanation Of Criminality Essay Example For Students

The Explanation Of Criminality Essay From a sociological perspective, explanations for criminal-ity are found in two levels which are the subculture and thestructural explanations. The sociological explanations emphasize aspects of societalarrangements that are external to the actor and compelling. Asociological explanation is concerned with how the structure of a society or its institutional practices or its persisting cultural themes affect the conduct of its members. Individualdifferences are denied or ignored, and the explanation of the overall collective behavoir is sought in the patterning ofsocial arrangements that is considered to be both outsidethe actor and prior to him (Sampson, 1985). That is, the social patterns of power or of institutions which are held tobe determinative of human action are also seen as having been in existence before any particular actor came on the scene. In lay language, sociological explanations of crime place theblame on something social that is prior to, external to, andcompelling of any particular person. Sociological explanations do not deny the importance ofhuman motivation. However, they locate the source of motivesoutside the individual and in the cultural climate in which helives. Political philosophers, sociologists, and athropologistshave long observed that a condition of social life is that notall things are allowed. Standards of behavior are both a pro-duct of our living together and a requirement if social life is to be orderly. The concept of a culture refers to the perceived standardsof behavior, observable in both words and deeds, that arelearned, transmitted from generation to generation and somewhatdurable. To call such behavior cultural does not necessar-ily mean that it is refined, but rather means that it iscultured aquired, cultivated, and persistent. Socialscientists have invented the notion of a subculture to describevariations, within a society, upon its cultural themes. Insuch circumstances, it is assumed that some cultural prescrip-tions are common to all members of society, but that modifica-tions and variations are discernible within the society. Again, it is part of the definition of a subculture, as of aculture, that is relatively enduring. Its norms are termed a style, rather than a fashion, on the grounds that the formerhas some endurance while the latter is evanescent. The quarrelcomes, of course, when we try to estimate how real a culturalpattern is and how persistent. The standards by which behavior is to be guided vary amongmen and over time. Its is in this change and variety that crime is defined. An application of this principle to crimin-ology would find that the roots of the crime in the fact thatgroups have developed different standards of appropriate behavior and that, in complex cultures, each individual issubject to competing prescriptions for action. Another subcultural explanation of crime grows readily outof the fact that, as we have seen, social classes experiencedifferent rates of arrest and conviction for serious offenses. When strata within a society are marked off by categories ofincome, education, and occupational prestige, differences arediscovered among them in the amount and style of crime. Further, differences are usually found between these socialclasses in their tastes, interests, and morals. Its is easy to describe these class-linked patterns as cultures. This version of the subcultural explanation of crime holdsthat the very fact of learning the lessons of the subculturemeans that one aquires interests and preferences that place himin greater or lesser risk of breaking the law. Others arguethat being reared in the lower class means learning a differentculture from that which creates the criminal laws. The lower-class subculture is said to have its own values, many of whichrun counter to the majority interests that support the lawsagainst the serious predatory crimes. One needs to note that the indicators of class are notdescriptions of class. Proponents of subcultural explanationsof crime do not define a class culture by any assortment of theobjective indicators or rank, such as annual income or years ofschooling. The subcultural theorists is interested in pattern-ed ways of life which may have evolved with a division of laborand which, then, are called class cultures. The pattern, however, is not described by reference to income alone, or byreference to years of schooling or occupational skill. Thepattern includes these indicators, but it is not defined by them. The subcultural theorist is more intent upon the variet-ies of human value. these are preferred ways of living that are acted upon. In the economists language, they aretastes. The thesis that is intimated, but not often explicated, bya subcultural description of behaviors is that single or multiple signs of social position, such as occupation or educa-tion, will have a different significance for status, and forcultures, with changes in their distribution. Money and education do not mean the same things socially as they are moreor less equitably distributed. The change in meaning is notmerely a change in the prestige value of these two, but alsobetokens changes in the boundries between class cultures. Generally speaking, whether one believes tendencies to be goodor bad, the point of emphasis should be simply that the criteria of social class that have been generally employed-criteria like income and schooling-may change meaning withchanges in the distribution of these advantages in a popula-tion. Class cultures, like national cultures, may breakdown. A more general subcultural explanation of crime, notnecessarily in disagreement with the notion of class cultures,attributes differences in crime rates to differences in ethnicpatterns to be found within a society. Explanations of thissort do not necessarily bear the title ethnic, although theyare so designated here because they partake of the generalassumption that there are group differences in learned prefer-ences-in what is rewarded and punished-and that these groupdifferences have a perisistence often called a tradition. Such explantions are of a piece whether they are advancedas descriptions of regional cultures, generational differences,or national characteristics (Hirschi, 1969). Their commontheme is the differences in ways of life out of which differ-ences in crime rates seem to flow. Ethnic explanations areproposed under an assortment of labels, but they have incommon the fact that they do not limit the notion of sub-culture to class culture (Hirschi). They seem particularlyjustified where differences in social status are not so highlycorrelated with differences in conduct as are other indicatorsof cultural difference. Thus many sociologists in this field argue that in theUnited States economic and status positions in the communitycannot be shown to account for differences between whites and Negroes or between Southerners and Northerners (Freeman, 1983). In relevance, an index ofSoutherness is found to be highly correlated with homiciderates in the United States. Therefore, there is a measureableregional culture that promotes murder. The hazard of accepting a subcultural explanation and, atthe same time, wishing to be a doctor to the body politic isthat the remedies may as well spread the disease as cure it. Among the prescriptions is social action to disperse therepresentatives of the subculture of violence. Quite apart from the political difficulties of implementing such an en-forced dispersion, the proposal assumes more knowledge thanwhat is available. We, as a society, do not know what pro-portion of the violent people would have to be dispersed inorder to break up their culture; and, what is more important,we do not know to what extent the dispersed people would act as culture-carriers and contaminate their hosts. While sociologists acknowledge the plausibility of med-leys of causes operating to affect crime rates, their atten-tion has been largely diverted to specific kinds of socialarrangements that may affect the damage we do to each other. Among the more prominent hypotheses stress the impact of social structure upon behavior. These proposals minimize thefacts of subcultural differences and point to the sources ofcriminal motivation in the patterns of power and privilegewithin a society. They shift the blame for crime from howpeople are to where they are (Sampson). Such explanations may still speak of subcultures, but when they do, they usethe term in a weaker sense than is intended by the subculturaltheorist. A powerful and popular sociological explanation of crime finds its sources in the social order. This explanationlooks to the ways in which human wants are generated andsatisfied and the ways in which rewards and punishments arehanded out by the social system. There need be no irreconcilable contradiction between subcultural and structural hypotheses, but their different em-phases do produce quarrels about facts as well as about remedies. An essential difference between these two explana-tions is that the structuralists assume that all the membersof a society want more of the same things than the sub-culturalists assume they want (Herrnstein, 1985). In thissense, the structural theses tend to be egalitarian and demo-cratic (Herrnstein). The major applications of structuralismassume that people everywhere are basically the same and thatthere are no significant differences in abilities or desiresthat might account for lawful and criminal careers. Attentionis paid, then, to the organization of social relations that affects the differential exercise of talents and interests which are assumed to be roughly equal for all individuals of asociety. Modern structural explanations of criminogenesis derive from the ideas of the French sociologist Emil e Durkheim. Durkheim viewed the human being as a social animal as well asa physical organism. To say that a man is a social animal means more than the obvious fact that he lives a long life asa helpless child depending on others for his survival. It means more, too, than that homo sapiens is a herding animal whotends to live in colonies. For Durkheim, the significantlysocial aspect of human nature is that human physical survivalalso depends upon moral connections. Moral connections are, ofcourse, social. They represent a bond with, and hence a bond-age to, others (Christiansen, 1977). Durkheim states that it is not true, that human activity can be released from all re-straint (Christiansen). The restraint that is required if social life is to ensue is a restraint necessary also for the psychic health of the human individual. Hate Crimes EssaySome social psychologists believe that children will grow upviolent if they are not adequately nurtured. Adequate nurturing in-cludes both appreciating the child and training him or her to ac-knowledge the rights of others. From this theoretical stance, thesavagery of the urban gangster for example represents merely the natural outcome of a failure in child upbringing. Similarily, on a simple level of explanation, many sociolo-gists and anthropologists believe that hostile behavior can belearned as easily as passive behavior. Once learned, the codesof violence and impatient tendencies of the mind are their ownpositive values. Fighting and hating then become both duties andpleasures. For advocates of this sociopsychological point of view,it is not necessary to regard the barbarian whose words and deedslaugh at goodness as having the same motives as more lawful per-sons. It needs no radical vision to agree that the school systems ofWestern societies presently provide poor aprenticeship in adult-hood for many adolescents. A poor apprenticeship for being grownup is criminogenic. In this sense, the structure of modern countries encouragesdelinquency, for that structure lacks institutional procedures formoving people smoothly form protected childhood to automonmous adulthood. During adolescence, many youths in affluent societiesare neither well guided by their parents nor happily engaged by their teachers. They are adult in body, but children in responsi-bility and in their contribution to others. Now placed in betweenirresponsible dependence and accountable independance, they arecompelled to attend schools that do not thoroughly stimulate theinterests of all of them and that, in too many cases, provide theuninterested child with the experience of failure and the mirror of denigration (Herrnstein). Educators are conceiving remedies. This engages a dilemmaa dilemma of the democratic educators. They want equality and individuality, objectives that thus far inhistory have eluded societal engineers. Meanwhile, the metro-politan schools of industrialized nations make a probable, but measurable, contribution to delinquency. Some crimes are rational. In such cases, the criminal wayappears to be the more effecient way of satisfying ones wants. When crime is regarded as rational, it can be given either a structural or a sociopsychological explanation. The explanation is structural when it emphasizes the conditions that make crime rational. It becomes a sociopsychological explanation when itemphasizes the interpretations of the conditions that make crimerational, or when it stresses the training that legitimizes il-legal activities. No one emphasis need be more correctmore use-fulthan another. Conduct, lawful and criminal, always occurs within some structure of possibilities and is, among normal people, justified by an interpretation of that structure. Boththe interpretation of and the adaptation to a structure of possibilities are largely learned. It is only for convenience that we will discuss the idea that crime may be rational as one of the structural, rather than one of the sociopsychological, explantions. The most obvious way in which a social structure producescrime is by providing chances to make money illegally (Her rnstein). Whether or not a structure elevates desires, it generates crime bybringing needs into the view of opportunities. This kind of explanation does not say that people behave criminally because they have been denied legitimate opportunities,but rather it says that people break the law, particulary thoselaws concerning the definition of property, because this is a rational thing to do. the idea of rational crime is in accord with the common-sense assumption that most people will take moneyif they can do so without penalty. Obviously there are differences in personality that raise orlower resistance to temptation. These differences are the concernof those sociopsychological explantions that emphasize the controlling functions of character. However, without attendingto these personal variables, it is notable that the common humanproclivity to improve and maintain status will produce offensesagainst property when these tendencies meet the appropriate situa-tion (Ferrington). These situations have been studied by crimin-ologists in four major contexts. There are, first, the many situations in civil life in which supplies, services and money are available for theft. Theft is widespread in such situations. It ranges from taking what isnt nailed down in public settings to stealing factory tools and store inventories to cheating on expense accounts to embezzlement. Second, there are circumstances in which legitimate work makes it economical to break the criminal law. Third, there are able criminals, individual s who have chosen theft as an occupation and who have make a success of it. These expert thieves are sometimes affiliated with musclemen or organizers in a fourth context of rational crimes, the context in which crime becomes an economic enterprise fulfilling the demands of a market (Ferrington). Now specifically on these contexts, crime has been seen as apreferred livelihood. The conception of some kinds of crime asrational responses to structures indicates that in the struggleto stay alive and in the desire to improve ones material condi-tion lie the seeds of many crimes. some robbery, but moreburglary; some snitching, but more boosting; some automobiletheft by juveniles, but more automobile transfers by adultsrepresent a consciously adopted way of making a living. Allorganized crime represents such a preference. The organization oflarge scale theft adopts new technologies and new modes of opera-tion to keep pace with increases in the wealth of Western nationsand changes in security measures. Such businesslike crime hasbeen changing form craft crimes to project crimes involving big-ger risks, bigger takes, and more criminal intelligence. Conversations with successful criminals, those who use intel-legence to plan lucrative acts, indicate considerable satisfactionwith their work. There is pride in ones craft and pride in onesnerve. There is enjoyment of leisure between jobs. There is ex-pressed delight in being ones own boss, free of any compellingroutine. the carefree life, the irresponsible life, is appreciat-ed and contrasted with the drab existence of more lawful citizens. Given the low risk of penalty and the high probability of reward, given the absence of pangs of guilt and the presence ofhedonistic preferences, crime is a rational occupational choicefor such individuals (Sampson). On a level of lesser skill, many inhabitants of metropolitanslums are in situations that make criminal activity a rationalenterprise. Young men in particular who show little interest inschool, but great distaste for the authority of a boss and theimprisonment of a predictable job, are likely candidates for therackets. Compared to work, the rackets combine more freedom, money and higher status at a relatively low cost. In some organ-ized crimes, like running the numbers, risk of arrest is low. the rationality of the choice of these rackets is therefore thatmuch higher for youths with the requisite tastes. In summary, the structuralist emphasis on the criminogenicfeatures of a stratified society is both popular and persuasive. The employment of this type of explanation becomes political. If the anomie that generates crime lies in the gap between desiresand their gratification, criminologists can urge that desires bemodified, that gratifications be increased, or that some compro-mise be reached between what people expect and what they arelikely to get (Christiansen). The various political positions prescribe different remediesfor our social difficulties. Radical thinkers use the schema ofanomie to strengthen their argument for a classless or, at least,a less stratified society. Conservative thinkers use this schemato demonstrate the dangers of an egalitarian philosophy. At onepolitical pole, the recommendation is to change the structure ofpower so as to reduce the pressure toward criminality. At the other pole, the prescription is to change the publics perceptionof life. Criminologists are themselves caught up in this debate. Themajor tradition in social psychology, as it has been developed from sociologists, emphasizes the ways in which perceptions andbeliefs cause behavoirs. Between how things are (the structure)and how one responds to this world, the social psychologist places attitude, belief, and definition of the situation. Thecrucial question becomes one of assessing how much of any actionis simply a response to a structure of the social world, and howmuch of any action is moved by differing interpretations of thatreality (Sampson). Social psychologists of the symbolic-inter-actionist persuasion attempt to build a bridge between the struc-tures of social relations and our interpretations of them and, inthis matter, to describe how crime is produced. BibliographyBIBLIOGRAPHY1. Blumstein, Alfred. 1979. An Analysis. Crime and Delinquency 29 (October): 546-60. 2. Christiansen, K.O. 1977. A Review of Studies of Crimin-ality. In Bases of Criminal Behavoir, ed. S.A. Mednick and K.O. Christiansen, p. 641, 654-669 New York: Gardner. 3. Ferrington, David P. 1991. Explaining the Beginning and Progress. In Advances in Criminological Theory, ed. Joan McCord, vol. 3, p. 191-199,New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction. 4. Freeman, Richard B. 1983. The Relationship Between Criminality and the Disadvantaged. Ch. 6 In Crimeand Public Policy, ed. James Q. Wilson, p. 917-991. San Francisco: ICS Press. 5. Herrnstein, Richard J. 1985. Crime and Human Nature. P. 359-374, New York: Simon and Schuster. 6. Hirschi, Travis. 1969. Causes of Delinquency. P. 30-31,89-102, Berkeley: University of California Press. 7. Sampson, R.J. 1985. Neighborhood Family Structure and theRisk of Victimization. In The Social Ecology of Crime, ed. J. Byrne and R. Sampson, 25-46. New York:Springer-Verlag. Sociology