Wrapping up Deterrence/Rational Choice/Routine Activities & Biological and Psychological Theories

AS I noted in my previous blog post, I planned to post some more lecture notes so that we can make it through these theories and get on to "Crime Types" in another two weeks or so. I may make some brief comments about these notes in class tomorrow, but for all intents and purposes, I plan to move on to the sociological theories tomorrow (Tues., 9/27).

WRAPPING UP DETERRENCE/RATIONAL CHOICE/ROUTINE ACTIVITIES THEORIES

A. In addition to the passages critical of deterrence theory (which you'll find in the previous blog post), I'd like to make a couple more general observations about the impact of such thinking on criminal justice policy over the past 30 years or so.

B. There can be no doubt that deterrence theory has had an obvious impact on criminal justice policy. It is generally believed that SWIFT, CERTAIN , and SEVERE sanctions for criminal acts will reduce crime in society. The popular ("knee-jerk") approach of the vast majority of politicians is "get tough."

1. For example, over the past 30 years or so, we seen the restoration of capital punishment, abolition of parole and indeterminant sentencing, mandatory-minimum sentences, generally longer sentences, especially for drug offenses, "3 strikes and you're out," trying juveniles as adults.

2. This has led to a quadrupling of our prison population since 1980 (from 500,000 to over 2 million). But the overall crime rate has not come down that dramatically, even though in the late 1990s and more recently (2008-2010) crime rates have come down somewhat. In general, there is not much evidence that potential criminals are being deterred, although one could argue that we are certainly INCAPACITATING more criminals today, which may be responsible for lowering crime rates.

a.) Of course, there are other possible explanations for the recent decline -- one possibility might be a decline in the population of young males, which is the most crime-prone population.

3. Shock incarceration, boot camps, and an experimental program called "Scared Straight" can all be considered versions of "get tough," scare tactics, but they have not been that successful. Follow-up research on "Scared Straight," in particular, largely punctured the hoopla when it was first introduced. Two researchers (Lundman and Scarpitti) looked at "Scared Straight," and many other such programs, and concluded: "'Our own research and the research of others, lead us to the inescapable conclusion that few, if any of these efforts successfully prevented delinquency.' The authors suggest...so far, the program hasn't been devised that will knock out juvenile crimes. With the best of intentions, the lifers at Rahway (the New Jersey prison where "Scared Straight" was first tried) can't transform city schools, poor and broken families, jobless summers." In other words, in the absence of changing the social environment substantially, one can't expect much from scare tactics or "get tough" approaches.


BIOLOGICAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL THEORIES:

A. The following brief overview of biological and psychological theories of criminal behavior is not intended to be comprehensive or exhaustive. By treating these theories so briefly, I do not mean to imply that they are not worth careful consideration. My main intention is to present these theories as a COUNTERPOINT or CONTRAST to the various sociological theories which, of course, emphasize the role of SOCIAL forces over and above aspects of our biological or psychological make-up.

B. Lombroso and the Early Biological Theories

1. The classical school of criminology (i.e., deterrence) was dominant up until the late 19th century when what is known as "biological positivism" took hold, which directly challenges the notion that crime is rational behavior. (In fact, I would go as far to suggest that biological and psychological theories see criminal behavior as a product of some biological or mental DEFECT or ABNORMALITY, rather that ordinary, rationally-calculating individuals.)

2. The early biological criminologists viewed criminals as a distinct set of people who were biologically inferior to law-abiding citizens, or inherently defective in some way. Preeminant among them was Cesare Lombroso, a self-described "medical anthropologist" and physician, who wrote "The Criminal Man" in 1876 which, despite its major flaws, went through 5 editions. He has been considered the "father of modern criminology" because he used a scientific methodology to study criminals (and NOT because of the strength of his theory).

3. In his research, Lombroso compared Italian prisoners (representing the criminal population) with soldiers (representing the "normal" population). He found that the prisoners shared distinctive physical traits or abnormalities which identified them as being a "born criminal type" -- really throwbacks to primitive man. Traits such as asymetry of face or head, large ears, receding chin, twisted nose, etc.

4. There is an obvious problem with both of the samples he used: prisoners do NOT represent all criminals, and even worse, soldiers are in no way representative of the normal population. Indeed, that was largely the basis of Charles Goring's refutation of Lombroso's theory in his 1913 book, "The English Convict." Goring took a much broader sample of the normal or non-criminal population and found no significant physical differences with English convicts.

5. Despite Goring's rather thorough critique, Lombroso's idea did not die. It was resurrected by E.A. Hooten in 1939, who argued that criminals are basically "organically inferior." (Indeed, Edwin Sutherland, the father of American criminology, developed his theory of DIFFERENTIAL ASSOCIATION in part as a critical response to Hooten. Sutherland also pioneered the field of white collar crime, which suggested that only focusing on street crininals was inadequate.)

C. More modern biological theories

1. By the 1950s, biological theories in criminology had pretty much been discredited. Sociological theories were coming into vogue. But biological theories did not die but were resurrected and have become more sophisticated due to our increasingly sophisticated understanding of human physiology and genetics.

a.) For example, in the 1960s biological explanations got a short-lived boost from the "XYY super-male criminal theory" -- that an additional Y chromosome makes an individual more volatile and aggressive. But, among other problems, it was found that only a small proportion of XYY males commit crimes of any kind (lots of exceptions, that is), and there was no evidence that the XYY syndrome is the specific cause of any criminal behavior. (And that is not to mention that female criminals were overlooked.)

2. Modern biological theories of crime and delinquency, (often based on advances in genetics, brain function (eg., serotonin levels in the brain), neurology, biochemistry, are considered more respectable, despite some methodological problems. These theories are clearly more sophisticated than the early, simplistic BIOLOGICAL DETERMINISM (biology is destiny, that is) of people like Lombroso. They acknowledge the role of other social factors, and largely relegate biological factors to a secondary role as PROPENSITIES or PREDISPOSITIONS (that is, biological factors may PREDISPOSE someone to commit a crime but they do NOT DETERMINE that someone will commit a crime).

D. Policy implications of biological theories

1. Older, more deterministic theories would lead to more drastic measures, such as "selective breeding," which Hooten actually suggested, or completely isolating these born criminals in prison, or executing them, since they were biologically determined to commit crime.

2. Contemporary biological theorists support dietary therapy, genetic counseling, drug therapies, but they would also support changes in the social environment. In this context, you would still have to deal with the problem of "false positives," that is, people who may have these criminally-prone biological characteristics but who do not commit crimes. Often talking about 50% or more, not just a few exceptions. So, would early (preventive) intervention with some drug therapy, for example, be justified if half of those receiving it really did not need it?


E. Psychological Theories

1. One type of psychological theory that was more popular some years ago when PSYCHOANALYSIS was more in vogue, is the PSYCHOANALYTIC theory based on Freud's view of the human psyche, consisting of: ID, EGO, SUPEREGO. Without getting very specific, one could say that the psychoanalytic explanation relies heavily on the existence of irrational, unconscious motivations (id) not being properly handled or controlled by other aspects of the psyche (ego, and especially, superego or conscience). Or, the flip side would be an overbearing superego which would give rise to "repressive sexuality," or excessive guilt.

a.) It is difficult to assess the empirical validity of psychoanalytic theories because they rely on a careful examination of individual cases by a trained psychoanalyst, and however compelling such case studies may seem, you cannot extrapolate to the larger population. It is difficult to replicate and independently verify the psychoanalyst's diagnosis.

2. Then, you have what could be called PERSONALITY theories. Here you are dealing with more conscious, observable (measurable) aspects of personality. The basic argument being that criminals have abnormal, inadequate or specifically criminal personality traits that set them apart from the law-abiding people. This would include traits such as aggressiveness, impulsiveness, sensation-seeking, risk-taking, etc. (although we should also acknowledge that these traits do NOT necessarily manifest themselves in criminal behavior.)

a.) Apparently, research on the causative effects of such personality traits on criminal and deviant behavior has been INCONSISTENT.

b.) You also run into the problem of TAUTOLOGY (circular argument or true by definition and therefore incapable of being disproven). For example, psychopathic personality being measured, in part, by a prior history of criminal and deviant behavior, which would make the theory that a psychopathic personality leads to criminal behavior true by definition.

3. Psychological counseling of various kinds is widely employed in delinquency prevention and trestment programs, as well as in virtually every residential and non-residential facility for treating criminal offenders. But the effectiveness of such counseling has not been demonstrated, which would suggest perhaps that psychology is not the problem, but something else needs to be addressed.

FINAL CRITICAL OBSERVATION ABOUT BOTH BIOLOGICAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL THEORIES:

I believe neither theory by itself (or even combined in some way) can offer an adequate explanation for criminal behavior for the basic reason that: THE INDIVIDUAL IS NOT A SEPARATE AND DISTINCT BIOLOGICAL OR PSYCHOLOGICAL BEING. INDIVIDUALS ARE ALSO SOCIAL AND CULTURAL BEINGS. That is to say, the individual is really a system of relations which includes the social and cultural dimensions as well as the biological and psychological dimensions. Also, given the fact that crime is a matter of social definition, that would suggest that the social dimension is ultimately more important than the biological or psychological in explaining criminal behavior.
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That's all for now. I will make a few brief comments on what I have just posted on the blog, but basically, I will start to consider the main sociological theories tomorrow (Tues., 9/27).