Teaching Criminology: Part I

Many of the theories now used and taught in criminology courses around the country are worse than useless...as bad theory, they ground bad social policy.

Some of the theories of crime are good enough on their own terms but fail as theories of and only of crime. In this mini-lecture, I would like to critique some of these theories and, in later mini-lectures, offer other ways to understand crime; other ways to ground social policy for the future.

1. Beccaria and Bentham. Both taught that the solution to crime was swift, sure and for Bentham severe punishment. There are several points to consider:

   a.  Many people, dedicated to a given goal, continue on in the face of the most serious and certain threat of pain, torture, prison and/or death. Much in the way of political crime flies in the face of this view of crime and its control.
   
   b.  The monitoring apparatus and adjudication process with which such a view could be implemented would drain the resources of even the wealthiest country. One would have to monitor the behavior of everyone all the time; have the capacity to catch, try and execute the [proportional] sentence within days if not hours.
   
   c.  The obverse of such a view; that sure, certain and swift rewards for pro-social behavior...this view is seldom brought forward in crim texts nor is it often used to ground social policy.
   
   d.  Finally, the social psychology of what constitutes crime, what constitutes punishment, what constitutes swift and what constitutes proportional are culturally variable.

2. Physiological theories. There are a wide range of physiological theories from I.Q. to body type to PMS which are adduced to explain a variety of behaviors defined as criminal. The truth value of these theories vary from weak to none. Body type, as a theory of crime is not worth the ink given it. PMS is a sexist backlash at those women who break out of the Suzy Sweetheart modality and express anger and embody violence toward gender roles and gender privilege.
   
   I.Q. deserves a bit of time....

   a.  First there are many I.Q.s available to all human beings...not just cognitive and logical reasoning. To try to track all human behaviors using two or three intelligences/problem solving capacities is simple minded...a bit like trying to fit all crimes into one or two causal patterns.
   
   b.  'Tis true enough that there are a lot of dumb people in prison but one should not conflate between ignorance and stupidity. 'Tis stupid to do so.
   
   c.  Most of the people who are ignorant enough to find themselves in prison suggest that those who are bright succeed in avoiding prison. The implication is not that stupidity and crime vary together but rather that smart criminals stay out of the population from which such theories are induced.
   
   d.  While one can use stupidity cum I.Q. as post hoc explanation for those in prison for street crime, much of the most profitable crime is found in white collar circles, in corporate boardrooms and in the higher echelons of politics. If anything, crime correlates with high I.Q. for the most successful criminals.
   
   e.  There are better ways to explain crime than using a questionable physical/ psychology...as we shall see.

3. Freudian theory. Freudian theory is a lot of fun and most rewarding to those of us who like to label our friends as oral incorporative, anal expulsive, anxious about castration or envious of our penises. And it may have some small truth value in societies where father is a tyrant...i.e., in patriarchal societies. But one should not confuse between culture and psychology. If men grow up hating women and end up slashing them, the solution is not psycho-analysis but rather an end to such paternal parenting...n'cest pas??
   
   
4. Differential Association Theory. Perhaps the most venerable theory in American criminology is Sutherland's Differential Association Theory. The theory is valid on two levels but useless on the largest level.

   a.  First people do respond to those with whom they associate most frequently. One does not need DAT to know that; primary group theory, peer group theory, significant others and the looking glass process say pretty much the same thing.
   
   b.  Then too, when there is an excess of definitions favoring crime over those favoring pro-social behavior, again within primary groups, such differencs are likely to shape and pre-shape behavior...all role theory argues the point.
   
   c.  Differential Association theory is equally true for priests, physicians, professors of sociology as for prostitutes or for professional theieves. DAT is a good theory of all social behavior...not just crime.
   
   d.  Differential Association theory begs the question why our buddies are out there urging us on to crime; to shoplifting, to car theft, to pushing of drugs, to arson, to bar-room brawls and or to murder most foul. If we want to answer these questions, we can't use DAT.

5. Labelling theory has the same strengths and the same flaws as does Differential Association theory. People labelled priests are much more likely to do priestly things than those of us who are not so labelled.

   Those of us who do a bit of gardening, a bit of healing, a bit of traveling may be labelled gardeners, healers and travellers by a goodly number of people but becoming deeply involved such that labels are likely to be used takes a lot of pre-existing activity with skills, resources as well as a bit of history before people begin to pick up on it.

   Again, labelling theory is good social psychology but doesn't focus upon the question why we have been at such activity long enough for it to become public knowledge. Sorry Charles.

6. Durkheim, Merton and Anomie. Durkheim remains a pillar in social theory. That he got it wrong on one point does not thereby invalidate other points especially those in the sociology of religion.

   Anomie means normlessness...lots of problems when one appeals to normlessness as a source of crime in general and mischief in particular.

   a.  Anomie most often means that some people are not socialized to our norms. The use of drugs is case in point. In our culture, we restrict the use of alcohol to adult males in those dramas of the holy which generate social solidarity...mechanical solidarity among otherwise competing, hostile males.
   
   When other psychogens are used in other dramas of the holy, we label these as deviant and call those who use them criminals and/or addicts.
   
   b.  A goodly bit of crime occurs within tightly enforced normative systems. Organized crime, corporate crime and political crime is highly normative. Indeed, if members of an organized theft/arson/drug group do not follow orders/commands/ rules/policy, they are in trouble. The same is true of corporate crime; if corporate officers do not engineer pollution/price fixing/commercial espionage, they are not rewarded. If employees do not carry out company policy, they are replaced. The same is true of political crime. In the army, marines, air force or CIA, one follows orders or one is in trouble. That the orders are, in both technical and in substantive terms, criminal are no excuse for in corporate boardroom or in divisional headquarters.
   
   c.  Those truly normless do not have the time, energy, resources or support for a wide variety of crime. In his study of the Ik, Colin Trumbull made a good case that, after Milton Obote nationalized traditional hunting lands as national park for european tourists, the Ik became normless...these was some truth value to that analysis...little similar is found in the USA...and the USA has the highest crime rate, the highest percentage of people in prison, the most mean-spirited prisons among all developed countries.
   
   d.  When we are normless, we turn to others for help, guidence and support. The 1952 tornado in Flint resulted in overwhelming support...a few people looted, but most of us involved helped rebuild. The 1997 floods in Minnesota produce the same generous outpouring of help and sympathy. The connection between normlessness and criminal behavior is not at all tight enough upon which to ground either theory or policy.

7. One of the most despicable theories of crime is Control Theory. The USA has some ten well organized control systems yet people routinely engage in a wide variety of crime. The Criminal Justice System, the Private Security System, the Federal Regulatory Agencies, the state welfare system, INS and the Military Justice System join with these and a growing medical control system as well as the traditional juridical processes in organized religion to control and over-control people.

   Social justice is probably a better route to a low-crime society than is more prisons, more police, longer sentences, harsher prison conditions, full term policy and/or mean guards and wardens.
   
   

8. Marxist theory. In subsequent part of the series, I will rely on some elements of marxist theory but there are several cautions I want to have up front:

   a.  Marxist theory does not cover a lot of domestic violence, macho assault and/or most murder. Patriarchy is a better place to start; better than class relations...these two interact to be sure but gender violence has its own unique dynamics.
   
   b.  Most of those who teach marxist theory as source of crime...and in my opinion, it is, still there are non-linear dynamics in which causality fades and fails. Mechanical links, formal theory, logical deductions and hypothetical predictions cannot be trusted when causal fields expand; when uncertainty increases, when critical variables exceed crucial limits.
   
   All this is new to science in general, criminology in particular and marxian theory in especial. Social dynamics are far more complex than any theory can say.
   
   c.  One should be careful to keep levels of analysis distinct. If we conflate levels, it becomes easy to justify the criminality of street thugs and corporate mugs.
   
   However deep an economic depression becomes, still one need not steal from one's neighbors. However hard it is to get a decent job, still one need not sell drugs to children still less prostitute them to sexually inadequate adults.

I shall make a case that capitalism, in spite of its many valuable accomplishments, promotes five kinds of crime...the operative word, is promotes...I do not want to use the word, causes, since most people presume a linearity in the word. I don't but those socialized to newtonian physics, aristotlean logic, leibnizean calculus, carnapian reasoning and to formal, axiomatic theory do so presume. The new sciences of chaos and complexity reduce the range of such epistemological tools. So, in future mini- lectures, keep in mind, the notion of 'tendency,' the idea of 'promote,' the implications of 'non-linearity' for both crime and social policy. There is order even in deeply chaotic social dynamics; there is the possibility of social policy in most non-linear social processes. But the hard, tight causality of modern science has but a small role to play in postmodern criminology.

TR Young