What Evidence Shows That the Number of Women Who Commit Crimes Is Related to Social Structure?

eight.4 Explaining Crime

Learning Objectives

1. Understand social structure theories of crime.
2. Explain the social bonding theory of crime.
3. Describe the general assumptions of conflict theories of crime.

If we want to be able to reduce crime, we must first understand why it occurs. Sociologists more often than not discount explanations rooted in the individual biology or psychology of criminal offenders. While a few offenders may suffer from biological defects or psychological problems that pb them to commit crime, about do not. Farther, biological and psychological explanations cannot adequately explain the social patterning of crime discussed earlier: why higher crime rates are associated with certain locations and social backgrounds. For example, if California has a college crime rate than Maine, and the United states has a higher criminal offence rate than Canada, it would sound silly to say that Californians and Americans accept more biological and psychological problems than Mainers and Canadians, respectively. Biological and psychological explanations likewise cannot easily explain why crime rates rise and fall, nor do they lend themselves to practical solutions for reducing crime.

California has a higher offense charge per unit than many other states, but it is difficult to argue that Californians have more than biological or psychological problems than the residents of other states.

In dissimilarity, sociological explanations do assist empathize the social patterning of crime and changes in crime rates, and they also lend themselves to possible solutions for reducing crime. A brief give-and-take of these explanations follows, and a summary appears in Table 8.two "Sociological Explanations of Crime".

Table viii.2 Sociological Explanations of Criminal offence

Major perspective	Related explanation	Summary of explanation
Functional (social structure theories)	Social disorganization	Certain social characteristics of urban neighborhoods contribute to high crime rates. These characteristics include poverty, dilapidation, population density, and population turnover.
	Anomie	Co-ordinate to Robert Merton, crime by the poor results from a gap between the cultural accent on economic success and the disability to attain such success through the legitimate means of working.
Interactionist (social process theories)	Differential association	Edwin H. Sutherland argued that criminal behavior is learned by interacting with close friends who teach us how to commit various crimes and besides the values, motives, and rationalizations nosotros need to adopt in club to justify breaking the law.
	Social bonding	Travis Hirschi wrote that malversation results from weak bonds to conventional social institutions, such as families and schools.
	Labeling	Deviance and criminal offense result from being officially labeled; abort and imprisonment increase the likelihood of reoffending.
Conflict (conflict theories)	Group conflict	Criminal law is shaped by the conflict among the diverse social groups in society that be because of differences in race and ethnicity, social class, religion, and other factors.
	Radical	The wealthy try to utilize the police force and criminal justice organization to reinforce their ability and to keep the poor and people of color at the bottom of society.
	Feminist	Gender plays an important role in the post-obit areas: (1) the reasons girls and women commit crime; (2) the reasons female person crime is lower than male person crime; (3) the victimization of girls and women by rape, sexual assault, and domestic violence; and (4) the experience of women professionals and offenders in the criminal justice system.

The Functional Perspective: Social Structure Theories

Social construction theories all stress that crime results from the breakdown of social club's norms and social organization and in this sense fall under the functional perspective outlined in Chapter ane "Understanding Social Problems". They trace the roots of law-breaking to problems in the society itself rather than to biological or psychological problems inside individuals. By doing then, they suggest the need to address society's social structure in social club to reduce law-breaking. Several social structure theories exist.

Social Disorganization Theory

A popular explanation is social disorganization theory. This approach originated primarily in the work of Clifford R. Shaw and Henry D. McKay (1942), two social scientists at the University of Chicago who studied that urban center's delinquency rates during the offset three decades of the twentieth century. During this time, the ethnic limerick of Chicago changed considerably, equally the city'due south inner zones were outset occupied past English, High german, and Irish gaelic immigrants, and then by Eastern European immigrants, and then by African Americans who moved in that location from southern states. Shaw and McKay constitute that the inner zones of Chicago consistently had the highest delinquency rates regardless of which indigenous grouping lived there, and they too found that the ethnic groups' delinquency rates declined as they moved to outer areas of Chicago. To explain these related patterns, Shaw and McKay reasoned that the inner zones of Chicago suffered from social disorganization: A weakening of social institutions such equally the family, school, and organized religion that in plough weakens the strength of social bonds and norms and the effectiveness of socialization. Research today confirms that crime rates are highest in neighborhoods with several kinds of structural bug, including high rates of residential mobility, population density, poverty, and single-parent families (Mazerolle, Wickes, & McBroom, 2010).

Anomie Theory

Another popular caption is anomie theory, first formulated by Robert K. Merton (1938) in a classic article. Writing but after the Great Depression, Merton focused on the effects of poverty in a nation similar the United States that places so much emphasis on economic success. With this potent cultural value, wrote Merton, the poor who do not attain the American dream feel especially frustrated. They accept several ways or adaptations of responding to their situation (encounter Table 8.iii "Anomie Theory").

Table 8.3 Anomie Theory

	Goal of economical success
	Accept	Reject
Value of working
Accept	Conformity	Ritualism
Reject	Innovation	Retreatism

First, said Merton, they may continue to accept the goal of economic success and also the value of working at a job to accomplish such success; Merton labeled this accommodation conformity. 2d, they may continue to favor economic success but refuse the value of working and instead apply new, illegitimate ways, for example theft, of gaining coin and possessions; Merton labeled this adaptation innovation. Tertiary, they may carelessness hope of economic success just continue to work anyway because work has become a addiction. Merton labeled this adaptation ritualism. Finally, they may reject both the goal of economic success and the ways of working to achieve such success and withdraw from guild either past turning to drugs or by becoming hobos; Merton labeled this adaptation retreatism. He too listed a fifth adaptation, which he called rebellion, to characterize a response in which people reject economic success and working and work to bring about a new order with new values and a new economical system.

Merton's theory was very influential for many years simply eventually lost popularity, partly because many crimes, such as attack and rape, are non committed for the economic motive that his theory causeless, and partly because many people utilize drugs and alcohol without dropping out of social club, as his retreatism category causeless. In recent years, all the same, scholars have rediscovered and adjusted his theory, and it has regained favor every bit new attention is being paid to the frustration resulting from poverty and other strains in ane's life that in plow may produce criminal behavior (Miller, Schreck, & Tewksbury, 2011).

The Interactionist Perspective: Social Process Theories

Social procedure theories all stress that crime results from the social interaction of individuals with other people, particularly their friends and family, and thus autumn under the interactionist perspective outlined in Chapter i "Agreement Social Problems". They trace the roots of crime to the influence that our friends and family have on us and to the meanings and perceptions we derive from their views and expectations. By doing so, they indicate the need to address the peer and family context as a promising way to reduce offense.

Social process theories stress that crime results from social interaction. In particular, our friends influence our likelihood of committing crime or not committing crime.

Differential Association Theory

One of the virtually famous criminological theories is differential association theory, starting time formulated at about the same time as Merton's anomie theory by Edwin H. Sutherland and published in its final form in an edition of a criminology text he wrote (Sutherland, 1947). Sutherland rejected the thought, fashionable at the time, that criminal offence had strong biological roots and instead said it grew out of interaction with others. Specifically, he wrote that adolescents and other individuals acquire that it is acceptable to commit crime and also how to commit law-breaking from their interaction with their shut friends. Adolescents become delinquent if they acquire more and stronger attitudes in favor of breaking the police force than attitudes opposed to breaking the law. As Sutherland put it, "A person becomes delinquent because of an backlog of definitions favorable to the violation of law over definitions unfavorable to the violation of law." Crime and delinquency, then, issue from a very normal social process, social interaction. Adolescents are more or less at risk for malversation partly depending on who their friends are and what their friends practise or don't practise.

Many scholars today consider peer influences to be amid the nearly important contributors to delinquency and other misbehavior (Akers & Sellers, 2009). 1 trouble with differential association theory is that information technology does not explain behavior, similar rape, that is usually committed past a lone offender and that is mostly the result of attitudes learned from one's close friends.

Social Bonding Theory

In a 1969 book, Causes of Malversation, Travis Hirschi (1969) asked non what prompts people to commit crime, but rather what keeps them from committing criminal offense. This question was prompted past his view that human nature is basically selfish and that information technology is society's job to tame this selfishness. He wrote that an adolescent's bonds to club, and specifically the bonds to family and schoolhouse, aid keep the adolescent from breaking the law.

Hirschi identified several types of social bonds, but mostly thought that the closer adolescents feel to their family unit and teachers, the more they value their parents' beliefs and school values, and the more fourth dimension they spend with their families and on school activities, the less likely they are to be delinquent. Turning that around, they are more likely to exist delinquent if they feel more than afar from their parents and teachers, if they place less value on their family's and school's values, and if they spend less time with these ii very of import social institutions in their lives.

Hirschi's social bonding theory attracted immediate attention and is ane of the nigh popular and influential theories in criminology today. Information technology highlighted the importance of families and schools for delinquency and stimulated much inquiry on their influence. Much of this research has focused on the relationship betwixt parents and children. When this relationship is warm and harmonious and when children respect their parents' values and parents care for their children firmly simply fairly, children are less likely to commit hating beliefs during childhood and malversation during adolescence. Schools also matter: Students who do well in school and are very involved in extracurricular activities are less probable than other students to engage in malversation (Bohm & Vogel, 2011).

Children and Our Future

Saving Children from a Life of Law-breaking

Millions of children around the nation live in circumstances that put them at risk for a babyhood, adolescence, and adulthood filled with antisocial behavior, delinquency, and criminal offence, respectively. Although most of these children in fact will not suffer this fate, many of their peers volition feel these outcomes. These circumstances thus must exist addressed to save these children from a life of criminal offense. As social scientists Brandon C. Welsh and David P. Farrington discover, "Convincing research evidence exists to support a policy of saving children from a life of crime by intervening early on in childhood to tackle key take a chance factors."

What are these take a chance factors? They include beingness born to a teenaged, unmarried mother; living in poverty or nigh poverty; attention poor, battered schools; and living in loftier-crime urban areas. Every bit should exist evident, these risk factors are all related, as almost children born to teenaged, unmarried mothers alive in poverty or near poverty, and many such children live in high-crime urban areas.

What can be washed to assist save such children from a life of crime? Ideally, our nation would elevator them and their families entirely out of poverty with employment and social payment policies. Although this sort of national policy will non occur in the foreseeable future, a growing corporeality of rigorous social science evaluation evidence points to several effective programs and policies that can still help at-gamble children. These include (one) at the private level, certain types of preschool programs and social skills training programs; (2) at the family level, home visiting by trained professionals and parenting training programs; and (3) at the school and community levels, certain types of later on-schoolhouse and community-mentoring programs in which local adults spend fourth dimension with children at risk for delinquency and other problems.

As Welsh and Farrington notation, "Early prevention is past no ways a panacea. Merely information technology does represent an integral role of whatever plan to reduce the nation'southward crime rate." They add that several other Western democracies have national agencies devoted to improving behavioral and other outcomes among those nations' children, and they telephone call for the The states to constitute a like national agency, the National Council on Early on Prevention, as part of a nationwide strategy to prevent delinquency and other antisocial behaviors amongst American youth.

Sources: Piquero, Farrington, Welsh, Tremblay, & Jennings, 2009; Welsh & Farrington, 2007

Some other social establishment, religion, has also been the subject of research. An increasing number of studies are finding that religious involvement seemingly helps continue adolescents from using alcohol and other drugs (see Affiliate 7 "Alcohol and Other Drugs"), from engaging in frequent sex, and from engaging in delinquency by and large (Desmond, Soper, & Purpura, 2009). Fewer studies of religiosity and criminality during adulthood exist, merely one investigation found an association between greater religiosity and fewer sexual partners among never-married adults (Barkan, 2006).

Labeling Theory

Our criminal justice system is based on the thought that the prospect of quick abort and harsh punishment should deter criminal behavior. Labeling theory has the opposite idea, equally information technology assumes that labeling someone as a criminal or deviant, which arrest and imprisonment certainly exercise, makes the person more than likely to continue to offend. This event occurs, argues the theory, considering the labeling process gives someone a negative cocky-image, reduces the potential for employment, and makes it difficult to have friendships with law-abiding individuals.

When this homo is released from prison, he will probably face up difficulties in finding a chore and starting friendships with law-abiding people. These difficulties volition make him more probable to commit new crimes.

Suppose, for instance, that y'all were simply released from prison house after serving a five-twelvemonth term for armed robbery. When you apply for a task and list your prison term on the application, how likely are you to get hired? If you are at a bar and meet someone who interests y'all and so tell the person where yous were for the previous five years, what are the chances that the conversation will proceed? Faced with bleak job prospects and a dearth of people who want to spend time with you, what are your alternatives? Might you lot not succumb to the temptation to hang out with other offenders and even to commit new crime yourself?

Although inquiry findings are not unanimous, several studies exercise find that arrest and imprisonment increase time to come offending, every bit labeling theory assumes (Nagin, Cullen, & Jonson, 2009). To the extent this undesired outcome occurs, efforts to stem juvenile and developed offense through harsher penalty may sometimes have the contrary consequence from their intention.

The Disharmonize Perspective

Several related theories fall under the conflict perspective outlined in Chapter 1 "Understanding Social Problems". Although they all have something to say about why people commit criminal offense, their major focus is on the use and misuse of the criminal law and criminal justice system to bargain with crime. Three branches of the conflict perspective be in the study of offense and criminal justice.

The first branch is called group conflict theory, which assumes that criminal police is shaped by the disharmonize among the various social groups in guild that exist because of differences in race and ethnicity, social class, religion, and other factors. Given that these groups compete for power and influence, the groups with more than power and influence try to pass laws that ban behaviors in which subordinate groups tend to engage, and they try to use the criminal justice system to suppress subordinate group members. A widely cited historical example of this view is Prohibition, which was the result of years of endeavor by temperance advocates, almost of them from white, Anglo-Saxon, rural, and Protestant backgrounds, to ban the manufacture, auction, and apply of booze. Although these advocates thought alcohol use was a sin and incurred great social costs, their hostility toward booze was besides motivated past their hostility toward the types of people back so who tended to apply alcohol: poor, urban, Catholic immigrants. Temperance advocates' utilise of legal means to ban booze was, in event, a "symbolic crusade" against people toward whom these advocates held prejudicial attitudes (Gusfield, 1963).

The second branch of the disharmonize perspective is called radical theory. Radical theory makes the same general assumptions as group disharmonize theory about the use of criminal constabulary and criminal justice, only with one key difference: It highlights the importance of (economic) social class more than the importance of religion, ethnicity, and other social grouping characteristics. In this way, radical theory evokes the basic views of Karl Marx on the exploitation and oppression of the poor and working class by the ruling course (Lynch & Michalowski, 2006).

An early on simply even so influential radical caption of crime was presented by Dutch criminologist Willem Bonger (1916). Bonger blamed the high Usa crime rate on its economic system, capitalism. Equally an economic system, he said, commercialism emphasizes the pursuit of profit. Yet, if someone gains turn a profit, someone else is losing it. This emphasis on self-gain, he said, creates an egoistic civilisation in which people look out for themselves and are ready and even willing to act in a way that disadvantages other people. Amidst such a culture, he said, crime is an inevitable outcome. Bonger thought crime would be lower in socialist societies considering they place more accent on the welfare of one'southward group than on individual success.

Feminist approaches comprise the third branch of the conflict perspective on the study of law-breaking and criminal justice. Several such approaches exist, but they more often than not focus on at least one of four areas: (one) the reasons girls and women commit crime; (2) the reasons female offense is lower than male criminal offence; (iii) the victimization of girls and women by rape, sexual assault, and domestic violence; and (iv) the experience of women professionals and offenders in the criminal justice organisation.

Regarding the first area, the enquiry by and large finds that girls and women commit crime for the same reasons that boys and men commit crime: poverty, parental upbringing, and then forth. Just it as well finds that both women and men "practice gender" when they commit crime. That is, they commit crime according to gender roles, at least to some extent. Thus one report constitute that women robbers tend to rob other women and non to use a gun when they do so (J. Miller & Brunson, 2000).

In addressing the second surface area, on why female person crime is less common than male crime, scholars often cite 2 reasons discussed earlier: gender role socialization and gender-based differences in parental supervision. 1 boosted reason derives from social bonding theory: Girls feel closer to their parents than boys do, and thus are less delinquent (Lanctôt & Blanc, 2002).

One important surface area of feminist-inspired work on crime and criminal justice involves studies of women police force officers.

Nosotros have already commented on the victimization of women from rape, sexual assault, and domestic violence, but the study of this topic began with work by feminist criminologists during the 1970s. Since that fourth dimension, innumerable works have addressed this type of victimization, which is also thought to contribute to girls' delinquency and, more generally, female drug and alcohol corruption (Chesney-Lind & Jones, 2010).

The final area for feminist work addresses women professionals and offenders in the criminal justice system. This body of enquiry certainly goes beyond the scope of this book, but it documents the many blatant and subtle forms of discrimination that women face up as police, attorneys, judges, prison guards, and other professionals (Muraskin, 2012). A principal job of research on women offenders is to decide how they fare in the criminal justice system compared to male offenders. Studies tend to find that females receive somewhat more lenient treatment than males for serious offenses and somewhat harsher treatment for minor offenses, although some studies conclude that gender does not make too much of a difference one mode or the other (Chesney-Lind & Pasko, 2004).

Key Takeaways

• Social construction theories stress that law-breaking results from economic and other problems in how society is structured and from poverty and other problems in neighborhoods.
• Interactionist theories stress that crime results from our interaction with family members, peers, and other people, and from labeling by the criminal justice organization.
• Conflict theories stress that social groups with power and influence attempt to utilize the constabulary and criminal justice organisation to maintain their power and to keep other groups at the bottom of society.

For Your Review

1. What are any two criminogenic (crime-causing) social or physical characteristics of urban neighborhoods?
2. According to labeling theory, why are arrest and imprisonment sometimes counterproductive?

References

Akers, R. L., & Sellers, C. Southward. (2009). Criminological theories: Introduction, evaluation, and application (5th ed.). New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Barkan, S. Due east. (2006). Religiosity and premarital sex during adulthood. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 45, 407–417.

Bohm, R. M., & Vogel, B. (2011). A primer on crime and delinquency theory (3rd ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.

Bonger, Westward. (1916). Criminality and economic conditions (H. P. Horton, Trans.). Boston, MA: Little, Brown.

Chesney-Lind, M., & Jones, N. (Eds.). (2010). Fighting for girls: New perspectives on gender and violence. Albany, NY: State Academy of New York Press.

Chesney-Lind, 1000., & Pasko, L. (2004). The female offender: Girls, women, and crime (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Desmond, S. A., Soper, South. Eastward., & Purpura, D. J. (2009). Religiosity, moral beliefs, and malversation: Does the effect of religiosity on malversation depend on moral beliefs? Sociological Spectrum, 29, 51–71.

Gusfield, J. R. (1963). Symbolic crusade: Status politics and the American temperance motion. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Printing.

Hirschi, T. (1969). Causes of delinquency. Berkeley, CA: University of California Printing.

Lanctôt, N., & Blanc, M. L. (2002). Explaining deviance by adolescent females. Crime and Justice: A Review of Research, 29, 113–202.

Lynch, M. J., & Michalowski, R. J. (2006). Primer in radical criminology: Critical perspectives on crime, power and identity (4th ed.). Monsey, NY: Criminal Justice Printing.

Mazerolle, L., Wickes, R., & McBroom, J. (2010). Community variations in violence: The role of social ties and collective efficacy in comparative context. Periodical of Research in Criminal offence and Malversation, 47(1), 3–xxx.

Merton, R. K. (1938). Social construction and anomie. American Sociological Review, three, 672–682.

Miller, J. Thou., Schreck, C. J., & Tewksbury, R. (2011). Criminological theory: A brief introduction (3rd ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Miller, J., & Brunson, R. K. (2000). Gender dynamics in youth gangs: A comparison of males' and females' accounts. Justice Quarterly, 17, 419–448.

Muraskin, R. (Ed.). (2012). Women and justice: Information technology's a crime (5th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Nagin, D. S., Cullen, F. T., & Jonson, C. Fifty. (2009). Imprisonment and reoffending. Crime and Justice: A Review of Enquiry, 38, 115–200.

Piquero, A. R., Farrington, D. P., Welsh, B. C., Tremblay, R., & Jennings, Due west. (2009). Furnishings of early on family/parent training programs on hating behavior and delinquency. Journal of Experimental Criminology 5, 83–120.

Shaw, C. R., & McKay, H. D. (1942). Juvenile delinquency and urban areas. Chicago, IL: Academy of Chicago Press.

Sutherland, E. H. (1947). Principles of criminology (4th ed.). Philadelphia, PA: J. P. Lippincott.
Welsh, B. C., & Farrington, D. P. (2007). Save children from a life of crime. Criminology & Public Policy, 6(four), 871–879.

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