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ROBERT M. O’BRIENCRIME, THEORIES OF
Most accounts of the rise of criminological inquiry
indicate that it had its beginnings in mid-nine-
teenth-century developments in Europe, includ-
ing the work of Cesare Lombroso, an Italian pris-
on physician, who argued that many criminals are
atavists, that is, biological throwbacks to a human
type, homo delinquens, that allegedly existed prior
to the appearance of homo sapiens. Since the time
of Lombroso and other early figures in criminolo-
gy, the field has grown markedly, both in terms of
the variety of scholars who have tried to uncover
the causes of crime and also in terms of the diverse
theories that have been produced by these persons
(Gibbons 1994). Currently legal theorists, psycholo-
gists, economists, geographers, and representa-
tives of other scholarly fields engage in criminological
theorizing and research. There has also been re-
newed interest in sociobiological theorizing and
investigation regarding criminality. Even so, the
largest share of work has been and continues to be
carried on by sociologists. Thus, criminology is
frequently identified as a subfield of sociology
(Gibbons 1979, 1994).
Although a few scholars have argued that
crime should be defined as consisting of violations
of basic human rights or for some other ‘‘social’’
conception, most criminologists opt for the legal-
istic view that crime and criminal behavior are
identified by the criminal laws of nations, states,
and local jurisdictions. Acts that are not prohibit-
ed or required by the criminal law are not crimes,
however much they may offend some members of
the community. Also, the reach of the criminal law
in modern societies is very broad, involving a wide
range of behavioral acts that vary not only in form
but in severity as well. The criminal laws of various
states and nations prohibit morally repugnant acts
such as murder or incest, but they also prohibit
less serious offenses such as vandalism, petty theft,
and myriad other acts. Parenthetically, there is
considerable controversy in modern America, both
among criminologists and among members of the
general public, as to whether certain kinds of
behavior, such as marijuana use, various consensual
sex acts between adults, or abortion, ought to be
expunged from or brought into the criminal codes.
Persons of all ages violate criminal laws, al-
though a number of forms of criminality are most
frequent among persons in their teens or early
twenties. Except for ‘‘status offense’’ violations
such as running away, truancy, and the like, which
apply only to juveniles (usually defined as persons
under eighteen years of age), juvenile delinquency
and adult criminality are defined by the same body
of criminal statutes. However, criminologists have
often constructed theories about delinquency sepa-
rate from explanations of adult criminality. Al-
though many theories of delinquency closely re-
semble those dealing with adult crime, some of the
former are not paralleled by theories of adult
criminality. In the discussion to follow, most atten-
tion is upon explanatory arguments about adult
lawbreaking, but some mention is also made of
causal arguments about juvenile crime.CRIMINOLOGICAL QUESTIONS AND
CAUSAL THEORIESGiven the broad compass of the criminal law, and
given the variety of different perspectives from
which the phenomenon of crime has been ad-
dressed, it is little wonder that there are many
theories of crime. Most of these theories center on
the explanation of crime patterns and crime rates,
or what might be termed ‘‘crime in the aggregate,’’
or are pitched at the individual level and endeavor
to identify factors that account for the involve-
ment of specific individuals in lawbreaking con-
duct (Cressey 1951; Gibbons 1992, pp. 35–39)