Encyclopedia of Sociology

CRIME, THEORIES OF

others serve broader social interests. Similarly,
while some forms of crime may be related to
economic problems, others are not.

A number of other alternative perspectives
began to appear in criminology in the 1980s and
1990s, so that theorizing about crime and crimi-
nality has become even more diversified. These
‘‘new criminologies’’ (Gibbons 1994, pp. 151–175)
include postmodernist viewpoints, feminist argu-
ments, and a number of other strains of thought,
all of which differ in a number of ways from
‘‘mainstream’’ criminology.

Although broad theorizing has continued to
proliferate in criminology, another major trend in
recent years has taken criminology in a different
direction, toward relatively detailed theories spe-
cific to one or another form of crime and toward
research investigations of those theories. Baron
and Straus’s (1987) formulation that links gender
inequality, pornography, and specific flaws in the
social control system is a case in point, as is Ken-
neth Polk’s (1994) theorizing and research regard-
ing the various ‘‘scenarios’’ of social interaction
that culminate in lethal violence. Indeed, contem-
porary criminology has a rich accumulation of
empirical evidence that can be drawn upon by
those who seek to understand the nature and
causes of criminality in modern societies.

FORMS OF CRIME AND TYPES OF

OFFENDERS

The legal codes of the various states and of the
federal government include hundreds of specific
offenses, but the explanatory task is to develop a
relatively small set of theories that make sense of
this diverse collection of illegal activities.

In their response to this task, Michael Gottfredson
and Travis Hirschi (1990) have argued that virtual-
ly all forms of criminal activity, and many kinds of
deviant behavior as well, share certain features in
common: they are spontaneous, unplanned ac-
tions requiring little or no skill for their commis-
sion. Further, Gottfredson and Hirschi have claimed
that lawbreakers rarely specialize in specific acts of
criminality. They concluded that virtually all of
these varying criminal and deviant acts can be
accounted for by a single, general theory that
asserts they are the work of persons who are

characterized by low self-control. Accordingly, in

their view, there is no need for schemes that

classify types of crime or kinds of offenders or for

separate theories to account for them.

However, many criminologists contend that

there are relatively distinct forms of crime that

differ from each other and also that the behavior

of many criminals is relatively patterned. For ex-

ample, some offenders concentrate their efforts

upon larcenous acts while others of them are

mainly involved in acts of violence.

A number of criminologists have tried to sort

the diverse collection of illegal activities into a

smaller number of sociologically meaningful group-

ings or crime forms (Farr and Gibbons 1990;

Gibbons 1994). Some have singled out crude prop-

erty crime, consisting of larceny, burglary, rob-

bery, and kindred offenses, as one type of crime;

others have placed homicide and assaultive acts

into another crime type; while still others have

treated forcible rape and other sexual offenses as

yet another broad form of lawbreaking. Then, too,

‘‘white-collar’’ or organizational crime has often

been singled out as a crime pattern (Sutherland

1949; Schrager and Short 1978; Coleman 1987),

consisting in large part of criminal acts such as

antitrust violations, financial fraud, and the like,

carried on by corporations and other large organi-

zations. ‘‘Organized crime’’ is still another type

that has received a good deal of criminological

attention. Some persons have also pointed to a

collection of offenses that receive little visibility in

the mass media and elsewhere and have termed

these ‘‘folk crimes’’ (Ross 1960–1961, 1973) or

‘‘mundane crimes’’ (Gibbons 1983). Finally, ‘‘po-

litical crime’’ has been identified as a major pat-

tern of lawbreaking (Turk 1982).

Although these groupings identify forms of

lawbreaking that may differ from each other in

important ways, it is also true that they are relative-

ly crude in form in that the underlying dimensions

or variables on which they are based have not been

spelled out. Further, there is disagreement among

criminologists as to the specific crimes that should

be identified as instances of white-collar crime,

mundane crime, or some other category.

Criminologists have also developed systems

for sorting individual offenders into behavioral

types (Gibbons 1965). Although related to crime