Encyclopedia of Sociology

CRIME, THEORIES OF

In the first half of the twentieth century, psy-
chological arguments about criminals centered on
claims that these persons were feebleminded, or
somewhat later, that many of them were suffering
from serious mental pathology of one sort or
another. However, a number of reviews of the
evidence, particularly that having to do with the
alleged role of low intelligence or personality de-
fects in criminality, turned up little or no support
for such claims (Schuessler and Cressey 1950;
Waldo and Dinitz 1967; Tennenbaum 1977).

Even so, there is a lingering suspicion among a
number of criminologists that the criminal acts of
at least some lawbreakers, including certain kinds
of sexual offenders, can be attributed to faulty
socialization and abberant personality patterns
(Gibbons 1994). Additionally, some psychologists
have argued that even though the broad theory
that criminality is due to marked personality de-
fects on the part of lawbreakers lacks support, it is
nonetheless true that individual differences in the
form of personality patterns must be incorporated
into criminological theories (Andrews and Wormith
1989; Blackburn 1993; Andrews and Bonta 1998).
Moreover, in the opinion of a number of sociologi-
cal criminologists, the argument that individual
differences make a difference, both in accounting
for criminality and for conformity, is persuasive
(Gibbons 1989, 1994). Personality dynamics play a
part in the behavior patterns that individuals ex-
hibit, thus such concepts as role and status are
often not entirely adequate to account for the
behavior of individuals. Lawbreaking is quite prob-
ably related to the psychic needs of individuals as
well as social and economic influences that play
upon them. On this point, Jack Katz (1988) has
explored the personal meanings of homicidal acts,
shoplifting, and a number of other kinds of crimi-
nality to the persons who have engaged in these acts.

Sutherland’s theory of differential association
(Sutherland, Cressey, and Luckenbill 1992, pp.88–
90) has been one of the most influential sociologi-
cal theories about the processes through which
persons come to engage in criminality. Sutherland
maintained that criminal behavior, including tech-
niques of committing crime and conduct defini-
tions favorable to lawbreaking activity, is learned
in association with other persons. Many of the
associations of persons involve face-to-face con-
tact, but conduct definitions favoring criminality

can be acquired indirectly from reference groups,

that is, from persons who are important to indi-

viduals but with whom they do not directly associ-

ate. Sutherland also contended that associations

vary in frequency, duration, priority, and intensity

(the personal meaning or significance to individu-

als of particular social ties).

A very different theory, directed mainly at the

explanation of juvenile delinquency, is that if,

through faulty socialization, individuals fail to be-

come bonded or connected to others (that is, if

they do not develop positive attachments to adult

persons such as parents or teachers), they will then

be unlikely to refrain from misbehavior (Hirschi

1969). The emphasis in this argument is on the

failure to acquire prosocial, nondelinquent senti-

ments rather than on the learning of antisocial

ones. In this view, delinquency is the result of

defective socialization rather than of socialization

patterns through which criminal attitudes are

learned. A more recent but related version of this

argument, noted earlier in this essay, is that of

Gottfredson and Hirschi (1990), who have claimed

that criminality and other forms of deviance are

most often engaged in by persons who are low on

self-control.

THEORETICAL INTEGRATION

Clearly, there is a wealth of differing arguments

about the causes of crime and individual lawbreaking

now in existence. Not surprisingly, then, a number

of scholars have begun to ask whether it might be

possible to amalgamate some or all of these varied

lines of explanation into an integrated theory and

thereby to develop a more powerful causal argu-

ment. Some criminologists have suggested that

biological, psychological, and sociological conten-

tions about crime all have some part to play in

explaining crime and that, therefore, they should

be integrated (Barak 1998). Others have proposed

more limited forms of integration in which, for

example, several sociological arguments might be

merged into a single formulation (e.g., Tittle 1995;

Braithwaite 1989) or in which psychological claims

about lawbreaking might be linked or integrated

with sociological ones. But to date, criminological

investigators have not moved very far in the direc-

tion of sophisticated theoretical integrations. Fur-

ther research on the interconnections between

biological, psychological, and social factors in crime