theories of delinquency Flashcards
pre-classical ideas
- crime & wrong behavior was due to supernatural / religious forces (demonological)
- punishments tried to drive evil out of offender
- Thomas Hobbes’ social contract
Classical School (Bentham & Beccaria)
- based on rational thought & free will
- individuals weighed cost & benefit of actions and acted based on outcome
- swift, certain, severe punishments needed
Choice theories
rational choice theory (Cornish & Clarke, 1986)
- offenders act with goal of maximising self-interest, commonly used to explain adult behavior
early biological theories
- lombroso: criminals are physically different from non-criminals (less evolved)
- sheldon - somatotypes (mesomorphs most likely)
early psychological theories
- freud - id, ego, superego development affects behavior including criminality
- aichorn’s adaptation of Freud’s theory to delinquency - delinquency can be manifest or latent
biosocial theories
- neurological deficits
- diet
- hormones
- toxins
Sutherland’s Differential Association Theory
- delinquency learned from people/groups with whom we have contact
- 9 propositions
- association → attitudes → behavior
Sutherland’s 9 propositions
1 - criminal behavior is learned
2 - learning is in interaction with others in a process of communication
3 - main part of learning is in intimate personal groups
4 - learning includes techniques (simple/complicated) and direction of motives, drives, rationalizations & attitudes
5 - direction of motives & drives is learned from definitions of legal code as favorable/unfavorable
6 - delinquency comes from an excess of definitions favorable to violation of law over unfavorable
7 - differential association varies in frequency, duration, priority, intensity
8 - learning criminal behavior uses mechanisms of any other kind of learning
9 - criminal behavior expresses general needs and values but is not explained by them
Aker’s Social Learning Theory
- learning comes from rewards & punishments
- imitation/modeling of others’ behavior is important for learning
Hirschi’s Social
Bonds
- assumes delinquency is a given
- 4 bonds needed to stop delinquency
- attachment, commitment, involvement, belief
Gottfredson & Hirschi’s General Theory of Crime
- meant to explain all crime/delinquency
- delinquency is caused by low self-control & stabilizes at age 8
low self-control
(Gottfredson & Hirschi)
- wanting immediate gratification
- sensation-seeking
- poor planning
- caused by poor parenting
Sampson & Laub’s Age-Graded Theory of Informal Social Control
childhood → adolescence → adulthood = life course
turning points away from delinquent trajectory
- employment
- marriage
- military
argued theory explained age-crime curve
Moffit’s Developmental Taxonomy
2 categories of offenders
- life-course persistent offenders: neuropsychological deficits
- adolescence-limited offenders (most offenders): age out of offending
Techniques of Neutralization Model
Sykes & Matza
delinquents use “techniques of neutralization” to rationalize offending
- denial of responsibility
- denial of injury
- denial of victim
- condemnation of condemners
- appeal to higher authority
