Chapter 5 Social Process Theories

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Chapter 5Social Process Theories
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Chapter Summary

• Chapter Five introduces the reader to the social
  process theories of crime.
• The chapter begins with an overview of
  differential association theory, and how this
  theory developed out of the neoclassical
  theories.
• This follows with a description of the social
  bond theories. Theories regarding labeling and
  neutralization are the last theories to be
  discussed in Chapter Five.
• The author follows with an overview of the pros
  and cons of each of the theories. Chapter Five
  concludes with the policy implications set forth
  by each of the social process theories.

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Chapter Summary

• After reading this chapter, students should be
  able to
• Explain symbolic interactionism
• Describe critique differential association
  theory
• Understand and critique social bond theory
• Explain the process of labeling theory and
  critique the theory
• Describe neutralization theory
• Understand the policy implications of social
  process theories

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Introduction

• Social process criminologists operate from a
  general sociological perspective known as
  symbolic interactionism, which focuses on how
  people interpret and define their social reality
  and the meanings they attach to it in the process
  of interacting with one another via language.

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Introduction

• Thomas theorem If men and women define
  situations as real, they are real in their
  consequences
• Social process theories seek to describe the
  process of criminal and delinquent socialization
  and how the process of social conflict pressures
  individuals into committing antisocial acts.

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Differential Association Theory

• Edward Sutherland championed differential
  association theory.
• Nine propositions outlining the process by which
  individuals come to acquire attitudes favorable
  to criminal or delinquent behavior
• Criminal behavior is learned.
• Criminal behavior is learned in interaction with
  other persons in a process of communication.

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Differential Association Theory

• The principle part of learning criminal behavior
  occurs within intimate personal groups.
• When criminal behavior is learned, the learning
  includes techniques of committing the crime, the
  specific direction of motives, drives,
  rationalizations, and attitudes.

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Differential Association Theory

• The specific direction of motives and drives is
  learned from definitions of legal code as
  favorable and unfavorable.
• A person becomes delinquent because of an excess
  of definitions favorable to violations of law
  over definitions unfavorable to violations of
  law.
• Differential associations may vary in frequency,
  duration, priority, and intensity.

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Differential Association Theory

• The process of learning criminal behavior by
  association with criminal and anti-criminal
  patterns involves all of the mechanisms that are
  involved in any other learning.
• While criminal behavior is an expression of
  general needs and values, it is not explained by
  them since non-criminal behavior is an expression
  of the same needs and values.

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Differential Association Theory

• Definitions Meanings our experiences, how we see
  things, our attitudes, values habitual ways of
  viewing the world.
• Differential social organization allows
  differential association theorists to adequately
  account for the association people have without
  reference to individual differences.

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Crime and delinquency
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Ronald Ackers Social Learning Theory

• Social learning theory applies the concepts of
  operant psychology to the vague definitions
  favorable.
• Operant psychology A perspective on learning
  that asserts that behavior is governed and shaped
  by its consequences.
• Behavior has two general consequences it is
  reinforced or it is punished.
• Reinforcement Positive or negative consequences
  for behavior that make it more likely the
  behavior will be repeated in similar situations.

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Ronald Ackers Social Learning Theory

• -Punishment Leads to the weakening or
  eliminating of the behavior preceding it that may
  also be positive or negative.
• Rewards punishments are differentially valued,
  shaping our behavior.
• -Discrimination Clues that signal whether a
  particular behavior is likely to be followed by
  reward or punishment.

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Figure 5.2 Illustrating Types of Reinforcement
and Punishment
Reinforcement Increases Behavior Punishment Decreases Behavior
Positive Reinforcement Positive Punishment
(something rewarding received) (something punishing applied)
Negative Reinforcement Negative Punishment
(something punishing avoided) (something rewarding lost)
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Social Control Theories

• Social control Any action on the part of others,
  deliberate or not, that facilitates conformity to
  social rules.
• Social control may be direct, formal, and
  coercive, but indirect and informal social
  control is preferable because it produces
  prosocial behavior regardless of the presence or
  absence of external coersion.

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Walter Reckless Containment Theory

• Walter Reckless theory is an early control that
  sought answers to why it is that some people in
  similar environments are immune to criminal
  temptations and others are not.
• Those of us who resist antisocial temptations are
  contained by two overlapping forms of
  containment outer and inner.
• Outer containment is the social pressure on
  individuals brought to bear by the family other
  important individuals and groups to abide by
  community rules.

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Walter Reckless Containment Theory

• Inner containment relies heavily on how persons
  see themselvestheir
• self-concept.
• Persons with a negative self-concept are more
  likely to become criminal and delinquent than
  persons with a positive self-concept.

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Travis Hirschis Social Bonding Theory

• Travis Hirschis social control theory is a
  theory that places primary importance on the
  family.

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The Four Social Bonds

• Hirshi makes the assumption that the typical
  delinquent lacks
• Attachment Emotional component of conformity.
• Commitment Rational component of conformity and
  refers to a lifestyle in which one has invested
  considerable time and energy in the pursuit of a
  lawful career.
• Involvement A direct consequence of commitment
  it is a part of an overall conventional patter of
  existence.
• Belief The acceptance of the social norms
  regulating conduct.
• Antisocial and criminal behavior will emerge
  automatically if social controls are lacking.

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From Social- to Self-Control Gottfredson
Hirschis Low Self-Control Theory

• Self-control The extent to which different
  people are vulnerable to the temptations of the
  moment.
• Following an unrestrained path to pleasure often
  leads to crime.
• Most crimes are spontaneous acts requiring little
  skill and earn the criminal minimal, short term,
  satisfaction.

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The Origin of Self-Control

• Low self-control
• is established in early childhood, it tends to
  persist throughout life, and it is the result of
  incompetent parenting.
• Low self-control
• is the default outcome that occurs in the
  absence of adequate socialization.
• Low self-control is considered a stable component
  of a criminal personality.
• A criminal opportunity is a situation that
  presents itself to an offender by which he or she
  can immediately satisfy needs with minimal mental
  or physical effort.

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Labeling Theory The Irony of Social Reaction

• The labeling or societal reaction school takes
  seriously the power of bad labels to stigmatize,
  and by doing so they evoke the very behavior the
  label signifies.
• Labeling theory shifts the focus from the actor
  to the reactor.
• Tannenbaum (1938) viewed labeling of a delinquent
  or criminal as bad or evil as amounting to a
  self-fulfilling prophecy.

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Crime and delinquency
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The Nature of Crime

• Labeling theorists asserted that crime is defined
  into existence rather than discovered.
• There is no crime independent of cultural values
  and norms.
• No act is by its nature criminal, because acts do
  not have natures until they are witnessed, judged
  good or bad, and reacted to as such by others.

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Primary Secondary Deviance

• Edwin Lemert Primary deviance is the initial
  nonconforming act that comes to the attention of
  the authorities.
• Secondary deviance Deviance that results from
  societys reaction to offenders primary deviance
• Labeled persons may alter their self-concepts in
  conformity with the label.
• The label may exclude the person from
  conventional employment opportunities lead to
  the loss of conventional friends.

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Figure 5.5 Diagrammatic Presentation of
Labeling Theory
Primary deviance Flowing from a variety of causes that are of no concern to labeling theorists Apprehension and labeling as criminal or delinquent. Person is stigmatized with a master status. Offenders may come to accept labels and change their self-concepts to fit those labels Secondary deviance Delinquency and crime consequent to changes in self-concept
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Extending Labeling Theory

• John Braithwaite (1989) Nations with low crime
  rates are those where shaming has great social
  power.
• Disintegrative shaming Condemnation received by
  offenders in the criminal justice system this
  shaming is counterproductive.
• Reintegrative shaming A method of condemning the
  offenders acts without condemning him or her
  personhood.

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Sykes and Matzas Neutralization Theory

• Techniques of neutralization theory suggests that
  although delinquents know that their behavior is
  wrong, they justify it as acceptable on a
  number of grounds
• Five techniques of neutralization
• Denial of responsibility
• Denial of injury
• Denial of victim
• Condemnation of the condemners
• Appeal to higher loyalties

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Sykes and Matzas Neutralization Theory

• If we start engaging in behavior that we consider
  morally wrong, but find that behavior rewarding,
  we tend to develop a form of psychological
  discomfort called cognitive dissonance.
• The elimination of uncomfortable inconsistencies
  between attitudes and behavior becomes a powerful
  motive to change on or the other.
• Techniques of neutralization are both ways of
  easing uncomfortable feelings of guilt and shame,
  and ways of loosening moral constraints.

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Evaluation of Social Process Theories

• Differential association theory shares the
  unconstrained vision in that it assumes that it
  is antisocial behavior is learned, not
  something that comes naturally in the absence of
  prosocial training.
• Critics of differential association stress that
  antisocial behavior comes naturally to the
  unsocialized individual the theory ignores
  individual differences.

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Evaluation of Social Process Theories

• Ackers social learning theory specifies how
  definitions favorable to law violation are
  learned.
• This is emphasized through the use of operant
  conditioning, although it neglects the role of
  individual differences in the ease or difficulty
  with which persons learn.
• Hirschis social control theory is criticized for
  its lack of emphasis on the social, economic
  political factors that impede stable and
  nurturing families.

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Evaluation of Social Process Theories

• One of the positive elements of neutralization
  theory is that it eliminates much of the over
  determined image of subcultural values implied in
  subculture theories.
• Neutralization theory says nothing about the
  origins of the antisocial behavior the actors
  seek to neutralize.

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Evaluation of Social Process Theories

• The major criticism of self-control theory arises
  from the Gottfredson and Hirschis claim that it
  is a general theory meant to explain all crime.
• Labeling theory comes dangerously close to
  claiming that the original causes of crime do not
  matter.

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Theory Key Concepts
Strengths Weaknesses
Self-Control Low self-control explains all crime and analogous acts. Low self-control occurs in the absence of proper parenting. Exposure to criminal opportunities explains differences in criminal behavior among low self-control individuals. Identifies a single measurable trait to be responsible for many antisocial behaviors. Accords well with the impulsive nature of most criminal behavior. Links sociology to psychology. Claims too much for a single trait. Neglects child influences on parenting behavior and the affects of genes on low self-control.
Labeling Crime has no independent reality. Original primary deviance is unimportant what is important is the labeling process, which leads to secondary (continuing) deviance. Labeling people criminal leads them to organize their self-concepts around that label. Explains consequences of labeling with a master status. Identifies the social construction of crime and points to the power of some (the powerful) to criminalize the acts of others (the powerless). The neglect of causes of primary deviance. Advice that criminals should be treated not punished contradicts the theory that says that there is nothing intrinsically bad about crime and therefore there is nothing to treat.
Neutralization Delinquents and criminals learn to neutralize moral constraints and thus their guilt for committing crimes. They drift in and out of crime. Emphasizes that criminals are no more fully committed to antisocial attitudes than they are to prosocial attitudes. Shows how criminals handle feelings of guilt. Says nothing about the origins of behavior being neutralized. More a theory of antisocial rationalization than of crime.
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Policy Prevention Implications of Social
Process Theory

• If learning crime and delinquency within a
  particular culture is the problem, then changing
  relative aspects of that culture appear to be the
  answer the provision of positive role models to
  replace negative role models.
• Given the importance of nurturance and
  attachment, both versions of control theory
  support the idea of early family intervention
  designed to cultivate these things.

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Policy Prevention Implications of Social
Process Theory

• Social-control theory emphasizes opportunity as
  well as self-control, thus some of the same
  policies advocated by routine activities and
  rational choice theorists (target hardening) are
  being recommended.
• Labeling theory recommends that we allow
  offenders to protect their self-images as
  non-criminals by not challenging their
  techniques of neutralization.

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Policy Prevention Implications of Social
Process Theory

• The only policy implication of neutralization
  theory is that criminal justice agents charged
  with managing offenders should strongly challenge
  their excuse making.