Criminals: mad, bad or calculating?
Psychological Approaches in
Criminology
Understanding Criminology
19.1.09.
“Innate” factors / The Born Criminal
/ Constitutional Factors
• Physical or biological factors can
be used to identify criminals
from non-criminals
• Physiology / Phrenology
•Lombroso: physical characteristics signalling a lower
stage of development associated with criminality
•Charles Goring: comparison of recidivist criminals and
‘non-criminals’: the latter were two inches shorter and
weighed 3-7 lbs. less
Common Problems
• Methodological
– The choice of comparison groups is rarely adequate
– Criminal groups: always prisoners
– Non-criminals groups: rarely randomly selected
• Logic
– Any significant differences are taken to be signifiers of
constitutional difference
– Environmental or social factors ignored
• Uncritical use of concept of criminality
Genetic Explanations
• Sought to explain the apparent transmission of
criminality across generations of families
• Richard Dugdale (1877) : ‘degenerate families’
• Goring (1913): attempted to control for
environmental factors
• Twin Studies:
– Logic: if genetic explanations hold, identical twins
should be more alike than non-identical twins
– If raised in separate environments, theory stronger
• Genetic Disorders?
Personality Theories of Criminality
• Personality: relatively consistent temperamental and
emotional characteristics or “traits”
• Hans Eysenck: identified 2 key strains
– Extraversion / Introversion
– Neuroticism / Stable
– People who were highly extrovert and highly
neurotic are seeking high levels of excitement and
stimulation, but not easily controlled
– 3rd strain: psychoticism
Eysenck, Personality and Control
N
E
P
Condition
Stable Introverts
Low Low
Easy
Stable extroverts
Low High
Fairly Easy
Neurotic
Introverts
Neurotic
Extroverts
Neurotic
Extorverts /
Highly Psychotic
High Low
Fairly Easy
High High
Difficult
High High High Most Difficult
“A General Theory of Crime”
Gottfredson and Hirschi
• Patterns of criminality in individuals can be explained
with reference to low self-control
• Low self-control is stable in individuals
• Crime represents short-term gratification and selfinterest
• Other sources of immediate gratification (e.g.
drinking, speeding, casual sex) reflect low selfcontrol
• Low self-control established in early socialisation
• Problems: definition of crime; criminal opportunity;
white-collar crime; empirical basis
Learning Theories
• Behaviour is determined by environmental
consequences
• Pavlov: demonstrated a response could be
learnt / automated by a repeated stimulus
• Key to learning theories is cognition /
understanding
• Bandura and the ‘Bobo’ doll
• The most sociological psychology e.g.
Differential Association theory (Sutherland)
• Influential in impact of media coverage
Summary of Psychological
explanations for criminality
•
•
•
•
Interesting areas of research
Offer some explanations, but partial explanations
Methodological problems
Criminal / Non-criminal distinction fairly
unproblematically accepted
• More successful when focussing on a narrow range
of criminal behaviour (eg. Violence)
• Less successful in addressing volume criminality, and
widespread deviance
Why do People
Obey the Law?
– Tom Tyler
• First published 1990
• Considers why people comply with the law,
the legitimacy they afford legal authorities,
and their dealings with the same authorities
• Contrasts “normative” and “instrumental”
perspectives
Setting out the Study
• Compliance with the law is not complete:
everyone at times breaks the law
• Problem for legal authorities and law makers:
– How can compliance with the law be maximised
most effectively?
• Contrasts Instrumental and Normative
Theories
Instrumental Approach
• People behave according to the perceived costs and benefits of
any particular action: rational choice, economic thinking
• Deterrence: maximise likelihood of arrest, punishment and
level of penalties
• People evaluate authorities in terms of the favourability of
outcomes to them
• Implicitly adopted by policy makers
• removes the need to communicate with public, or be responsive to it
• allows the authorities to control their own agenda
• Problems:
• Logic e.g. drink-driving; tax-evasion
• Costs
Normative Approach
• What guides people in behaviour, and evaluation is
not self interest, but other issues about morality and
justice
• Either
– a personal commitment to obey (or not) a particular law
because it is just
OR
- a recognition of the law as a legitimate authority that has
the right to dictate behaviour: covers all laws
- Question: to what extent do normative
considerations affect compliance independently of
instrumental, deterrence based judgements?
Impact of Personal Experiences
• How does contact with legal authorities affect
views of legitimacy?
• Do people distinguish between procedures
and outcomes? Between winning and being
treated fairly? Which aspects affect behaviour
and compliance?
– normative experience: fair outcomes, fair
procedures
– instrumental approach: favourability of outcomes
Legitimacy
• legitimate authority: a more stable base on which to rest
compliance than personal or group morality
– flexible: can be used to apply to any obligation that the State identifies
– personal morality is double-edged: may lead to resistance to the law
• Is the legitimacy based around
– a perceived obligation to obey?
– affective support for authorities?
– or both?
• Is legitimacy diffuse (general support) or specific (based on
performance)?
Fig 5.1 Compliance with the Law
0.6
Compliance with the Law
0.5
0.4
0.3
Regression Line
Means
0.2
0.1
0
Low
High
Legitimacy
Deterrence, personal morality or
legitimacy
• Normative concerns are a more important determinant of
law-abiding behaviour than instrumental concerns
– primarily, people obey the law because it accords with a person’s own
sense of right and wrong
– secondarily, a person’s feeling of obligation to obey the law
• personal morality, and the sense of obligation reinforce each
other
• authorities cannot plan on people’s personal morality, but
they can rely on their own legitimacy
• personal morality is especially problematic in a pluralistic
society, though the high levels of normative commitment in
these circumstances are striking
• legitimacy is an easier factor to influence than deterrence
Q2. How do people’s evaluations of
experiences affect legitimacy?
• What do people consider when evaluating
legal authorities?
– Instrumental: favourable outcomes?
– Expectation based?
– Normative?
• Distributive Justice: fairness
• Procedural Justice: how justice is achieved
• “Because experience influences legitimacy, legal
authorities cannot take citizens allegiance for
granted. It can be eroded by unsatisfactory
experiences with police officers and judges. And
legitimacy will be eroded if the legal system
consistently fails to meet citizens’ standards. On the
other hand, the existing reserve of legitimacy can be
increased over time by positive personal experiences
with police officers and judges.”
Implications for Policy
• Emphasis on procedural justice
– suspects being let off on ‘technicalities’
– ‘plea bargaining’
• Willingness to comply, based on legitimacy can be effectively
tapped: requires investment in terms of fairness
• A need to understand what is ‘fair’
– fair procedures for decision making
– AND
– public views on distributive justice
• Dangers with a purely procedural justice model
– temptation may be for authorities to appear fair, rather than actually
address problems
Overall Summary
• Legitimacy and personal morality are much
better predictors of compliance than
deterrence
• Legitimacy is affected significantly by
evaluations of fairness in dealings with legal
authorities
• Most effective way to ensure compliance is to
ensure fairness in terms of procedural and
distributive justice
Summary
• Strengths
– Interesting Research
– Strong Empirical approach; rigorous methodology
– Offers a balance to more sociological approaches
• Weaknesses
– Mono-causality
– Underplays the social
– Assumptions of “one size fits all” explanations