Criminal theory and current behavioral trends

CRIMINAL THEORY AND CURRENT BEHAVIORAL TRENDS

Kate Chadwick Johnson

October 5, 2011PACFE Annual Fraud Conference

This Presentation Will….• Provide an overview of the history of modern-day

criminology theory.• Identify the three most robust criminological theories.• Review common theories associated with White Collar &

Corporate Crime.

What is Crime?

• Crime is a social construct.

• Defined by the state and the ruling elite to control the masses.

• Many criminal behaviors are similar to legal behaviors.

The Classical School of Criminology• “The Demonic Perspective”

• God would determine guilt.• Cesare Beccaria

• An Essay on Crimes and Punishments (1794)• Hedonistic Calculus

• People are generally rational, motivated by their interests to maximize pleasure and minimize pain

• Crime (by force or fraud) is the result of unchecked desire and ineffective systems of consequence

• Social contract, give up some freedom to the state• Punishment must be swift, severe, and certain

Biological/Gene-based Theories• Cesare Lombroso, Criminal Man

(1876)• Criminals differ from non-criminals

biologically and psychologically.• Criminals are evolutionary

throwbacks, “savages in the midst of modern society”.

• Crime occurs as a result of interaction with the social environment.

• Enormous jaw, strong canines, prominent zygomae, strongly developed orbital arches common to carnivores and savages, long arms, prognathism like apes.

The Chicago School of Criminology• Shaw, McKay, Park and Burgess: 1940s• Farming towns industrial cities• Population constantly in flux

Cause of crime found not in individual traits but in traits of a neighborhood.Persistent poverty, rapid population growth, ethnic heterogeneity, and high rate of transiency in the inner city combine to interrupt core social institutions, causing social disorganization

The Chicago School

Three Robust Modern Theories of Criminal Offending/Crime

• Social Control• Criminal behavior caused by lack of self control• Gottfredson & Hirschi’s

A General Theory of Crime

• Differential Association• Learning of criminal values

• Strain• “Anomie” produces crime

Social Control• Assumes people will naturally break the law if not for controls.

• Not “why do they do it?” but “why don’t they do it?”

• Delinquent acts result when an individual’s bond to society is weak or broken.

• Based on social bonds, delinquency would be low among those who are attached to and care about the opinions of others.

Social Control

• Social bond theory (Hirschi, 1969)• Attachment• Commitment• Involvement• Belief

• Self-control Theory / A General Theory of Crime(Gottfredson & Hirschi, 1990)• A lack of self-control is the main source

of criminal behavior• Control inside the individual, versus a

person’s relationship to society

Differential Association1. Criminal behavior is learned2. …in interaction with other persons in a process of

communication.3. …within intimate personal groups.4. Learning of criminal behavior includes (1) techniques, (2)

motives, drives and rationalizations.5. Drives and motives are dependent on definitions of legal

codes as favorable or unfavorable.6. A person becomes delinquent due to an excess of

definitions in favor of law violation over definitions unfavorable to violation of law.

7. Criminal behavior is learned like any other behavior.8. Criminal behavior is an expression of general needs and

values but is not explained by those needs and values.

Strain Theory• Modern culture defines certain goals as worth striving for.

• American culture encourages these goals beyond any intrinsic awards the goal may have = severe strain on cultural values.

• The culture places disproportionate emphasis on the achievement of the goal of wealth and maintains the goal as applicable to all.• Social structure limits individuals in certain groups from achieving

this goal through institutionalized means.• Strain is most pronounced among persons of the lower class.

• Anomie is the contradiction between the culture and the social structure of society.• Respond to anomie with conformity, innovation, ritualism,

retreatism, and rebellion.

• White collar crime often attributed to “innovating” in response to anomie.

Strain Theory• Crime and the American Dream

(Messner & Rosenfeld)

• American culture exerts significant pressure on monetary success.

• The AD does not strongly prohibit the use of efficient but illegal means.

• There will always be “losers” pressured toward crime, regardless of distribution of opportunity.

• Influence of economic systems is overwhelming, out-shadowing other institutions (family, politics, schools, etc.)

White Collar Crime & Criminology• Can theories explaining “Crime in the Streets” be applied to

“Crime in the Suites?”• All criminals seek some level of personal benefit.

• Crime in the Street, Church, Corporate Office are all “crime” but are the causal factors the same?

• Crime is not confined to just the lower class, as some theories would suggest.

White Collar Crime v. Corporate Crime

• White Collar Crime• A crime committed by a person of respectability and high social

status in the course of their occupation. (Sutherland)• Corporate Crime

• Conduct of a corporation, or of employees acting on behalf of a corporation, which is proscribed and punishable by law. (Braithwaite)

• White Collar and Corporate Criminals:• Seek to maintain a “non-criminal” self-concept• Use impression management, self-persuasion and creative

language constructs to “save face” and avoid labeling as a “common” criminal.

Current Research: Control Balance• Control Balance Theory

• Control surpluses v. control deficits.

• Individuals with Surpluses will seek to expand their control, individuals with deficits seek to gain more control toward a control balance.

• Control imbalances predispose a person to be motivated toward deviance.• Control surpluses have been linked to

corporate exploitation.• Acts of “plunder” and “decadence”

Current Research: Control Balance• Control surplus results in autonomous forms of deviance,

usually exploitative in nature, indirect predation.• “Using their controlling positions to arrange things so that other

persons or organizational units accomplish acts that enhance their control.”

• Corporate crime often conflicts with personal values:• What is right at work may not be right at home, in the church.

Workplace structure and informal “Code” often more influential than personal values and morals.

• Research area of new inquiry, few studies at this time.

Combatting White Collar Crime• Make social structures more

important than “the American Dream”:• Family, church, school, bonds

• Replace the capitalist system with socialism.• Reduce gaps between the “haves”

and “have-nots”• Will eliminate the need for cogs in the

“capitalist machine” to break the law to maintain power.

Questions?

Thank you for your time.

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