The Main Roles of Criminological Theories - Assignment Example

Criminological Theories al Affiliation Criminological Theories Introduction The main roles of criminological theories are to help one gain an understanding of criminal justice and crime. The theories cover the breaking and making of the law, deviant and criminal behavior, as well as criminal activity patterns. Individual theories may be either micro or macro. Theories can be used to test and guide policies on a number of criteria including; scope, clarity, testability, parsimony, empirical validity and practical usefulness. Social disorganization theory The Social disorganization theory, in sociology, is considered one of the critical theories that relate to ecological theories that the Chicago Schools developed. In the theory, crime is directly related to ecological neighborhood characteristics. For example, in some subcultures, the neighborhood-disadvantaged children are encouraged to take part in delinquency and criminality in both cultural and social settings. The core principle of Social disorganization theory is that environment have a major role to play in that, one’s individual characteristic or one’s residential location (gender, age, race) aid in shaping the chances that an individual will associate with crime related activities (Bursik, 1988). Miller & Gaines in their book, Criminal Justice in Action state, that in some communities crime mainly comes from unwanted situations. There are ecological factors in the social disorganization theory that in these communities lead to high rates of crime, these factors connected to constant raised levels of unemployment, high school dropouts, single-parent homes and deteriorating infrastructures. Not all forms of crime apply to this theory, but mainly to neighborhood level, street crime. It has not been implemented on the explanation of corporate crime, organized crime or deviant behavior that occurs outside neighborhood setups (Miller & Gaines, 2012). Influential theory of community social disorganization by McKay and Shaw has never been tested directly. To solve this community-level theory is tested and formulated that mainly builds on Shaw and McKays original model. The general theory is that ethnic heterogeneity, low economic status, family disruption and residential mobility lead to community social disorganization, this in turn, increase delinquency rates and crime levels. Social organization in a community level is measured in terms of control of street-corner teenage peer groups, local friendship networks, and prevalence of organizational participation. Constructed from a 1982 national survey of 10,905 residents in Great Britain the model is first tested by analyzing data for 238 localities. Then the model gets duplicated on an independent national sample of 300 British localities of 11,030 residents in 1984.The theory is supported by results from both surveys and show that variations in social disorganization between –communities transmit much of the effect of community structural characteristics on rates of both criminal offending and criminal victimization (Groves & Sampson, 1989). Social Learning Theory The main tenets of the theory are several. First, it states that through observing the attitudes, behaviors, and outcomes of these behaviors people can get to learn. It also states that through modeling, most human behavior is learnt observationally. Another tenet is that, through observing others, people can form ideas on how they can perform new behaviors and from this observation; this coded data can act as action guidance. Human behavior in social learning theory is explained in terms of continuous reciprocal interactions between behavioral, cognitive and environmental influences (Bandura, 1977). For an effective modeling, there must be necessary conditions. First, motivation is essential in the sense that there has to be a good reason for imitating or copying. These include factors like imagined or promised incentives, traditional or past behavior and vicarious, that is recalling and seeing the reinforced model. Attention also has to be there, since various factors decrease or increase the amount of paid attention. These include affective valence, functional value, distinctiveness and complexity. Ones characteristics, for example arousal levels, sensory capacities, past reinforcement and perceptual sets all affect attention. Retention, recalling what you were attentive to, includes mental images, symbolic coding, motor rehearsal, cognitive organizations and symbolic coding. Reproducing the image, that includes self-observation and physical capabilities of reproduction. The first paper published by Bandura, Ross & Ross (1961) in 1961, on the results of the Bobo doll experiments that have now become famous. The bobo dolls are inflated child sized dolls with a bottom that is weighted to make it stand up after being knocked down. In these studies, preschool-aged children were separated into three main groups (Bandura, Ross & Ross, 1961). Each participant to control for possible peer influences viewed their assigned scenario individually. Then child later was allowed to independently play in the playroom, which had various non-aggressive and aggressive toys, including the Bobo dolls. Participant’s acts of physical and verbal aggression toward the Bobo doll were then recorded. Significant group deference’s were revealed by the results, such that the children directly exposed to the aggressive model were more likely to copy and behave the same way towards the Bobo doll. The results as argued by Bandura and colleagues showed and supported that children could acquire rapidly novel behavior through the process of imitation and observing, and this happened even if any kind of reinforcement was absent (Bandura, Ross & Ross, 1961). On the original experiment, the subsequent observations offered extra insight into the social nature of learning. Bandura and colleagues, in a 1963 paper demonstrated that children imitated any violent behavior they saw on video, in addition to the live observation it was also proven that the child would also copy aggression as exhibited by a cartoon character. In 1965 an additional study published, showed that the likelihood that children would copy an aggressive behavior after witnessing a model being punished decreased the chances, a process that came to be known as vicarious reinforcement (Bandura, Ross & Ross, 1961). Adual process theory A dual process theory, in psychology provides an account of how phenomena can happen because of two different processes or because of two divergent ways. The two processes often consist of an (automatic) implicit, an explicit and unconscious process (controlled), process or controlled conscious. Actions and attitudes or verbalized explicit processes may change with education or persuasion. Through attitudes or implicit process, they usually take longer periods to change with the new habits formation. Theories on dual processes can be found in personality, social, cognitive and clinical psychology. It has also been connected with economy through behavioral economics and prospect theory (Stice, 2001). Baas, De Dreu & Nijstad (2008) collected evidence that supported the model. Several studies that were conducted, in which the participant’s emotions were either manipulated usually by measuring or asking individuals to write on occasions that triggered that specific thought or feeling. For creative performance to be assessed, participants suggested strategies to improve the quality of teaching at the university. Fluency, or the numbered suggestions, originality or the extent that suggestions departed from conventional answers, and flexibility, or the extent to which different suggestions related to the different categories, were all checked. The time the tasks took to be done were also monitored (Baas, De Dreu & Nijstad, 2008) Activation emotions, in general, such as anger were more likely to increase originality and fluency that other emotions, such as sadness. Participants, in addition were more dedicated and persistent towards the task, when their moods were positive as compared to negative. Participants, in another study were told to identify from degraded pictures highlighted objects. Persistence in this study was likely to heighten the overall performance. However, this only happened when the participants were in negative moods. The prepositions that positive moods improved performance not through flexibility but through persistence, was consistent with the research preposition. Routine Activities Theory This theory is a subsidiary of rational choice theory and provides a macro perspective towards crime. The main tenets of the theory are several. First, it points to the fact that crime is a structurally significant phenomenon. It also states that people engage in crime daily to an extent that some people become rationally calculating offenders. It also states that the pattern of offending relates to everyday pattern of socialization. For crime to happen, three main elements must be present namely a motivated offender, an available target and a lack of guardians. Lawrence E. Cohen and Marcus Felson developed these theories. The crime characteristics as compared to the offender’s characteristics are focused on this theory. Elizabeth Groff in the article Simulation for Theory Experimentation and testing; An Example Using Street Robbery and Routine Activity Theory tested routine activity theory. She started with the hypothesis that as the time away from home increases so does the chances of a person to commit crime increase. In these experiments, rather than using real people, Groff implemented a model that was computer simulated and involved different geographical information as well as these areas crime rates. The results from these experiments were that at least five specific patterns were followed by crime. These are concentration of crime in relatively few places, a high degree of crime clusters, for most of the crimes relatively few offenders are responsible, and rather for most of the victimization a few victims account for the non- static patterns of crime (Groff 2008). The tracking of the people in the simulation was based on how much time they stayed away from home, mainly from the initial 30- 70 percent of their time. Those who spent more than 70 percent of their time away from home were involved with the police. Using others and this information confirmed that Groff’s, study was correct, and the experiment actually supported the routine activity theory idea. Among these theories, the best one that explains crime causation is the social learning theory mainly because it considers someone’s identity to be a social stimuli-learning response. It stresses on the socialization in societal context as compared to the individuals mind. The theory proposes that an individual’s identity and behavior are not because of unconsciousness such as psychoanalytic belief of theorists, but it is as a product of designing oneself in response to others expectations, attitude and behavior development in response to encouragement and reinforcement from the people around us. Social learning theorists acknowledge that childhood experience contributes to acquire identity that is developed more by the attitudes and behaviors of others. In addition, it also explains largely the social influence roles from the media, parents and peers. It also covers an extended range of explanations like the cognitive factors importance as compared to suggestions of having control. Crimes are caused in these ways. Criminals learn this behavior from childhood experience, parental and peer influence, media influence, and reinforcement factors from the environment such as poverty and lack of education among others. The only disadvantage with the theory is that it mainly centralizes on street level crime at the neighborhoods and thus not all crimes are applicable to it. References Bandura, A. (1977). Social Learning Theory. New York: General Learning Press Bandura, A., Ross, D. & Ross, S.A. (1961). Transmission of aggression through imitation of aggressive models. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 63, 575-82. Bursik, R. J. (1988). Social disorganization and theories of crime and delinquency: Problems and prospects. Criminology, 26(4), 519-552. Gaines, L & Miller R. (2012). Criminal Justice in Action. New York: Cengage Learning. Groff, E. R. (2008). Adding the temporal and spatial aspects of routine activities: A further test of routine activity theory. Security Journal, 21(1), 95-116. Groves, W. B., & Sampson, R. (1989). Community structure and crime: Testing social- disorganization theory. Moffitt, Terrie E., 1993, Adolescence-Limited and Life-Course Persistent Antisocial Behavior: A Developmental Taxonomy. Psychological Review 100:674-701. Baas, M., De Dreu, C. K., & Nijstad, B. A. (2008). A meta-analysis of 25 years of mood- Creativity research: Hedonic tone, activation, or regulatory focus? Psychological bulletin, 134(6), 779. Stice, E. (2001). A prospective test of the dual-pathway model of bulimic pathology: mediating effects of dieting and negative affect. Journal of abnormal psychology, 110(1), 124. Read More