Knowt
3.3: Criminal behaviours
Characteristics
Types of crime
There are 7 types of crime as identified by Farr and Gibbons (1990):
Property predatory crime - Crime that attempts to, or actually takes, the personal property of others without permission, such as burglary.
Property fraudulent crime - Crime that involves deceit or manipulation in order to convert property or services to their own use, such as fraud.
Interpersonal violence general - Crime that involves threatening or causing actual harm, such as murder.
Interpersonal violence sexual - Crime that involves threatening or causing actual harm in a sexual manner, such as rape.
Transactional vice - Victimless offences where there is a willing exchange of goods and services, such as prostitution.
Order disruption - Victimless offences where there is no direct victim, but may be a potential one, such as disorderly conduct.
Folk crime - Crimes that range from fishing without a license to load regulations on vehicles. Generally seen as annoyances over crimes.
ONS (The Office of National Statistics) collects and publishes information about the types and amount of criminal behaviour in the UK. It has two categories:
Victim based crimes (criteria 1-4).
Crimes against society (5-7).
Normality
Muncie and McLaughlin (1996) suggest the average person in the UK, if convicted only one for each type of crime they had recently committed, would have 6 years in jail and a £61,000 fine.
This highlights many issues with investigating criminal behaviour.
Criminals
Crime is any act that violates the law determined by the state.
This means it varies over countries, times, and cultures.
An example is homosexuality, which was illegal in the UK in the past, and continues to be in some countries.
Additionally, not all criminals are caught, and these criminals could be seen as different to those caught.
Some are also not charged, even with large amounts of evidence against them.
Blackburn (1993) argues that the best way to define crime is the conscious breaking of rules.
This avoids those who have committed crimes while considered insane, were forced, or unknowing.
Law
The law requires both the actus reus (act voluntarily carried out) and mens rea (an intention to commit said act).
However, this act could be justified. For example, the breaking into someone’s home during a fire, or Martin Luther King’s protests against segregation.
Not only are these justified, but morally correct behaviours. Therefore, criminals are not necessarily harmful.
Research issues
There are many types of criminal behaviour:
For example, a murderer, robber and a person who speeds all break the law, but likely have very different reasons, mindsets and consequences.
Most researchers focus on violent behaviour, as this can be seen as the most deviant and harmful to society.
Data on crime is not just provided by official arrest statistics published by the UK home office:
This is because many crimes go unreported, due to police distrust, fear of retaliation or even embarrassment.
Victim surveys, the main one known as The Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) started in 1982.
It occurs annually, sampling 50,000 households from the Royal Mail list of addressing and interviewing all over 16.
This could be said to exclude homeless communities, who may experience high levels of unreported crime due to fear of police.
Individuals are asked about their views on crime, and crimes they’ve directly experienced.
Offenders are also questioned, with the Offending, Crime and Justice Survey (OCJS).
Average
The most common criminal behaviour in the UK is fraud, which had 3,240,000 incidents in 2023.
The KPMG described fraudsters as male, middle aged, high level workers in the companies they target, motivated by personal gain or greed, esteemed and friendly.
Biological explanations
Genes
Explanation
Studies
There are variations of studies to see familial links; adoption, family and twin studies.
Twin studies:
Raine (1993) reviewed research on delinquent behaviour of twins, and found a 52% concordance rate for MZ compared to 21% DZ.
Ishikawa and Raine (2002) found a 44% concordance rate for MZ twins, and a 21.6% for DZ.
Dalgard and Kringlen (1976) found no statistically significant concordance rate difference using either a broad or strict definition of crime.
Family studies:
Osborn and West (1979) found that 13% of sons with non-criminal fathers had criminal records by the age of 18, compared to 40% of sons with criminal fathers.
Farrington (2002) investigated familial criminality by looking at 3 generations of relatives, including parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins.
They found that if one relative had been arrested, there was a high likelihood another relative had also been arrested.
If this was the father, there was a high chance of the sons being arrested too.
Adoption studies:
Mednick et al. (1987) studied over 14,000 adoptees and found that:
13.5% of sons with non-criminal parents had a criminal record.
20% of sons with biological criminal parents had a criminal record.
14.7% of sons with adoptive criminal parents had a criminal record.
24.5% of sons with criminal adoptive and biological parents had a criminal record.
Candidate genes
Brunner et al. (1993) identified the monoamine oxidase A (MAOA) by analysing the male members of a Dutch family who had histories of impulsive and violent behaviours.
Researchers found that they shared a gene for abnormally low levels of MAOA, nicknamed the warrior gene.
This causes abnormally low levels of serotonin, and could cause them to compensate with impulsive behaviour.
Tiihonen et al. (2015) studied 900 offenders, finding evidence of low MAOA activity and low activity from the CDH13 gene.
They estimated that 5-10% of all violent crime in Finland is due to genes.
The CDH13 gene is involved in signalling between cells, and has also been linked to ADHD, SCZ, ASD, etc.
Diathesis-stress model
Current understandings of genetics suggest that traits such as criminality and addiction are polygenic.
Another suggestion is that it is epigenetic, that certain conditions during childhood can switch genes on or off.
One suggestion is that this is due to maltreatment in childhood:
Caspi et al. (2002) used data from another longitudinal study that followed around a 1,000 people from the 1970s.
They found assessed antisocial behaviour at 26, and found that 12% of the men with the low MAOA gene had been abused, but they accounted for 44% of violent convictions.
Evaluation
Gene research issues
Inheritance studies:
Family studies:
Will be highly influenced by the environment, especially when considering children and parents.
Highly subject to social desirability, as people may not want to admit their family issues.
Twin studies:
Twins often grow up in extremely similar environments, therefore this can have an impact.
If studied from children, valid consent becomes an issue.
Even MZ are not completely identical genetically - de novo mutations occur after the egg has split in utero.
Additionally, blind diagnoses where researchers are unaware if participants are DZ or MZ have lower MZ concordance rates, perhaps suggesting researcher bias is a factor.
Adoption studies:
May have high attrition rates as are longitudinal.
Valid consent of the children is an issue.
Can ignore the influence of the adoptive family's influence.
Lack of generalisability
Similar to many other explanations, this theory focuses on aggressive and impulsive criminal behaviours, which does not make up the majority.
In 2023, there were 591 homicides compared to 3,240,000 cases of fraud.
Crime is socially constructed, meaning that as labels change different genes may indicate crime.
Concordance rates
If genes were all that made someone a criminal, the concordance rates should be 100% - but this is not seen.
More likely, it is a combination of stressors and genes that causes crime, and those with a criminal gene are more likely to grow up in a criminal family.
Socially sensitive
As certain ethnic groups are more likely to be charged and in prison, the belief that crime is genetic could lead to rises in racist attitudes.
In 2023 in the UK People of minority ethnicities made up 27% of the prison population compared with 13%.
This is more likely to do with the high levels of bias present in judicial proceedings than genes, but the criminal gene explanation places the blame solely on the criminal individual.
Free will
If this explanation suggests that it is genes that make a person a criminal, can they be held legally responsible?
Genes are not currently editable and are often not identified, so it could be argued it is not the individual’s fault they committed a crime.
A court case in the USA examined this, with Steven Mobley being accused of murder.
His lawyers argued he should be tested for the MAOA gene, as his family were aggressive but not abusive, suggesting this was the cause of his actions.
However, the Georgia Supreme Court decided the research was not strong enough for a causal link, and he was executed in 2005.
Treatment applications
There are three key ideas for ‘treating‘ criminal genes; genetic testing, modification, and eugenics.
Genetic testing could be done from a young age to allow families to understand if their children are at risk, and therefore interventions could be done from a young age to prevent a person becoming a criminal.
However, this could lead to discrimination, as people may believe a person is destined to become a criminal.
The child may even feel this way, leading to them becoming a criminal as they feel almost pressured into doing so.
Genetic modification techniques are not at the level where they are able to achieve any goals, but it has been suggested the defective MAOA gene could be removed in utero.
Additionally, those with this gene could receive tailored treatments, perhaps drugs similar to SSRIs which target dopamine production could be produced.
Eugenics was highly popular in the 1900s, and aims to eradicate ‘bad‘ genes. This movement was often highly racist and was supported by the Nazis.
Those who agreed with the ideas believed those convicted of a crime should be sterilised to prevent them passing on bad genes.
This would lead to major ethical issues, especially with the chance of wrongful convictions.
Additionally, what crimes would be included? Should those with the MAOA gene who haven’t committed a crime be sterilised as well?
Role of the amygdala
Explanation
Structure and function
The amygdala is made up of grey matter - a collection of neuron cell bodies packed together into a cluster of 13 nuclei.
It is located in the medial temporal lobe of the brain, and it part of the limbic system.
There are two - one in each hemisphere.
It is neurally linked to the hippocampus, hypothalamus, prefrontal cortex, etc.
It is associated with emotion, motivation and social interaction in animals.
It plays a major role in assessing and responding to environmental threats.
Papez and Maclean (1952) first implicated the amygdala in emotional behaviour.
Amygdala and aggression
Coccaro et al. (2007) studied the condition Intermittent Explosive Disorder (IED). Those with the condition have sudden outbursts of reactive aggression.
Participants were shown faces while having an fMRI scan of their brains.
They found that those with IED had a higher level of amygdala activity when seeing angry faces than those without IED.
This shows that the amygdala is related to aggression.
Mattheis et al. (2012) looked at the relationship between amygdala size and aggression.
They scanned brains, and then measured lifetime aggression using the Life History of Aggression Assessment (LHA).
Those with high aggression scores had a 16-18% reduction in amygdala volumes.
This is statistically significant, and shows amygdala volume could directly cause aggression.
Amygdala and fear conditioning
Yu Gao et al. (2010) suggested that children learn to inhibit aggressive behaviour via fear conditioning.
Therefore, those with amygdala dysfunction may not be able to identify threats and may be unable to be conditioned to fear consequences, leading to their aggressive behaviour.
This was demonstrated by a longitudinal study, where at 3 subjects were tested for their responses to fear conditioning, by looking at sweating in response to a painful noise.
At 23, it was found that those who had committed crimes had no fear conditioning when they were 3 years old.
Feinstein et al. (2012) investigated a woman (SM) with lesions to both amygdalae.
She was exposed to multitudes of fearful stimuli; live snakes, a tour of a haunted house and scary movies, but never registered any fear.
She also had experienced many dangerous situations, but had not registered any fear.
She was also able to express other emotions and remember them.
However, SM was not highly aggressive, or even a criminal and was instead the victim of multiple crimes, suggesting the amygdala is not linked to aggression.
Derntl et al. (2009) used MRI scans to investigate the effect of testosterone on amygdala activity in men.
They found that increased levels of testerone improved the amygdala’s ability to process threat related stimuli, such as angry and fearful faces.
She concluded that testosterone prepares individuals for automatic processes to allow for approach behaviour.
This could explain why men commit more violent crimes than women.
Evaluation
Cause and effect
There is a question of what causes the differences in the amygdala?
This could a genetic difference - something a person is simply born with.
It could be nurture - perhaps being raised in a home that invokes fear could cause a smaller amygdala, similar to frontal lobe alterations in addicts.
It could be brain damage - Harmon (2012) found that 8.5% of the US population had a brain injury compared to 60% of those in prison.
Treatment applications
Gesch et al. (2002) conducted a double blind study on British prisoners, with one group receiving nutrient capsules containing vitamins and minerals and one receiving a placebo.
After 2 weeks, the intervention group committed 35% less disciplinary offences than before, which was 26% lower than the placebo group.
While this could suggest these vitamins affected the amygdala, there is no evidence of this directly - it may have affected the functioning of any other brain system.
Other brain areas
The amygdala also functions alongside the orbitofrontal cortex, which is within the prefrontal cortex, which is thought to influence self-control, impulsivity and inhibition of aggression.
Raine et al. (1997) investigated murderers who used an overwhelming degree of reactive aggression (sometimes referred to as ‘overkill‘) in their crimes.
They found higher glucose metabolism in the amygdala, but abnormally low in the prefrontal cortex.
This suggests it is abnormalities in multiple parts of the brain that cause aggression, not just the amygdala.
Free will and determinism
This theory suggests it is only amygdala dysfunction that causes aggressive behaviour, which can bring about many ethical concerns.
Can a person with amygdala dysfunction be blamed for their own crime?
Should people with amygdala dysfunction be arrested or monitored due to their likelihood of committing crimes.
Sexism
Almost all studies into aggression focus on males, meaning the facts may not be generalisable to women.
Individual differences explanations
Personality
Explanation
Eysenck’s theory of personality
This suggests there are three dimensions relating to personality:
Extraversion - Introversion.
Extraverts are sociable and lively, while introverts are reserved and quiet.
Neuroticism - Stability.
Neurotics are moody and irritable, while stable people are more controlled and even-tempered.
Psychoticism - Normality.
Psychotics are impulsive, aggressive and creative and those normal are more careful.
This is measured using the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQ).
Biological basis
Eysenck suggested that each trait has a biological basis which is mainly innate, and that 67% of variance in traits is due to genetics.
He argued that this is inherited via a nervous system which affects abilities to learn and adapt to environments
He believed humans are inherently hedonistic and that violence and theft are pleasurable to perpetrators.
He also believed we have a conscience which opposed this tendency, which is a conditioned fear response.
Criminals, therefore, did not build up a good conscience via conditioning as they inherited a conditioning resistant nervous system.
The three traits have individual explanations:
Extraversion - introversion:
Extraverts inherit an under aroused nervous system, and seek stimulation to restore the level of optimum stimulation. This increases their cortical arousal.
This causes them to be thrill seekers and take more risks.
Introverts inherit an over aroused nervous system, causing them to avoid stimulation.
Neuroticism - stability:
Neurotics inherit a reactive sympathetic nervous system, causing them to overreact, act more unstable, and be quick to anger and fear.
Stable people have a less reactive sympathetic nervous system in stressful situations.
Psychoticism - normality:
This is related to testerone levels - higher levels lead to high psychoticism.
This means men are more likely to be psychotic.
Links to criminal behaviour
As Eysenck believed it was failures in socialisation via operant conditioning that caused criminal behaviour, he came up with explanations to explain this.
Extraverts condition more slowly, while introverts learn quickly due to their fear aversion.
This can lead to poor socialisation.
They also thrill seek to increase arousal, therefore they will engage with more dangerous and potentially criminal activities.
High neuroticism increases the strength of other personality aspects, such as introversion and extraversion.
Those both neurotic and extraverted do not condition well, and are therefore more common in prison populations.
Psychoticism is highly linked to crime, due to their aggressive and impulsive nature.
Evaluation
Evidence
Dunlop et al. (2012) gave the EPQ to students and their friends, and found that delinquency was predicted by both extraversion and psychoticism.
‘Delinquency’ was defined by minor offences in the last 12 months, which included traffic offences to armed robbery, showing a range of behaviour.
Dam et al. (2007) found only a small group of male offenders in a juvenile attention centre had high scores on all three variables.
Genetic basis
Zuckerman (1987) compared MZ and DZ twins for neuroticism and extraversion.
There was a +52 for MZ neuroticism, and +24 for DZ, a +28 correlation coefficient difference.
There was a +51 for MZ extraversion, and +12 for DZ, a +39 correlation coefficient difference.
This shows a difference, showing there is a genetic component, but not 67% as Eysenck claimed, closer to 40%
Additionally, MZ twins are treated more similarly, which could alter the results.
Inconsistent personalities
Mischel suggests a situational perspective of personality - people may react consistently in similar situations but not across all situations.
For example, someone may act extraverted around close friends, but introverted around strangers.
Mischel and Peake (1982) proved this, asking friends, family and strangers to rate 63 students in a variety of situations.
They found almost no correlation between the traits displayed.
Unreliability of EPQ
Personality questionnaires are highly susceptible to the social desirability bias.
Additionally, the EPQ only has a yes or no, meaning people will be forced to pick a strong response even if they feel they act like neither, or both equally.
For example, if asked ‘are you loud‘, an individual may feel they act loud around friends but quiet around strangers, or that they are never quiet or loud.
Lie scales counter this, by asking questions designed to trigger the social desirability bias, and discarding responses which have a high score on the lie scale.
Additionally, the EPQ cannot predict criminality.
Cause and effect
It could be argued that these personality traits lead to crime - a psychotic robs a person due to their aggressive nature.
It could also be argued crime leads to these traits - committing multiple robberies may increase aggressive behaviour, and therefore psychoticism.
Cochrane (1974) found criminals were highly psychotic and neurotic, but not extraverted, perhaps suggesting prisons cause these traits to increase.
Sample bias
The only criminals studied are ones that get caught, which is inherently biased.
High extraversion and neuroticism would make a person prone to potentially violent outbursts, which increase their likelihood of getting caught.
Psychotics are again impulsive, meaning they are more likely to leave evidence and get caught.
Treatment application
As his theory is based around socialisation, this theory suggests that by spotting extrovert and neurotic children, interventions could occur to improve their conditioning.
This could be parenting classes, or perhaps separate classes in school that enforce the rules more harshly.
Cognitive factors
Explanation
Errors in attribution
Attribution is the process where an individual attempts causal explanations for their behaviour and the behaviour of others, as defined by Gudjonsson and Singh.
There are two ways we attribute behaviour:
Dispositional - The behaviour is due to an innate problem with the individual, for example, a rude cashier is just rude.
Situational - The behaviour is due to environmental factors, for example, a rude cashier recently had a mean customer.
Humans encounter issues when making these attributions, such as the Fundamental Attribution Error (FAE) identified by Heider.
This argues that we are more likely to attribute behaviour dispositionally than externally.
Another issue is the hostile attribution bias, which is assuming most people have the worst intentions and therefore situations are mistakenly viewed as inciting violence or causing harm.
This leads to an increase in violence.
Gudjonsson developed the Blame Attribution Inventory (BAI) which outlines errors criminals make when attributing their own behaviour.
External attribution - Criminals blame their behaviour on external factors, such as society, their own social circumstances or blame their victims.
For example, blaming society for making shop items so expensive, or say the victim was asking for it.
Mental-element - Criminals blame their mental illness or lack of self-control.
For example, blaming their depression or impulsivity for drug usage.
Guilt-feeling - Criminals feel regret and remorse, and believe they therefore suffered equally. Often they are given lesser sentences for showing such remorse, or for making amends.
For example, feeling bad for GBH.
Gudjonsson and Singh believed that different types of offenders make different attributions.
Sex offenders are more likely to make guilt-feeling attributions, and violent offenders are more likely to make mental-element attributions.
They also found that those who made external attributions had much higher levels of psychoticism.
Cognitive distortions
This is when a person’s thinking has become so flawed, meaning that a person’s perception of reality is completely incorrect.
An example is magnification and minimisation responses.
Magnification is an over exaggeration of an event, such as instantly believing one bad grade is the end of a person’s life.
Minimisation is an under exaggeration, such as believing no harm is done by robbing a store.
Criminals are argued to be more prone to this, allowing them to experience minimal guilt and other negative emotions, and be accepting of their own actions.
Levels of moral reasoning
Kohlberg devised three stages of moral development with 2 stages within; pre-conventional, conventional, post-conventional.
Colby et al. did a longitudinal study that found only 10% of adults reach the post-conventional level.
Hollin et al. found the following justifications at each stage of morality:
Pre-conventional - Breaking the law is justified if punishment can be avoided, or if the benefits outweigh the costs.
Conventional - Breaking the law is justified if it helps to maintain relationships or society.
Post-conventional - Breaking the law is justified if it helps to maintain human rights or further social justice.
They also found that most criminals are at this pre-conventional stage.
Evaluation
Evidence
Hostile attribution bias:
Schoenberg and Justye (2014) showed emotionally ambiguous faces (showing emotions varying from angry, happy or fearful) to 55 antisocial violent offenders, comparing them to a matched pairs control group.
They found that offenders were more likely to interpret any expressions of anger as aggressive.
This misinterpretation could be the cause of hostile attribution bias.
Could be argued that this study lacks ecological validity, and does not show how criminals respond to these perceived slights.
Minimisation:
Kennedy and Grubin (1992) found that sex offenders accounts of their crimes often downplayed their behaviour, such as suggesting the victim’s behaviour contributed to the crime (external attribution).
Maruna and Mann (2006) suggest minimisation is fairly normal behaviour, where people attempt to blame events on external sources as a way to protect the self. This makes it not especially deviant.
Level of moral reasoning:
Gudjonsson and Sigurdsson (2007) used their Offending Motivation Questionnaire to assess 128 male juveniles, finding that 38% did not consider the consequences of what they were doing, and 36% were confident they would not be caught.
This suggests they are at a pre-conventional level. However, this is normal for their age, suggesting this is not specifically due to criminality.
Chen and Howitt (2007) used a test based on Kohlberg’s stages to assess 330 male adolescent offenders (12-18) in Taiwan.
Those with more advanced reasoning were less likely to be involved in violent crime.
Could be argued to be a biased sample, as those younger are likely to have less moral development.
Additionally, could suggest Kohlberg’s stages only explain violent criminal behaviour.
Limitations
A limitation is that Kohlberg’s theory concerns moral thinking, not behaviour.
Krebs and Denton (2005) suggest that moral principles are only one factor in moral behaviour, and can be overridden by practical factors, such as financial gain.
They found, when analysing real life moral decisions, that moral principles were used to justify behaviour after it had occurred.
Additionally, there was a gender bias in Kohlberg’s research, which was based on exclusively male samples.
Gilligan argues the theory is Androcentric, as it focuses on a male perspective of justice over caring.
Additionally, all studies exploring this theory address male adolescent criminals, not females, meaning there is a lack of literature on the topic.
Treatment applications
Novaco derived his model for anger management from stress inoculation theory, which is a form of CBT.
Cognitive restructuring is used, which is a key element of cognitive strategies where maladaptive thinking patterns (HAE, minimisation) are spoken through.
Behavioural strategies are also a key factor.
Social psychological explanations
Differential association
Explain
Theory
Nine key principles
Criminal behaviour is learned.
It is learned via association with others.
The principal learning occurs within intimate personal groups.
Learning includes techniques, simple or difficult, and the direction of motives, drives, attitudes and rationalizations.
Motive and drive is learned from definitions of laws as unfavourable or favourable.
The person becomes a criminal when unfavourable definitions outweigh favourable ones.
The differential associations vary in frequency, duration and intensity.
This is learned through the same processes of any other learning (operant conditioning, role modelling, etc.)
Criminal behaviour is only an expression of general needs and values, but is not explained by these. For example, wanting food is not an explanation for shoplifting, as not all hungry people shoplift.
Evaluation
Evidence
Osborn and West (1979) found that 13% of sons with non-criminal fathers had criminal records by the age of 18, compared to 40% of sons with criminal fathers.
Farrington (2002) investigated familial criminality by looking at 3 generations of relatives, including parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins.
They found that if one relative had been arrested, there was a high likelihood another relative had also been arrested.
If this was the father, there was a high chance of the sons being arrested too.
Akers et al. (1979) surveyed 2,500 male and female adolescents in the US to investigate drink and drug behaviour.
They found that the most important influence on this form of deviant behaviour was peers, and that differential association, differential reinforcement and imitation accounted for 68% of the variance in marijuana usage, and 55% of the variance in alcohol usage.
Contribution
This shifted mainstream views about the origins of criminal behaviour from inherited to socially caused.
This allowed criminals to no longer solely be blamed, and society to take responsibility for causing social circumstances that encouraged crime (poverty, homelessness, discrimination, etc.).
However, it could be argued it reduces the free will of people by suggesting they must become criminals if they grow up with criminals.
Methodological issues
Data collected is only correlational, which cannot give a cause and effect. However, it does show that either:
More criminal associations leads to higher rates of criminality.
Higher criminality leads to more criminal associations.
Cox et al. (2014) argues the theory is not testable.
Additionally, Sutherland’s mathematical model is yet to be seen, making the strength, duration and intensity needed to cause criminal behaviour is unknown.
Crime generalisability
Sutherland coined the term ‘white collar crime‘, highlighting middle class crimes including fraud, bribery, forgery, etc.
He even wrote a book called White Collar Crime, which was censored due to threats of lawsuits by America’s largest corporation.
However, it does not account for more impulsive crimes, such as rape and murder, making it a partial account.
However, ‘smaller‘ crime makes up most of the crimes committed, and no theory can explain every crime.
For example, in 2023 there were 3,240,000 incidents of fraud compared to 591 cases of homicide.
Additionally, it cannot account why younger people account for most crime incidents.
Newburn (2002) found that 40% of offences are committed by people under 21.
Treatment applications
This could show that interventions during youth via schools could help prevent these types of associations properly forming.
Restorative justice could be seen as based on this theory:
Seeing the victim will allow for a criminal to gain negative definitions of crime, which could lead to them no longer doing it.
Found, in adult offenders, to be more effective than a prison sentence by Sherman and Strang.
Gender socialisation
Explanation
Patterns of socialisation
Socialisation is the process of learning the norms, customs and skills necessary to participate in society.
This has been considered the main cause of differences in male and female behaviour.
Sutherland (1949) claimed that during socialisation, boys are encouraged to be tough risk-takers, whereas girls are considered to be more fragile and therefore more supervised and controlled.
Girls are also expected to conform more to social norms.
These ideas become ingrained, causing young men to express behaviour that could lead to criminality, and to have more opportunity to commit crimes.
Social control
While men are encouraged towards criminal behaviours, women are encouraged away.
In patriarchal societies, such as the UK, men and fathers dominate.
Daughters often are not allowed to stay out as late and required to do more housework, leading to less opportunities to do crime.
As adults, women are expected to perform more housework and have a more active role in raising children.
They are less likely to be promoted, meaning they have less opportunity to commit white collar crimes
Media reports on the dangers of being out late at night due to crimes such as rape, which controls when women leave the house, again giving less opportunity to commit crime.
Heidensohn (1958) women are controlled at home, work and in public.
When committing crimes, women are also seen as deviant against their social roles, which can be seen as a form of double jeopardy.
Women who commit violent crimes are often seen as lesser women, further discouraging them.
Women also rationalise crime differently, with Carlen suggesting that women turn to crime when the advantages outweigh the disadvantages.
Examples were having low paid work, unemployment, lower standard of living and an unhappy life.
These factors were emphasised by their lack of power, as women often struggle to achieve promotions and are expected to care for children over seeking this advancement.
Role models
For girls, mothers are seen as role models, and for boys this is the father.
Cohen (1955) suggested this was more difficult for boys, as fathers were traditionally working most of the time, compared to wives who were always home.
Boys therefore rebel against their mother’s socialisation to avoid any feminine traits, and pursue any activities that enhance masculinity, seeking out all male peer groups.
These groups therefore encourage traditionally masculine behaviour such as aggression, toughness, risk taking and rule breaking, which can lead to criminal behaviour.
Oakley (1972) noted there is a thin line between masculine and criminal behaviours.
Evaluation
Evidence
Men do commit more crime than women - in 2023 96% of prisoners were men.
However, this has not decreased over time as women have gained more equal rights to men.
The Liberation thesis formulated by Adler (1975) theorised that as women become more liberated, their crime rates should increase, especially in violent crime as opposed to prostitution and shoplifting.
While female crimes have risen, men still make up the majority of crimes.
Differences in punishment
Some suggest that women commit more crimes than official statistics suggest, but that male police, magistrates and judges arrest, prosecute and convict them less.
This is the chivalry hypothesis, suggested by Pollak (1950) claims that men have a socialised protective attitude towards women.
However, it also suggested that the criminal justice system is biased against women.
Carlen (1997) reports that women viewed as ‘good‘ mothers were less likely to imprisoned than those with children in the care system.
Therefore, they are judged based on their alignment to traditional gender roles.
Hormones
It has been suggested it is differing hormones that causes these differences in criminality.
Book et al. (2001) conducted a meta analysis of the link between testosterone and aggression, and found a weak positive correlation.
This does not causally prove this research, however, as it could be suggested aggression causes higher releases of testosterone.
Temporal validity
This study could be seen as out of date, as Sutherland devised it during 1949 which had stricter gender roles.
Nowadays, men also care for children and most women work.
However, the gender pay gap for 2023 is at 14.3%, showing that equality is still not achieved in the world of work, and likely not in other fields.
Treatment applications
The ‘Man Up‘ project aims to challenge conceptions of masculinity by challenging negative outcomes and attitudes caused by trying to fulfill masculine stereotypes.
However, there is no research to back up this approach.
Additionally, Cohen’s theory of absent fathers causing this could be addressed by public campaigns to encourage fathers to be active in the home.
There could also be interventions that target this, such as clubs designed for fathers to attend with their sons.
Methods of correcting behaviour
Anger management
Explanation
Anger management in prisons has two aims:
In the short term to reduce anger and aggression in high risk prisons.
Novaco describes prisons as ‘efficient anger factories’ due to the harsh social climate.
Long term rehabilitation and a reduction in recidivism, especially for violent prisoners.
Key aims
As a cognitive approach, this aims to change the way a person handles anger and aggression.
Novaco (2011) has identified three key aims for any anger management programmes:
Cognitive restructuring - To gain greater self-awareness and control over the cognitive dimensions of anger.
Regulation of arousal - Learning to control the physiological state.
Behavioural strategies - This can include problem solving, strategic withdrawal and assertiveness.
Stress inoculation model
These models are based on work by Novaco, who drew from stress inoculation training, a form of CBT.
This aims to provide protection from future infections, i.e. stress incidents.
It tends to be confused with a group of offenders either inside or outside prison, such as for probation.
There are three key steps:
Conceptualisation - This is the initial phase, where clients learn about anger generally.
They analyse their own patterns of anger and identify situations which provoke anger in them.
Skill acquisition - In the second phase, clients are taught skills to help manage their anger, such as self-regulation, cognitive flexibility and relaxation.
They are also taught better communication skills, to help resolve conflicts non-violently.
Application - Clients apply skills in controlled and non-threatening situations, such as roleplays of anger inducing situations.
The therapist will provide extensive feedback after this role play, alongside other participants.
They can then try out their skills in real world setting.
Controlling Anger and Learning to Manage it (CALM)
This teaches male participants to monitor and understand their emotions to prevent and control problematic behaviours.
It involves 24 highly structured sessions, with 6 comprehensive group leader guides, workbooks of exercises and personal assignments for participants, a master package for group leaders containing handouts and an audiotape of relaxation exercises and game scripts.
These sessions are practical, highly structured, sequential and designed for adolescents and adult males.
The work book is written at a sixth grade reading level, making it suitable for those with a limited education.
To be a ‘group leader‘, only a short training programme is required, reducing the costs of the programme.
The programme itself involves; modelling, personal assignments, role-play, teamwork and self and peer evaluations.
Evaluation
Effectiveness
Evidence for:
Taylor and Novaco (2006) found a 75% improvement rate in aggression.
This was based on 6 meta analyses.
Landenberger and Lipsey (2005) analysed 58 studies using CBT, of which 20 had a focus on anger control.
They found those with an anger control element had a significantly higher amount of improvement.
Evidence against:
Howells et al. (2005) cited 5 meta analyses where only moderate improvement was found, and in one only 1 person improved.
There are many limitations for this programme:
CBT isn’t suited to everyone, it has high dropout rates normally.
To combat thism drama-based courses are used which are less reliant on verbal ability and more engaging.
Blacker et al. (2008) found this successful with offenders.
This may lead to criminals to reflect on their behaviour and thinking, leading to psychological harm.
Prisoners are already more likely to suffer from mental illnesses, meaning this could lead to suicide or self-harm.
In 2023, self-harm has majorly risen in prisons - 3% for male institutions and 63% for female institutions.
Another method suggested is to measure the readiness for change before the start of the course.
This would avoid wasting time and resources on those not willing to change, according to Howells and Day (2003).
An example of a measurement is the Anger Readiness to Change Questionnaire.
Ainsworth (2000) argues that anger management is only effective if managed properly, given the right resources and launched at the right offenders.
There are also some potential dangerous effects:
Howitt points out that some offenders use violence to achieve their goals, and not due to anger.
He suggests that violent criminals may use anger control methods to not instantly attack a person, and then wait until there are no witnesses to use violence.
This management has therefore made them a better criminal.
Rice (1997) found that violent psychopaths given treatment were more likely to offend afterwards.
This could be due to their skills raising their self esteem and allowing them to manipulate more effectively.
Additionally, the link between anger and violence is questionable:
Loza and Loza-Daneous claim that research linking anger and violence are invalid, due to it being laboratory studies based on students.
In their own study on 300 males in prison, they found no difference between violent and non-violent criminals.
This could be due to prison increasing aggression.
They suggest that anger management means the criminal attributes their violent behaviour to anger, and avoids personal responsibility.
These treatments often ignore female criminals:
Schemes are aimed at male offenders, and there is no research into female offenders.
This means women with anger issues cannot seek treatment for this.
However, women may have different causes and responses to anger, meaning treatment should be focused on them.
Women also seem to harm themselves drastically more than men (male self-harm increased by 3%, while female self-harm rose by 63%), suggesting urgent treatments should be developed.
Coercion:
People can be coerced into treatment, meaning people who attend may not have issues with anger.
This can be seen as a waste of resources and money.
Ethical implications
There are issues with consent:
Anger management courses are often required as a condition of probation, or as an offer for a lesser sentence.
In New York, all violent offenders are mandated to attend AM by parole officers.
This led to offenders monitoring their conversations within the programme due to fear of punishment.
Fear of discussing personal issues in a group.
Feldman also discusses how it does not address root causes, and criminals thought of many better alternative programmes, such as employment.
This could also be an effective issue, as those coerced into treatment may not engage properly.
However, a cost benefit analysis could suggest that the benefits to the offender, and to society, outweigh this ethical concern.
There could be a conflict of interest:
Therapists are employed by the prison, meaning they have a responsibility to both of them.
If a prisoner says something that may cause harm to the prison, they may be forced to breach confidence, even if they are not certain.
If the therapist continuously did this, prisoners would lose confidence in them and they would be less effective.
However, this could be seen as necessary due to the high levels of violence within prisons - with there being 28.5% of prisoners being assaulted in 2023, a major increase from the year before.
Social implications
There could be a conflict of interest:
It could be suggested that prisons aim to make prisoners more manageable, and do not actually care about reoffending rates.
This can be justified due to the high levels of violence within prisons, with there being 28.5% of prisoners being assaulted in 2023.
However, this does help to reduce the danger of the job, and will benefit non-violent offenders as they don’t live in fear.
Financial implications:
Violent crime costs £124 billion, and reoffending costs £9.5.
If they are treated in prison, this could reduce economic costs and therefore benefit the economy.
This could be seen as ignoring the root causes:
Anger may be a product of trauma, a negative environment, poor health, etc.
These are hard to solve social problems, so it could be seen as easier for the government to treat anger than address its causes.
This could also be seen as subduing justified anger.
It also blames the criminal, and not their environmental conditions.
Restorative justice
Explanation
Programmes
These usually involve communication with a victim, which can be face to face, via letters or a video call.
Vocal communication will have a mediator involved.
Payment can also be given as reparation.
This can also be offered as an alternative to a prison sentence for lesser crimes, or as a reduction to a prison sentence.
Aims
There are two key aims:
Rehabilitation of offenders:
The victim explains the true impact of the crime, preventing minimisation.
This encourages the offender to understand the perspective of the victim, and hopefully develop empathy.
This is hoped to prevent them harming others in the future.
Additionally, this is an active process, as opposed to the passive process of punishment.
Atonement:
This can be physical, such as money or unpaid work, or psychological.
The victim can express their distress, and the victim can show empathy and their own guilt, helping the victim feel understood.
It is argued this can reduce the victim’s sense of victimisation, as they have a voice and control of the situation.
Principles
There are 6 key principles according to the Restorative Justice Council:
Restoration - To address and repair harm. Participants should be allowed a voice throughout the process.
Voluntarism - It must be voluntary and be based on informed choice. The practitioner must ensure this standard is upheld.
Neutrality - This should be fair and unbiased. While a practitioner is human and susceptible to bias, they should ensure this does not affect how they handle the situation.
Safety - All participants should feel safe, and a safe space should be fostered that allows for feelings and views to be expressed. Risk assessments should be made, either beforehand or on the spot.
Practitioners should be fully trained to avoid exacerbating past harm.
Accessibility - Must be non-discriminatory and available to all those harmed, across all crimes and protected groups.
Respect - The dignity of all participants should be respected.
Evaluation
Effectiveness
In terms of victim improvements:
The UK Restorative Justice Council (2015) reports a 85% satisfaction rate for victims in face-to-face meetings.
This covered crimes from theft to violence.
Avon and Somerset, a police station, reported a 92.5% effectiveness rate when victims suffered violent crime.
Dignari (2005) found victims had higher levels of satisfaction than if cases went through court.
Sherman and Strang (2007) reviewed 20 studies of face-to-face meetings, and found victims who participated were less likely to develop PTSD and desire revenge.
Reduced recidivism:
Sherman and Strang (2007) reviewed 20 studies of face-to-face meetings, and found all studies were linked to reduced offending.
They also found that for adult victims, restorative justice is more effective for reducing recidivism than a prison sentence.
For young offenders, it is equally as effective as a prison sentence.
The UK Restorative Justice Council (2015) reported a figure of 37% reoffending.
Generalisability:
Rodriguez (2007) investigated USA restorative justice programmes.
She found juveniles in a programme were less likely to offend than those in a control group.
She also found it was most effective for those with minimal criminal histories, or women.
Sherman and Strang (2007) reviewed 20 studies of face-to-face meetings, and found that reductions in recidivism were increased for serious and violent crimes, compared to less serious or property crimes.
Selection bias:
As restorative justice values informed consent, this means all participants are voluntary, and therefore biased.
It may only include criminals willing to change.
However, usage of incentives could be seen as worse, as it will devalue communications and make the victim feel unsatisfied.
Ethical issues
Victims:
Victims may suffer psychological harm, especially if the experience was traumatic.
However, Sherman and Strang (2007) reviewed 20 studies of face-to-face meetings, and found victims who participated were less likely to develop PTSD and desire revenge.
Offenders:
Prisoners are already more likely to suffer from depression and suicide, and this could be seen as worsening this by forcing reflection on criminals.
Practitioners:
These are not always trained mental health professionals, meaning they may not be able to pick up on potential symptoms of mental illness.
This means this will go unrecorded and untreated, leading to more psychological harm.
However, this allows restorative justice to be cheaper to run, and happens more often.
All that is required is a training programme, according to the Restorative Justice programme.
Free will:
Both parties may feel pressured if offered the service.
Additionally, offenders can be offered reduced sentences in return, which could be seen as coercion.
Social implications
Financial implications:
The UK Restorative Justice Council claim that restorative justice caused reducing recidivism means that £8 is saved for every £1.
They also claim that diverting young offenders from community orders to restorative justice could save £1 billion over the course of 2 parliaments.
Money could also be saved via victims being less likely to require mental health support, less prison time and the offender being able to function in society and earn money themselves.
Wider community:
Peace circles have been adopted in high crime areas.
These foster an environment of respect, allowing victims to be supported and offenders to receive mutual understanding.
Prancis et al. (2003) incorporated a talking piece to allow people to communicate uninterrupted, and a ‘keeper‘ to maintain the atmosphere of respect and articulate solutions.
Root cause:
It can be argued restorative justice does not address the root causes of crime, such as poverty, lack of education and unemployment.
It also blames the criminal, instead of a wider society for causing conditions that led to such crime.