CRIM2001 Lectures 1&2:

Module introduction and theoretical recap

Dr Chris Hamerton
 Module introduction and theoretical recap
Welcome and Introduction – Dr Chris Hamerton

 Welcome back!
 CH - research interests in comparative criminology,
criminal justice and criminological theory –
additional interdisciplinary background in law and
social history
 Room 4077 Building 58
 c.t.hamerton@soton.ac.uk
 Office and feedback hours semester 1 – Weds and
Thurs 1100-1200
 Twitter - @chumerton
 Module introduction and theoretical recap
Introduction – Today’s lecture

The lecture covers two areas, an overview

introduction to the CRIM2001 module and a
recap of key criminological theories examined
in the first year:

1. CRIM2001 Content and Context;

2. Theoretical Recap.
 1. CRIM2001 Content and Context
Why Perspectives in Criminology?

 Builds on CRIM1003 from year 1 (any students who

did not take this module should prepare by
undertaking additional reading from the
recommended textbook)
 CRIM2001 aims to develop a critical awareness of a
range of fundamental theoretical perspectives in
contemporary criminology
 We will examine and explore the historical
development of these perspectives, and critically
explore how different theoretical approaches apply to
specific crime problems.
 The module provides a critical knowledge of current
debates and issues in criminology
 CRIM2001 Content and Context
Teaching staff
Module coordinator / Lecturer
 Dr Chris Hamerton - C.T.Hamerton@soton.ac.uk,
room 58/4077
Lecturers and Seminar Tutors
 Dr Lambros Fatsis - L.Fatsis@soton.ac.uk , room
58/4043)
 Dr Heather Horsburgh H.Horsburgh@soton.ac.uk,
room 58/4087
 Dr Michelle Newberry N.Newberry@soton.ac.uk,
room 58/4055

We all run weekly office / feedback hours, but please

consider that these may occasionally change because
of conflicting commitments. Any change will be
advertised…
 CRIM2001 Content and Context
Resources
 CRIM2001 Module Handbook, Blackboard site and
tutor notices / emails (etiquette and netiquette)
 Textbook - Newburn T (2017) Criminology. London:
Routledge (older editions are ok if you already have
them)
 Books and policy documents
 Journal articles
 Media and web sources
 Yourselves – be active learners and remember that
you are reading for a degree, undertake set reading
and read around the subjects, take notes in
lectures, prepare for the seminars and ask
questions (seminar from seminarium – seed bed)
 1. CRIM2001 Content and Context
Classes
 Lectures: 3 lectures fortnightly, Mondays 1300-
1500 or 1300-1400 (check timetables and
Blackboard)
 Seminars: you will be allocated to a seminar group,
attendance at which is compulsory
 Reading week: Week 6 (to provide extra time for
essay finalisation there are no lectures during this
week – so no last-minute new material for you to
study – but seminars are still on!)
 Feedback day: In addition to weekly office hours,
there will be an extended session available for
discussing the first assignment feedback and exam
preparation on Wednesday 12 December 2018
When Section Structure Lecture title
Lecture 1 Introduction to the unit (CH)
Week 1 Theory and politics in
1 October (1-3) criminology
Lecture 2 Recap of early sociological theories of crime and deviance (CH)
Lecture 3 History of politics in criminology (MN)
Week 2
8 October (1-2) Seminar 1 Politics, policy and theory: from historical perspectives
to current debates
Lecture 4 The Left and criminology (MN)
Week 3
15 October (1-3)
Lecture 5 The Right and criminology (MN)
Lecture 6 Crime as a choice (CH)
Week 4
22 October (1-2)
Seminar 2 Left and Right Realism
Lecture 7 Foucault, governmentality, neoliberalism and risk (MN)
Week 5
29 October (1-3)
Lecture 8 Garland and the culture of control (MN)
Week 6 READING WEEK
Part I: New penology and penal populism;
Week 6 Seminar 3
Part II: Final tips on essay revision
12 November (1600) ESSAY IS DUE
Lecture 9 Feminist epistemologies (MN)
Week 7 Postmodernism in
12 November (1-3) criminology
Lecture 10 Masculinity and crime (MN)
Lecture 11 Cultural criminology (MN)
Week 8
19 November (1-2)
Seminar 4 Deconstructing the mainstream criminological discourse

A glimpse at the
Lecture 12 Contemporary issues I: green criminology (CH)
Week 9 present and
26 November (1-3) considerations for the
Lecture 13 Contemporary issues II: glocalism and crime (CH)
future
Lecture 14 Contemporary issues III: criminalising cyberspace (CH)
Week 10
3 December (11-12)
Seminar 5 Criminology in 2027: what are the challenges ahead?
Lectures 15-
Week 11
Recap and revision Revision / Exam prep lectures (CH)
10 December (2-3)
Lecture 16 -
12 December (12-2) FEEDBACK DAY (CH and MN) (drop-in sessions, 58/4077 and 58/4055)
 CRIM2001 Content and Context
Assessment

 1 x 2000 words essay (40% of total mark) – due

Monday, 12 November 2018 (by 1600)
 1 x 2 hours end of module examination (60% of
total mark)
 In the event of failure caused by poor performance
in assessments, re-assessment is in the form of 1 x
3 hours examination (weighted at 100%) in the
August supplementary period.
 See section E. CRIM2001 Module Handbook for full
details on assessment, grading, submission and
regulations – it is all in the Handbook…
 CRIM2001 Content and Context
Essay Question
Due Monday 12 November 2018 (deadline: 1600)

Essay Question:
‘The roots of criminology both as an analytic and a
governmental project (although not as a word) lie
in political economy’ (Robert Reiner, 2012).

Critically evaluate the above statement with reference

to at least two influential criminological theories of the
past forty years.

[Essay Note: Please limit the criminological theories /

movements used to those covered in CRIM2001 so far,
observing that there is NO requirement to evaluate ALL of
them.]
 2. CRIM2001 Theoretical Recap
Introduction

 Moving on to today’s second lecture theme, we will

now explore and consider some of the key ideas
and concepts in criminological theory that we
engaged with in CRIM1003.
 Criminology’s rich theoretical heritage - the
importance of fundamental theory
 Consideration of early engagement / relationship
between criminology and the political economy
 One sociological definition of ‘political economy’ –
how political forces influence intellectual / social
change and shape public / social policy
 CRIM2001 Theoretical Recap
Topics – A whistle stop tour…

 What is crime?
 John Locke – Social Contract
 The Classical School
 The Chicago School
 Anomie, Strain and Social Control
 Differential Association
 Subcultural Theories
 Labelling Theory
 Radical and Critical Criminology

Any common themes / threads?...

 CRIM2001 Theoretical Recap
What is crime?
 Different explanations of crime:
Crime as a ‘defect’ of the person (bio-psychological
theories)
Crime as a ‘defect’ of society (sociological theories)
Crime as whatever the law says it is (jurisprudence)
 THEORY is the logical starting point for any
examination of potential strategies, e.g. for
improving the criminal justice system
 What do politics/history have to do with it?
Criminology is not disconnected from society,
economics, philosophy, etc... Links have existed in
the discipline from the very beginning!
 This lecture’s focus is on the fundamental
sociological theories…
CRIM2001 Theoretical Recap
John Locke, The Social Contract
 CRIM2001 Theoretical Recap
The Classical School – Cesare Beccaria
 18th century, Europe - urbanisation, industrialisation,
and public sphere - new social order
 ‘Social Contract’ – Age of Enlightenment
 Criminal codes and public corporal / capital
punishment the norm – barbaric deterrent acts of
symbolism (Foucault, 1975)
 Beccaria, On Crimes and Punishments (1764) –
Italian scholar and jurist
 His treatise attacks torture, arbitrary arrest,
overriding judicial power, inconsistency in
sentencing, nepotism, bribery, and the blanket use of
capital punishment as deterrent (Bloody Code)
 Focus on the creation of a ‘just’ criminal justice
system with ‘free will’ and rationality - ‘punishment to
fit the crime’
 CRIM2001 Theoretical Recap
The Classical School – Jeremy Bentham
 Founder of Utilitarianism – ‘the greatest happiness of
the greatest number as measure of right and wrong’
 Focus on individual and collective freedoms (finance
and property) - a ‘social entrepreneur’ if you will
 Followed by Austin and Mill, highly influential in both
Europe and the US with political clout – Bentham
‘had considerable influence on the reform of prisons,
schools, poor laws, law courts, and Parliament itself’
(Roberts et al., 2016)
 Prison reform and the ‘Panopticon’ (1791) – the all
seeing eye or ‘inspection house,’ controlling minds
rather than breaking bodies
 The ‘National Penitentiary’ Project (1794) – sites at
Battersea Rise and Millbank – Panopticism as
cornerstone of penal reform / social control
 CRIM2001 Theoretical Recap
The Chicago School - Background
 20th century, US University of Chicago (1892,
Department of Sociology)
 Focus on urbanisation, limits of industrialisation,
slums, and seen society as ‘melting-pot’
 The City = human laboratory
 Based on empirical sociology (life histories, official
data)
 Humans are social creatures, their behaviour is a
product of their social environment.
- Social environments provide cultural values and
definitions (norms - anthropological basis)
- Urbanisation and industrialisation have created
communities that have a variety of competing
cultures, thus breaking down more cohesive
patterns of values - disorganisation
 CRIM2001 Theoretical Recap
The Chicago School – Theoretical basis
 This ‘social disorganisation’ of urban life has led to
the socialised values provided by basic institutions
(family, peers, friendship groups, etc.) becoming
fragmented
 Several definitions about proper behaviour arise
and come into conflict - this occurs especially in the
city-centre area
 Deviant (or criminal) behaviour generally occurs
when an individual behaves according to definitions
that conflict with those of the dominant culture
 Crime and delinquency are transmitted by frequent
contact with criminal traditions that have developed
over time in disorganised areas of the city
 ‘Zone of transition’ - the established concept of the
rookery, criminal ghetto, or ‘no go’ area…
 CRIM2001 Theoretical Recap
Anomie, Strain & Social Control Theories
 1930s ‘the Great Depression’ – financial crash, collapse
and deregulation of social traditions
 Poverty - Itinerant and frequently displaced working class
 Anomie – perceived societal lack of moral guidance
 Merton (1938) Strain Theory - Demographic data,
certain segments of society are burdened with high crime
 Most members of society share a common system of
values (teaching them both the cultural means and the
societal means to achieve certain goals)
 Key - in an anomic society, different degrees of access
to these goals and means exists – this causes social
strain – the lure of taking ‘short cuts’ to achieve goals
 Without reasonable access to the socially approved
means, members of society will attempt to find some
ways to resolve the pressure to achieve (‘models of
adaptation’ – rebellion / crime).
 CRIM2001 Theoretical Recap
Anomie, Strain & Social Control Theories
Social Control Theories
 Developed as a reaction to Strain Theory
 If criminal behaviour is to be expected, then so why do
some people obey rules?
 Focus on socialisation and originally a theoretical
response to a perceived growth in juvenile delinquency
and deviance
 Matza & Sykes (1964) techniques of neutralisation:
(1) denial of responsibility,(2) denial of injury, (3) denial
of the victim, (4) condemnation of the condemners, (5)
appeal to higher loyalties
 Hirschi (1969) Bonds of Attachment - attachment +
involvement + commitment + belief
 Political economy UK Context – Major, Howard, Blair,
Straw, Cameron, and May – appeal for ‘family values’
 CRIM2001 Theoretical Recap
Differential Association Theory - background
 1920s and 1930s, the spectre of the ‘Great Depression’
(and later chaos of World War II)
 Prohibition and the criminalisation of drug use and the
apparent ‘rise’ of organised crime with links to outwardly
legitimate business – Sutherland’s first interest in the
‘professional thief’
 The development of ‘new’ forms of crime depending on
the legal environment - crime as defined by the law
(influence of American Realist Jurisprudence)
 Sutherland, White Collar Crime (1949) and Differential
Association theory
 Highly influential and inflammatory - censored in original
form by publisher (YUP) in US until 1983
 Focus on the individual offender (out for themselves –
crimes of the powerful), corporate crime and state theory
would come later…
 Theoretical Recap
Differential Association – Sutherland (1949)
 Criminal behaviour is learned in the same way as any
other behaviour and the social environment provides
a setting to learn: (1) the actual way to accomplish a
behaviour, and; (2) the values or definitions
concerning that behaviour
 These values may be in opposition to the established
legal codes and the ‘weight’ of these attributes is
important – concept of ‘sharp practice’
 Criminal behaviour occurs when the weight of the
value concerning a particular behaviour is in
opposition to the law (Leeson, Maxwell, Nadir cases)
 Some groups in society have more values in
opposition to the legal codes than others. Thus, some
groups have higher crime rates than others
 Many business people are ‘inherently criminogenic’
 Theoretical Recap
Subcultural Theories - background
 US, 1950s and early 1960s - Rise in consumerism
and clamour for “middle class values” alongside
peaking urbanisation and increasingly deteriorated
central-city areas resulting in “segregation”
 Delinquency becomes seen as a lower class
problem
 Different theories, but the majority with a focus on
juvenile delinquency (gangs)
 Differential Opportunity Theory (Cloward & Ohlin,
1960) – the lottery of birth
 The Saints and the Roughnecks (Chambliss,1973)
 Policy implications (e.g. School-based projects)
 Contemporary applications – popular (mis)
conceptions of computer hackers (Jordan, 2008)
 Theoretical Recap
Subcultural Theories – Cohen (1972)
Stanley Cohen, Folk Devils and Moral Panics (1972) –
Mods vs Rockers, 1960s youth subculture analysis
draws also on labelling theory (more shortly…)
Stages (in summary):
 Folk devils identified (old or new) as normative threat
 Threat recognised and symbolised (media / grass
roots) and creates public concern
 Moral guardians / entrepreneurs appear (community
/ religious leaders, celebrities, politicians)
 An authoritative response or policy change
demanded
 The issue causing moral panic results in social
change or fades over time

Note links to Hall et al. (1978) Deviancy Amplification

 CRIM2001 Theoretical Recap
Labelling theory
 Links to Mead’s (Chicago School) views on self-
perception and interactionism, and work of Lemert
 Early 1960s - Becker, Outsiders, 1963
 Focus on the way in which people react [to deviance
and crime] and label others – crime as reaction
 ‘groups create deviance by making rules whose
infraction creates deviance, and by applying those
rules to particular people and labeling them as
outsiders…deviance is not a quality of the act the
person commits, but rather a consequence of the
application by other of rules and sanctions to an
'offender.' The deviant is one to whom that label has
been successfully applied’ (Becker, 1963)
 Highly controversial at the time and a precursor to
the Radical Criminologies of the 1960s…
 CRIM2001 Theoretical Recap
Radical and Critical Criminology
 Mid 1960s into 1970s links to counter culture & civil rights
 Neo-Marxist in origin, rediscovery of Bonger’s Criminality
and Economic Conditions (1916) – lumpen proletariat
 Challenging mainstream / traditional understandings and
uncovering false beliefs about crime and criminal justice
(Amir, Chambliss, Sellin, Quinney, Schwendinger, Pearce)
 A range of radical discourses questioning the assumptions
of positivist criminology (state-defined concepts of crime)
 These new discourses focused criminological attentions
away from the search for causal relationships between
unproblematised social phenomena and towards an
interrogation of the concepts of social order, crime, human
rights and constructions of deviance
 Importance of CLASS, GENDER AND ETHNICITY -
Criminology from ‘below’…
 CRIM2001 Theoretical Recap
Do any common links exist with the foregoing
theories?

 All originally seen as innovative, many controversial

 Part of political economy and nexus – some theories
explicitly part of it, others a response or reaction to it
 Often criticised as ‘of their time’ but all remain
influential, many compelling
 A reminder that social theory is ‘live’ ‘responsive’
and does not necessarily develop in a linear fashion
(Matthews, 2014)
 Demonstrates the strength and importance of
criminological theory in terms of scholarship and
social discourse.
 CRIM2001 Perspectives in Criminology
What’s next on the module?
 Next week we begin to examine the recent history of
politics in criminology
 As we have touched on today the relationship between
politics, policy and theory is of fundamental importance
in criminology!
 The classes will introduce more recent theories of crime
and explore contemporary issues in criminology
 Remember that you have both a key lecture (lecture 3
with Dr Michelle Newberry) and the first seminar in your
groups next week – so ensure that you are well
prepared!

Thanks for listening…