Theories and causes of crime

Introduction

There is no one ‘causes’ of crime. Crime is a highly complex phenomenon that changes across
cultures and across time. Activities that are legal in one are sometimes illegal in others. As cultures
change over time, behaviors that once were not criminalized may become criminalized (and then
decriminalized again. As a result, there is no simple answer to the question ‘what is crime?’ and
therefore no single answer to ‘what causes crime? Different types of crime often have their own distinct
causes.

Etiology of Criminology

• In 1764, the Italian mathematician, Cesare Beccaria published the 1 st work devoted solely to
Criminology.

• 3 years later….

• This work was translated under the title “ESSAY ON CRIME AND PUNISHMENT”

Spirit of Enlightenment:

Beccaria thought that man could overcome crime by Rational measures.

 Since Beccaria has a knowledge on mathematics, Beccaria set a system of jurisprudence based
upon the quantitative classification of crime.
 Within a 50 years of Publication of his theories, the American Bill of rights and the French
Napoleonic Code established the basis of reform of the judicial system of the West.
 Since that time, both criminal law and the science of criminology have been influenced by:

1. Sovereignty of the people

2. Potentiality of human advancement

 100 years later…..

 There are already social changes like:

1. Growing industrialization

2. Improved means of transportation

3. Reform of Legislation

 Police forces developed a systematic means or recording crime reports and arrest.
 AFTER THOSE REFORMS AND IMPROVEMENTS, BIRTH OF DIFFERENT SCIENCES WERE
INTRODUCED…..
 Saint Simon Comte and Marx gave birth to SOCIOLOGY
 Guerry in France and Rawson Fletcher, Clayd and Mayhew in England made a survey in criminal
activity in the flourishing urban areas of Europe
 Theories:

Demonological Theory

 An early explanation of crime is theological or religious. Crime has been viewed as a

violation of religious doctrine. It is called a sin - a violation of sacred obligation. An individual
who commits a crime has been viewed as possessed by evil spirits or under divine wrath.
Criminal acts were considered as indicia of basically evil human nature suggesting adherence
to Satan or under the spell of the prince of darkness.
 The causes of crime have been based in superstitious belief in which criminals were
allegedly perceived as controlled by other worldly forces – the devil.

Classical theory

 Advocated by Cesare Beccaria and Jeremy Bentham.

 Based on the assumption that people are free of will and thus completely responsible for
their own actions, and that they also have the ability to rationally weigh up their abilities.
Crime is therefore the result of free and rational decisions of the acting individuals.
 Although social conditions are also mentioned as causes of crime in the classical period,
Beccaria and others are more interested in the crime than in the perpetrator. This is due to
the idea of equality of all human beings, as well as to the fact that any social (or at the
beginning of the classical period also supernatural) circumstances can be met equally, which
means that only the deed itself distinguishes the criminals from the non-criminals.
 Men are rational being who has the freewill to choose between what is right from wrong

Hedonism

-a doctrine which states that men naturally seek pleasure and avoid pain.

- Hedonism is the belief that pleasure, or the absence of pain, is the most
important principle in determining the morality of a potential course of action.
Pleasure can be things like “sex, drugs, and rock ’n’ roll,” but it can also include
any intrinsically valuable experience like reading a good book.

- Hedonism is a type of consequentialism, and it has several forms. For example,

normative hedonism is the idea that pleasure should be people’s primary
motivation. On the other hand, motivational hedonism says that only pleasure
and pain cause people to do what they do.

- Egotistical hedonism requires a person to consider only his or her own

pleasure in making choices. Conversely altruistic hedonism says that the
creation of pleasure for all people is the best way to measure if an action is
ethical.
 - Regardless of the type of hedonism, critics fault it as a guide for morality
because hedonism ignores all other values, such as freedom or fairness, when
evaluating right and wrong.

Justification of Punishment

General Deterrence

The approach based on general deterrence aims to dissuade others from following the

offender’s example. Less concerned with the future behavior of the offender himself,
general deterrence theories assume that, because most individuals are rational, potential
offenders will calculate the risk of being similarly caught, prosecuted, and sentenced for
the commission of a crime. Deterrence theory has proven difficult to validate, however,
largely because the presence of many intervening factors makes it difficult to prove
unequivocally that a certain penalty has prevented someone from committing a given
crime. Nevertheless, there have been occasional examples showing that some sentences
can have a strong deterrent effect. Laws designed to prevent driving under the influence
of alcohol (e.g., by setting a maximum legal level of blood alcohol content) can have a
temporary deterrent effect on a wide population, especially when coupled with
mandatory penalties and a high probability of conviction.

Punishment to discourage people in general from offending.

Individual Deterrence

Individual deterrence is directed at the person being punished: it aims to teach him not to
repeat the behavior. It is also the rationale of much informal punishment, such as parental
punishment of children. Theoretically, the effectiveness of individual deterrence can be
measured by examining the subsequent conduct of the offender. Such studies often have
been misleading, however, because in most cases the only basis for proving that the
offender repeated his crime is a further conviction. Because a high proportion of crimes
do not result in convictions, many offenders who are not reconvicted after being punished
may have committed additional crimes. Furthermore, the general pattern of “aging out”
of crime (i.e., the fact that criminal behavior peaks in the late teens and early 20s and
declines rapidly thereafter) contributes to the difficulty of measuring the effectiveness of
particular deterrence strategies.

Punishment to discourage criminals from re-offending.

Incapacitation

Incapacitation refers to the act of making an individual “incapable” of committing a crime—

historically by execution or banishment, and in more modern times by execution or
lengthy periods of incarceration. Most instances of incapacitation involve offenders who
have committed repeated crimes (multiple recidivists) under what are known as habitual
offender statutes, which permit longer-than-normal sentences for a given offense.
Incapacitation is also utilized, for example, in cases involving offenders who are deemed
dangerous (such as those guilty of murder) and likely to commit grave and violent crimes
 unless restrained. Given the difficulty of identifying such offenders with certainty, the
principle of incapacitation is controversial. It has also been difficult to reconcile with other
principles, especially those advocating equal retribution.

Retribution

The retributive theory of punishment holds that punishment is justified by the moral
requirement that the guilty make amends for the harm they have caused to society.
Retributive theories generally maintain, as did the Italian criminologist Cesare
Beccaria (1738–94), that the severity of a punishment should be proportionate to the
gravity of the offense. Some retributive theories hold that punishment should never be
imposed to achieve a social objective (such as law-abiding behavior in the future by the
offender or by others who witness his example), while others allow social objectives to be
pursued as secondary goals. Many (but not all) retributive theories also claim that
punishment should not be inflicted on a person unless he is found guilty of a specific
offense (thus, they would prohibit collective punishment and the taking of hostages from
the general population)

Based on the concept of Lex Taliones “an eye to an eye, a tooth for a tooth”

Rehabilitation

The most recently formulated theory of punishment is that of rehabilitation—the idea that the
purpose of punishment is to apply treatment and training to the offender so that he is
made capable of returning to society and functioning as a law-abiding member of
the community. Established in legal practice in the 19th century, rehabilitation was
viewed as a humane alternative to retribution and deterrence, though it did not
necessarily result in an offender receiving a more lenient penalty than he would have
received under a retributive or deterrent philosophy. In many cases rehabilitation meant
that an offender would be released on probation under some condition; in other cases it
meant that he would serve a relatively longer period in custody to undergo treatment or
training. One widely used instrument of rehabilitation in the United States was
the indeterminate sentence, under which the length of detention was governed by the
degree of reform the offender exhibited while incarcerated.

Deterrence theory
 The deterrence hypothesis states that people can be deterred from criminal acts if threatened
punishments follow the delinquent act with certainty and without delay and are so severe or so
harsh that the expected pain (cost) from the punishment is greater than the expected pleasure
(benefit) from the criminal act. A distinction must be made between macro-general deterrence
and micro-specific deterrence:
 The former causes the general public, i.e. potential perpetrators, to refrain from
criminal acts. Making the sanction visible to the public is therefore extremely important
so that the general public also knows what consequences would follow a criminal act
and therefore refrains from delinquent behavior.
  Micro-Specific deterrence, however, refers to the effect of the sanction on the punished
person, who is now deterred from further criminal acts out of fear of further
punishment. The German scholar von Liszt envisages this form of punishment for the so-
called casual criminal, who must be given a lesson to show him the boundary between
conformity and crime for the future.
Rational Choice Theory

* Rational choice theory states that individuals use rational calculations to make rational choices
and achieve outcomes that are aligned with their own personal objectives. These results are
also associated with maximizing an individual's self-interest. Using rational choice theory is
expected to result in outcomes that provide people with the greatest benefit and
satisfaction, given the limited option they have available

* Rational choice theory is based on the assumption of involvement from rational actors. Rational
actors are the individuals in an economy who make rational choices based on calculations
and the information that is available to them. Rational actors form the basis of rational
choice theory. Rational choice theory assumes that individuals, or rational actors, try to
actively maximize their advantage in any situation and, therefore, consistently try to
minimize their losses

* The key premise of rational choice theory is that people don’t randomly select products off the
shelf. Rather, they use a logical decision-making process that takes into account the costs
and benefits of various options, weighing the options against each other.

 Criminals make conscious, rational and at least partially informed choice to commit crime.
 Individuals commit crime when the benefits outweigh the costs of disobeying the law

Routine Activities Theory

Routine activity theory, developed by Cohen and Felson, revolves around three things: a
“potential offender, a suitable target, and the absence of a capable guardian”. All three
must come together in order for criminal activity to be realized. Routine activity theory
relies on the same rational choice methodology as situational crime prevention techniques.
As in any theory, routine activity theory has its criticisms. One of the primary criticisms is
the assumption that criminals are rational in their decision making. They may not use the
same rationale as the person implementing the security measures. They may not even be
aware of the situational crime prevention techniques put into effect. They may be under
the influence of drugs or alcohol or, for whatever reason, they may simply not care about
the security measures.
 Otherwise known as Lifestyle theory.
 Proposed by Lawrence Cohen and Marcus Felson in 1979.
 Crime is likely to occur when a motivated offender and suitable target come together in the
absence of a capable guardian.