Learning Objectives

1. Describe the primary difference between psychodynamic, learning, and social learning theories
2. Identify the key principles of psychodynamic theories and explain how these principles relate to our
understanding of criminal behaviour
3. Describe the major predictors of crime from the perspective of “control” theories, such as Gottfredson
and Hirschi’s general theory of crime
4. Describe the principles of classical and operant conditioning
5. Identify the key elements of Sutherland’s differential association theory and Akers’ social learning
theory of crime
6. Explain the personal, interpersonal, and community-reinforcement theory of crime proposed by
Andrews and Bonta

Context
 Freud did not have much to say about criminal behaviour
 Behaviourism – school of thought in psychology that emphasize the view that all behaviour can be
described and studied scientifically without reference to internal psychological constructs such as the
mind
o Observable processes
o Many crime theories have their roots in behaviourism
o (often how crim behaviour is learned)

Definitions
 Psychodynamic theories – theories of crime that emphasize how psychodynamic processes, such as
conscious and unconscious psychological forces, influence the development of criminal behaviour
o Internal forces
o Focus on personality development
o Childhood experiences have effects on personality
 Learning theories – theories of crime that emphasize learning, such as the way in which information is
encoded, processed, and retained in the process of becoming a criminal
o Behaviouristic tradition
o Focus on how information is encoded, processed, retained
o Social learning theories focus on learning that takes place through observation &
reinforcement/punishment

Why do we care?
 Theory can help predict exposure to risk factor and treatment of risk factor?
 Help to understand why an intervention worked
 Criminal behaviour is rarely exclusively biological
 Factors form theories like psychodynamic, social learning, and learning are more changeable

Methodology
 Cross-sectional research—type of research design whereby different groups of people who differ one a
variable of interest are observed at a particular point in time to determine how they differ on some
other variable
o May examine groups of criminal’s vs non
o See if risk factors are associated with one group and not the other
o If factor found, it is associated with criminality (not necessarily cause)
  Longitudinal research – type of research design whereby a particular group of individuals are observed
repeatedly over time
o How behaviour changes over time
o Risk factor present in adolescent lead to criminality as adult?
 Meta-analysis
o When a number of studies have examined same variables, can be compiled

Psychodynamic Theories
Basic Psychodynamic Principles: The Id, Ego, ad Superego
 Humans inherently antisocial
 Driven by pleasure-seeking/destructive impulses
 Crime occurs when impulses (unconscious) are not controlled
 Typically, due to childhood trauma
 David Abrahamsen (1903-2002)
o Forensic psychiatrist, psychoanalyst
o Wrote in-depth analysis of David Berkowitz (Son of Sam)
o Believed crime was due to internal conflicts
 Id – where pleasure-seeking and destructive impulses originate
o Unconscious, primitive, instinctual
o Governed by the pleasure principle which seeks pleasure to avoid pain
o Destructive forces believed to be controlled in one of two ways
 Activity of the id is opposed by the next personality structure to develop the ego
 Ego—conscious part of Freudian personality, which acts as the mediator between the instinctual
demands of the id and the social restrictions of the superego
o Mediates on primal needs and society’s demands
o Guided by the reality principle which leads to people deferring gratification until it is physically
and socially safe to
o Allows id to function in socially acceptable ways
o The ego is guided by the super ego
 Superego—moral regulator, making sure we act in accordance with internalized group standards
o Made up of 2 subsystems
 Conscious – allows individuals to distinguish between right and wrong and inhibit is
pursuits that are out of line with one’s morals
 Ego-ideal – represents socially acceptable standards that we all aspire to
o Represents the internalization of group standards
o Conveyed to child through prenatal care and discipline
o Moral regulator
 Psychoanalysts point to 3 main sources of criminal behaviour (all relating to inadequate superego
formation)
1. Harsh superego—neurotic criminal—assumed to lead to pathological levels of unconscious guilt
that can be resolved by receiving punishment
2. Weak superego—often associated with the psychotic personality. Superego fails to regulate
instinctual needs of the id. Egocentric, impulsive, guiltless, unempathetic.
3. Deviant superego—superego standards reflect deviant identification—the process of identifying
with a deviant role model. Absence of guilt, but not abnormality to psychic structures.
Psychodynamic Theories of Crime

Bowlby’s Theory of Maternal Deprivation

 If children are not exposed to consistent and constant maternal care in early years, will have difficulties
developing meaningful, prosocial relationships making them more likely to exhibit antisocial patterns of
behaviour
 Lacking abilities, child cannot develop means to control conduct (destructive impulses)
 Implications:
o Research used to establish theory has been questioned – replica studies did not have same
results
o Maternal deprivation is not critical factor to child’s healthy development
o Damage may not be irreversible
o Over-predicts juvenile delinquency

Unravelling Juvenile Delinquency: The Work of Glueck and Glueck

 Family discord is associated with delinquent behaviour, just not as stated by Bowlby
 Focussed on mental conflict, tensions with repressed/forgotten emotional experiences and more
recent ones
 Primary interest was discovering the causes of crime and assessing the effectiveness of correctional
treatment in controlling criminal behaviour
 Cross-sectional research comparing juvenile delinquents with non-juveniles
 They described delinquent boys as:
o Strong and muscular, energetic, restless, uninhibited expression of instinctual-affective energy,
direct/concrete intellectual expression
o Difficulty being flexible/adaptive—self-management, self-control, sublimation or primitive
tendencies, self-centred desires
 Attributed difference in delinquents and non to parenting factors
 Parents of delinquents –
o Emotional disturbances, mental retardation, alcoholism, criminality, less educated, less likely to
stay together, less ambitious, appeared neglectful
o Lack of cohesiveness, warmth, respect for family members
 Claimed that the above could be used to predict juvenile delinquency
 Implications:
o Claims made were exaggerated
o Studies challenged on methodological grounds
 Although criticized, thought to be classic research in criminology

Hirschi’s Control Theories

 Views all humans as having potential for antisocial behaviour

 “it is not why people violate the law, but rather why more people do not violate the law”
 Social control theory – the reason why they don’t ^, is because of social controls or “the bond of the
individual to society”
 4 interrelated social bonds that promote socialization/conformity:
1. Attachment
2. Commitment
3. Involvement
4. Belief
 Attachment—ones attachment to others
o Acceptance of social norms depends on attachment
o Attachment represents ego-ideal
 Commitment – time, energy, effort placed on conventional behaviour (e.g. education)
o Heightened risk of losing investment if they become involved in crime
o Same theoretical value as the ego
 Involvement—time and energy one spends in activities that are in line with conventional interests of
society (e.g. again, school)
o Limits time available for criminal pursuits
 Belief—one’s conviction to the view that people should obey common rules
o Respect for societal value system
o Parallels conscious part of superego
 Used cross-sectional with delinquents and non
 Implications
o Theory may need to be re-assessed
o Presence of peers—but were they involved in delinquent acts?
o Now thought that attachment will lead to conformity only if peers are not delinquent

 In 1990, a refined version of control theory emerged

 General theory of crime – self-control is primary determinant of crime
o Not inevitable if lacking self-control
o Opportunities to commit crime are also crucial
o Believe it can account for all crime
o Said it can be attributed to other behaviours (substance abuse)
 Short lived, immediately gratifying, easy, simple, exciting
o Level of self-control one has depends on quality of parenting in early years
o Those who are monitored were more likely to develop self-control
o Most research supports (at least partially) this theory
o There is a link with low self-control and crime (but not the sole cause)
o Parental efficacy is significant predictor of level of self-control
 Implications of general theory of crime:
o Why do people commit crime? Low self-control. How do we know they have low self-control?
They commit deviant acts
o ^obviously an issue
o Self-control fixed at a young age and consistent through life may also be false
o Does not address questions about opportunities to commit crime

Learning Theories and Crime

 Sees crime as something that is learned
  No natural, inherent, impulse to act antisocially (like in psychodynamic theories)
 Classical conditioning
 Operant conditioning

Classical Conditioning
 Classical conditioning
o Ivan Pavlov and his dogs
 Unconditioned stimulus – food
 Conditioned stimulus – lab assistant (previously neutral stimulus)
 Unconditioned response – salivation
 Conditioned response – salivation (after repeated pairings of CS with US)
 Extinction—stimulus gradually lost (bell was rung repeatedly when food was not there, after it being
the CS)
 Stimulus generalization – conditioned response now generalized to other similar stimuli
o Rat is CS start to associate fur with rat  fur is now a CS

Eysenck’s Biosocial Theory of Crime

 Crime can largely be explained by individual differences in functioning of nervous system

 impacts degree to which people learn from environmental stimuli (parental discipline)
 differences in nervous system shape one’s personality/behaviour
 sexual offenders and treatment – decrease sexual arousal to deviant objects
o pair consequence with fantasy
 overt aversive conditioning ^
 arousal reconditioning is when they later pair with appropriate stimulus
 Eysenck though criminals are deficient to classical conditioning/conditionability
 Generally speaking, it is true that antisocial individuals will condition less effectively than prosocial
 Implications:
o Predictions made about personality differences between anti and prosocial individuals
o Not all studies demonstrate conditioning deficits in antisocial individuals

Operant Conditioning
 Operant conditioning
o Skinner (1953)
o Form of learning that takes place by experiencing environmental consequences caused by
behaviour, especially reinforcement and punishment
 Principles of operant conditioning
o Behaviour is largely determined by environmental consequences
o Positive reinforcement – when behaviour is followed by pleasant stimulus—increases
frequency
o Negative reinforcement – behaviour is followed by removal of aversive stimulus – increasing
behaviour
o Positive punishment – behaviour followed by aversive stimulus—decreasing behaviour
o Negative punishment – behaviour followed by removal of pleasant stimulus – decreasing
behaviour
 Positive – addition of
  Negative – subtraction of
Different types of reinforcement and punishment
 3 important factors for increasing decreasing behaviour:
o Immediacy – sooner reinforcement/punishment, more likely to increase/decrease
o Consistency – more often consequence follows targeted behaviour, the more effective
consequence will be (for reinforcement, intermittent schedules of reinforcement make them
resistant to extinction)
o Intensity – stronger consequence, more effective it will be
Application of Operant Conditioning Principles to Criminal Behaviour
 Points for good behaviour in forensic settings
 Real world failings of CJS—
o Lack of immediacy, consistency, maximum intensity
 Jeffery 1965 (differential reinforcement theory)
o Although not exclusively principles of operant conditioning, does incorporate some
o Proposed that whether someone commits a crime depends on whether similar behaviour has
be reinforced in past
o Value of crime (e.g. stolen goods) outweighs aversive stimuli associated with crime (e.g. legal
sanctions)
 Wilson and Hernstein, 1985
o Used to deal with criticisms of operant/classical conditioning principles
o Said they underemphasize:
 Role of internal processes in the learning of criminal behaviour
 The important role that social context plays in the learning process (particularly learning
from observing others)

Social Learning Theories and Crime

 Psychodynamic theories do not adequately deal with how people learn to become a criminal

Sutherland’s Differential Association Theory

 Edwin Sutherland (1883-1950)

 Discounted ‘internal’ causes of crime
 Crime could be explained by learning in social contexts through interaction and communication
 The nature of ones conduct is influenced by the norms present in the particular groups to which one
belongs
 DAT can be tested in 9 testable beliefs:
1. Criminal behaviour is learned
2. Criminal behaviour is learned in interaction with other persons in a process of communication
3. The principal part of the learning of criminal behaviour occurs within intimate personal groups
4. When criminal behaviour is learned the learning includes: (a) techniques of committing crime, (b)
the specific direction of motives, drives, rationalizations, and attitudes
5. The specific direction of motives and drives is learnable from definitions of the legal code as
favourable or unfavourable
6. A person becomes delinquent because of an excess of definitions favourable to violations of the law
over definitions unfavourable to violations of the law
7. Differential associations vary in frequency, duration, priority, and intensity
 8. The process of learning criminal behaviour by association within criminal and anti-criminal patterns
involves mechanisms that are involved in any other learning
9. Though criminal behaviour is an expression of general needs and values, it is not explained by those
general needs and values since non-criminal behaviour is an expression of the same needs and
values
 This theory has been significant for criminology
 Antisocial attitudes and antisocial associates are important predictors of crime
 Implications:
o Neglected to specify how learning process operates
o Measurement of factors

Aker’s Social Learning Theory

 Attempt to overcomes limitations of Sutherlands theory ^

 Differential association-reinforcement theory – theory of crime proposed by Robert Burgess and Ron
Akers that combines operant conditioning principles with differential association principles and suggest
that people commit crime when criminal behaviour is more reinforced than non-criminal behaviour
 Reformulation of Sutherland’s 9 propositions
 Criminal behaviour is learned through a process of operant conditioning
 Initially received little attention until theory was reworked
 General theory
 Observational learning – learning that occurs as a function of observing and often imitating behaviour
exhibited by others
 Crime can be learned by watching others
 Vicarious conditioning – a form of learning that takes place by observing the environmental
consequences of other people’s behaviour, especially reinforcement and punishment
o Depends on what we think about what we see and hear
 Crime is learned primarily through group interactions
 Through interactions with groups, people see specific behaviours as “good” or “bad”

 Video games and violence:

o More exposure, more likely to exhibit outcomes
o More than short-term violence
o Stable across cultures and gender
 This shows evidence for the theory above
 These approaches have significantly greater impact on reducing crime
 Implications
o Not paying enough attention to temporal sequence of its primary variables (differential peer
association and crime)
o Places too much weight on antisocial peer associations while ignoring other potentially
important sources of reinforcement for antisocial behaviour

Andrews and Bonta’s Personal, Interpersonal, and Community-Reinforcement Theory

  PIC-R
 Influenced by behavioural and cognitive social learning perspective
  PIC-R uses biological
5 categories of risk and social sciences to explain crime
o Socialization
factors  & anti-social attitudes
o Self-control
individual
o Classical/operant conditioning
characteristics,
Observational learning
o group,
peer
 Criminal
school, behaviour
family, determined by events that precede (antecedents) behaviour and events that follow
(consequent)
community behaviour
oo Can be from
Desire for multiple sources:
 The individual
group
 Other people
rewards
 as
such The act itself
 Other aspects of the situation
status,
 Socioeconomic
identity,play a role
o Act andas background conditions that influence behaviour
 Support of this theory comes from offender treatment programs based on it
companion
 Among the s most effective when the goal of treatment is to reduce the risk of an offender committing
another High
o crime
 Limitations commitme
nt to, or of other theories it draws on, also applicable to this theory
o Criticisms
o Linkinteractions
between theory and principles of effective correctional treatment is arguable weak
with,
Summary delinquent
peersthe causes of crime, psychodynamic theories emphasize the inability of internal psychic
1. In explaining
forces to Low
o control antisocial impulses; learning theories emphasize the role of associative learning and
attachment
stress the importance of environmental factors in shaping criminal behaviour; and social learning
to school the role of vicarious conditioning in the crime acquisition process, focusing on the
theories emphasize
o Low
cognitive mechanisms that facilitate learning in social settings.
educational
aspirations
2. Psychodynamic theories of crime are based on several key principles, including the existence of internal
psychic Lack of
o forces (such as the id, ego, and superego) that are supposed to develop through a series of
stages andadult and the antisocial impulses that are assumed to be an inherent part of human nature.
control
parental
Sometimes these internal psychic forces do not develop normally because of traumatic childhood
role(often
experiences models centring on problematic parenting practices).
o Exposure to
family
3. Many psychodynamic theories of crime can be thought of as control theories in that they emphasize
violence
factors that control orpeople’s behaviour and prevent them from committing crime. Two of the most
neglecttheories are: (1) Hirschi’s social control theory, which suggests that people don’t
popular control
Exposure
commit crime
o to of the bonds they have with society, including attachments to significant others,
because
commitmentgangs,
to conventional behaviour, involvement in conventional pursuits, and belief in common
crime,
rule systems; and (2) Gottfredson and Hirschi’s general theory of crime, which suggests that people
and/or
don’t commit crime because they possess a high degree of self-control, gained largely as a result of
effective poverty
parenting in practices.
the
4. Classical community
conditioning is a form of learning that takes place when an unconditioned stimulus (e.g., food)
o Cultural
that produces an unconditioned response (e.g., salivation) is paired with a neutral stimulus (e.g., a
tone) such that, over time, a conditioned response (e.g., salivation) is reproduced using only the
norms
supporting
gang
behaviour
 previously neutral stimulus (now referred to as the conditioned stimulus). Operant conditioning, on the
other hand, is a form of learning that takes place by experiencing environmental consequences caused
by behaviour (e.g., reinforcement and punishment).

5. Sutherland’s differential association theory emphasizes that criminal behaviour is learned when we
interact with others (especially those who are important to us) and get exposed to a higher proportion
of antisocial rather than prosocial attitudes. Akers’ social learning theory builds on differential
association theory by explicitly addressing the mechanisms by which we learn to commit crime. His
theory emphasizes the role of operant conditioning in the crime acquisition process (whereby people
learn to commit crime as a result of a personal history of being reinforced for that activity) but also
includes the role of vicarious conditioning (whereby people learn to commit crime by observing that
activity being reinforced in other people, especially intimate personal groups).

6. Andrews and Bonta’s PIC–R theory of crime is influenced by a behavioural and cognitive social learning
perspective. The theory emphasizes many different potential paths into crime, and crime is thought to
be determined both by events that precede the behaviour and by events that follow it. These events
are believed to gain control over one’s behaviour primarily by signalling various rewards and costs for
different classes of behaviour, which can be either additive or subtractive. The controlling properties of
antecedent and consequent events are assumed to be acquired from multiple sources, including the
individual, other people, the act itself, and other aspects of the situation.

Discussion Questions
1. Do you think it’s possible to develop a general theory of crime that not only explains the causes of all
crime, but also the causes of other antisocial or deviant behaviours? Why or why not?

2. As part of your practicum at an outpatient clinic, you have been assigned to work with a psychiatrist
who has a patient with a serious foot fetish. The psychiatrist is interested in using aversive conditioning
in an attempt to eliminate the fetish and asks for your opinion of how the treatment should be
delivered. What you would suggest?

3. We discussed some ways in which operant conditioning principles are implemented in an attempt to
reduce crime (or institutional misconduct). Think of other interventions that exist in our criminal justice
system. Determine whether they are examples of positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement,
positive punishment, or negative punishment.

4. You are a summer intern at Correctional Service Canada and are tasked with the job of coming up with
a new treatment program for offenders based on Akers’ social learning theory of crime. Describe what
this program would look like (e.g., what would you target in treatment?) and explain your decisions.