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Integrative criminology reacts against single theory or methodology approaches, and adopts an interdisciplinary paradigm for the study of criminology and penology. Integration is not new. It informed the groundbreaking work of Merton (1938), Sutherland (1947), and Cohen (1955), but it has become a more positive school over the last twenty years (see Messner 1989).
The conceptual difficulty is to retain the utility of the substance while considering form. The rule should be not to integrate unless there is a measurable benefit. Systems theory believes that isomorphism can be identified in all disciplines, and better understanding will result from finding and using that common material in an integrated theory. But there is a danger of reductionism or of creating mere abstraction in a metatheory where concepts are simply grouped within concepts. This arises from the easily generalised hypotheses about what human nature is, why people conform or do not conform, how an individual can be both the cause and consequence of society, and why deviancy is both subjective and diachronic. The temptation is to produce a "General" or "Unified" Theory, bringing all the previously separated strands together, but ignoring the fact that to be separate theories, there must have been methodologically consistent research and analysis. This is also assuming that all theories are partly correct, partly wrong, and none wholly adequate on their own. Since society should be aiming for rationality in its justice and punishment systems, it is important to re-evaluate the concepts of social control, but the intention should be to formulate new research to challenge assumptions (e.g. that what integrates society does not have to be the same thing that socialises people) or devise better operationalised hypotheses (e.g. to develop an equivalent scale for the measurement of different rewards and costs) on a more comprehensive basis rather than merely seeking confirmation that one existing theory is more valid than another.
Theories of crime and punishment have become increasingly diverse as the phenomenon of diversity has been studied by the medical, psychological, behavioural, social, economic, and political sciences. One consequence has been the abandonment of bipolar debates, e.g. as to the merits of the Classical School as against the Positivist School or free will versus determinism, or deviancy versus conformity. The proposition that a complex social phenomenon such as crime and its punishment can be researched using a single philosophical tenet is less acceptable in a postmodern world given that analyses limited in their metamethodology or methodologies are likely to ignore more factors than they consider. Consequently, more criminologists and theorists are considering the adoption of integrative and/or interdisciplinary frameworks for new research, opening the door to the creative plurality of knowledge-based frameworks through which to explain human motivation, social organisation, and structural relationships.
According to Barak (1998), integration involves linking and/or synthesising the different models and theories into formulations of crime and crime control that are more comprehensive, but progress is slow as those who have power over the separate discipline discourses resist imperialist absorption into a more diffuse discourse. Brown (1989: 1) advocated a synthesis through narrative: "the conflict that exists in our culture between the vocabularies of scientific discourse and of narrative discourse, between positivism and romanticism, objectivism and subjectivism, and between system and lifeworld can be synthesised through a poetics of truth that views social science and society as texts." According to this view, language is neither a reflection of the world or of the mind. It is, instead, a social historical practice where the meaning of words are not taken from things or intentions, but arise from the socially co-ordinated actions of people. But such methodological proposals have met with little approval. For example, the Neo-Classical and Right Realism reliance on social control and social learning theory resists reference to issues of history, gender, economics, and law of interest to Marxist criminology, Feminist school, etc. and vici versa.
The methodology of integration may be:
Modernist integrative theories vary in their scope. Some focus on particular types of behaviour or offenders in social process-micro modelling, e.g. Wilson and Herrnstein (1985) concentrated on predatory street behavior using a social learning-behavioural choice model that relies on both positivist determinism and classical free will as it considers possible links between criminality and heredity, impulsivity, low intelligence, family practices, school experiences, and the effects of mass media on the individual. Other integrationists develop social structure-macro models, e.g. Quinney (1977) articulated a political economy and culture of crime and crime control based class-structural analysis where domination and repression through criminalisation was directed by capitalists and their agents of control. Tittle (1995: 142) proposed a control balance theory contending that the "amount of control to which people are subject relative to the amount of control they can exercise affects their general probability of committing some deviant acts as well as the probability that they will commit specific types of deviance". It also argues that individuals' control ratios or that the control balancing process is subject to a host of internal and external contingencies that can vary over time. These and other new theories care less about theories per se than about the knowledge they represent, focusing on interactive, reciprocal, dialectical, or codetermination causality, challenging whether there is a correct ordering of causal variables or whether the relations are constant over time. (see also Messerschmidt (1997) which examines the factors of class, race, gender, etc. in the process of social construction that mediates crime in particular social contexts and differentiates them through time and place. Barak and Henry (1999) also link the study of culture with the study of crime, examining the diversity of vocabularies through which different people experience violence and different criminal justice organisations exercise their power.
In criminology, corporate crime refers to crimes committed either by a corporation, or by individuals acting on behalf of a corporation or other business entity. For the worst corporate crimes, corporations may face judicial dissolution, sometimes called the "corporate death penalty", which is a legal procedure in which a corporation is forced to dissolve or cease to exist.
Articles related to criminology and law enforcement.
Critical criminology is a perspective in criminology that challenges traditional beliefs about crime and criminal justice, often by taking a conflict perspective such as Marxism, feminism, or critical theory. Critical criminology examines the genesis of crime and the nature of justice in relation to factors such as class and status, Law and the penal system are viewed as founded on social inequality and meant to perpetuate such inequality. Critical criminology also looks for possible biases in criminological research.
From a sociological perspective, deviance is defined as the violation or drift from the accepted social norms.
A sociological theory is a supposition that intends to consider, analyze, and/or explain objects of social reality from a sociological perspective, drawing connections between individual concepts in order to organize and substantiate sociological knowledge. Hence, such knowledge is composed of complex theoretical frameworks and methodology.
Marxist criminology is one of the schools of criminology. It parallels the work of the structural functionalism school which focuses on what produces stability and continuity in society but, unlike the functionalists, it adopts a predefined political philosophy. As in conflict criminology, it focuses on why things change, identifying the disruptive forces in industrialized societies, and describing how society is divided by power, wealth, prestige, and the perceptions of the world. "The shape and character of the legal system in complex societies can be understood as deriving from the conflicts inherent in the structure of these societies which are stratified economically and politically". It is concerned with the causal relationships between society and crime, i.e. to establish a critical understanding of how the immediate and structural social environment gives rise to crime and criminogenic conditions.
Right realism, in criminology, also known as New Right Realism, Neo-Classicism, Neo-Positivism, or Neo-Conservatism, is the ideological polar opposite of left realism. It considers the phenomenon of crime from the perspective of political conservatism and asserts that it takes a more realistic view of the causes of crime and deviance, and identifies the best mechanisms for its control. Unlike the other schools of criminology, there is less emphasis on developing theories of causality in relation to crime and deviance. The school employs a rationalist, direct and scientific approach to policy-making for the prevention and control of crime. Some politicians who subscribe to the perspective may address aspects of crime policy in ideological terms by referring to freedom, justice, and responsibility. For example, they may be asserting that individual freedom should only be limited by a duty not to use force against others. This, however, does not reflect the genuine quality in the theoretical and academic work and the real contribution made to the nature of criminal behaviour by criminologists of the school.
In criminology, the Neo-Classical School continues the traditions of the Classical School within the framework of Right Realism. Hence, the utilitarianism of Jeremy Bentham and Cesare Beccaria remains a relevant social philosophy in policy term for using punishment as a deterrent through law enforcement, the courts, and imprisonment.
In criminology, social control theory proposes that exploiting the process of socialization and social learning builds self-control and reduces the inclination to indulge in behavior recognized as antisocial. It derived from functionalist theories of crime and was developed by Ivan Nye (1958), who proposed that there were three types of control:
The feminist school of criminology is a school of criminology developed in the late 1960s and into the 1970s as a reaction to the general disregard and discrimination of women in the traditional study of crime. It is the view of the feminist school of criminology that a majority of criminological theories were developed through studies on male subjects and focused on male criminality, and that criminologists often would "add women and stir" rather than develop separate theories on female criminality.
Strain theory is a theoretical perspective in Sociology and Criminology that aims to explain the relationship between social structure, social values or goals, and crime. Strain theory was originally introduced by Robert King Merton (1938), and argues that society's dominant cultural values and social structure causes strain, which may encourage citizens to commit crimes. Following on the work of Émile Durkheim's theory of anomie, strain theory has been advanced by Robert King Merton (1938), Albert K. Cohen (1955), Richard Cloward, Lloyd Ohlin (1960), Neil Smelser (1963), Robert Agnew (1992), Steven Messner, Richard Rosenfeld (1994) and Jie Zhang (2012).
Techniques of neutralization are a theoretical series of methods by which those who commit illegitimate acts temporarily neutralize certain values within themselves which would normally prohibit them from carrying out such acts, such as morality, obligation to abide by the law, and so on. In simpler terms, it is a psychological method for people to turn off "inner protests" when they do, or are about to do something they themselves perceive as wrong.
Stuart Henry is professor emeritus, Criminal justice and former director of the School of Public Affairs, San Diego State University (2006–17). He has also been visiting professor of criminology at the University of Kent's School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research from 2008 to 2013 and visiting research scholar in sociology at the University of Hawaii, Manoa, 2017.
Ian Taylor was a British sociologist. He was born in Sheffield.
The National Deviancy Symposium consisted of a group of British criminologists dissatisfied with orthodox British criminology who met at the University of York in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The group included Paul Rock, David Downes, Laurie Taylor, Stan Cohen, Ian Taylor and Jock Young. Many members later became involved in critical criminology and/or Left realism.
Deviance or the sociology of deviance explores the actions and/or behaviors that violate social norms across formally enacted rules as well as informal violations of social norms. Although deviance may have a negative connotation, the violation of social norms is not always a negative action; positive deviation exists in some situations. Although a norm is violated, a behavior can still be classified as positive or acceptable.
Radical criminology states that society "functions" in terms of the general interests of the ruling class rather than "society as a whole" and that while the potential for conflict is always present, it is continually neutralised by the power of a ruling class. Radical criminology is related to critical and conflict criminology in its focus on class struggle and its basis in Marxism. Radical criminologists consider crime to be a tool used by the ruling class. Laws are put into place by the elite and are then used to serve their interests at the peril of the lower classes. These laws regulate opposition to the elite and keep them in power.
In criminology, the power-control theory of gender and delinquency holds the gender distribution of delinquency is caused by stratification from gender relations within the family. The theory seeks to explain gender differences in the rates of delinquency by attributing them to the level of social/parental control practiced. The theory states that the class, gender, and type of family structure will influence the severity of social/parental control practiced which will in turn set the "accepted norm" for the child/individual. This norm will in turn control the level of delinquency by the individual.
Criminology is the interdisciplinary study of crime and deviant behaviour. Criminology is a multidisciplinary field in both the behavioural and social sciences, which draws primarily upon the research of sociologists, political scientists, economists, legal sociologists, psychologists, philosophers, psychiatrists, social workers, biologists, social anthropologists, scholars of law and jurisprudence, as well as the processes that define administration of justice and the criminal justice system.
Criminal spin is a phenomenological model in criminology, depicting the development of criminal behavior. The model refers to those types of behavior that start out as something small and innocent, without malicious or criminal intent and as a result of one situation leading to the next, an almost inevitable chain of reactions triggering counter-reactions is set in motion, culminating in a spin of ever-intensifying criminal behavior. The criminal spin model was developed by Pro. Natti Ronel and his research team in the department of criminology at Bar-Ilan University. It was first presented in 2005 at a Bar-Ilan conference entitled “Appropriate Law Enforcement”.