"The tensions that exist within criminology tend to split between the two dominant subjects that form its core ideas, sociology and psychology. Recently, these two subjects have viewed each other with suspicion and occasional contempt. Where sociology tends to place its emphasis on society and environment, Psychology situates its main focus within the individual. This often leads diametrically opposed explanations for phenomena and sometimes referred to as the structure/ agency debate."
"For some psychologists, poverty is the result of individual failure due to low IQ, personality or lack of positive motivation such as might be caused by depression. When these two approaches are contained within criminology not only are there the usual heated discussions but there is the added frisson of distract in another discipline's methods and theoretical foundations. Yet, fundamentally, the concern is with what causes crime."
"(...) The interconnectivity of sociology and psychology when both are brought together in criminology by looking at the way that the study of crime became increasingly 'scientific'. Moreover, the bipolarity of the structure/agency debate has developed into a more complex argument that posits an integration between the two extremes of structural determinism and the free choice of the agent. By way of setting out the argument early, W.I. Thomas in the first edition of the American Journal of Sociology in 1894 noted that sociology and social psychology were inseparable (Strauss 1964)."
According to Garland (2002) criminology as a 'science of crime' has been in existence foe about 120 years. "The term 'criminology' was created in the 1890s as a broader term than others such as criminal sociology or criminal psychology. The later two terms are too specific and separately bead within boundaries peculiar to their own traditions. Consequently, the discipline of criminology from the outset subsumed the concerns of other, more established traditions within its intellectual remit. As Lea has noted (1998), criminology can be seen not as a subject in its own right, but as field that academics from other disciplines can enter, such as economics, historians, geographers, psychologists and sociologists.(...) The focus tends to be on the question of what causes crime. How academics from different subjects do that is, to a large degree, based upon the traditions of their 'master' disciplines. Hence, Gerland has argued that '[i]ts epistemological threshold is a low one, making it susceptible to pressures and interests generated elsewhere'(2002:17). "
In it's book Craig Webber talks about criminals to be "by and large, rational actors choosing to commit crime and therefore should be punished in proportion to the seriousness of the offence. Punishment should take the form of attempting to change the moral failures of the offender in prisons."
Further more Webber mentions in his book that "(...) psychology has recently been confronted by a new challenge that some see as indicative of a move to a later or postmodern society. It has been argued that as indicative of a move to a late or postmodern society. It has been argued that there has been a shift away from individual causes of crime towards the statistical analysis of a group's risk factors. This has impacted on the way that crime and justice research is carried out.
It has been argued that the research for individual causes of crime fell out of fashion between the 1970s and 2000 (Gerlan 2001; Hudson 2003). David garland argued that the:
new policy advice is to concentrate on substituting prevention for cure,
reducing the supply of opportunities, increasing situational and social con-
trols, and modifying everyday routines. The welfare of deprived social
groups, or the needs of maladjusted individuals, are much less central to
this way of thinking. (2001:16)"
Criminologists have drown on the risk society thesis in literature by sociologists such as Anthony Giddens (1990) and Urlich Beck (1992), to analyse changes in the way that the tools of social control and justice became different. "Rather than focus on the risk factors on an individual, criminal justice has increasingly moved towards making judgments that are collective in focus and based on prediction (O'Malley 2001). This is a form of actuarialism, the kind of risk assessment undertaken by insurance companies to determine how likely it is that a car might be stolen."
"Moreover, in the risk society we are increasingly challenging the expertise of experts, such as psychologists or criminologists (Giddens 19900. Essentially experts cannot offer what society wants, security. This clearly impacted on the work of psychologists, but how profoundly it has undermined the core philosophy of the focus on individual differences is unclear. " Another valid point is that "in many ways, there is a contradiction within psychology anyway, since many theories attempt to categorise individuals into groups. Moreover, there are many criticisms of the risk society thesis, some point out that the perceived shift to a focus risk is nothing new. "
Fears over terrorism, for example, "are not exclusive to those living after '9/11'. (...) Since New Labor were elected in the UK in 1997 the much quoted phrase 'tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime has had a tentative, patchy but nevertheless significant effect. After the credit crunch and world-wide recession, the part- nationalisation of the banks and other parts of industry and the election of Democrat Barack Obama as American President, we may yet see a return to welfarism and away from the sense of risk so pervasive under President George Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair. It is also essential to look at the history of criminology and how it had shaped the views on judgment within criminal justice. "
Other reason why it is essential to look back in time on the history of criminological movements is to see what influenced and developed the thoughts that shape today's thoughts. Researching into these can help in understanding what are the reasons of crime and how much of the science and analysis of humans' behaviours and social and economical background influences the judgement about the person. And to understand how the judgments in court are driven it is important for me to get to know the history of Crime and how has it been studied so far.
"Criminology and psychology are regarded as disciplines that developed out of modern period. The major historical event that characterises this period is the move from an agricultural to an industrial economy." Modernism is characterised by the greater faith in objectivity, rationality and using scientific methods. "In sociology the application of the scientific method is termed positivism after the term coined by one of the earliest sociologists Augustine Comte whose most influential book
Cours de pholosophie positive(...) set out the argument for a scientific form of sociology that provided a positive agenda for political change. Positivism can be split into two main forms, individual and sociological positivism.
Individual positivism has an assumption that behaviour is the result of individual, internal factors to the neglect of social factors. For example, individual positivists would not be concerned with issues like poverty in explaining why there is a higher rate of crime in groups who are poor. Instead, they might argue that the cause is lower intelligence based on Intelligence Quotient (IQ) scores in groups of people who are poor(...). The research methods are wide-ranging but tend to be those which can be verified by other researches using the same procedure so are likely to result in data that is statistical. Psychology, in general, has been regarded as being individual positivism, although there are some theories, such as some areas of social psychology, which focus to a greater extent on environmental factors."
Having mentioned individual positivism it is worth going back to its origins to gain greater understanding of its idea. Going back even into times of Darwin and the evolution of the species is relevant, because it is from these times that the thought on criminal tendencies that appear in some more than others have been brought up already.
"Darwin's theory that humans have evolved from earlier species began some people to speculate that maybe there were different types of human, differing from each other in such areas as intelligence and race. It was also argued that maybe criminals were also different to non-criminals. The initial research into this idea began with (…) phrenology. Phrenology is the study of the association between bumps on the skull and behaviour, with a raised area on the skull being thought to be indicative of more less of a particular character trait. Phrenology is often seen as an unscientific precursor to more sophisticated research into the identification of criminals."
"There are many discredited scientific ideas that criminology has studied. Phrenology is important because it helped shape scientific study of crime and influenced the work of the leading nineteenth-century positivist Cesare Lombroso. As a progenitor of positivist explanations for crime it can be credited with moving the debate in a radical direction, away from treating crime as a rational choice requiring the punishment of the offender towards seeing crime as a pathology to be treated. (…)"
"(...) From 1800 to 1830 phrenology was developed by psychiatrists and physicians into a 'scientific' system based on measurement and observation, but within 20 years there occurred a popularising of phrenology. (…) By the 1850 (…) the categorization of crimes into different causes opened up an area of research into the possibility of multiple and varied causations and in the idea of desistance from crime (…). "
Another research that began during the middle of the nineteenth century was "into the idea of psychopathy. It was necessary to explain why some people could commit heinous crimes, but not appear to be intellectually damaged. Before the term psychopath was coined, however, the term 'moral insanity' described someone whose behaviour lacks moral awareness of right and wrong but where their intellect had not been impaired. This term was replaced by Rush (…) with micronomia and anomia."
With the decline in phrenology, psychiatry, particularly in prisons and asylums began to take over the study of criminals. Rafter argued here that the term had metaphorical purpose "to describe almost anyone who did not fit what was then regarded as the norms to which people should be measured."
"As the cities grew and populations raised throughout nineteenth and early twentieth century the middle class fears of crime and disorder started to find answers in psychology and criminology. (…) In America the diagnostic tool for all behavioural disorders is the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM IV) (APA 1994), however it has been criticized for a number of arbitrary categories that do not sufficiently delineate between behaviours. Such as example is its inability to distinguish a psychopathic disorder from conduct disorders (CD) and antisocial personality disorder (aspd). (…) Essentially, psychopathy is distinguished from cd and aspd as an emotional dysfunction that leads to a greater use of instrumental aggression, as opposed to reactive aggression. Instrumental aggression is characterized by the use of aggression for the purpose of achieving a goal, either financial or emotional, whereas reactive aggression refers to aggression that is caused by something. Therefore psychopathy is not adequately described in the American system of diagnosis and so its use as an explanation for why types of crime are committed is problematic."
In the Lombroso, the Positivist School, Garland noted that the ideas of Lambroso are not new and an extension of racial anthropology in the 1870s and the creation of categories such as genius or insane (Garland 2002). Lambrosso's approach became one of the dominant ideas that have set "the new science of criminology on route that was to be dominant for the best part of 80 years . Whereas phrenology suggested that people could change, and that there were finely tuned gradations in severity of behaviour, Lambroso presented a human as a fait accompli, readymade and without much hope of change, except long-term policies to prevent those identified as criminal from reproducing. "
"Lambroso argued that the criminal was an atavism, a throwback to an earlier stage of evolution. Lambroso, like many of his contemporaries such as A.M. Guerry and A. Quetelet , was interested in the emerging use of statistics. His work was about measuring the body to see if the body would give away any indication of criminality."
"Much research during the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century is essentially a variation on the same theme: crime is a stable trait that can be measured and which is either largely inherited or conditioned in early life and remains a constant influence. Crime is caused by internal mechanisms gone wrong. Crucially, this has little effect on the underlying the rationality of humans. Crime is not caused by humans acting irrationally since their underlying physiology or upbringing compels them to act in the only way they can. The legal system in the UK was set up, albeit unsystematic, to account for both those who rationally chose to commit crime and to take into account extenuating circumstances for those whose background suggested social or psychological pathology. The originator of psychoanalysis Sigmund Feud represents a conduit, or link between the constitutional theories of Lombroso and the later approaches of psychology to social learning and upbringing. His work also marks the beginning of questioning of this rationality, at the same time as critics suggested that psychoanalysis was not scientific. Chaos and disorder are thought to be under the control of humans, and yet humans were about to embark on a global war. "
Eric Hobsbawm, on the other hand argues that "there was a sense of unease about the achievements that could be made through positing a purely rational human actor or trying to understand the world solely though the application of scientific methods (Hobsbawm 1987). "
As we know according Sigmund Freud "human behaviour is directed not by reason but by underlying unconscious impulses and instincts." Also unlike Lambroso he focused on finding causes for "behaviour where no physical or chemical reason could be determined."
Freud argued that "every mental process, every thought or emotion had a meaning, even if that meaning was not consciously intelligible to the individual." Even unintentional actions had a reason for him. Freud's psychoanalysis challenges the positivists' quest of "psychology to identify single causes for crime and in their place presents a more complex theory of humans. We can see in this, arguably, the first signs of the retreat from the aetiology of crime towards the more pragmatic attempts of contemporary psychology, and all other forms of governance, to attend to the risk and not the cause of crime."
Among forms of sociological positivism Durkheim's work is mentioned here, "his work is anomie. This literally means without norms. Anomie develops when social systems go through major changes. A norm is the usual way of behaving. Durkheim termed this the conscience collective or collective consciousness. (...)The relationships we have with other people normally keep our behaviour in check. But, significant social change disrupts those relationships."
Studying into concepts of disruptions, "crime is deemed to be a deviation from the norm. There is an altruistic, welfare-oriented element to these approaches in that deviations from the norm are not held to be in the control of the individual, but instead outside their rational control. This is either as a consequence of internal mental deficits of some kind in individual positivism, or else the consequence of social structural factors such as the economy, religion or poverty in the sociological variant. Since the causes are not in the control of the individual, or group, and that crime is therefore not seen as being a rational choice, then punishment is not deemed to be appropriate."
What is more, "crime tends to be regarded as pathological, as an illness to be treated rather than a moral failure to be punished. Moreover, such approaches tend to posit causes which are regarded as necessary for the activity to take place. Without the cause, the activity would not occur."
Moving onto late modern approaches to the theory of crime, "in criminology, the way law developed over time and reflected different moral debates lead to a contrast between those who believe the positivist trait believe those who discussed above, and that crime is socially constructed, changeable and not real, the labelling, symbolic interactionist or social constructivist tradition."
Then, during the modern and postmodern times questioning of the positivism started. Eysenck, controversially in my view created opinion that some people are biologically predetermined to be criminal because of their personality. He justified this idea by the psychology of potential criminals' brains, their extroverted personality and law cortical arousal, as if "their brains ticked over too slowly". And to compensate for that these people would find other ways to fuel with excitement. And this excitement could by crime.
Searching further into theories of psychological approach to a criminal mind, in the chapter about period of 1970s I found another very interesting information that "the mad person is driven mad by crazy families and the madness is a rational response to mad situations, a breaking through of the restrictive chains of rational society and the restrictive envelope of the industrial demands on time and labour."
Moving from learning about the history into study of the mind, it is worth looking into personality disorder.
“(...) Some authors maintain that that there is evidence that many serial killers are psychopathic (...). An inability to empathise or sympathise with the suffering of the other people and an inflated opinion of their own self-worth tends to characterise psychopathic individuals."
My attention was drown specifically into interesting discussions in the book about the interests of the potential offender's enjoyment. The focus is often turned into one type of interests that the offender could enjoy, stressing on the factors like military, the occult, heavy metal music, use of pornography and martial arts. But it is rightly pointed out that such conclusions are open to interpretation and are socially influenced by factors like right wing or religious morals. And " the amount of media devoted to such sensational interests, from the television through to the Internet, would over-predict the amount of violent crime committed if there was a causal effect. There are simply not enough offences to validate a causal link with sensational interests."
Looking further into the mind of the murderer, the "definitions including those of Holmes and Holmes (2002) and Ressler, Burgess and Douglas (1988) tend to equate serial killing with a motive that has no pecuniary or direct vengeful motivation and in the majority of cases there is a sexual component also. “ One particular type of a killer's profile drawn my attention relevant to my research was the so called mission serial killer. Which is not defined as psychopathic, "but like the vision serial killer tends to go after a certain category of people, for example, homosexuals, an ethnic group other than his or her own, women, etc. The mission serial killer is propelled not by voices but a perceived mission to eradicate the world or area of such people." It is often that certain personality trait is associated with the criminal activity, such as Eysenck's extrovert.
Another part that is of the interest for my research is, criminal profiling.
I also found another very interesting statement when looking into the British approach to offender profiling, David Canter (Liverpool University) is concerned that the approach of Investigative Psychology has at its core of traditional American forms "the making of inferences based on little evidence." His approach to "offender profiling is to apply psychological principles to the investigation of crime. (...) Through analysing the way that different offenders move between the crime site and their home, Counter argues it is possible to make some generalisations that are helpful to investigators. Since a profile is used for crimes where there is little evidence that would help link the victim to the offender," Canter says that psychology is far more helpful than the current preoccupation with high profile serial crimes like murder or rape.
Other very crucial point was that “criminal activity may well be an extreme reflection of non-criminal activity (Canter 1995). Crime scene behaviour that reflects elements of an offender's general lifestyle may be useful for investigators because it may be that people might notice such behaviour. Here, Canter makes links to a criminological theory called Routine activities Theory (RAT) that posits the need of criminologists to fuss on the crime event and the role of the victim in that event (Cohen and Felson 1979). By doing this, attention is shifted away from why some people commit crime whilst others do not and instead focus on crime prevention. Very important pinpoints stated here is that "for a crime to occur there needs to be three factors coinciding in time and space. The first is a motivated offender; the second is suitable target and finally the absence of capable guardians able to prevent the offence taking place."
"The argument that crime is linked to the routine activities of everyday life kinks into Counter’s approach because Canter is less concerned with motivations than with the crime scene themes that might practically help investigations."
“The discovery that the offender may offend near to their home is not new to criminology. (...) A group of criminologists who called themselves left realists carried out victim surveys and came to simple conclusions. Crime was mainly intra-class and intra-race. That is, crime was committed within the same socio-economic and ethnic group. Offender and the victim are similar."
"One of the problems of the idea of a profile is that a statistic and flexible approach that may only have relevance for early stages in an investigation. " And it of course leaves room for incorrect judgement. It is an academic study and I believe that following the logical and factual approach as future journalist it can be taken into hypothetical suggestions and help in discovering facts but the danger is to waste time of going into investigating incorrect hypothesis. Reasonable level of scepticism should be kept with using the speculative approaches to anything if there are no facts involved that would support the theories."
For example, "a British study by Alison, smith and Morgan (...) presented police officers with a 'bogus' offender profile designed to be deliberately ambiguous but based on a real murder and a description of the characteristics of an offender. The respondents split into two groups and each were asked to rate the accuracy of the offender profile to the offender. One group was presented with a description of a convicted offender and the other group were presented with description of a fabricated offender designed to have characteristics the opposite to that of the real offender. (...) The majority of the police officers said that the profile would be a useful tool for an investigation and just over half of the forensic professionals thought it would be useful. Despite the different characteristics of the offenders the majority of the respondents felt that the profile was accurate. Useful analogies as to why profiles may be seen as accurate even when they contain ambiguous statements that could apply to many people are horoscopes."
"Eye witness testimony is a major tool of the Criminal Justice system and accounts for many convictions. (...) With advances in the use and reliability of forensic science, in particular DNA testing, many cases of innocent people convicted on the basis of eyewitness testimony have come to light after forensic tests proved their innocence (...). "
All the quotations and inspiration:
Psychology of Crime, Craig Webber, 2010
