Chapter I : Definition of criminology

1.1 History

According to dictionary, Criminology is

the scientific study of the causation,
correction, and prevention of crime.

As a subdivision of the larger field of

sociology, criminology draws on psychology,
economics, anthropology, psychiatry, biology,
statistics, and other disciplines to explain the causes and prevention of criminal
behavior. Subdivisions of criminology include penology, the study of prisons and prison
systems; bio criminology, the study of the biological basis of criminal behavior; feminist
criminology, the study of women and crime; and criminalities, the study of crime
detection.

Criminology has historically played a reforming role in relation to Criminal Law and
the criminal justice system. As an applied
discipline, it has produced findings that have
influenced legislators, judges, prosecutors,
lawyers, Probation officers, and prison
officials, prompting them to better
understand crime and criminals and to
develop better and more humane sentences
and treatments for criminal behavior.

The leading theorist of this classical school of criminology, the Italian Cesar
BONESANO BECCARIA (17381794), argued that the law must apply equally to all, and that

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punishments for specific crimes should be standardized by legislatures, thus avoiding
judicial abuses of power.

Both Baccarat and another classical

theorist, the Englishman Jeremy
Bentham (17481832), argued that
people are rational beings who exercise
free will in making choices. Baccarat
and Bentham understood the dominant
motive in making choices to be the
seeking of pleasure and the avoidance of pain. Thus, they argued that a punishment
should fit the crime in such a way that the pain involved in potential punishment would
be greater than any pleasure derived from committing the crime. The writings of these
theorists led to greater Codification and standardization of European and U.S. laws.

Criminologists of the early nineteenth century argued that legal punishments that had
been created under the guidance of the classical school did not sufficiently consider the
widely varying circumstances of those who found themselves in the gears of the criminal
justice system. Accordingly, they proposed that those who could not distinguish right
from wrong, particularly children and mentally ill persons, should be exempted from the
punishments that were normally meted out to mentally capable adults who had committed
the same crimes. Along with the contributions of a later generation of criminologists,
known as the positivists, such writers argued that the punishment should fit the criminal,
not the crime.

Later in the nineteenth century, the positivist school of criminology brought a

scientific approach to criminology, including findings from biology and medicine. The
leading figure of this school was the Italian Cesar Lombroso (18361909).

Influenced by Charles R. Darwin's theory of evolution, Lombroso measured the

physical features of prison inmates and concluded that criminal behavior correlated with
specific bodily characteristics, particularly cranial, skeletal, and neurological

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malformations. According to Lombroso, biology created a criminal class among the
human population. Subsequent generations of criminologists have disagreed harshly with
Lombroso's conclusions on this matter. However, Lombroso had a more lasting effect on
criminology with other findings that emphasized the multiple causes of crime, including
environmental causes that were not biologically determined. He was also a pioneer of the
case-study approach to criminology.

Other late-nineteenth-century developments in

criminology included the work of statisticians of the
cartographic school, who analyzed data on population
and crime. These included Lambert Adolph Quenelle,
(1796 1874) of France and Andr Michel Gerry, of
Belgium. Both of these researchers compiled detailed,
statistical information relating to crime and also
attempted to identify the circumstances that predisposed
people to commit crimes.

The writings of French sociologist Emile Durkheim (18581917) also exerted a great
influence on criminology. Durkheim advanced the hypothesis that criminal behavior is a
normal part of all societies. No society, he argued, can ever have complete uniformity of
moral consciousness. All societies must permit some deviancy, including criminal
deviancy, or they will stagnate. He saw the criminal as an acceptable human being and
one of the prices that a society pays for freedom.

Durkheim also theorized about the ways in which modern, industrial societies differ
from nonindustrial ones. Industrial societies are not as effective at producing what
Durkheim called a collective conscience that effectively controls the behavior of
individuals. Individuals in industrial societies are more likely to exhibit what Durkheim
called anomiea Greek word meaning "without norms." Consequently, modern societies
have had to develop specialized laws and criminal justice systems that were not necessary
in early societies to control behavior.

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 Early efforts to organize criminologists in the United States attracted law enforcement
officials and others who were interested in the criminal justice system. In 1941, a group
of individuals in California organized for the purpose of improving police training and
the standardization of police-training
curricula. In 1946, this movement
developed into the establishment of the
Society for the Advancement of
Criminology, which changed its name
to the American Society of
Criminology in 1957. Initial efforts of
this organization focused upon
scientific crime detection,
investigation, and identification; crime
prevention, public safety, and security;
law enforcement administration; administration of criminal justice; traffic administration;
and probation.

The American Society of

Criminology has since attracted thousands
of members, including academics,
practitioners, and students of the criminal
justice system. Studies of criminology
include both the theoretical and the
pragmatic, and some combine elements of
both. Although some aspects of
criminology as a science are still considered
radical, others have developed as standards
in the study of crime and criminal justice.

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 1.2 Social Structural Criminology

During the twentieth century, the

sociological approach to criminology became
the most influential approach. Sociology is
the study of social behavior, systems, and
structures. In relation to criminology, it may
be divided into social-structural and social-
process approaches.

Social-structural approaches to criminology examine the way in which social

situations and structures influence or relate to criminal behavior. An early example of this
approach, the ecological school of criminology, was developed in the 1920s and 1930s at
the University of Chicago. It seeks to explain crime's relationship to social and
environmental change. For example, it attempts to describe why certain areas of a city
will have a tendency to attract crime and also have less-vigorous police enforcement.
Researchers have found that urban areas in transition from residential to business uses are
most often targeted by criminals. Such communities often have disorganized social
networks that foster a weaker sense of social standards.

The American Society of Criminology has

since attracted thousands of members,
including academics, practitioners, and students
of the criminal justice system. Studies of
criminology include both the theoretical and the
pragmatic, and some combine elements of both.
Although some aspects of criminology as a
science are still considered radical, others have
developed as standards in the study of crime and criminal justice.

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 Critical criminology, also called radical
criminology, shares with conflict
criminology a debt to Marxism. It came into
prominence in the early 1970s and attempted
to explain contemporary social upheavals.

Critical criminology relies on economic explanations of behavior and argues that

economic and social inequalities cause criminal behavior. It focuses less on the study of
individual criminals, and advances the belief that existing crime cannot be eliminated
within the capitalist system. It also asserts, like the conflict school, that law has an
inherent bias in favor of the upper or ruling class, and that the state and its legal system
exist to advance the interests of the ruling class. Critical criminologists argue that
corporate, political, and environmental crime are underreported and inadequately
addressed in the current criminal justice system.

Feminist criminology emphasizes the subordinate position of women in society.

According to feminist criminologists, women remain in a position of inferiority that has
not been fully rectified by changes in the law during the late twentieth century. Feminist
criminology also explores the ways in which women's criminal behavior is related to their
objectification as commodities in the sex industry.

Others using the social-structural

approach have studied Gangs, juvenile
delinquency, and the relationship between
family structure and criminal behavior.

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 1.3 Social Process Criminology

Social-process criminology theories attempt to explain how people become criminals.

These theories developed through recognition of the fact that not all people who are
exposed to the same social-structural conditions become criminals. They focus on
criminal behavior as learned behavior.

Edwin H. Sutherland (18831950), a U.S. sociologist and criminologist who first

presented his ideas in the 1920s and 1930s, advanced the theory of differential
association to explain criminal behavior. He emphasized that criminal behavior is learned
in interaction with others, usually in small groups, and that criminals learn to favor
criminal behavior over noncriminal behavior through association with both forms of
behavior in different degrees. As Sutherland wrote, "When persons become criminal,
they do so because of contacts with criminal patterns and also because of isolation from
anti criminal patterns." Although his theory has been greatly influential, Sutherland
himself admitted that it did not satisfactorily explain all criminal behavior. Later theorists
have modified his approach in an attempt to correct its shortcomings.

Control theory, developed in the

1960s and 1970s, attempts to explain
ways to train people to engage in
law-abiding behavior. Although there
are different approaches within
control theory, they share the view
that humans require nurturing in order to develop attachments or bonds to people and
that, personal bonds are key in producing internal controls such as conscience and guilt
and external controls such as shame. According to this view, crime is the result of
insufficient attachment and commitment to others.

Walter C. Reckless developed one version of control theory, called containment. He

argued that a combination of internal psychological containments and external social

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containments prevents people from deviating from social norms. In simple communities,
social pressure to conform to community standards, usually enforced by social ostracism,
was sufficient to control behavior. As societies became more complex, internal
containments played a more crucial role in determining whether people behaved
according to public laws. Furthermore, containment theorists have found that internal

containments require a positive self-

image. All too often, a sense of alienation from society and its norms forms in modern
individuals, who, as a result, do not develop internal containment mechanisms.

Chapter II : Theories of Crime

CCrime
2.1 Social Structure Theories

Social structure theories assert that the disadvantaged economic class position is a
primary cause of crime. The theories state that neighborhoods which are lower class
create forces of strain, frustration and disorganization that create crime.

These theories have certain truths in regards to resources and certain peoples
experiences. However the theories also have certain disparities. General strain theory, for
example had to be revised in 2004 to better ascertain the research methods in which data
was obtained. (Stephen W Baron. Criminology. Beverly Hills: May 2004. Vol. 42, Is. 2;
p. 457)

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 When you look at the theory, the strains
might not necessarily come from peoples
frustrations with acquiring The American
Dream, but rather a mixture in strains such
as homelessness, abuse and neglect,
subcultures, deviant values and frustrations
about poverty. Meaning, there might be
more than one factor in play when a person is influenced to commit a crime by
interacting within an imposed economic class. A person might encounter one of these
factors by themselves and not decide to succumb to peer pressure or let his/her abuse
trauma lead them to a life of crime. A person might face poverty but have enough
resilience through family values to make a choice of lawful actions.

The theories are addressing factors and events in our neighborhoods that need constant
attention, such as the choice to form gangs, drug trafficking (to a certain extent) and
counter-cultures. However, there are as many forces that counter these crime inspiring
situations as there are ones who may potentially foster it. The conditions of lower class
neighborhoods are more diverse and in the gray area than some of the theories vocabulary
have taken into account.

2.2 Social disorganization ( neighborhoods)

In sociology, the Social disorganization theory was one of the most important
theories developed by the Chicago School, related to ecological theories. Social
disorganization theory: linking low crime rates to neighborhood ecological
characteristics, youths from disadvantaged neighborhoods were participants in a
subculture in which delinquency was approved behavior and that criminality was
acquired in social and cultural settings through a process of interaction. A core principle
of social disorganization theory is that place mattersi.e., one's residential locationas

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much or more than one's individual characteristics (age, gender, race) in shaping the
likelihood that a person will become involved in illegal activities.

The theory is not intended to apply to

all types of crime, but instead to street
crime at the neighborhood level. The
theory has not been used to explain
organized crime, corporate crime, or
deviant behavior that takes place outside neighborhood settings. Up to the beginning of
seventies, this theory took a back seat to the psychological explanation of crime. A recent
overview of social disorganization theory, including suggestions for refining and
extending the theory, is a journal article by Kubrin and Weitzer (2003).

Thomas and Znaniecki (19181920) introduced the idea that a person's thinking
processes and attitudes are constructed by the interaction between that person's situation
and his or her behavior. Attitudes are not innate but stem from a process of acculturation.
Any proposed action will have social importance to an individual both because it relates
to the objective situation within which the subject has to act, and because it has been
shaped by attitudes formed through a lifetime of social and cultural experiences. This is
based on the "four wishes" of the Thomas theorem, viz., "If men define situations as real,
they are real in their consequences". These four wishes are the desire for new
experiences, the desire for recognition, the desire for domination, and the desire for
security. Combined with the cultural values of a pre-existing situation, the four wishes
give rise to certain attitudes which are subjectively defined meanings and shared
experience, strongly emphasized and embodied in specific institutions. The root of new
attitudes arises from the formation of new relationships and interaction between the
person and the world outside the community. For example, the emergence of economics
as an independent sphere reflected the tendency to reduce quality to a quantity in barter
transactions and led to the development of money.

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 Edwin Sutherland

Sutherland adopted the concept of social disorganization to explain the increases in

crime that accompanied the transformation of preliterate and peasant societies where
"influences surrounding a person were steady, uniform, harmonious and consistent" to
modern Western civilization which he believed was characterized by inconsistency,
conflict and un-organization (1934: 64). He also believed that the mobility, economic
competition and an individualistic ideology that accompanied capitalist and industrial
development had been responsible for the disintegration of the large family and
homogeneous neighborhoods as agents of social control. The failure of extended kin
groups expanded the realm of relationships no longer controlled by the community and
undermined governmental controls leading to persistent "systematic" crime and
delinquency. He also believed that such disorganization causes and reinforces the cultural
traditions and cultural conflicts that support antisocial activity. The systematic quality of
the behavior was a reference to repetitive, patterned or organized offending as opposed to
random events. He depicted the law-abiding culture as dominant and more extensive
than alternative criminogenic cultural views and capable of overcoming systematic crime
if organized for that purpose (1939: 8). But because society is organized around
individual and small group interests, society permits crime to persist. Sutherland
concluded that if the society is organized with reference to the values expressed in the
law, the crime is eliminated; if it is not organized, crime persists and develops (1939:8).
In later works, he switched from the concept of social disorganization to differential
social organization to convey the complexity of overlapping and conflicting levels of
organization in a society.

Robert E. Lee Faris

Faris (1955) extended the concept of

social disorganization to explain social
pathologies and social problems in general,
including crime, suicide, mental illness, and
mob violence. Defining organization as

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definite and enduring patterns of complementary relations (1955: 3), he defined social
disorganization as the weakening or destruction of the relationships which hold together a
social organization (1955: 81). Such a concept was to be employed objectively as a
measurable state of a social system, independent of personal approval or disapproval.
When applied to crime, Faris' central proposition was that, "A crime rate is ...a reflection
of the degree of disorganization of the control mechanisms in a society." In turn, crime
also contributes to disorganization, and disorganization of such conventional mechanisms
is especially likely in large, rapidly growing industrial cities where such disorganization
permits highly organized criminality as well as less organized forms of group and
individual crime and delinquency.

Robert J. Sampson

Sampson (1993) claims that any theory of

crime must begin with the fact that most
violent criminals belonged to teenage peer-
groups, particularly street gangs, and that a
gang member will become a full-time criminal if social controls are insufficient to
address delinquent behavior at an early age. He follows Shaw and McKay (1969) in
accepting that if the family and relatives offer inadequate supervision or incomplete
socialization, children from broken families are more likely to join violent gangs unless
others take the parents' place. But, even children from unstable families are less likely to
be influenced by peer groups in a community where most family units are intact. Tight-
knit communities are more likely to identify strangers, report deviants to their parents,
and pass warnings along. High rates of residential mobility and high-rise housing disrupt
the ability to establish and maintain social ties. Formal organizations like schools, church,
and the police act as surrogates for family and friends in many communities, but poor,
unstable communities often lack the organization and political connections to obtain
resources for fighting crime and offering young people an alternative to deviant behavior.

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 Sampson concludes that "the empirical data suggest that the structural elements of
social disorganization have relevance for explaining macro level variations in violence."
Social disorganization may also produce crime by isolating communities from the
mainstream culture. Sampson and Wilson (1995) proposed a theory of race and urban
inequality to explain the disproportionate representation of African Americans as victims
and offenders in violent crime. The basic idea proposed was that community-level
patterns of racial inequality give rise to the
social isolation and ecological concentration
of the truly disadvantaged, which in turn
leads to structural barriers and cultural
adaptations that undermine social
organization and ultimately the control of
crime.

Sampson and Wilson (1995) pursued this

logic to argue that the community-level
causes of violence are the same for both whites and blacks, but that racial segregation by
community differentially exposes members of minority groups to key violence-inducing
and violence-protecting social mechanisms, thereby explaining black-white disparities in
violence. Their thesis has come to be known as "racial invariance" in the fundamental
causes of crime.

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 2.3 Social ecology

Social ecology is a philosophy developed by Murray Bookchin in the 1960s.

It holds that present ecological problems are rooted in deep-seated social problems,
particularly in domination hierarchical political and social systems. These have resulted
in an uncritical acceptance of an overly competitive grow-or-die philosophy. It suggests
that this cannot be resisted by individual action such as ethical consumerism but must be
addressed by more nuanced ethical thinking and collective activity grounded in radical
democratic ideals. The complexity of relationships between people and nature is
emphasized, along with the importance of establishing more mutualistic social structures
that take account of this.

The philosophy's "social" component comes from its position that nearly all of the
world's ecological problems arise from deep-seated social problems. Conversely, social
ecologists maintain, present ecological problems cannot be clearly understood, much less
resolved, without resolutely dealing with problems within society. They argue that apart
from those produced by natural catastrophes, the most serious ecological dislocations of
the 20th and 21st centuries have as their cause economic, ethnic, cultural, and gender
conflicts, among many others.

Social ecology is associated with the ideas and works of Murray Bookchin, who had
written on such matters from the 1950s until his death, and, from the 1960s, had
combined these issues with revolutionary social anarchism. His works include Post-
Scarcity Anarchism, Toward an Ecological Society, The Ecology of Freedom, and a host
of others.

Social ecology locates the roots of the ecological crisis firmly in relations of
domination between people. In the framework of social ecology, "the very notion of the
domination of nature by man stems from the very real domination of human by human."

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While the domination of nature is seen as a product of domination within society, this
domination only reaches crisis proportions under capitalism. In the words of Bookchin:

The notion that man must dominate nature emerges directly from the domination of
man by man But it was not until organic community relation dissolved into market
relationships that the planet itself was reduced to a resource for exploitation. This
centuries-long tendency finds its most exacerbating development in modern capitalism.

Beginning in 1995, Bookchin became increasingly critical of anarchism, and in 1999

took a decisive stand against anarchist ideology. He had come to recognize social ecology
as a genuinely new form of libertarian socialism, and positioned its politics firmly in the
framework of a new political ideology which he called Communalism.

Since the founding of Social Ecology its evolution has been considerable. Now it is
involved in research and instruction and Is informed by and contributes to knowledge in

the social, behavioral, legal,

environmental, and health sciences.
Social Ecology faculty apply
scientific methods to the study of a
wide array of recurring social,
behavioral, and environmental
problems. Among issues of long-
standing interest in the School are
crime and justice in society, social
influences on human development
over the life cycle, and the effects of the physical environment on health and human
behavior. While the field of ecology focuses on the relationships between organisms and
their environments, social ecology is concerned with the relationships between human
populations and their environments.

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 2.4 Subcultural theory

In criminology, subcultural theory emerged from the work of the Chicago School on
gangs and developed through the symbolic interactionism school into a set of theories
arguing that certain groups or subcultures in society have values and attitudes that are
conducive to crime and violence.

The primary focus is on juvenile delinquency because theorists believe that if this
pattern of offending can be understood and controlled, it will break the transition from
teenage offender into habitual criminal. Some of the theories are functionalist assuming
that criminal activity is motivated by economic needs, while others posit a social class
rationale for deviance.

Culture represents the norms, customs and values which both guide behavior and act
as a framework from which behavior is judged by the majority. It is transmitted socially
rather than biologically. A subculture is a distinctive culture within a culture, so its norms
and values differ from the majority culture but do not necessarily represent a culture
deemed deviant by the majority. A subculture is distinguished from a counterculture
which operates in direct opposition to the majority culture. Cultural Transmission Theory
and Social Disorganization Theory posit that, in the poorest zones of a city, certain forms
of behavior become the cultural norm transmitted from one generation to the next, as part
of the normal socialization process. Successful criminals are role models for the young,
demonstrating both the possibilities of success through crime, and its normality. See
Shaw (1930) who describes the social pressure to engage in criminality.

Subcultural Theory proposes that those living in an urban setting are able to find
ways of creating a sense of community despite the prevailing alienation and anonymity.
The cultural structure is dominated by the majority norms, which forces individuals to

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 form communities in new and different ways. More
recently, Fischer (1995) proposed that the size,
population, and heterogeneity of cities actually
strengthens social groups,

and encourages the formation of subcultures, which

are much more diverse in nature compared to the general culture. Fischer defines a
subculture as, "...a large set of people who share a defining trait, associate with one
another, are members of institutions associated with their defining trait, adhere to a
distinct set of values, share a set of cultural tools and take part in a common way of life"
(Fischer: 544). In less densely populated and less diverse environments, the creation of
such subcultures would be nearly impossible. But ethnic minorities, professionals, the
artistic avant-garde, displaced agricultural families, etc. come to live in cities and their
lifestyles come to typify cities.

Chapter III : Contemporary cultural and critical criminology

3.1 Individual theories

Today's cultural and critical criminologists define themselves through their opposition
to positivism, which reduces complex emotional and communicative human beings to
statistics, and to rational choice-inspired theories, which they perceive to rest on an
ontologically simplistic conception of human beings as hedonistic opportunists whose
behavior can be manipulated by adjustments of costs, benefits, opportunities and
technologies of control.

Early romantic accounts of crime/delinquency as a form of seduction or proto-political

resistance to the powerlessness and dull monotony of working life are now being
challenged by late-modern hybrid theories. These theories examine the ways in which

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 criminals are incorporated into consumerism's value-system and fantasies, as argued by
Robert Reiner in his book Law and Order, yet initially excluded in their economic and
social lives. Combining elements of strain theory with cultural theory and symbolic
interactionism, Jock Young, in The Exclusive Society, uses the metaphor of bulimia to
depict the tense opposition between
inclusion and exclusion. Simon Hallsworth
and Keith Hayward adopt a similar approach
in their respective works Street Crime and
City Limits.

In further work Hayward reintroduces the

Freudian term 'narcissism' to explain the insecure yet aggressive, acquisitive sentiments
and motivations behind criminality. In Criminal Identities and Consumer Culture, Steve
Hall, Simon Winlow and Craig Ancrum draw upon Continental philosophy and Lacanian
psychoanalysis to take late-modern hybrid theories to a new level of sophistication as
they explain how the dynamic tension between inclusion and exclusion prolongs the
narcissistic subject throughout the life-course in an aggressive struggle for identities of
social distinction expressed by the acquisition and display of consumer culture's status-
symbols.

When it comes to understanding the theories behind connections between crimes and
individuals or the community, many people may not realize that the beliefs that
differentiate the theories are not as complex as they may seem at first. By simplifying the
core of the theories, individuals are able to more properly understand the different
theories that can help individuals to identify the theory that they most identify with when
considering the interactions of crime and society. Once the foundation of the theories are
understood, it is much easier to build upon the theory by including some of the more
complex ideas supported by the theory. A number of theories exist, and many are being
created daily on the part of individuals. However, there are a few theories that are more
common and widely held as beliefs than other theories may be.

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 There are social structure theories, or those theories that the status and construction of
the social setting will define the likelihood and amount of crime in the area. Individuals
that are exposed to poverty and other signs of social deterioration are believed to be more
prone to crimes and acts of violence. There are other specific social theories that believe
crime is perpetuated by the inequality that exists within the social structure that is
established. When people are unable to achieve that which society expects of them, such
as the American Dream, these individuals turn to crime to try to realize this dream.

Individual theories exist in order to explain criminology within a society. Trait

theories are those based on scientific knowledge of the human body and how chemicals
and genetic material will determine or alter how an individual responds to stimuli.
Aggressive behavior and antisocial tendencies are just some of the many personality traits
of individuals that are involved in crime, and the links to genetics, hormones and other
biological factors are currently being studied.
Some theories stop looking at what
encourages an individual to become
corrupt, and instead focus on the effects of
society to explain how and why some
people are able to lead productive and
admirable lives. These theories are
commonly referred to as control or social
control theories. In an example, it is
illustrated that an individual that has a greater degree of self control will be able to wait
patiently while attaining their dream or goal instead of using possibly degenerate means
in order to gain immediate access to their desire. Symbolic interaction as a theory
examines the relationship of the powerful, ruling class and those that are less powerful.
By integrating themselves into the belief that they were less powerful, youths that were
looked down on played up to the role designated to them. It represents a self-fulfilling
prophecy of sorts since the youths are taking the more powerful group at their word and
transferring the definition onto themselves as criminals.

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 3.2 Trait theories

Trait theory in psychology, is an approach to the study of human personality. Trait

theorists are primarily interested in the measurement of traits, which can be defined as
habitual patterns of behavior, thought, and emotion. According to this perspective, traits
are relatively stable over time, differ across individuals (e.g. some people are outgoing
whereas others are shy), and influence behavior.

Gordon Allport was an early pioneer in the study of traits, which he sometimes
referred to as dispositions. In his approach, central traits are basic to an individual's
personality, whereas secondary traits are more peripheral. Common traits are those
recognized within a culture and may vary between cultures. Cardinal traits are those by
which an individual may be strongly recognized. Since Allport's time, trait theorists have
focused more on group statistics than on single individuals. Allport called these two
emphases "nomothetic" and "idiographic," respectively.

There is a nearly unlimited number of potential traits that could be used to describe
personality. The statistical technique of factor analysis, however, has demonstrated that
particular clusters of traits reliably correlate together. Hans Eysenck has suggested that
personality is reducible to three major traits. Other researchers argue that more factors are
needed to adequately describe human personality including humor, wealth and beauty.
Many psychologists currently believe that five factors are sufficient.

Virtually all trait models, and even

ancient Greek philosophy, include
extraversion vs. introversion as a central
dimension of human personality. Another
prominent trait that is found in nearly all
models is Neuroticism, or emotional
instability.

Trait theory is also useful in marketing for discovering more information about
consumer behavior. As stated before, personality traits are identifiable characteristics that
define a person. When regarding consumer behavior, marketers use quantitative
measurement of these personality traits to discover more about their consumers, including
why they make their purchases. The five main traits that are relevant to consumer

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behavior include: innovativeness, materialism, self-consciousness, need for cognition,
and frugality. Innovativeness is the tendency to first buy new products, this is product
category specific. For example, some individuals may always be first in line to
consistently buy the latest Apple product that is released. Materialism is when individuals
focus on buying and owning products, not just about spending money, but they focus on
the material.

The appeal of having "stuff" is greater than simply spending the money on it. The
third trait is self-consciousness, or when individuals care more about the things that will
be seen in public, for example, shoes and makeup. The need for cognition is aimed at
consumers who need to think and want to have more information. The last trait is
frugality. Being frugal is not necessarily paying the least, but making sure that the
product is used resourcefully. These individuals want to use their product to the end of its
life. These consumers tend to deny short term purchases and just make due. Mixed
success has been seen when using this method to predict product choices using the
standard personality trait quantitative measurements. The scales are not valid or reliable
since each person may have a different idea for what each trait is or what it really means
and there is really no thought of scale application. Constant ad hoc instrument changes
also severely affect the accuracy of this method.

Both approaches extensively use self-report questionnaires. The factors are intended to
be orthogonal (uncorrelated), though there are often small positive correlations between
factors. The five factor model in particular has been criticized for losing the orthogonal
structure between factors..Hans Eysenck has argued that fewer factors are superior to a
larger number of partly related ones. Although these two approaches are comparable
because of the use of factor analysis to construct hierarchical taxonomies, they differ in
the organization and number of factors.

Whatever the causes, however, psychoticism marks the two approaches apart, as the
five factor model contains no such trait. Moreover, psychoticism, unlike any of the other
factors in either approach, does not fit a normal distribution curve. Indeed, scores are
rarely high, thus skewing a normal distribution. However, when they are high, there is

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considerable overlap with psychiatric conditions such as antisocial and schizoid
personality disorders. Similarly, high scorers on neuroticism are more susceptible to sleep
and psychosomatic disorders. Five factor approaches can also predict future mental
disorders.

Although both major trait models are descriptive, only the three-factor model offers a
detailed causal explanation. Eysenck
suggests that different personality traits are
caused by the properties of the brain, which
themselves are the result of genetic factors.
In particular, the three-factor model
identifies the reticular system and the limbic
system in the brain as key components that
mediate cortical arousal and emotional responses respectively. Eysenck advocates that
extraverts have low levels of cortical arousal and introverts have high levels, leading
extraverts to seek out more stimulation from socializing and being venturesome.
Moreover, Eysenck surmised that there would be an optimal level of arousal, after which
inhibition would occur and that this would be different for each person.

In a similar vein, the three-factor approach theorizes that neuroticism is mediated by

levels of arousal in the limbic system and that individual differences arise because of
variable activation thresholds between people. Therefore, highly
neurotic people when presented with minor stressors,
will exceed this threshold, whereas people low in
neuroticism will not exceed normal activation levels,
even when presented with large stressors. By contrast,
proponents of the five-factor approach assume a role of
genetics and environment but offer no explicit causal
explanation.

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 Given this emphasis on biology in the three-factor approach, it would be expected
that the third trait, psychoticism, would have a similar explanation. However, the causal
properties of this state are not well defined. Eysenck has suggested that psychoticism is
related to testosterone levels and is an inverse function of the serotonergic system, but he
later revised this, linking it instead to the dopaminergic system.

3.3 Rational choice theory

Rational choice theory, also known as choice theory or rational action theory is a
framework for understanding and often formally modeling social and economic behavior.
It is the main theoretical paradigm in the currently-dominant school of microeconomics.
Rationality (here equated with "wanting more rather than less of a good") is widely used
as an assumption of the behavior of individuals in microeconomic models and analysis and
appears in almost all economics textbook treatments of human decision-making. It is also
central to some of modern political science and is used by some scholars in other disciplines
such as sociology and philosophy. It is the same as instrumental rationality, which involves
seeking the most cost-effective means to achieve a specific goal without reflecting on the
worthiness of that goal. Gary Becker was an early proponent of applying rational actor
models more widely. He won the 1992 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for
his studies of discrimination, crime, and human capital.

The "rationality" described by rational choice theory is different from the colloquial and
most philosophical use of the word. For most people, "rationality" means "sane," "in a
thoughtful clear-headed manner," or knowing and doing what's healthy in the long term.

Rational choice theory uses a specific and narrower definition of "rationality" simply to
mean that an individual acts as if balancing costs against benefits to arrive at action that
maximizes personal advantage. For example, this may involve kissing someone, cheating
on a test, buying a new dress, or committing murder. In rational choice theory, all decisions,
crazy or sane, are postulated as mimicking such a "rational" process. Thus rationality is

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 seen as a property of patterns of choices, rather than
of individual choices: there is nothing irrational in
preferring fish to meat only first time, but there is
something irrational in preferring fish to meat and
preferring meat to fish, regularly.

The practitioners of strict rational choice theory

never investigate the origins, nature, or validity of
human motivations (why we want what we want) but instead restrict themselves to
examining the expression of given and inexplicable wants in specific social or economic
environments. That is, they do not examine the biological, psychological, and sociological
roots that make people see the benefits encouraging them to kiss another, cheat on a test,
use cocaine, or murder someone. Instead, all that is relevant are the costs of doing so
which for crimes, reflects the chance of being caught.

In rational choice theory, these costs are only extrinsic or external to the individual
rather than being intrinsic or internal. That is, strict rational choice theory would not see a
criminal's self-punishment by inner feelings of remorse, guilt, or shame as relevant to
determining the costs of committing a crime. In general, rational choice theory does not
address the role of an individual's sense of morals or ethics in decision-making. Thus,
economics Novelist, Amartya Sen sees the model of people who follow rational choice
model as "rational fools."

Because rational choice theory lacks

understanding of consumer motivation, some
economists restrict its use to understanding business
behavior where goals are usually very clear. As
Armen Alchian points out, competition in the
market encourages businesses to maximize profits
(in order to survive). Because that goal is
significantly less vacuous than "maximizing utility" and the like, rational choice theory is
apt.

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 Although models used in rational choice theory are diverse, all assume individuals
choose the best action according to unchanging and stable preference functions and
constraints facing them. Most models have additional assumptions. Those proponents of
rational choice models associated with the Chicago school of economics do not claim that
a model's assumptions are a full description of reality, only that good models can aid
reasoning and provide help in formulating falsifiable hypothesis, whether intuitive or not.

In this view, the only way to judge the success of hypothesis

is empirical tests. To use an example from Milton Friedman, if a
theory that says that the behavior of the leaves of a tree is
explained by their rationality passes the empirical test, it is seen
as successful.

However, it may not be possible to empirically test or falsify

the rationality assumption, so that the theory leans heavily toward being a tautology (true
by definition) since there is no effort to explain individual goals. Nonetheless, empirical
tests can be conducted on some of the results derived from the models. In recent years the
theoretical vision of rational choice theory has been subject to more and more doubt by the
experimental results of behavioral economics. This criticism has encouraged many social
scientists to utilize concepts of bounded rationality to replace the "absolute" rationality of
rational choice theory: this points to the difficulties of data-processing and decision-making
associated with many choices in economics, political science, and sociology. More
economists these days are learning from other fields, such as psychology, in order to get a
more accurate view of human decision-making than offered by rational choice theory. For
example, the behavioral economist and experimental psychologist Daniel Kahneman won
the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in
2002 for his work in this field.

Because of the relative success of economics at

understanding markets, rational choice theory has also
become increasingly employed in social sciences other
than economics, such as sociology and political science in recent decades. It has had far-

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reaching impacts on the study of political science, especially in fields like the study of
interest groups, elections, behavior in legislatures, coalitions, and bureaucracy.

Models that rely on rational choice theory often adopt methodological individualism,
the assumption that social situations or collective behaviors are the result of individual
actions alone, with no role for larger institutions. The poor fit between this and sociological
conception of social situations partially explains the theory's limited use in sociology.
Among other things, sociology's emphasis on the determination of individual tastes and
perspectives by social institutions conflicts with rational choice theory's assumption that
our tastes and perspectives are given and inexplicable.

3.4 Types and definitions of crime

Crime is the breach of rules or laws for which some governing authority (via
mechanisms such as legal systems) can ultimately prescribe a conviction. Crimes may
also result in cautions or be unenforced. Individual human societies may each define
crime and crimes differently, in different localities (state, local, international), at different
time stages of the so-called "crime", from planning, disclosure, supposedly intended,
supposedly prepared, incomplete, complete or future proclaimed after the "crime".

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 While every crime violates the law, not every violation of the law counts as a crime;
for example: breaches of contract and of other civil law may rank as "offences" or as
"infractions". Modern societies generally regard crimes as offences against the public or
the state, as distinguished from torts (wrongs against private parties that can give rise to a
civil cause of action).

Authorities employ various mechanisms to regulate

(encouraging or discouraging) certain behaviors in
general. Governing or administering agencies may for
example codify rules into laws, police citizens and
visitors to ensure that they comply with those laws,
and implement other policies and practices that
legislators or administrators have prescribed with the
aim of discouraging or preventing crime. In addition,
authorities provide remedies and sanctions, and collectively these constitute a criminal
justice system. Legal sanctions vary widely in their severity, they may include (for
example) incarceration of temporary character aimed at reforming the convict. Some
jurisdictions have penal codes written to inflict permanent harsh punishments: legal
mutilation, capital punishment or life without parole.

Usually a natural person perpetrates a crime, but legal persons may also commit
crimes. Conversely, at least under U.S. Law, nonpersons such as animals cannot commit
crimes.

The sociologist Richard Quinney has written

about the relationship between society and crime.
When Quinney states "crime is a social
phenomenon" he envisages both how individuals
conceive crime and how populations perceive it,
based on societal norms.

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 3.5 Causes and correlates of crime

Many different causes and correlates of crime have been proposed with varying
degree of empirical support.

The causes of crime is one of the major research areas in criminology. A large
number of narrow and broad theories have been proposed for explaining crime.

The Handbook of Crime Correlates (2009) is a systematic review of worldwide

empirical studies on crime publicized in the academic literature. The results of a total of
5200 studies are summarized. In order to identify well-established relationships to crime
consistency scores were calculated for the factors which many studies have examined.

The scoring depends on how consistent a statistically significant relationship was

found in the studies. The authors argue that the review summaries most of what is
currently known of variables associated with criminality.

Crime is most frequent in second

and third decades of life. Males
commit more overall and violent
crime. They also commit more
property crime except shoplifting,
which is about equally distributed
between the genders. Males appear to be more likely to recidivate.

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 There is a relationship between race and crime. Many different theories have been
proposed for the relationship between race and crime in the United States.

Most studies on
immigrants have found
higher rates of crime.
However, this varies
greatly depending on the
country of origin with
immigrants from some
regions having lower
crime rates than the
indigenous population

High frequency of changing jobs and high frequency of unemployment for a person
correlate with criminality.

The relationship between the state of the economy and crime rates is inconsistent
among the studies. The same, for differences in unemployment between different regions
and crime rates. There is a slight tendency in the majority of the studies for higher
unemployment rate to be positively associated with crime rates.

Crime rates vary with temperature

depending on both short-term weather
and season.

The relationship between the hotter

months of summer and a peak in rape and
assault seems to be almost universal. For
other crimes there are also seasonal or
monthly patterns but they are more
inconsistent across nations. On the other hand for climate, there is a higher crime rate in
the southern US but this largely disappears after non-climatic factors are controlled for.

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Usually, to be classified as a crime, the "act of doing something criminal" must with
certain exceptions be accompanied by the "intention to do something criminal"

While every crime violates the law, not

every violation of the law counts as a crime.
Breaches of private law (torts and breaches of
contract) are not automatically punished by
the state.

Under state of mind you intent to kill

and the deadly weapon rule applies.
Thus, if the defendant intentionally uses
a deadly weapon or instrument against
the victim, such use authorizes a
permissive inference of intent to kill. In other words, "intent follows the bullet."
Examples of deadly weapons and instruments include but are not limited to guns, knives,
deadly toxins or chemicals or gases and even vehicles when intentionally used to harm
one or more victims.

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