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" Social Process Theories of Crime-8 "
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BL
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| Record Number
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780259
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| Doc. No
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b600266
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| Title & Author
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Social Process Theories of Crime-8
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| ISBN
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9781422463321
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| Abstract
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Ecological Heritage of Differential Association Principles of Differential Association Walter Miller's Lower-Class Focal Concerns Gresham Sykes and David Matza's Techniques of Neutralization Mass Media and Violence This chapter examines social process theories. These theories analyze the social processes or interactions associated with crime. Most social process perspectives do not limit focus to any segment of the class structure. Social process theories most commonly attempt to explain how individuals become law violators. This focus on social interactions or processes experienced by individuals, as opposed to structural matters, represents a shift from macro-theory to micro-theory. A social psychological label is ascribed to the theories because they combine sociological (group) and psychological (individual) variables. Social process theories redress errors that arise when social structure theories are applied at the individual level. Social process theories do not approach crime. Their most important strength is their explanatory power cuts across social classes and economic strata. These theories are consistent with a pattern of crime and delinquency weighted toward members of the lower-class. The chapter discusses three forms of social process theories: learning, culture conflict, and social control. These approaches share the premise that groups influence the individual. Edwin Sutherland one in which the balance of learned definitions, imitation of criminal or deviant models, and the anticipated balance of reinforcement produces the initial delinquent or deviant act. The facilitative effects of these variables continue in the repetition of acts, although initiation becomes less important than it was in the first commission of the act. After initiation, the actual social and non-social reinforcers and punishers affect whether or not that act will be repeated and at what level of frequency. Not only the behavior itself, but also the definitions are affected by the consequences of the initial act. Whether a deviant act will be committed in a situation that presents the opportunity depends on the learning history of the individual and the set of reinforcement contingencies in that situation. Gang Feature Our analysis implies that there may be a subculture of violence which does not define personal assaults as wrong or antisocial; in which quick resort to physical aggression is a socially approved and expected concomitant of certain stimuli…. A conflict or inconsistency of social norms is most apparent, and the value-system of the reference group with which the individual differentially associates and identifies, determines whether assaultive behavior is necessary, expected, or desirable in specific social situations. When an insult or argument is defined as trivial and petty by the prevailing culture norms, but as signals for physical attack by a subcultural tradition, culture conflict exists. [W]e are all animals, and thus all naturally capable of committing criminal acts…. The chicken stealing corn from his neighbor knows nothing of the moral law; he does not want to violate rules; he wants merely to eat corn…. No motivation to deviance is required to explain his acts. So, too, no special motivation to crime within the human animal … [is] required to explain his criminal acts .Hirschi, 1969:31. This research suggested that the sources or genesis of self-control, contrary to the assertions made by Gottfredson & Hirschi (1990), were more complex than simple parental socialization experiences. It therefore might be argued that Gottfredson & Hirschi sacrificed theoretical precision for theoretical parsimony, a position that potentially underestimated the complexity of the sources of self-control and, in turn, delinquency and crime (Turner et al., 2005:336). Key Terms and Concepts Key Criminologists
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HV6025.S635 9999
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