Crime is the wrong against society. These wrongs are generally classified into two kinds:
i) Mala in se: Acts morally wrong or offences against conscious i.e. Murder, rape etc.
ii) Mala in prohibita: Acts or omissions, which are made criminal by statute but which themselves are not criminal.
In public thought the word ‘criminal’ is generally applied only to those who are ostracized by the society. It is in this sense that Tarde stated that criminals are “social excrement”.
In our traditional criminal law, a criminal is one who in the past, generally with evil intentions, committed an act made punishable by law. From the social viewpoint, we are more concerned to protect society against future acts than to requite the criminal for past acts. The concern is not with past wickedness but rather with possible future dangerousness.
According to Elmer Hubert Johnson, “crime is an act which the group (society) regards as sufficiently menacing to its fundamental interests, to justify formal reaction to restrain the violator”.
In Oxford Companion to Law, crime has been defined as “an act done in violation of those duties which an individual owes to the community and for the breach of which the law has provided that the offender shall satisfy the public”.
According to Islamic philosophy, every act is crime, which leads to minutest violation of prescribed patterns of Muslim Society, whereas that done in violation of the injunctions of Holy Quran and Sunnah has been described as sin, of which mankind will be made accountable only on the day of Judgment. In this sense, Islamic view is also bent towards social definition.
The statement that we would have no crime if we had no criminal laws and that we could eliminate all crime merely by abolishing all criminal laws is logomachy. It is true that if the laws against stealing were repealed, stealing would not be a crime, but it would still be offensive and the public would react to it by lynch law and public disgrace. The name of the behaviour would be changed but the behaviour and the societal reaction to the behaviour would remain essentially unchanged.
Durkheim (French Sociologist) said even a society composed of persons possessing angelic qualities would not be free from violations of the norms of that society. He asserted that enforcement of public morality is necessary for social solidarity, which is symbolized by penal law. The fact remains that crime is a phenomenon, which is of primary concern to every member of the human society.
VARIOUS APPROACHES TOWARDS EXPLANATION OF CRIME
By an approach to the study of crime, we mean, presumably, a hypothesis with reference to its causation, which leads to the use of appropriate scientific disciplines. Approaches in this sense have been divided into two general types, the subjective and the objective. These two general approaches cannot be separated. Both the nature of the personality and the nature of the situation past and present to which it is exposed are always involved in any possible explanation of crime. However, multiple-factor approach combines both the above approaches wherever they are pertinent. It sees crime as the result of varying combinations of influences.
There is also social control approach which embodied ‘social control theories’ which in contrast to the aforesaid approaches that make delinquents essentially and fundamentally different from non-delinquents; emphasize that weakness of social controls results in delinquency.
I. Subjective Approach (Individualistic Approach)
Subjective approaches analyze motives and examine the nature of the criminal and the various aspects of his personality. The use of the word ‘subjective’ may create an impression that personal speculation or opinion of the investigator of causation is involved. We may distinguish as subjective approaches, the physical or anthropological, the medical, the biological, the physiological and the psychological, psychiatric and psychoanalytical.
1. ANTHROPOLOGICAL (PHYSICAL) APPROACH
The anthropological approach is illustrated by the work of Lombroso and Goring and the current research of Professor Hootan of Harvard. It attempts to discover, whether the criminal is significantly different in his physical structure from the non-criminal.
Physiognomists were among the earliest, who made speculations regarding a direct relationship between the appearance and criminal propensities of human beings. An interesting example of the early period is of Aristotle who was examined by a Greek Physiognomist who allegedly found indications of a ruthless personality and an inclination to be alcoholic.
Phrenology was one step forward in the same direction. It was an attempt to find meaningful correlation between the skull, the brain and the social behaviour. By the 18th century, physiognomy, the study of facial features and phrenology, the study of external conformation of the cranium, developed almost as disciplines.
Any discussion of the development of modern criminological thinking must commence with reference to Cesare Bonesana, Marchese de Beccaria (1738-1794) belonging to Classical School. The writings of Montesquieu, Hume, Bacon and Rousseau had a great liberalizing effect on him. His famous work “Essays on Crimes and Punishments” was received extremely well all over Europe and proved a great stimulant to criminological thinking in the contemporary West. In his urge for detection of the sources from which these crimes sprang, he was in fact raising a fundamental question as to why certain types of crimes were committed and this was despite the fact that Beccaria belonged to the school of free-will theory.
On account of the good work done by Beccaria, interest grew towards crime and the criminal, resulting in the appearance of the neo-classical school by the middle of the 19th century. This school was responsible for emphasizing that the mental element ought not to be ignored while dealing with certain types of offenders.
The stage was now well set for the advent of the Positive School of Italy which focused its attention on the personality of the offender and rejected the free-will theory. The school owes its origin to the contribution of Cesare Lombroso (1836-1909), who was regarded as the father of modern criminology since he was the first to employ scientific methods in explaining criminal behaviour and shifted the emphasis from crime to criminal. His experiences prompted him to believe that criminals were different physically from normal persons and had physical characteristics of savages and inferior animals. This throwback or atavism in the criminal represented the punitive and savage qualities of the remote ancestors of human beings. According to Lombroso, such atavistic physical stigma is disclosed by a low forehead, receding chin, ears standing out from the head, too many fingers, abundance of wrinkles, a typical size or shape of the head and peculiarities of the eyes. The criminals in whom the atavistic qualities were disclosed were termed ‘born-criminals’ who committed crimes because of mental conditions like general paralysis, dementia, pellagra, alcoholism, epilepsy, idiocy, or hysteria. Subsequently, Lombroso did take into account certain circumstances, which can make an otherwise normal person, a criminal. This type of criminal he termed “criminaloid”, a person who commits criminal and vicious acts under certain circumstances despite the absence of physical stigmata or mental aberrations.
Lombroso’s theories have been severely criticized by modern criminologists. It has been pointed out that he used the term atavism loosely since physical traits of the criminals as well as social customs were regarded by him as of atavistic significance. His assumption regarding some sort of nexus between atavism and criminal behaviour has no scientific base. He also failed to appreciate that both criminal as well as non-criminal behaviours were the result of the same process operating on the basis of various social and physical factors.
According to Gabriel Tarde, one of the many critics of Lombroso, crime being of social origin is of changing nature i.e. it depends upon social definitions and cannot be explained with reference to atavism. Moreover, according to Tarde, Lombroso’s theory did not explain the lower rate of criminality among women having the same stigmata.
Lombroso has also been criticized for his anthropometric measurements on which he formulated his theories of criminal behaviour. Some of the more important criticisms are:
i) His approach assumed individual physique as something fixed and not prone to changes. He did not take into consideration the morbid process affecting the human physique.
ii) For actual measurement of his subjects, he depended on others and thus created doubt regarding the reliability of the data employed by him.
iii) Sophisticated statistical techniques, developed subsequently were not available to Lombroso, which proved his analysis to be highly deficient.
iv) Lombroso had no control groups and was, therefore, unable to compare the so-called characteristics of criminals with those of non-criminals.
v) The data did not cover sufficient numbers and it could not, therefore, be regarded as truly representative of the relevant groups.
vi) He did not take into account the racial and ethnical differences among the members of his samples and treated them as homogenous which was not always the case.
Because of his pioneering work dealing with the personality of criminals, Lombroso has been designated as putative father of modern criminology and it is not surprising that Lombroso has been praised as well as criticized extensively for his theories to explain criminal behaviour. Critics like Lindesmith and Levin believe, however, that he, because of his faulty assumptions, hindered the progress of scientific criminology.
Ferri, the second among the three major positivists, is closer to the contemporary line of thinking since apart from anthropological factor, he also took into account geographical, psychological and economic factor while explaining criminal conduct. He classified criminals into following five categories:
i) Insane criminals
ii) Born criminals
iii) Habitual criminals
iv) Criminals by passion; and
v) Occasional criminals
The first category is of those who act criminally due to congenital reasons. The habitual criminal, though showing atavistic tendencies, is also influenced by social and physical environments. Criminals by passion are otherwise fit but commit the criminal act due to impulse, anger or jealousy and feel repentant subsequently. Regarding punishment of offenders, Ferri is of the view that the choice of means of social defence would be different for the different classes of offenders. In the case of imprisonment, he was of the view that indefinite periods should be prescribed keeping in view the potential harm the person is capable of and the chances of his readjustment in the society. Indeterminate sentences, with maximum period limits, now prevalent in the USA and some other countries represent the same philosophy.
Garofalo, in his major treatise known as Criminology divided criminals into following four classes:
i) Endemic: Murderers who commit offences or crimes out of passion.
ii) Criminals deficient in probity: Thieves
iii) Lascivious Criminals: Criminals who perpetrate crimes against chastity; and
iv) Violent Criminals: Affected by such environmental influences as prejudices of honour, politics and religion.
Garofalo was quite skeptical about the reform of criminals. He was greatly influenced by social Darwinism in his attitude towards criminals. As in nature, so it is in society, only the fittest have the right to survive. He, therefore, favoured death as the most efficient means of eliminating criminals. He realized however, that public opinion would not support death penalty except in case of murder. He therefore, recommended imprisonment and transportation in cases other than of murder and was of the opinion that criminals ought to make good through money payments, the material and moral damage caused by their crimes.
Lombroso’s theories received a severe jolt as a result of the studies made by Charles Goring, which revealed that there was no significant difference between the physical characteristics of criminals and non-criminals and also among criminals of different kinds. This was stated by Goring in The English Convict (1913) a statistical study in which he compared measurements of 37 specific physical characteristics of some 3,000 English recidivist prisoners with similar measurements of university students, hospital patients and members of the British Army.
The Modern Crimino-biological School originated in the third decade of the present century in certain countries of Europe also influenced some criminologists in the USA and sought to revive the discredited theories based on physical types. Its exaggerated claims of the relationship between criminality and certain physical traits had the blessings of the totalitarian regimes of these countries since it was in consonance with some of their notions of ‘racial superiority’. Ernest Kretschmer, the famous German psychiatrist, classified the major constitutional types as leptosome or asthenic type, the athletic type and the pyknic type; the three types showing different behaviour.
Eavert A. Hootan, as a result of the study of 14,000 male criminals in various American States concluded:
“Criminals are organically inferior. Crime is the resultant of the impact of environment upon low grade human organism”
According to him, low sloping foreheads, thin lips, compressed jaw angles, straight hair, thin beard and body hair and thick hair on the head characterized criminals. Hootan, however, failed to demonstrate as to why he regarded these traits as ‘organically inferior’. He also tried to establish some nexus between the physical characteristics of the offenders and the type of offences committed by them. His study disclosed that murderers and robbers were of tall and thin stature, thieves and burglars were undersized, while sexual offences and assaults were committed by persons of short and heavy constitution. However, George B. Vold, in his Theoretical Criminology contradicted such a nexus by pointing out that half of the prisoners studied by Hootan were convicted of different offences earlier.
Another notable effort to connect criminal tendencies with certain physical traits was made by William H. Sheldon. He classified the human constitution into following three types, out of which he found the delinquent to be predominantly mesomorphic.
i) Endomorphic: This type is represented by round, soft, fat bodies with short tapering limbs and small bones.
ii) Mesomorphic: muscular bodies with large trunk, heavy chest, large wrists and hands and heavy bones represent this type.
iii) Ectomorphic: lean and delicate bodies, drooping shoulders, small face and delicate bones represent this type.
2. MEDICAL APPROACH
The medical approach seeks to study the influence of physical disease on crime. Illness may contribute to maladjustment, or people may be too ill to commit crime. For example, hypoglycemia, or abnormal lack of blood sugar, has been related to certain kinds of criminal behaviour. Patients are restless, overactive and lacking in initiative. Undernourishment, disease and poor health are sometimes reported to be found among criminals in excessive proportions, while in other investigations no significant difference is found between criminals and non-criminals. In some studies recidivists are reported to be in better health than first offenders. While there is no reason to minimize the importance of good health, it is apparent that the connection between crime and physical ailments is not close or necessary. Many criminals are quite healthy; many non-criminals have physical ailments. Even if a difference could be shown, the criminality would not be demonstrated to be a direct product of the poor health rather than of the conditions, which produced the poor health.
3. BIOLOGICAL APPROACH
The biological approach attempts to relate crime to heredity. Some efforts have been made by criminologists to establish a relationship between hereditary features in a person and his criminal or non-criminal behaviour. The difficulty in tracing any possible correlation between heredity and behaviour of any type lies in the fact that it is almost impossible to make any scientific study based on hereditary factors independent of environmental factors of various dimensions. The studies made by Charles Goring, Healy, Broner and Sheldon do not indicate any positive evidence that there is necessarily any similarity between the conduct of the members of the same family e.g. between father and son or brother and brother. As regards twin researches, studies are more or less open to the same criticism and it is highly doubtful whether the twin research studies support a nexus between heredity and criminal behaviour.
The factor of heredity has been found to be significant by some criminologists in explaining the concentration of criminal behaviour and this they have sought to establish by the finding that there is a heavy concentration of criminals in certain families. Henry Herbet Goddard, after a detailed study, concluded that crime was the result of low-grade mentality, primarily feeblemindedness, which is an inherited quality of criminals.
Some others think that chromosomal factor may also be involved in criminal behaviour. This they think on the hypothesis that a person with ‘XYY’ model having an extra ‘Y’ chromosome might be a ‘super-male’ with aggressive tendencies resulting in a possible criminal behaviour. As the normal human cell contains 23 pairs of chromosomes; one of these pairs being responsible for the primary and secondary sexual characteristics. Normal male and female chromosomes are denoted as XY and XX respectively. An unusual excess of male or female chromosomes are referred to as XYY and XXY respectively. Studies conducted of the XYY model, do not, however, support the hypothesis. Sarbin and Miller on the contrary concluded that males of XYY type are not predictably aggressive. Rather, they are less aggressive than XY’s.
However, studies towards this approach cannot be said to be based on sound research methods and if at all they disclose anything, it is transference of feeblemindedness through heredity rather than criminal propensities.
To sum up, it may be stated that the influence of heredity on a person’s behaviour cannot be satisfactorily established since it is not practically possible to isolate the hereditary factors from various kinds of environmental factors. It may, however, be conceded that certain physical and mental traits may be inherited which can indirectly result in criminal behaviour.
4. PHYSIOLOGICAL & BIO-CHEMICAL APPROACH
The physiological and bio-chemical approach correlates crime with both normal and abnormal physiological functions and functioning of the ductless glands. This approach sought to explain the criminal behaviour in terms of glandular malfunctioning. The persons connected with endocrinology, in its heyday in the early part of the present century, made efforts to study the connections between glandular functions and human conduct with a zeal, which was probably not warranted.
However, the propositions suggested by the endocrinologists have been severely criticized as would obviously be expected. It has been pointed out that there are many criminals in whose case there is no malfunctioning of endocrine glands and similarly there are many persons having glandular troubles unaffected by any problem of social deviancy. Professor M.F. Ashley Montagu observes that crime is a social condition, not a biological one.
5. PSYCHIATRIC APPROACH
The psychiatric approach originally specialized in the diagnosis of mental disease. Increasingly, however, psychiatrists have extended their activities into the analysis of all degrees of personality deviation and even of normal behaviour. In recent years, some psychiatrists have recognized the influence of culture on the personality. This approach is based on explanation of individualistic traits in terms of mental deficiency in criminals. Primarily there was no distinction between mental deficiency and insanity. However, subsequently two psychologists, Jean E.D. Esquirol (18th Century in France) and Isaac Ray (19th Century in USA) made this distinction clear.
For determining the relationship between mental deficiency and criminal behaviour, psychometric tests were applied. Henry H. Goddard found mental deficiency in almost half of all criminals while Goring was convinced that mental deficiency was a major cause in all criminal behaviour except the ones requiring some cleverness as in the case of fraud.
Mary Woodward examined all the studies pertaining to the relation between low intelligence and crime and was convinced that low intelligence does not play any significant role in delinquency. It would be plausible to say that mental deficiency does not play any direct role in the causation of criminal tendency in a person but indirectly it may be relevant because social adjustment can be more difficult for persons with low intelligence.
In terms of mental quality, an offender may be either normal or abnormal. The pathological offenders vary in the magnitude and degree of abnormality and may be classified and discussed as under:-
a) Psychotics: Most seriously abnormal group.
b) Neurotics & Psychopaths: Group next in order of degree of abnormality.
c) Mental Defectiveness: Residual class with varying degree of abnormality.
a) Psychotics
As regards the class of psychotics, they can further be classified into two categories i.e. those having psychosis of organic origin and those afflicted by psychosis of functional or non-physical kind. Besides these two kinds of psychosis, intoxicants may also contribute indirectly to crimes.
b) Neurotics and Psychopaths
There are two view-points regarding the difference between neurosis and psychoneurosis on the one hand and psychosis on the other. According to one point of view the difference is not qualitative but of degree only i.e. psychosis is more severe as compared to neurosis and psychoneurosis. Others make a qualitative distinction. According to them, living in a world of fantasy, the psychotic is no longer subject to the ordinary laws of nature and has completely lost contact with reality; the neurotic, on the other hand, still lives in the real world but can no longer cope with its difficulties.
c) Mental Defectiveness
Various mental disorders in themselves are not sufficient to explain criminal behaviour. It is being increasingly recognized now that an approach focusing on mental factors of pathological nature shall also have to give due allowance for psychological as well as social and other factors.
In its primitive stage, law was only concerned with external behaviour without any reference to the mental state of the law-breaker. The stage when mens rea became an essential element of crime was reached much later. The position of an insane law-breaker was even worse than normal offenders. He was in a sense considered to be doubly guilty i.e. not only for breaking the law but also for being mad since the quality of madness was regarded as retribution for acts committed against divinity.
M’Naghten Rules
The present law relating to insanity as a defence in India is based on what are known as M’Naghten Rules laid down in England in 1843. In case R v. Arnold, wild beast test was applied which required that in order to be eligible for the defence, the accused must be totally deprived of his understanding and reasoning; so much so that he did not know what he was doing any more than an infant or a wild beast. In R v. Hadfield, Hadfield suffered from delusion that the world was coming to an end and that he had been destined by God to sacrifice himself to save mankind. Suicide being regarded as wicked, he decided to shoot King George-III in order to be hanged for the crime. Quite clearly, he was not eligible for the defence of insanity if the wild-beast test was applied. He was nevertheless acquitted. The judicial attitude in the case reflected a more progressive attitude than in Arnold case. However, this trend was subsequently reversed in M’Naghten case (1843). Daniel M’Naghten suffered from paranoia and imaged the Prime Minister, Sir Robert Peel to be one of his enemies and decided to kill him, but happened to kill Peel’s secretary by mistake. After being tried for murder, he was acquitted on the ground of insanity. This decision invited the focus of the attention of government as well as public on the uncertain state of the law of insanity in the country. The issue was debated in the House of Lords and an unusual procedure was employed to seek clarification of the law. The House submitted some abstract questions of law to the High Court Judges and the answer elicited formed M’Naghten Rules, which provide the basis of the defence of insanity in England, India and USA and other common law countries and can be summarized as follows:-
i) Everyone is presumed to be sane until the contrary is proved.
ii) A person has the defence of insanity, if due to disease of the mind, he was incapable of knowing the nature and quality of his act or if he did know this, he did not know that he was doing a wrong.
iii) That if a man commits a criminal act under an insane delusion; he is under the same degree of responsibility as he would have been on the facts as he imagined them to be.
It is evident from the above that it is not every kind or degree of insanity recognized by psychiatry, which may provide a valid defence in criminal law. The legal concept is much narrower and is confined to the cases of total destruction of cognitive faculties i.e. when the accused is found incapable of distinguishing between right and wrong. Section 84 of the Pakistan Penal Code therefore, introduces this concept. The rules have been criticized as being unscientific, vague and involving procedural difficulties for the accused. The major criticism is that the rules recognize only the extreme case of insanity i.e. when there is a complete impairment of the cognitive faculties. According to the rules, a person is either sane or insane as if there are no shades of insanity in between the two extreme positions. However, in England, this concept has been corrected by the incorporation of the concept of ‘diminished responsibility’ in the Homicide Act of 1957. In United States, a test laid down in Durham v. United States (1954) broadened the scope of the expert testimony. The Durham test laid down that:
“An accused is not criminally responsible if his unlawful act was the product of mental disease or defect”
The Durham Rule was applauded by the medical profession but has been criticized by lawyers as a non-rule, being ambiguous and depending too much on expert opinion. The court therefore, tried to keep the rule within manageable limits through subsequent cases like McDonald v. United States (1962) and Washington v. United States (1967).
Irresistible Impulse
An individual is not criminally responsible under the irresistible impulse test, though he may be under the M’Naghten Rules if he had a mental disease that kept him from controlling his conduct despite his knowledge of the nature and quality of his act and his awareness that it was wrong. Interestingly enough, the irresistible impulse test has been criticized both on the ground that it would let the doors of immunity too wide open and also that the test does not go far enough to extend the M’Naghten Rules. According to those, who do not agree to the inclusion of the test in the defence of insanity, the test is fraught with dangers of abuse of the defence since it can never be proved or disproved whether the impulse was irresistible or otherwise in a given case. In Britain, the Royal Commission on Capital Punishment did not approve the test whereas the same has been accepted in some jurisdictions in the United States and Australia.
To sum up here in the words of Mary Woodward, suffice it to say that mental deficiency does not play any direct role in the causation of criminal tendency in a person but indirectly it may be relevant because social adjustment can be more difficult for persons with low intelligence.
6. PSYCHOANALYTICAL APPROACH
The psychoanalytical approach based upon the Freudian analysis, traces behaviour deviations to the repression of basic drives. This repression is occasioned by the mores or demands of civilized life and produces a conflict between the superego or conscience and the basic drives such as sex and hunger. Crime thus is seen as an unconscious effort to solve an emotional problem.
The adherents of the approach appear to hold the view that no other approach is capable of disclosing the whole truth about the criminal. The obvious merit of the psychoanalytical approach is that social factors are also accommodated in the analysis of the ultimate personality of the offender by taking into account the interaction of ego and super-ego.
The difficulty in the application of psychoanalytical approach in cases of individual criminal behaviour is the fact that it is quite difficult to examine the actual mental state of a person with the tools available to psychoanalytical sciences at present. To investigate and measure emotion is an extremely complex job. Besides the lack of proper tools, it has also to be appreciated that emotions and feelings themselves may be in a flux and may undergo changes, for instance, while criminal investigation is being carried out against a person.
7. PSYCHOLOGICAL APPROACH
The psychological approach analyzes motivation and diagnoses personality deviations. Psychology tends to stress the individual rather than the group. In addition to the use of other methods, psychologists use intelligence, emotional, personality, educational, occupational and character tests.
Personality Tests
Much, but not all, crime is rooted in early tension producing parent child relations. Psychologists and psychiatrists, more or less by tradition and sociologists somewhat of necessity still attach labels to psychological types of delinquents, such as the emotionally unstable, the psychopathic, the immature, and so on. When they do so, they speak, not of causal processes but of their products in the form of personality types. Incidentally, it is far easier to know products in the form of personality types. Incidentally, it is far easier to know products than processes; personalities and types of acts than their more remote causes. Nevertheless, we shall continue to speak of the personalities of criminals for the following reasons:
a) Because they do help explain the immediate act of crime.
b) Because underlying causes are not always known.
c) Because there may be some practical value in knowing a personality type for the purpose of predicting delinquency or dealing with delinquents when their possible future can be reasonably well known or controlled; and
d) Because of the very extensive use of personality labels in the literature of criminology.
No doubt the most complete knowledge of the personalities of criminals and delinquents has been derived from long experience in association with them and from case and life histories. But here we are concerned with testing of intellectual, emotional or personality traits found most nearly distinctive of criminals as compared with non-criminals. We are also interested in tests of character – that is to say, of evaluations of personality traits or behaviour as good or bad. Various types of personality tests have been developed for this purpose. A brief resume of a few of the most important among such tests is as under:-
i) The New Revised Stanfod Binet Test of intelligence is still widely used. Since education gives a distinct advantage in the achievement of high scores on these tests, they are supplemented by the use of performance tests like the Porteus Maze Test, the Pintner Patterson Scales, the Wechsler Bellevue Intelligence Scale and others, though all are in varying degrees influenced by varying opportunities which those tested have had.
ii) Delinquency is often associated with delayed maturation of children. Hence, the Vineland Maturity Scale is found useful. Tests attempt to reveal such characteristics as annoyance, conflict, aspirations, consistency, introversion or extroversion, euphoria and happiness, frustration, honesty, punctuality, degree of social acceptance or social non-adjustment etc.
iii) Since some significant characteristics of delinquents may not be realized by them, or may be of such a nature as to bring shame, or for other reasons may be concealed, so-called projective techniques for their discovery have been developed. One such test widely debated and widely used is the Rorschach test. In this test criminals are asked to indicate what ink blots “could be” or “look like”, the subject supposedly reveals significant emotional aspects of his personality. Rorschach test results have been more fully validated with mental patients than with delinquents.
iv) The Thematic Apperception Test differs from the Rorschach in that it presents actual social situations in the form of pictures. The subject tells the story of the situation, the feelings of the characters and the final outcome. In so doing, he reveals some of his own emotions, motives and attitudes which may be indicative of past delinquency, or which may be cautiously be used for prediction for future behaviour.
v) In 1950, Schuessler and Cressey examined all the studies to that and found that testing has not shown criminals to be distinctively emotionally unstable, emotionally immature, emotionally disturbed, temperamentally contrasted with non-criminals, nor different in total personality or even in character. They added, however, that perhaps attitude studies when more completely developed and used may partly differentiate the criminal from the non-criminal population.
vi) The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI), which uses no less than 550 items, seems to have been proven in considerable degree to distinguish delinquents and pre-delinquents. The Inventory reveals the delinquent as differing from the non-delinquent chiefly with respect to mental deviations of the psychopathic or the manic type. It does not seem surprising that delinquents are thus found to be characteristically un-socialized or to have less control than non-delinquents over their emotions. Hathaway and Monachesi recognize that not all of the MMPI scales discriminate adequately between delinquents and non-delinquents but are able to show that some do so.
vii) Professor Albert J. Reiss in “Social Correlates of Psychological Types of Delinquency” divided his delinquents into following three kinds:-
a) Integrated delinquents, which come from families well integrated into the local life of their communities, which have good marital relations and teach moral ideals to their children and have effective methods of controlling them but live in the less desirable areas of the city. These delinquents may be individual offenders and less often repeaters than the other two types.
b) Delinquents with faulty ego controls, on the other and, were found to be insecure persons with low self-esteem, or persons highly aggressive towards others in their environment. These come from economically better areas but from families that have been mobile.
c) Defective super-ego delinquents (the one without a disturbing conscience) in fact grown up in unconventional situations. He usually lives in areas of high mobility such as the rooming house district. Yet the families of such delinquents are less mobile than those of the second type. Hence, the delinquents have ad time to absorb patterns prevailing in their immediate neighbourhoods rather than those of the larger society. They often come from homes broken by desertion, divorce and separation. Their parents are often in conflict and often lack effective means of control and moral ideals. These delinquents are very frequently gang members and their acts bring them less mental conflict and less feelings of guilt.
In none of such cases does the nature of the personality itself explain how the personality was acquired. Nor does it tell us whether the cause is in the personality or in social relations, which have been experienced. Therefore, characterization of personality furnishes an inadequate basis for prevention or treatment of criminals.
CONCLUSION (SUBJECTIVE APPROACH)
The individualistic approaches have lost much of the credibility with the advent of more sophisticated environmental theories. Their main weakness lies in the fact that they fail to see that crime represents a socio-cultural phenomenon, which is not associated with the physical or mental equipment of an individual as such. To use the words of Taft and England, individual conformity or non-conformity to criminal codes are as much socio-cultural phenomenon as speaking or failing to speak grammatical English and are not necessarily indicative of the possession of abnormal biological or psychological traits. It cannot however, be denied that the constitutionalists focused attention on the personality of the criminals for the first time which was a step in the right direction towards modern criminology.
II. Objective Approach (Environmental or Ecological Approach)
Objective approaches turn first to the examination of the physical and social conditions within which crime is generated, or which have conditioned the life-long development of the personalities of criminals. Donald R. Taft divided objective approaches into geographical, ecological, economic, social, sociological and cultural approach. However, more logical division of objective approaches can be made by dividing them into following two major categories:-
1. Sociological approach with reference to culture and organization of society and includes Social Disorganization Theories, Cultural Conflict & Deviance Theories, Theories of Juvenile Gang Delinquency and Differential Association Theory.
2. Causative factors of crime with reference to the institutions of society and includes Family Influence, Educational Institutions, Economic factors, Religious Institutions and the Influence of Media on crimes.
1. SOCIOLOGICAL APPROACH
Sociological approach seeks to explain the phenomenon of criminal behaviour with reference to factors outside the personality of the delinquent. In fact, criminal behaviour is looked upon as resulting from social interactions and social structure disorder.
In this respect, Gabriel de Tarde, the French Jurist and social psychologist provides the starting point of the explanation of crime in terms of social factors. Just as Lombroso was the putative father of scientific criminology, Tarde is considered the father of social psychology. According to him, criminal behaviour is the result of a learning process. A person learns criminal behaviour just like any other trade, which he picks up in his childhood. However, it cannot be denied that Tarde’s theory was the precursor of the modern ecological and differential association theories.
Just as pain is a notification to an organism that something is wrong, so crime is a notification of a social maladjustment, especially when crime becomes prevalent. A crime under this heading is treated as an act against the society. Under the sociological approach, we shall discuss the following theories and their related influences on crime causation:-
a) Social Disorganization Theories
b) Cultural Conflict & Deviance Theories
c) Theories of Juvenile Gang Delinquency; and
d) Differential Association Theory
a) Social Disorganization Theories
Social Disorganization Theory links crime rates to neighbourhood ecological characteristics. Urban decay and breakdown in the fabric of social life is the cause of high crime rate.
Social disorganization theory was popularized by Henry McKay and Clifford R. Shaw and supported by Frederick Thrasher in 1920s. This theory sought to explain crime and delinquency within the context of the changing urban environment. This theory links crime rates to neighbourhood ecological characteristics. People instead of taking interest in welfare of the community usually prefer to leave those areas where crime rate is high.
In fact, social change is inevitable in a dynamic society and though not bad in itself, it results sometimes in disharmony, conflict, and cultural dichotomy. This is especially true when the social change happens to be of a fast pace. This kind of unnatural pace is obviously inevitable to lead to disorderly social change. Goals are the same as in developed countries but conditions are totally different in terms of population, productivity and political participation. Social change may in such a situation produce what is called ‘social disorganization’.
Social disorganization has been defined as a decrease of the influence of existing social rules upon individual members of the group. This phenomenon is different from the violation of social rules by individuals, because that is something normally expected in even relatively stable societies where not much damage is possible due to effective social sanctions including criminal law.
Concept of ‘sacred society’ eliminated from urban areas
In Pakistan, social change has taken place at a fast rate during the period extending to about 50 years after Independence and though the volume of crime is somewhat low as compared to many other countries, its rate has already gone up in urban areas, particularly big cities. The village society in Pakistan is still what is called the ‘sacred’ society by sociologists; people are bound together by case and kinship and social sanctions are powerful. There is no anonymity of the individuals as found in the bigger cities and the chances of any deviation are limited in such an environment.
Change in Social Values
Social disorganization may also be due to cultural conflicts between different values of different sections of society. The difference may be between old and new values, local and imported values and traditional values and the values imposed on community by the government or other agencies.
Cultural Lag
Ogburn also explained the process of social disorganization on the grounds of ‘cultural lag’. Cultural lag means that sometimes the various components of culture in a society grow unequally resulting in a gap between those components. It is said, for instance, that machines and scientific inventions are developing at a much faster pace than other cultural components, say, relating to behaviour, thus resulting in deviant behaviour.
Industrialization, Modernization & Urbanization
Industrialization, modernization and urbanization caused break down of traditional pattern of social organization, which was also contributed by cultural conflicts between society and its values.
Criticism
The theories of social disorganization have been criticized on the ground of lack of objectivity in using concepts like ‘disorganization‘ and ‘cultural lag’. It is pointed out that the question whether a society is organized or not involves subjective enquiries.
b) Cultural Conflict & Deviance Theories
Durkheim formulated the concept of anomie, which refers to a condition of normlessness in a society or group due to change and cultural conflict of old values and norms with new patterns of new generations. According to him, human beings have unlimited desires, the only control to these being provided by society and public opinion which lose much of their efficacy in times of economic changes and moral stresses and strains. Anomie condition arises when society can no longer establish and maintain control over individuals’ wants and desires under new stresses and value clashes.
Subsequently, Robert K. Merton based his theory on the premise that human beings had unlimited needs and ambitions but that needs and desires went beyond that which could be achieved through socially approved channels and consequently resulted in escalated rate of crime.
Theory of Differential Association Organization emphasized upon individualism in behaviour, which may also be the result of unlimited needs and ambitions of human. This individualism in behaviour creates a society, which is self-supporting and self-contained and this isolation resulted in comparatively conducive circumstances for criminality.
On the other hand, some people who cannot cope with their culture because of strain and value clashes sometimes adopt a different course and create an independent sub-culture with its own set of rules and values. This is some sort of deviance of the regular course responsible for criminal behaviour.
Social Ecology of Crime
Criminologists have continued to attack crime by diverse studies to learn the social ecology of crime. Brenard (1954), Bordua (1958) and Chilton (1964) proved that ecological conditions such as sub-standard housing, low-income and unrelated people living together are the causes of crime and delinquency.
c) Theories of Juvenile Gang Delinquency
The potential of doing harm by a number of persons acting for a common goal together is higher than their capacity to do mischief individually.
Gangs are the products of slum areas
Though poverty and lower-class status do not necessarily lead to delinquency, their influence can directly lead to formation of juvenile gangs. The likelihood of formation of such gangs is higher in areas populated largely by lower class persons compared to neighbourhoods of mixed or predominantly middle class.
Frederick M. Thrasher is one of the earlier studies on juvenile delinquency focused attention on the groups to which the delinquents belonged. According to him, gang delinquency develops in slums out of the acts committed by the gang members to derive excitement from the adventure involved in such acts.
Pursuit of success
What is encouraged in society is success. So, goals are more important than the means to achieve those goals.
Albert Cohen (1955) wrote a book “Delinquent Boys” protesting against the norms and values of the middle class American culture that labels on lower-class youths as ‘delinquents’. He argued that because these kids face social conditions that make them incapable to achieve success legitimately, they experience “status frustration”, resulting them to join teenage groups. He views these children as forming a separate subculture possessing a value system directly in opposition to that of the larger society.
Common Interests
John Kitsuse and David Dietrick while criticizing Cohen’s theory pointed out that the theory does not explain clearly as to how the sub-cultures are sustained after being developed once. While trying to answer this question, they put an alternative formulation. According to them, the original motives of the gang members are not the same for participating in delinquent activities but later on they develop one thing in common with each other, which maintains the sub-culture. The common bond is that they reject their rejecters.
Unemployment
McGahey (1986) stated that research has shown that neighbourhoods that provide few employment opportunities for youths and adults are vulnerable to predatory crime. Unemployment also reduces the parental control over children, turning them into street gangs.
d) Differential Association Theory
In 1939, Edwin H. Sutherland introduced the ‘Theory of Differential Association’ in his text Principles of Criminology supported by his associate Donald Cressey. According to his theory, criminals have been produced because of association with other criminals or with ‘criminalistic’. He summarized his theory in the following words:
“Criminal behaviour is explained as a product of learning in interaction with other persons, principally within intimate personal groups.”
According to Sutherland, there are in fact two types of organizations operating within the community namely, organizations for criminal purposes and organizations against criminal activities. He maintained that so far as the learning process was concerned, it was the same for both criminal and non-criminal conducts. Some teaching techniques relating to the commission of crimes may be learnt through association with criminals alone but others are acquired in the normal course of education since it is not the difference between criminal and non-criminal techniques as such which matters but the particular use made of them. So, what is actually needed to develop criminal behaviour in many instances is not the crime committing technique but some sort of rationalization to use the techniques for criminal purposes. This rationalizing capacity is learnt through association with criminals, which gives him definitions justifying his deviant conduct.
So, following is the process by which a particular person comes to engage in criminal behaviour:-
i) Criminal behaviour is learned. It negatively means that criminal behaviour is not inherited as such and the person, who is not already trained in crime does not invent criminal behaviour, just as a person does not make mechanical inventions unless he has had training in mechanics.
ii) Criminal behaviour is learned in interaction with other persons in a process of communication. This communication is verbal in many respects but includes also the communication of gestures.
iii) The principal part of the learning of criminal behaviour occurs within intimate personal group.
iv) When criminal behaviour is learned, the learning includes:
a) techniques of committing the crime, which are sometimes very complicated, sometimes very simple.
b) the specific direction of motives, drives, rationalization and attitudes.
v) The specific direction of motives and drives is learned from definitions of the legal codes as favourable or unfavourable.
vi) A person becomes delinquent because of an excess of definitions favourable to violation of law over definitions unfavourable to violation of law. This is the principle of differential of differential association. It refers to both criminal and anti-criminal associations and has to do with counteracting forces. When persons become criminal, they do so because of contacts with criminal patterns and also because of isolation from anti-criminal patterns. Any person inevitably assimilates the surrounding culture unless other patterns are in conflict. Negatively, this proposition of differential association means that associations which are neutral so far as crime is concerned have little or no effect on the genesis of criminal behaviour.
vii) Differential associations may vary in frequency, duration, priority and intensity. This means that associations with criminal behaviour and also association with anti-criminal behaviour vary in those respects. ‘Priority’ is assumed to be important in the sense that lawful behaviour developed in early childhood may persist throughout life.
viii) The process of learning criminal behaviour by association with criminal and anti-criminal patterns involves all of the mechanisms that are involved in any other learning. Negatively, this means that the learning of criminal behaviour is not restricted to the process of imitation.
ix) While criminal behaviour is an expression of general needs and values, it is not explained by those general needs and values since non-criminal behaviour is an expression of the same needs and values. Thieves generally steal in order to secure money, but likewise honest labourers work in order to secure money.
However, it will be plausible to explain here that the theory of differential social organization is distinct from the theory of differential association in a sense that the former emphasize upon individualism in behaviour and this isolation resulted in comparatively conducive circumstances for criminality.
2. CAUSIVE FACTORS OF CRIME
Delinquent and criminal behaviour is shaped within the various institutions of society. In other words, one who ultimately turns out to be a delinquent or criminal is the product of the different socio-economic institutions of which he happens to be a member and these institutions in fact affect in his behaviour. These institutions are generally:
a) Family Influence
b) Impact of Educational Institutions
c) Economic Factors
d) Impact of Religious Institutions; and
e) Influence of Media
a) Family Influence
Introduction
Family is considered as a sanctuary for the child and is the first and most important social institution, which determines the individual’s behaviour towards society. The family not only gives him the first social contact in the world but also determines his position vis-Ã -vis the larger world. The perception of environment by the child and his attitudes towards it are, therefore, greatly influenced by the family. According to psychologists, the formation of the basic personality of a child is complete in the first ten or twelve years of his life and it is obvious that the influence of family during this period is almost exclusive.
The family also satisfies the child’s basic needs for security. Sense of being understood, economic and affectional security is normal needs of the child. Similarly family gives the child recognition.
The family with other children also is a special asset to the developing child. Relationships with brothers and sisters require the child to adjust to more or less friendly rivalry. Apart from learning traditions of the family, he also learns etiquettes and manners of behaving with other family members and this experience serves him well in the more complex relationships outside the family.
Causes of Delinquency
Now we analyze how family influences the child in developing delinquent behaviour. Following are some of the factors, which cause delinquency in child:
i) Poor standard of manners and etiquettes in the house also badly influence the child and will make for the child more difficult to distinguish the true values of the society. Burt concluded that the most important difference between the situations of delinquent and non-delinquent children was in the home discipline. If the family itself is criminal or involved in some sort of immoral activity, it cannot be said that a child belonging to that family will reflect some different attitude.
ii) Parents should watch that the child should not suffer from complexes because if wishes of child are not fulfilled he will suffer from complex, which will subsequently degenerate his personality. Children whose basic needs have not been met in the home suffer stress and may become delinquent. Following are some of the causes of such emotional tensions and frustrations:
- They may arise out of physical deprivations such as failure to provide money when other children have this means of spending for their own pleasure.
- They may be rooted in feelings of jealousy often growing out of the real or imagined preference of a parent for one child over another or out of rivalry between siblings, as each new child appears to disturb the privileged position of his predecessor.
- They may be seen in a desire for revenge because of parental injustice, real or imaginary. Psychoanalysts have emphasized the Oedipus complex as a principal source of delinquency. This complex consists of hatred of the father because of rivalry for the affections of the mother. Because the father is the authority in the home, the boy transfers hatred of authority when he becomes active in the outside community. However, it is difficult to determine the extent to which such transference occurs.
- They may be the result of quarreling between parents. The Gluecks rated the relations between parents of their juvenile delinquents as either actually broken or showing gross incompatibility in 38% of the cases, while the corresponding figure for their delinquent women was 52%.
- They may result from a sense of being unwanted or otherwise rejected. Children in the family are sometimes subjected to emotional discomfort so unbearable that an effort is made not to face it but to repress it or forget it.
iii) When the child will feel that he is not being looked after properly, sense of deprivation will develop and resultantly he will feel insecure. It is the right of child to be properly looked after by giving him required food, clothing etc. Sense of insecurity and deprivation will in fact drive him to search for some security outside the family.
iv) The immediate affect of sense of deprivation will be that the child will expose himself more to outside influences and the control of family over him will gradually diminish. The absence of family control over child when he remains out of house for longer period may expose him to bad company.
v) Child being the person of weak integrity and prudence will always have less resistance towards bad influences. So, parents must put a careful watch upon his friends and external environment.
vi) Teachers and family members must respect the child and corporeal punishment must be avoided. The positive result of doing so will be that self esteem will develop in the child and resultantly he will act in a more responsible manner towards society.
vii) The child must be given proper education. The affect of such education will be that he will learn how to behave with his colleagues. During this course, he will also learn the true values of the society, which will subsequently make him good citizen. However, the lesser education will make him shy and he will not be able to express himself properly. This shyness will also become as a hurdle in his social interaction and he will feel isolated and deprivated. This feeling of isolation and deprivation will resultantly be responsible for generating delinquent behaviour towards society.
viii) Absence of recreation facilities are also responsible in making child delinquent. Lack of accommodation in the house drives a child to the street. This will cause formation of street gangs, which will ultimately transform into juvenile gang delinquency. Moreover, commercialization of recreation has taken it out of the control of the family, given members less need of one another. In a home where sanitary conditions are too poor, just as in the case of home conditions in immigrant families, the children are often thrown upon their own resources or the resources of the very disorganized communities in which they live. Thomas and Znaniecki stated that because the immigrants do not have the support of the larger family and of the community, they cannot control their children. Moreover, high rate of mobilization is also a cause of delinquency.
ix) Lack of affection sometimes results from broken homes and many studies have established the obvious relationship between this factor and delinquent behaviour. A home may be broken either due to divorce or due to death of any parent. In such case, sense of deprivation and lack of security nourish which in reaction ultimately culminate into delinquent behaviour. Shaw and McKay (1937) in “Social Factors in Juvenile Delinquency” compared delinquent boys with schoolboys of the same age and national derivation and found that 42.5% of the delinquent boys and 36.1% of the school-boys came from broken homes.
x) Sometimes there may be lack of affection or its perception by the child, even in families, which cannot be termed as broken families like the ones where the parents due to some reason or the other have no time for the children. It may be because of too much involvement in their occupation on the part of parents. Ruth Topping in the New York Training School made one study, which brought out the element of parental rejection as a contributory factor in delinquency.
xi) Other relevant factors in the analysis of a child’s behaviour may be the size of the family and the sibling order in which the child is placed. Cyril Burt made a study in (1946) in the context of the family size and his finding was that “children from the poorest social classes not only have an intelligence that is nearly two years below that of the children from the better social classes, but are drawn from the families that are nearly twice as large. But Emanuel Miller surveyed the English and American literature upto 1944 and found the available information to be ‘singularly poor and contradictory’ and to him none of the many variables involved in juvenile delinquency seemed to be especially related to birth order.
xii) Sheldon and Eleanor Glueck attempted to analyze the problem of relationship of delinquent behaviour in the context of working mothers in their well known study Unravelling Juvenile Delinquency. In their study, they compared pair by pair 500 delinquents with 500 non-delinquents with regard to intelligence and age. All the persons constituting ‘delinquent and ‘non-delinquent’ samples were taken from culturally and economically underprivileged urban areas. They reached the following conclusion:
- Working mothers of low-income groups were not concerned about arranging supervision of their children as those who remain at home.
- The supervision on the part of working mothers was far less suitable than those mothers who were housewives.
- A boy who is carelessly supervised and who has a mother who occasionally works is far more likely to become a delinquent than the boy who is poorly supervised by the mother who does not go to work.
Safeguards from delinquency – Promotion of certain traditional values
i) We must encourage the joint family system. Because it removes the deficiency of supervision on the part of parents and grandparents play their full role in case of lack of supervision on the part of parents. Moreover, lack of affection, if any, is also compensated through them.
ii) Poverty and child labour also contribute indirectly in making a child delinquent. Moreover, when they are employed for smuggling, drug trafficking and pick pocketing and crimes of similar nature, they ultimately become hardened criminal. Therefore, they must not be plied on labour before certain age and after taking certain qualifications keeping in view the system, which is in vogue in most of the countries of the world.
Conclusion
In short, whether more or less it is the fact beyond reasonable doubt that normal family gives the child status. As Plant (1932) in “The Child as a Member of the Family” said, family answers the basic question, “who am I?” and gives him recognition. So, it could safely be inferred that delinquency is thus often a symptom of unmet needs of childhood.
b) Impact of Educational Institutions
After the family, it is the school, which provides the most important opportunity to a child for the development of his social attitudes. Apart from other factors, the prime reason is that the child spends a very substantial part of his total time in a day at school. So, the school may be responsible for the development of delinquency in certain ways or it may be that certain problems come to the surface only after the child’s entry into the school.
The first step towards criminal behaviour is truancy or running away from school, which may either be due to certain factors operating within the school structure of due to certain factors already unfavourable to child. However, most of these factors are common in developed as well as in developing countries.
Another thing is that in our society, the illiteracy rate is much high and most of the government and municipal schools are poorly equipped and education is imparted without creating any motivation for the children of the lower class families, which form a substantial part of the populations. Despite the facil
About the Author
This article was written by RANA ANEEL, living in LAHORE, PAKISTAN.
Source:
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