The Most Important Development

The Most important development in understanding crime is the realisation that we need to look for why categories of people are criminalised rather than why individuals commit crime.

Discuss in relation to one 'category' of people or any type of crime or deviance.

"Physicians, psychiatrists, psychologists, and more recently economists have sought to explain criminal behavior using concepts of their own disciplines....[yet].. none has been more successful and more convincing than those of sociologists." (F.Heidensohn '89 p.2). However, the recent sociological dominance in the criminological arena has, in the main, neglected the foundations of its own discipline. It was not until the 1960's that sociologists began to peel back the layers of criminality to ask the fundamental sociological question 'why?' Why has a persons' act has been labeled a crime? Why have they been criminalised? This 'critical criminology', as it is termed, looked at the relationship between crime, politics and power. Dispelling many theories that preceded it, 'critical criminology' opened new doors and closed others, creating a collection of adversaries on its way. To explore whether this new theory is an important development in the field of crime there is a need to assess it origins, its sociological base and its practicable framework with regards Gypsies. Finally, does it offer any usefulness for those directly involved in the controlling of crime, specifically Probation Officers and Social Workers.

The first hazard encompassed in this field is the interchangeable use of the terms' crime and deviance. In the main, a definition of crime is "..an act which can lead to suppression by a court or by legally accredited persons" (J.A.Sharp '88 p.125). Deviance, unfortunately, has a less clear cut definition residing in the blurry realms of " ..what ever a society at any time labeled as deviant." (Becker '63 in F. Heindensohn '89 p.5). This often correlated to crime, but is considered to be much more open to interpretation. However, as will be seen later when discussing the issue of power, the concepts of deviance and crime become almost indistinguishable.

Issues of crime and criminality have been recorded back centuries and were of notable interest to philosophers such as Plato. However, the most influential early studies of crime are associated with Lombrosso. Cesare Lombrosso was an Italian army doctor whose studies resided firmly in the biological sphere. His conclusions are popularly associated with 'large jaws' and 'pre-evolved, primitive men'. Whilst such ideas are now often ridiculed, Lombrosso was influential at the time and indeed it would be foolhardy not to recognise that similar theories are abound today. 'Biological Criminology' has remained a strong element in theories of crime and still attracts funding. Some of the noteworthy criminologists in this field, being Sheldon and Eleanor Gluek and the more contemporary Henry E. Kelly with his theory of chemical imbalances.

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Biological theories of criminality lay the foundation stones for looking at the individual to explain crime, and as Biological theories became discredited, Psychology, with its interests deeply rooted in the individual, picked up the 'torch'. Most notably Hans Eysenck and John Bowlby. Eysenck theories of criminality reside in the area of personality and criminality. Eysenck argues that "...there is considerable evidence to suggest that introverts form conditioned responses more quickly and more strongly than extroverts and accordingly one would expect extroversion to be positively correlated with anti-social conduct [crime]." (Eysenck in Criminological Perspectives '96 p82). Also, that this inability of extroverts to form conditioned responses multiplies when combined with neuroticism (emotional disorders such as anxiety, depression and obsession).

Eysenck's theories were based primarily on the belief that such characteristics of criminality are inherited. Bowlby however, rejected this notion believing that the child's early socialization was the key to their personality traits. "In his book forty-four Juvenile Thieves he maintained that children needed emotional security during the first seven years of their lives." (Haralambos & Holborn '90 p. 584) . The lack of this emotional security provided by 'motherly love' could create a psychopathic personality, one in which little regard is given to the consequences of their actions. Bowlby's theories, whilst facing criticism for being too narrow, in equating childhood deprivation primarily with a lack of a mother, helped bridge the gap between psychology and sociology referred to as 'social psychology'. Crime was becoming a social problem created with the assistance of social pressures. Thus, moving criminology firmly towards a more sociological perspective.

The origin of sociological approach to crime is often seen to stem from Emil Durkheim's work on suicide. Durkheim took a concept that had always been seen as fundamentally personal, i.e., suicide, and placed it in a social/public setting. Using a positivist approach, Durkheim argued that any action taken by an individual cannot be divorced from its social context. The 'criminal individual' studied by biologist and psychologist suddenly found themselves entrenched in a social order. Criminality had become a social construct, increasing, decreasing or changing, depending on the social pressures that came to bare on the individual. Important to this theory of criminality is the concepts of a collective conscience, made up of collective norms, roles, values and goals. Criminality increases as conflict develops between these collectively held beliefs. For example, if the goal is financial success and the individual is unable to reach this due to their role in society, conflict is created and the individual is forced to break from the collective conscience that binds society. Thus, creating a situation of normlessness or 'anomie' as referred to by Durkheim, where anything goes.

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In general, this view of crime rests in a 'functionalist perspective' of society. Crime, whilst seen as a result of anomie, is also an important and necessary function of society. Having 'outsiders' or 'scapegoats' arguably creates a stronger collective