The Handbook of Criminological Theory

Alex R. Piquero

• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9781119110750, 9781118512388
• eBook ISBN: 9781118512326
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Criminology
• Index: Social Sciences

An indispensable resource for all levels, this handbook provides up-to-date, in-depth summaries of the most important theories in criminology.

• Provides original, cutting-edge, and in-depth summaries of the most important theories in criminology
• Covers the origins and assumptions behind each theory, explores current debates and research, points out knowledge gaps, and offers directions for future research
• Encompasses theory, research, policy, and practice, with recommendations for further reading at the end of each essay
• Features discussions of broad issues and topics related to the field, such as the correlates of crime, testing theory, policy, and prediction
• Clearly and accessibly written by leading scholars in the field as well as up-and-coming scholars

1
Introduction: Theory and Contemporary Criminology

Charles R. Tittle

The word “theory” means different things to different contemporary criminologists, depending on their philosophies about the nature of criminology, what it is attempting to accomplish, and how they think criminology ought to be done. Diversity is evident from the presence of at least seven differing “philosophies of the enterprise,” expressed in distinct “models” for doing criminology. The seven approaches include: (1) theoretical science; (2) problem solving; (3) “verstehen” analysis; (4) descriptive approaches; (5) critical work; (6) nihilistic thinking; and (7) amelioration. Yet, there does appear to be a dominant paradigm.

In the following pages, I will briefly describe six of the styles of contemporary criminology and assess the meaning and importance of theory in each. However, my description of theoretical science is far more extensive than it is for the other six because theoretical science seems to be the most widely endorsed, even if not always actually practiced, mode of work in contemporary criminology. While all seven of the models to be discussed have an established place in the criminological landscape, are represented by strong advocates, contain powerful intellectual challenges, have produced important results, and command a degree of influence, most criminology seems to follow, to one degree or another, the model of science. Of course, classifying scholars and/or their products into camps is always somewhat arbitrary, and the relative popularity of the various modes of work may be undergoing change. Nevertheless, for now I will follow the classification scheme outlined above in trying to describe theory and its uses in contemporary criminology.

Theoretical Science

Theoretical accounts within a scientific model are intellectual structures designed to help explain things within given domains of interest (for more detailed descriptions of theoretical science see Reynolds, 1971; Tittle, 1995; Turner, 2003: Chapter 1). That is, scientific theories, and explanations try to provide answers to questions of “why” and “how” that are deemed satisfactory by critical audiences made up of scientists who expect such a theory to provide intellectual satisfaction as well as the means for predicting aspects of the phenomena of interest. However, scientific predictions are quite different from prophecy. A scientific prediction is of the form: “given conditions x, y, and z, one should expect to find q,” which may be applied to events or phenomena in the past as well as the present. A prophecy, on the other hand, is a projection into the future. Scientifically oriented criminologists do not issue prophecies except in the form of conditional statements, such as: “if conditions x, y, and z continue or emerge, then q is likely to happen.”

Scientific explanations can be free-standing, applying to specific phenomena, often at a particular time and place, with quite concrete elements. But, the most useful explanations are embedded in general theories setting forth abstract principles from which explanations of many separate phenomena can be derived. Science strives for such general theories because they are more efficient than myriad specific explanations. In addition, if organized in a deductive way (from general abstract statements or ideas down to more and more concrete phenomena), general theories make it possible to synthesize large bodies of knowledge as well as to derive explanations of phenomena that previously have not been explained. Finally, general theories serve the ends of science because they rest on common causes of various phenomena, thereby guiding the identification of the unity in nature on which science is built.

Theories, however, are intellectual accounts with no necessary connection to the real world they purport to explain. Theories may be intellectually excellent – providing convincing-sounding explanations and being well-structured, logical, comprehensive, and the like – at the same time that the predictions they suggest about the empirical world may be incorrect. Science strives to produce theories that are good intellectual products and that are also empirically faithful. Ultimately, the point is to explain (answer questions of “why” and “how”; establish the causes of) aspects of the domain covered by the theory. To determine if a theory is empirically correct, and to provide the means for improving it when evidence shows that it is not fully correct, scholars must assess how well it accommodates appropriate data about the real world. Research is mainly about testing the match between the intellectual world of a theory with the empirical world supposedly being explained.

In advanced fields the research process first requires derivation of specific, reality-oriented hypotheses from existing theories, the validity of which can be assessed with concrete, empirical information. Hypotheses are statements about relationships among two or more variables, each of which has a direct empirical reference. Statements of relationship contained within, or implied by, a general theory cannot be tested directly because they are in the form of abstract notions about “concepts” rather than variables. Moreover, general theories typically cannot be tested in their entirety because (1) they are composed of many potential causal parts that must fit together in particular specified ways; and (2) because some theoretical propositions in general theories are usually of such high levels of abstraction that it is impractical to attempt to reduce them to concrete form. Checking the “real world” applicability of a general theory, then, inevitably involves substantial theoretical manipulation prior to the technical procedures required for empirical test.

For instance, a given theory may suggest that A (a general, abstract concept) causes B (another general, abstract concept) and that C (a general, abstract concept) causes D (a general, abstract concept), as well as many other relationships and causal connections. In addition, that theory might imply that A indirectly affects D because A affects C, which in turn, affects D. As long as these implied relationships concern abstract phenomena they stand simply as intellectual puzzles. An empirical test, however, requires that the general, abstract concepts of A and B be reduced to concrete instances of the general categories of A and B, that the theoretical relationship between those general categories be specified in more specific empirical terms, and that those empirical terms be accurate reflections of the concepts of the theory. Sometimes, many hypotheses from a given general theory can be assessed simultaneously by estimation of an entire set of causal relationships. But, usually, for a variety of technical and theoretical reasons, the whole set of relationships implied by a theory cannot be tested at once. Instead, scientifically oriented criminologists usually focus on more limited empirical statements (as noted above, called hypotheses). By testing a large number of such hypotheses derived from a theory (not necessarily all at once, but through many research projects by many different scholars, using many samples or social contexts), scholars can indirectly test the accuracy of the entire theory – but only if the theory lends itself to deductive reasoning so that very general notions can lead logically to more concrete specifications of relationships among variables.

Thus, because the same abstract principles can yield many hypotheses, and because abstract concepts can be expressed in many concrete variables, no particular test of a hypothesis provides all, or even a substantial amount, of the information needed to evaluate a theory. Correct evaluation requires many tests of many hypotheses in many different circumstances, using various operationalizations (the term used to refer to the translation of abstract concepts into concrete empirical variables). Certainly, no single study makes a science or permits firm conclusions about the nature of reality or the validity of a given theory. At any given time the status of a theory depends on the weight of evidence compiled up to that point. No theory is ever completely proven, because even if all prior tests have been supportive, there is no guarantee that the next test, with different variables, different samples, and in different parts of the world, will also be supportive. Further, when a theory enjoys numerous successful tests it is likely to provoke closer attention to detail that reveals other possibilities needing testing or that call for refinements of the theory to accommodate previously ignored possibilities. For the same reasons, no theory is ever completely discredited, though substantial negative evidence (provided the evidence is correctly applicable to the theory) may place a theory in low regard in the community of scholars.

Hence, the adequacy of a theory is always tentative, resting on the collective judgment of the community of scientists who express various degrees of confidence in it at any given point in time. Theories are not deemed to be right or wrong; they simply enjoy different amounts of support. Of course, as noted above, theories with little or no empirical support may hold peripheral status, depending on whether their lack of support comes from unsupportive tests or simply from the absence of adequate tests. Though scientifically oriented criminologists ideally downplay theories lacking empirical support, they rarely reject any theories altogether. This is partly because many tests of criminological theories are deemed to be weak, often with the measured variables having poor correspondence with the theoretical concepts at the center of the theories. But, it is also because the culture of criminology, which views theories as the property of their makers rather than as collective endeavors, promotes themes of professional politeness. The ethic of professional politeness leads most scholars to interpret results of research in a generally positive light, so that negative evidence is softened by researchers’ calling attention to various counter-possibilities. Indeed, the culture of criminological research calls for authors of papers reporting research results to try first to convince readers that the evidence is relevant and useful for the purpose at hand and then within the same paper to caution readers by detailing reasons why the research should be questioned. Consequently, definitive studies are rare.

In the practice of theoretical science in criminology, theory is the central focus – it is the point of the enterprise. Research is merely a handmaiden to theory-building. If criminologists could explain everything about crime, criminal behavior, and efforts to prevent or channel it, and could do so in an efficient, general, and completely accurate way, there would be no need for research. Criminologists would have achieved their collective goals. Of course, the probability of ever reaching this goal is extremely low, especially since, without research, we cannot ascertain the accuracy of explanations. So, for science, whose guiding goal is theory, research is typically the beginning, the constant helpmate, and the ultimate arbiter.

The process of theoretical criminology, then, is a constant interaction between efforts to build or improve theory and testing of theory as it exists at any given point in time. The process begins with establishing, or perhaps sometimes imagining, regularities in behaviors or social arrangements that seem to bear on crime or crime-related phenomena. Such observations or perceptions sometimes inspire attempts at ad hoc explanation (aimed at the specific regularities observed or documented). Once an ad hoc explanation has been formulated, it must then be tested in other circumstances where the ad hoc phenomenon potentially exists. Such testing requires statement of some logical expectations (hypotheses) based on the previously formulated explanation. If the results of a series of such tests are unfavorable, then scientists are not likely to continue to entertain that explanation (though, as noted before, social scientists are, and must be, cautious in abandoning explanations or theories, even in the face of seemingly strong contrary evidence). If some of the tests are favorable and some are not, theorists are challenged to modify the ad hoc explanation to help it accommodate the evidence. If all of the tests are favorable, theorists and researchers are likely to try to expand the argument to i...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Table of Contents
• Notes on Contributors
• 1 Introduction: Theory and Contemporary Criminology
• 2 Correlates of Crime
• 3 Theory Testing In Criminology
• 4 Deterrence
• 5 Contemporary Biosocial Criminology
• 6 A Developmental Perspective on Adolescent Risk-Taking and Criminal Behavior
• 7 Social Disorganization Theory’s Greatest Challenge
• 8 Routine Activities, Delinquency, and Youth Convergences
• 9 Environmental Criminology
• 10 Control as an Explanation of Crime and Delinquency
• 11 Strain, Economic Status, and Crime
• 12 Social Learning Theory
• 13 Cultural Processes, Social Order, and Criminology
• 14 Labeling Theory: Past, Present, and Future
• 15 Feminist Theory
• 16 Critical Criminology
• 17 Integrating Criminological Theories
• 18 Developmental and Life-Course Theories of Crime
• 19 Biosocial Bases of Antisocial and Criminal Behavior
• 20 From Theory to Policy and Back Again
• 21 How Do Criminologists Interpret Statistical Explanation of Crime? A Review of Quantitative Modeling in Published Studies
• 22 Situational Theory
• 23 Macro-Level Theory
• 24 What International Research Has Told Us About Criminological Theory
• 25 Qualitative Criminology’s Contributions to Theory
• Index
• End User License Agreement