ETIOLOGY OF CRIMES

1.0 INTRODUCTION

The causes of crime are multiple. There is no isolated, single cause of crime and criminal behaviour. The explanation of crime in this unit will largely depend on multiple causes. Therefore, this unit will discuss the causes and dimensions of crimes as it relates to the criminological ideas in which intellectuals and criminologists fashion their subject matter of criminology.

2.0 OBJECTIVES

At the end of this unit, you should be able to:

1.  identify the main causes of crimes in our society 
2.  relate the eclectic nature of criminology 
3.  define the psychological causes of crimes and their proponents 
4.  state the sociological causes of crime and their features 
5.  identify the biological and physiological causes of crimes and the views of the major scholars. 

3.0 MAIN CONTENT

3.1 Causes of Crimes

The causes of crime include the psychological factors of criminal behaviour, which focus on the psychoanalytic and personality theories. Specific reference is made to the relationship between mental disorder and crime. The sociological factors examined the social and environmental conditions, with focus on the social disorganisation and alienation theories. These include poverty, unemployment, corruption, and drug abuse, e.t.c. Finally, the physiological factors examined the idea of the criminal as a product of his genetic constitution, with specific

example of the chromosome study. Other studies mentioned include bio-chemical and twin studies which influence criminal behaviour. The problems of interpreting criminal behaviours have occupied the minds of early natural philosophers and scientists. Generally speaking, one might say that the search for the causes of crime has been made either by those who believe that criminal conduct can be explained chiefly by the biological or mental characteristics of offenders, or by those who believe that environmental conditions and circumstances are the chief operative factors (Sills, 1992).

The contemporary literature on crime causation theory is closely linked with the more general literature in anthropology, psychiatry, social psychology, and sociology. It is also mostly the case that the environment plays a major role in addition of other factors that may be peculiar or unique to individual criminal.

The most popular approach to integrating explanation of crime rates underlay the principles of multiple-factor configuration. The study of the causes of crime does not adhere to any particular theory; rather it is an examination of crime by psychologists, lawyers, economists, social anthropologists, sociologists, social policy analysts and psychiatrists.
The causes of crimes involve: (a) multiple factor
(b) psychological factors
(c) sociological factors
(d) physiological factors

(a) Multiple Factors The multiple-factor approach sees crimes as products of various combinations of the psychological, sociological and physiological factors. This is particularly useful for purposes of understanding individual cases of crime, which may be as a result of a number of factors such as psychological, sociological and physicological.

b) Psychological Factors The scope of psychology emphasises the role of emotional or personality problems in criminal behaviour. The psychological interest in criminality has been logically linked to psychiatric interest in finding unusual conditions producing abnormal traits in the make-up of criminals. But in the case of psychology, the interest was basically expressed to measure objectively the extent to which criminals are psychologically different from non-criminals.


One of the most influential psychological explanations for criminal behaviour is based on the work of Sigmund Freud (1856 – 1939). He advanced a psychoanalytic theory to explain criminal behaviour. He said that there are three major assumptions through which psychoanalysis influences man’ abnormal behaviour: first, psychoanalytic theory predicts that human behaviour is largely a response to unconscious forces, drives or instincts which may predispose a man to commit crime.


Second, any abnormal behaviour is as a result of a conflict which is related to these basic drives; and third, the undesirable behaviour could be modified by helping the individual gain an insight into the unconscious roots of the person’s responses. Sigmund Freud claims that criminality is as a result of genetic constitution. He believes that criminals were driven into crime through factors outside their controls. In his operant learning of a behavioural tradition, B. F. Skinner (1904 – 1990) empirically established the relationship between behaviour and its environmental settings. The consequences of learning may either be rewarded or individual finds it aversive.

This cognitive behavioural theory concentrates on the relationship between environment and observable behaviour seems criminologenic in nature. Hans Eysenck, In his work, “Crime and Personality” (1970), attempts to correlate the causes of crime to the “personality type” of the individual. Eysenck claims that criminality is as a result of genetic inherited predispositions. He maintained that some individuals are more likely to become criminals given the sort of person they are.

SELF-ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 1

Explain Freud’s theory of psychoanalysis, making specific reference to the causes of crimes.

(c) Sociological Factors The sociological explanations emphasise the influence of the social environment in which individuals find themselves. Sociologists view crimes as resulting from tension, stresses and strain within the societies. These tensions affect the smooth function of the society. This phenomenon of tension, stress and strain is referred to as anomic (or normlessness i.e breakdown of norms), social pathology or social disorganisation. So, crime is well understood through the breakdown of social controls.
A French sociologist, Emile Durkheim (1858 – 1917), explained that people commit crimes because the authority in society offers few restraints or moral conditions. In his ‘Division of Labour in Society’ published in 1893, and ‘Suicide’ published in 1897, he discovered that French society was in uneasy transition. He identified society without division of labour which he called “mechanical solidarity”. In such a society, there was moral response and massive disapproval and repression to criminal behaviours. Conversely in an industrial society called “organic solidarity” There was a complex division of labour. People recognise the legitimacy of manner that gives rewards. Restitutive justice became a reward for loss suffered by any man.


Robert Merton explained the concept of anomie in relation to the society’s social structure in which the society pressurises people to engage in illegitimate routes to success. Merton postulated that, American society was anchored on achievement of economic success, but the social structure was such that “real success” by legitimate means was denied to many. Edwin H. Sutherland (1883 – 1950) was another influential American sociologist. He based his theory of Differential Association on the postulation that all criminal behaviours are as a result of socialisation. Sutherland argued, boys are delinquents because of their too much interaction with others who engage in criminal acts.

Others who contributed to the scope of the criminological sociology were Travis Hirschi (1969), David Matza (1969) and Harriet Wilson (1980) their modern sociological thinking about crime from the basis of “The Control Theory”. They believed that men yield to and commit crime as a result of weakening of moral authority in them which could not enable them to conform to the moral bonds. This could be developed through childhood influences, models of behaviour in the home and in the streets, etc. Furthermore, Karl Marx explained that the cause of crime is involved in the concept of alienation. The basis of Marxist theory is related to the ownership of factors of production in the industrial capitalist society. The ownership tends to be concentrated in the hands of a few members of a capitalist class called the bourgeoisie while the most people, in order to survive, sell their labour power to the members of the capitalist class for wages. Marx calls this working-class group the proletariat.


As a result of this alienation, there were a lot of economic oppression and oppositions. Therefore, Marx claims that crime is the product of inadequate social conditions.
For Lea and Young (1993), in their book Realism Concerning the Causes of Crime, argued that the motivation of some crime, particularly in the urban areas is the difference between the wealthy and the poor. They enlisted the manifold causes of crime as

(a) social deprivation – low incomes, poverty, unemployment and poor living conditions
(b) poor political representation of the working classes – Frustration at the inability to solve problems through political channel (c) the nature of working-class subculture – Developed out of a sense
of frustration, the lifestyles chosen by some working-class people to solve their problems of living in a capitalist society often emphasise antagonism – against the police and authority in
general.

SELF-ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 2

Explain the views of Edwin H. Sutherland, Travis Hirschi and Robert Merton contribution to the causes of crime.

(d) Physiological Factors For centuries human beings have wondered why some people commit crime while others do not. The search for this ambiquity led the physiologists into biological traits that could distinguish persons engaging in criminal behaviours from everyone else. Some scholars observed that there was a greater propensity in inheritance of criminal behaviour. They even tried to explain it through a mutual relation with the physical characteristics such as racial ancestry, head shape, and body build, or chromosomal differences. Physiological causes have been examined for other forms of criminal behaviour, which include mental illness, alcoholism, and suicide. The subject-matter of physiological explanation is that criminal behaviours are rooted in physical malfunction or perhaps reside in the genes.

This view has been credited to Cesare Lombroso (1836 – 1909) an Italian physician based on an empirical study of data on prison inmates from where he developed a biological theory of criminal behaviour. He believed that man was “born-criminal” this he observed as a “throw-backs” to our primitive lives; an instinct of primitive humanity and inferior animals. Lombroso argued, since they were born-criminal they exhibit animalistic urge. He believed that nothing can cure them but the society could be safe if they are locked-up. Nevertheless, their criminality was not their fault, so they ought to be treated as kindly as possible in decent prisons.
Another scholar, Ernst Kretschmer, a German psychiatrist, examined the relationship between body type and certain forms of mental illness. He classified the body type into Asthenic, Athletic and pyknic. He concluded that the Asthemic and Athletic body types are predominately among the persistent criminals. Others are The Genetic Approaches of Johannes Lange (1929) who finds out and established that there is a link between genetic inheritance and criminal behaviours after comparing identical monozygotic twins with fraternal dizygotic twins the Lange who studied and compared the monozygotic and dizygotic twins and observed that criminal behaviour occurs in both twins, but it occurs more frequent in the identical monozygotic than the fraternal dizygotic twins. This tends to confirm that there is an inherited factor for the cause of crime. Finally, the xyy or xxy chromosome abnormality in males sex is the determination approach to criminal behaviour which aroused much interest by Patricia Jacob (1965), Mary A. Telfer (1968), etc. in their studies, they observed extra x chromosome (xxy) or an extra y chromosome (xyy) in males.

SELF-ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 3

Discuss the relevant factors that contributed to crimes according to Lombroso.

4.0 CONCLUSION

In this unit, the criminologists have studied the processes by which persons become criminals and developed theories to support this fact. The psychologists examined the causes of crime making a special reference to the relationship between mental discover and crime. In the same token, the sociologists attempt to define and identify the processes by which persons become criminals by the use of these theories, differential association, social structure and anomie, control theory and alienation. Finally, the physiological explanations to the causes of crimes borrowed a biological concept to distinguish persons engaging in criminal behaviours from everyone else. We examined the twin and chromosomal studies to establish the idea of criminality in the studies. This literature on crime causation theory is closely linked with emphasis on psychological, sociological, bio-genetic, and environmental factors.

5.0 SUMMARY

We have examined and discussed the causes of crime in our society. We recalled that we examined and discussed the multidimensional factors in the causation of crime. The literature causation analyses the psychological, social and environmental as well as the bio-genetic causes of crime.

6.0 TUTOR-MARKED ASSIGNMENT

1. Mention and illustrate the fundamental causes of crime, delineating the significant features of each peculiarity. 
2. Differentiate between the psychological and physiological causes of crime. What was their main argument and similarity, (If any).