Saint Martins University Great Debates in Criminology Documentary Analysis

  

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this discussion should be around a 100 – 200 words only

Watch the documentary about Colton Harris-Moore (75 mins):

Then, apply concepts and theories introduced in Chapter 2 to analyze his criminal behaviour. What do you think were the major sociological and psychological factors motivating the crimes? Identify and explain them.

You may read more here:

https://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/07/22/barefoot.bandit.profile/index.html

You may watch more here:

i will attach a few photos of the book down below to help with answering this discussion please use your own words answer from your perspective as a discussion.

book: Posick, C., & Rocque, M. (2019).

Great debates in criminology

. Routledge.

also i have a video of the lecture of week 4 that might help as well:

Sutherland and Sociology vs.
Individual/ Psychological
Theories
was
as
Why did Sutherland wish to move criminology
into a decidedly sociological orientation? Laub
and Sampson’s (1991) essay on the “Sutherland-
Glueck debate” is the standard source for this
apparent change in focus. They note that
suddenly in the late 1930s Sutherland became
very critical of Sheldon and Eleanor Glueck’s
work, primarily their multi-factor approach. He
was “vehemently antipsychiatry” (Laub &
Sampson, 1991, p. 1412) as his career progressed
and
“perturbed by the Gluecks’
psychologically oriented conclusion that mental
and/or emotional difficulties impeded the process
of reformation among former prisoners” (pp.
1413-1414). Thus it was the individual-level,
psychological elements of the multi-factor
approach that Sutherland came to view
inconsistent with criminology as a science and
the scientific goal of producing a
set of
propositions to explain crime. As Gaylord and
Galliher (1988) note, while in the early 1930s
Sutherland accepted that multiple factors were
related to crime, “he felt it intellectually
unacceptable to believe that a generalized
explanation of individual delinquency might
forever be elusive” (p. 115). Sutherland thought it
was possible to use the information known about
criminal behavior and look for threads the
factors had in common, and thus arrive at an
internally (and disciplinarily) consistent theory.
Laub and Sampson (1991) also point to two
factors that led Sutherland to reject individual-
level theories. First was the method of “analytic
induction.” Analytic induction, as a research
method, seeks to build a framework under which
all empirical findings apply. If any finding does
not fit the framework, the framework must be
changed
This method
led
to
Sutherland’s
or
as
was
all empirical findings apply. If any finding does
not fit the framework, the framework must be
changed. This method led to “Sutherland’s
development of a general theory of crime
causation … [and] a rejection of multiple-factor
theory as, among other things, unscientific”
(Laub & Sampson, 1991, p. 1418). Next, Laub and
Sampson suggest that Sutherland’s “sociological
positivism” required him to see crime and its
causes in a social light, thus rejecting biological
psychological factors. As they state:
“sociological positivism practiced by
Sutherland did not attempt to establish the
sociological causes of crime independent of
individual-level factors in the Durkheimian
tradition. Rather, crime
viewed by
Sutherland as a social phenomenon that could
only be explained by social (i.e., nonindividual)
factors. As a result, Sutherland ‘explicitly denied
the claims of all other disciplines potentially
interested in crime’ (Gottfredson and Hirschi
1990, p. 70)” (Laub & Sampson, 1991, p. 1420).
The 1934 Principles of Criminology differed
from the 1924 Criminology in numerous ways,
including the apparent deletion of the section on
the importance of personality and mental
deficiency. In fact in Chapter 6 of Principles
Sutherland throws considerable doubt on the
idea that mental deficiency is a cause of crime.
He was reacting to “feebleminded” theories of
the time which argued that criminals fail to obey
the law because they are not mentally capable.
The idea, according to feebleminded theories,
was that only someone with a mental problem
would resort to law-breaking. In response
Sutherland stated that the relationship between
crime and feeblemindedness is, in general,
comparatively slight” (1934, p. 96). In other
words, now he saw much less value in mental
deficiency and intelligence testing as predictors
of criminal behavior. Sutherland was equally
circumspect on the ability of psychoses and
psychopathic personality to explain criminal
conduct.
In
Other
abnormalities
terms
in
pect
are
abilly 01
psychopathic personality to explain criminal
conduct.
In terms of “other abnormalities in
personality,” Sutherland wrote that, while
psychological tests were poor, they did seem to
indicate some relationship to crime. Yet at the
same time he felt that the tests were not
measuring something innate: “The traits which
characteristic of the delinquents in
comparison with non-delinquents are very likely
to be a product of the specific situation in which
they are tested rather than generalized and
permanent traits” (1934, p. 103). Thus it was
really the environment, not the person, which
mattered and which was driving the results of
personality tests differentiating criminals from
non-criminals, to Sutherland.
In the 1939 edition of Principles Sutherland
had begun to offer his own theory explicitly, and
thus had more reason to reject non-sociological
explanations of crime. In the 1934 and 1939
editions he was circumspect toward multiple
factor theories. But in the 1947 edition he was
downright scathing. For example, in a section in
Chapter 4. he placed quotations around theory
when describing multiple factor theory. He
argued that proponents of multiple factor theory
“have insisted that crime is a product of a large
number and a great variety of factors and that
these factors cannot now and perhaps cannot
ever be organized into general propositions
which have no exceptions; that is, they insist that
no scientific theory of criminal behavior is
possible” (p. 56). Interestingly, as late as the 1939
edition he had said “A multiple factor theory is
undoubtedly closer to the facts than the earlier
theories …” (p. 54), yet he was not altogether
happy with it.
The 1947 edition of Principles also amended
the propositions of differential association in a
key way. As Gaylord and Galliher (1988) point
out,
in 1939 Sutherland made
for
“individual differences.” The fifth proposition,
recall, read “individual differences among people
room
room
happy with it.
The 1947 edition of Principles also amended
the propositions of differential association in a
key way. As Gaylord and Galliher (1988) point
out in 1939 Sutherland made
for
“individual differences.” The fifth proposition,
recall, read “individual differences among people
in respect to personal characteristics or social
situations cause crime only as they affect
differential association or frequency and
consistency of contacts with criminal patterns”
(1939, p. 6, mphasis added). In other words,
while differential association was the direct
cause, personality traits still mattered. In the 1947
version the term “individual differences” was
nowhere to be found. Gaylord and Galliher
(1988) argue that this was because Sutherland felt
personality traits are factors “that must be
explained, rather than explanations of such social
phenomena as criminal behavior” (p. 147).
The 1947 edition was also much harsher than
the previous versions on psychopathy and crime.
In 1936 William Healy and Augusta Bronner had
published a study entitled New Light on
Delinquency which had shown that 91 percent of
delinquents had “emotional disturbances,” as
compared to 13 percent of non-delinquents.
Sutherland took issue with this finding in 1939,
recommending replication. However, in 1947 he
eviscerated it. He argued that the psychiatrists
making the diagnoses were likely biased and
suggested that the non-delinquent group was not
properly examined, with only 21 percent being
found “even mildly delinquent” (p. 112). This, he
argued, was inconceivable, given that a survey of
a criminology class (we presume his own, but he
never offered a citation) revealed 98 percent were
mildly delinquent. He also suggested that
causality had not been determined,
delinquency could result in emotional
disturbance rather than the other way around.
More importantly, perhaps, was that Healy and
Bronner’s finding could not translate into a cause
of delinquency because 13 percent of the non-
delinquents were
emotionally disturbed. This
as
This
delinquents were emotionally disturbed.
violated the foundation of his analytic induction
method.
In this chapter (7) Sutherland rejected
intelligence and psychopathy as causes of crime.
They were simply not important if we wanted to
understand how to reduce antisocial behavior.
He concluded the chapter with a clear statement
on what he thought about non-sociological
theories. “The explanation of behavior,
apparently, must be found in social interaction,
in which both the behavior of a person and the
overt or prospective behavior of other persons
play their parts” (p. 117).
Sutherland’s two other major works also did
much to swing the tide of criminology toward
sociology. In 1937 Sutherland published The
Professional Thief, where he allowed a thief,
Chic Conwell, to tell his story. The book was not
so much an autobiography interrogating how
Conwell had gotten into the life, but an exposé
on how a professional criminal plies his trade.
He emphasized the organization and skill it
required to make something of yourself in this
area. Thus, according to Jon Snodgrass, while the
book was not about theory, it really was about
theory. He says, “The Professional Thief was not
an etiological work, at least not in an overt sense.
But it did have strong implications for
contending causal theories. Theories which
maintained that criminals were abnormal, or
feeble-minded, or constitutionally inferior, were
confronted with the planning, droitness,
knowledge, social sophistication, political
acumen, organizational ability and mental
stability of professional thieves” (1973, p. 5). In
other words, once again, since psychological
theories could not account for criminals who
were intelligent and skilled they were not valid
explanations of crime. Note, this work was not
friendly toward poverty or social class theories
of crime either, as Conwell was supposedly,
along with most professional thieves, from the
well-to-do.
Finally, Sutherlands
major project,
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