Unit 2 of Criminology and Penology (syllabus: Module II — what a theory of crime causation must do: differentiate, and hold one level of analysis; situational and historical explanations, opportunity and the person-situation complex; Durkheim on mechanical and organic societies, why crime is normal, and anomie; Sutherland’s differential association; the multiple-factor approach and Sutherland’s objection to it; and the classification of criminals). Below: what the unit covers, the provisions it turns on, and the cases an examiner expects you to name.
What this unit covers
- What tests must any theory of the causes of crime survive?
- What is the level-of-analysis problem, and what does the illustration of the two boys establish?
- How does Freud explain criminal behaviour, and how does his account differ from Lombroso's?
- Where has biological explanation actually entered the criminal law?
- What is anomie for Durkheim, and why is crime normal?
- How does Merton's strain theory differ from Durkheim's anomie, and what are the five adaptations?
- State the theory of differential association in its nine propositions.
- What is the multiple-factor approach, and why does it yield approximations rather than theories?
- What is white-collar crime, and why does the class matter theoretically?
- What is the warning that governs every question on the classification of criminals?
Treat that list as a self-test: recite each topic's rule from memory before you open its cases.
Provisions
- The methodology of crime causation, s. The differentiation and respiration tests
- The methodology of crime causation, s. Levels of analysis
- Psychodynamic theory, s. Id, ego and superego
- The biological explanation of crime, s. The generative phases and infanticide
- Durkheim's theory of anomie, s. Mechanical and organic societies
- Merton's strain theory, or the means-end theory of deviance, s. The five modes of adaptation
- The theory of differential association, s. Nine propositions
- The multiple-factor approach, s. Method, qualification and cluster
- The concept of white-collar crime, s. Sutherland's definition and its three theoretical points
- Probation of Offenders Act 1958, s. 4 and 6
Leading cases
- Edwin H. Sutherland's two procedures for putting order into criminological knowledge
- The illustration of the two boys
- Sigmund Freud
- The generative-phases plea and the partial defence of infanticide
- Emile Durkheim
- Robert K. Merton
- Edwin H. Sutherland
- The multiple-factor method of listing
- Edwin H. Sutherland's definition of white-collar crime
- Abdul Qayum