Another theory that regarded crime as being pathological involved mental illness. Some people believed that schizophrenics would turn to crime because of their deficiencies and blamed many crimes on such illnesses. It was later discovered, however, that the mentally ill are no more likely to commit crime than anyone else.
Normal
Crime can also be viewed as a normal part of society today and can be caused by many other non-biological factors such as culture, socio-economic position and social environment.
The first theorist to fully propose this theory was Emile Durkheim. He conducted research within different societies and found that crime existed within every one of them. This led him to the conclusion that since crime exists within every culture, it must therefore be normal. However, he did think that a distinct balance was needed in order to prevent crime from becoming pathological. Too much crime leads to disintegration and too little crime leads to stagnation within society.
Durkheim also proposed the theory of anomie or state of normlessness. This refers to a state where people have hardly any constraints or moral standards to guide them and also a lack of regulation. Durkheim believed that society assumes an anomic form during the transition from mechanical solidarity to organic solidarity (Downes & Rock 2003) and this, in turn, created aspirations that could hardly ever be fulfilled and led people to constantly search for the unattainable. Anomie could end up leading to individuals committing suicide or crime.
Merton’s theories lead on from Durkheim’s studies and describe crime as being a product of individuals not being able to obtain goals through legitimate means. He sees crime arising from a “failure to achieve goals which are seen as desirable within society” (Croall 1998:48). This leads individuals to try and obtain their goals through illegitimate means. He characterised individuals into five categories as listed below:
Conformist – most people within society continue to conform and use
legitimate means to achieve their goals
Innovator - these people use illegitimate means to achieve accepted goals.
Such types of people are thieves, fraudsters and robbers.
Retreatist - this category of people reject both means and goals and some
consequences include alcoholism, suicide and drug-taking
Ritualist - do not care about the goals within society so carry on through
life having abandoned all hope of achievement
Rebel - also reject both means and goals but also substantiate their
own by rebelling against society.
Merton aided the break from biologism by stating that values and goals were cultural products and not biological drives. These two theorists basically tried to prove that crime was normal and not pathological.
Another group of theorists that aided in theorising that crime is normal are the Chicago School sociologists. They tried to research more in depth into the lives of people within the city in the 1920s and 30s and made a strong link between crime and urban growth or decay. Quoting from Croall (1998:50), “the concentration of such a wide variety of deviant lifestyles in the inner city indicated what they saw as social disorganization which, to them, was brought about by a natural process of city growth”. This sums up the ideas that these theorists were trying to get across perfectly. They believed that the transition zone was the main area of crime within cities and that this was an inevitable result of the natural growth of the city. Because there was so much mobility (people moving in and out) within the transition zone this created an area of “social disorganization” (Muncie & McLaughlin 1996:156) and in turn, created higher rates of crime within these areas. They concluded that crime was seen as normal and that individuals were just behaving naturally within their own environment.
Subcultures also provide another view illustrating that crime is normal and not pathological. Subcultures are said to arise from a smaller, minority group breaking away from the main culture and forming their own. Within these smaller groups, crime is a normal, attractive occurrence. There are two basic views regarding subcultures: American subcultural views and British subcultural views. One theory behind subcultures can be related to Merton’s theory (American subcultural theories) since they adapt his theories about cultural goals and approved means. Another way of relating subcultures to the normality of crime is by seeing subcultures as a rebellion against the main culture (British subcultural theories). These two theories are illustrated in more depth below:
Normal or Pathological?
I have discussed theories which deem crime as being pathological and other theories that believe that crime is normal but is there any evidence proving either of these views? From research and studies I have concluded that crime is a normal part of society since it seems to be related more with environmental, culture and socio-economic explanations. Biological explanations seem to have some credibility but a lot of the theories and studies have been disproved or can be applied to criminals and non-criminals alike. In conclusion, crime is an intricate part of our society and if it did not exist, then society would not function properly and our way of life would be seriously altered.
