Differential association
“White collar” crime refers to crimes committed by those in positions of trust or authority (e.g. employees, businessmen, public officials). The name was coined by Edwin Sutherland, who had argued that “the principal part of the learning of criminal behavior occurs within intimate personal groups.” (“Differential Association”) Although white collar crime is sometimes also referred to as “economic crime”, its classification was based on the group characteristics of the offender rather than the types of crime committed. For example, embezzlment is considered white collar crime because it is a crime committed by white collar workers. The term “blue collar” crime is less often used, but can refer to crimes typically committed by lower income brackets, such as robbery.
As a general observation, it seems intuitively obvious that groups can promote the learning of criminal activity. For example, gangs not only provide an environment where delinquent activity is permissible, but minimize the chance of apprehension through cooperation. Similarly, large scale white collar crime requires the complicity of multiple offenders to succeed. It seems highly unlikely that one individual could have planned and executed the Enron accounting fraud.
Yet Sutherland does not merely say that groups are where one learns how to commit crime. According to his theory of differential association, criminal behavior results when an individual is exposed to an excess of “definitions” favorable to law breaking. The beliefs of the group actually produce criminal behavior in individuals, by “association”. Individuals in lower economic classes may be exposed to definitions favorable to vandalism, theft or robbery; individuals in wealthier groups may be exposed to definitions favorable to business fraud or embezzlement. The degree of exposure has, according to this theory, a direct effect on the resulting behavior.
Problems
However, in A General Theory of Crime Gottfredson and Hirschi observe that white collar criminals are especially concerned with hiding their crimes from other employees, suggesting that if these crimes are developed in groups, such groups are small in relation to the organization. Does this not suggest that there is an excess of definitions favorable to law abiding behavior?
There are various theories that take a group approach, claiming that behavior is the product of group learning. However the notion that individuals become criminals by some form of osmosis, automatically absorbing the ideas of the group, must artificially limit what counts as “the group” in order to account for behavior. An employee who embezzles money may work within a group of other corrupt employees, but does he not also work within a much larger community of law abiding ones? A delinquent is drawn to criminal behavior because of the influence of other delinquents, but why is he not likewise influenced by his family, law abiding siblings or the many role models he encounters at school and in the community?
Social learning theories also raise the question: if a person’s values are determined by those around him, then where did they get their values from? Presumably from another group, and then what about them? Social learning is not an explanation, but an infinite regression.
Social learning theories promote crime
The problems of social learning follow from ignoring the fact that individuals can choose the groups they wish to join. Just as you may join a community group that shares an interest in tennis or theater, so criminals seek out associates who aid in their activities. As a child, were you automatically inducted into a group of other students, or did you choose your friends and have to win their approval by demonstrating similar attitudes or interests? In any community there is a diverse range of groups with competing values. This very observation contradicts social learning theories, which if true would discourage differences and spread similarities.
And this is the real danger of social learning theories. By taking the position that criminal behavior is merely learned from others, they excuse individuals from the responsibility of acting by their own judgment. The criminal becomes a victim to be “treated” rather than punished. More than this: by giving the ideas of the group primacy, they say in effect that individuals have no power over their own lives. Consider the logic. Criminal activity infers that criminal values are in the majority. Individual behavior is the product of the values of the majority. Therefore, if you are a law-abiding individual in a crime-ridden community, you are doomed. If you have children, they are doomed as well. No attitude could aid in the spread of crime more than this.
Thursday, November 11, 2010
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Investigating the drug-crime link
A correlation between drug use and crime can hardly be denied. The Department of Health and Human Services (DHSS), National Criminal Justice Reference Service (NCJRS) and Home Office in the UK all report high rates of positive drug tests among arestees. For example, DHSS reported in 1997 that arestees tested positive for drugs at rates ranging from 42.5% in Anchorage, Alaska to 78.7% in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Yet correlation is not proof of a relationship between these variables, and certainly not enough to wage a “war on drugs”. So there are three basic arguments policy-makers have used to establish a causal relationship between drugs and crime:
- that drugs have a pharmacological influence on its user, causing aggressiveness and violent crime
- that drugs cause a dependency and need for financial funding satisfied through the commission of crime
- that the illicit drug trade itself generates violent crime.
Pharmacological influence
Evidence of crime based on the effects of illegal substances is surprisingly shaky. The DHHS, Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) and NCJRS gather this evidence in part through inmate self-reporting, where subjects are asked if they were under the influence of drugs at the time of their offense. In one 2004 study, 39% of state inmates guilty of a property offense reported committing their offense under the influence of drugs. In addition, 24% of violent offenders in federal prison reported the same. BJS and NCJRS noted that many victims of violent offenses report that their offender appeared to be under the influence of drugs or alcohol. The 2005 NCVS found that 27% of victims believed their attacker was on drugs or intoxicated.
Interestingly, all of this evidence is correlative and says nothing about the reason for the crimes in question. To conclude that drugs were responsible would requre that we assume the offender was not motivated to commit the crime prior to the drug use. More importantly, it requires that we assume the drugs are capable of generating violent impulses, which is begging the question. The fact that alcohol is often included in surveys to obtain larger numbers also does not speak well for this causal explanation. Stevens, Trace, & Bewley-Taylor note that although cocaine is often linked to aggression and heroin to property crime, more crime involves alcohol. In a Canadian survey, 40-50% of crime was attributed by inmates to either alcohol or illicit drugs: 10-15% to illicit drugs only, 15-20% to alcohol only, and 10-20% to both alcohol and illicit drugs. They also mention that in one study of 22 cities in the US, no link was found between levels of heroin or crack use among arrestees and crime rates.
On “supporting the habit”
DHHS, BJSS, NCJRS as well as the EMCDDA used inmate feedback to determine whether they had committed their offense to buy drugs, supporting the “economic-compulsive” theory. For example, NCJRS cited one study in which 27% of state and federal inmates incarcerated for robbery and 30-32% of those for burglarly reported they committed their offense to support their drug habit. The Home Office survey was less specific, asking inmates if they perceived a connection between their offense and their drug use. However the results of these surveys is suspect, and not simply because criminals may be lying to provide more sympathetic excuses for their crimes.
Benson, for example, argues that illicit drug use in young adults is associated with higher wages. In a 1986 survey, almost 50% of regular users reported having a full-time job in the previous year. Also, according to a BJS 1989 survey, 65.6% of daily users had wages and salaries as a source of income. Benson also criticizes the implication that drug use means drug dependency. In one survey of cocaine users over 25, only 1 in 11 “lifetime” users reported use in the last month. He noted that heroin users abstain for substantial periods of time, and that pharmacologists describe heroin withdrawal as a “bad case of one week flu”. It may be the case that property offenders are often addicted to drugs, but the drugs themselves do not appear to lead automatically to addiction, let alone to crime supporting such addiction.
Illicit drug trade
The most curious causal link used by government regards the black market drug trade, since it would seem to indict the “war on drugs” itself. In a 1988 study of New York City homicides, 74% were associated with the illicit drug trade. DHHS suggested that violence may be generated through several factors: competition for drug market, disputes and rip-offs in illegal market, and tendency toward violence of those who participate in drug trafficking generate violent crime. The NCJRS report, in fact, explores the possibility that violence in the drug market is caused by its illicit nature. The authors suggest that system violence is caused by a combination of factors, including the value of the drug being traded, the greater risk of enforcement by police, and the increased violence and aggressiveness of users. Because illicit markets are not protected by property rights, no contracts are enforceable except through threat of violence. The crack market, they argue, could be associated with violence because of the special risk of dealing in the drug given its high value and risk of punishment.
Problem with temporal ordering
In order for drug use to be a cause of crime, it must be shown to occur before the crimes it causes. Yet this is more often not the case. Urbis Keys Young find that criminal behavior most often precedes drug use. According to a DUCO study 54% of inmates reported offenses occurred before drugs, vs. 17% reporting that drugs started first and 29% that they started at the same time. Benson also contests the claim that drug use precedes other offenses. According to a BJS survey of prison inmates found that about half of those who used a major drug and three-fifths of those who used a major drug regularly, did so after a nondrug crime. More than half of jail inmates who reported being a regular user said their first crime was an average of two years before drug use.
Conclusion
I won’t argue here that drugs and crime are unrelated. Drugs may not cause crime, but that does not discount other possible relationships. Clearly drug use and crime are highly compatible activities, or they would not occur together so frequently. Yet current research seems to focus either on proving the government’s case, or disproving it. I am not familiar with the kind of research I would need to draw serious alternative conclusions. So for the time being, I will pose a few thoughts and questions for follow-up:
- In what ways might the high of drug use be similar to the high of crime? It is reasonable to expect that an offender will seek activities that satisfy a common psychological craving. Also, could the escape of drug use be a method to avoid dealing with the consequences of criminal behavior?
- The illicit nature of the drug trade means that some criminals (“pushers”) may be drawn not by drug use but by the thrill of the criminal market itself and illegal income.
- What is the role of gang activity on drug use?
Although criminalization has strengthened the correlation between drugs and crime, even after legalization there could be persistent associations – as is the case with alcohol and crime. Ultimately the issue comes down to understanding the criminal lifestyle, seeking integrated explanations for their behaviors.
- that drugs have a pharmacological influence on its user, causing aggressiveness and violent crime
- that drugs cause a dependency and need for financial funding satisfied through the commission of crime
- that the illicit drug trade itself generates violent crime.
Pharmacological influence
Evidence of crime based on the effects of illegal substances is surprisingly shaky. The DHHS, Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) and NCJRS gather this evidence in part through inmate self-reporting, where subjects are asked if they were under the influence of drugs at the time of their offense. In one 2004 study, 39% of state inmates guilty of a property offense reported committing their offense under the influence of drugs. In addition, 24% of violent offenders in federal prison reported the same. BJS and NCJRS noted that many victims of violent offenses report that their offender appeared to be under the influence of drugs or alcohol. The 2005 NCVS found that 27% of victims believed their attacker was on drugs or intoxicated.
Interestingly, all of this evidence is correlative and says nothing about the reason for the crimes in question. To conclude that drugs were responsible would requre that we assume the offender was not motivated to commit the crime prior to the drug use. More importantly, it requires that we assume the drugs are capable of generating violent impulses, which is begging the question. The fact that alcohol is often included in surveys to obtain larger numbers also does not speak well for this causal explanation. Stevens, Trace, & Bewley-Taylor note that although cocaine is often linked to aggression and heroin to property crime, more crime involves alcohol. In a Canadian survey, 40-50% of crime was attributed by inmates to either alcohol or illicit drugs: 10-15% to illicit drugs only, 15-20% to alcohol only, and 10-20% to both alcohol and illicit drugs. They also mention that in one study of 22 cities in the US, no link was found between levels of heroin or crack use among arrestees and crime rates.
On “supporting the habit”
DHHS, BJSS, NCJRS as well as the EMCDDA used inmate feedback to determine whether they had committed their offense to buy drugs, supporting the “economic-compulsive” theory. For example, NCJRS cited one study in which 27% of state and federal inmates incarcerated for robbery and 30-32% of those for burglarly reported they committed their offense to support their drug habit. The Home Office survey was less specific, asking inmates if they perceived a connection between their offense and their drug use. However the results of these surveys is suspect, and not simply because criminals may be lying to provide more sympathetic excuses for their crimes.
Benson, for example, argues that illicit drug use in young adults is associated with higher wages. In a 1986 survey, almost 50% of regular users reported having a full-time job in the previous year. Also, according to a BJS 1989 survey, 65.6% of daily users had wages and salaries as a source of income. Benson also criticizes the implication that drug use means drug dependency. In one survey of cocaine users over 25, only 1 in 11 “lifetime” users reported use in the last month. He noted that heroin users abstain for substantial periods of time, and that pharmacologists describe heroin withdrawal as a “bad case of one week flu”. It may be the case that property offenders are often addicted to drugs, but the drugs themselves do not appear to lead automatically to addiction, let alone to crime supporting such addiction.
Illicit drug trade
The most curious causal link used by government regards the black market drug trade, since it would seem to indict the “war on drugs” itself. In a 1988 study of New York City homicides, 74% were associated with the illicit drug trade. DHHS suggested that violence may be generated through several factors: competition for drug market, disputes and rip-offs in illegal market, and tendency toward violence of those who participate in drug trafficking generate violent crime. The NCJRS report, in fact, explores the possibility that violence in the drug market is caused by its illicit nature. The authors suggest that system violence is caused by a combination of factors, including the value of the drug being traded, the greater risk of enforcement by police, and the increased violence and aggressiveness of users. Because illicit markets are not protected by property rights, no contracts are enforceable except through threat of violence. The crack market, they argue, could be associated with violence because of the special risk of dealing in the drug given its high value and risk of punishment.
Problem with temporal ordering
In order for drug use to be a cause of crime, it must be shown to occur before the crimes it causes. Yet this is more often not the case. Urbis Keys Young find that criminal behavior most often precedes drug use. According to a DUCO study 54% of inmates reported offenses occurred before drugs, vs. 17% reporting that drugs started first and 29% that they started at the same time. Benson also contests the claim that drug use precedes other offenses. According to a BJS survey of prison inmates found that about half of those who used a major drug and three-fifths of those who used a major drug regularly, did so after a nondrug crime. More than half of jail inmates who reported being a regular user said their first crime was an average of two years before drug use.
Conclusion
I won’t argue here that drugs and crime are unrelated. Drugs may not cause crime, but that does not discount other possible relationships. Clearly drug use and crime are highly compatible activities, or they would not occur together so frequently. Yet current research seems to focus either on proving the government’s case, or disproving it. I am not familiar with the kind of research I would need to draw serious alternative conclusions. So for the time being, I will pose a few thoughts and questions for follow-up:
- In what ways might the high of drug use be similar to the high of crime? It is reasonable to expect that an offender will seek activities that satisfy a common psychological craving. Also, could the escape of drug use be a method to avoid dealing with the consequences of criminal behavior?
- The illicit nature of the drug trade means that some criminals (“pushers”) may be drawn not by drug use but by the thrill of the criminal market itself and illegal income.
- What is the role of gang activity on drug use?
Although criminalization has strengthened the correlation between drugs and crime, even after legalization there could be persistent associations – as is the case with alcohol and crime. Ultimately the issue comes down to understanding the criminal lifestyle, seeking integrated explanations for their behaviors.
Friday, September 17, 2010
Website of interest: Dr. Stanton Samenow's homepage
I have currently only read one of his books, Inside the Criminal Mind. However I expect that his others are filled with further experiences supporting and elaborating on those ideas. Don't let the barebones design of his site fool you. If you have enjoyed the beginnings of my blog, please take a look; you won't regret it.
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