A General Theory of Crime

by Michael R. Gottfredson, Travis Hirschi

By articulating a general theory of crime and related behavior, the authors present a new and comprehensive statement of what the criminological enterprise should be about. They argue that prevalent academic criminology―whether sociological, psychological, biological, or economic―has been unable to provide believable explanations of criminal behavior. The long-discarded classical tradition in criminology was based on choice and free will, and saw crime as the natural consequence of unrestrained human tendencies to seek pleasure and to avoid pain. It concerned itself with the nature of crime and paid little attention to the criminal. The scientific, or disciplinary, tradition is based on causation and determinism, and has dominated twentieth-century criminology. It concerns itself with the nature of the criminal and pays little attention to the crime itself. Though the two traditions are considered incompatible, this book brings classical and modern criminology together by requiring that their conceptions be consistent with each other and with the results of research. The authors explore the essential nature of crime, finding that scientific and popular conceptions of crime are misleading, and they assess the truth of disciplinary claims about crime, concluding that such claims are contrary to the nature of crime and, interestingly enough, to the data produced by the disciplines themselves. They then put forward their own theory of crime, which asserts that the essential element of criminality is the absence of self-control. Persons with high self-control consider the long-term consequences of their behavior; those with low self-control do not. Such control is learned, usually early in life, and once learned, is highly resistant to change. In the remainder of the book, the authors apply their theory to the persistent problems of criminology. Why are men, adolescents, and minorities more likely than their counterparts to commit criminal acts? What is the role of the school in the causation of delinquincy? To what extent could crime be reduced by providing meaningful work? Why do some societies have much lower crime rates than others? Does white-collar crime require its own theory? Is there such a thing as organized crime? In all cases, the theory forces fundamental reconsideration of the conventional wisdom of academians and crimina justic practitioners. The authors conclude by exploring the implications of the theory for the future study and control of crime.

Genres: School, Crime, Academia, Psychology

297 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 1990

Reviews

[Lashaan Balasingam · Rating 4 out of 5]

Teacher was right. You have to have had over 20 years of experience to be able to publish something like this. It's absolutely insane how easily the author dismisses all the theories that have been used throughout time, even today, by denouncing their premisses. It does make up for an interesting theoritical read when you look at the logic that the authors follow and at the conclusions that they arrive at. One thing is for sure. This is one book that researchers have thoroughly cited and recited throughout their own researches. If anything, that is absolute success in the research field.

P.S. Full review to come

Yours truly,

Lashaan | Blogger and Book Reviewer
Official blog: http://bookidote.wordpress.com

[Raymond Esposito · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a criminologist who has spent nearly 25 years in the field of investigations and dishonesty, this book finally provides a useful and measurable theory from which to understand why people commit crime. I have applied the theory and programs to combat the causes in over 100 companies with great success. The book however is written for a reader with a social science or psychology background who has an interest in theory and daily reasons to apply these findings.

[J. · Rating 2 out of 5]

The book is decently written, and while self-control theory is useful in everyday criminological research (as a criminologist who has used it in published work), the emphasis the authors place on attempting to make this theory universal overextends its application and viability as a theory. For instance, Gottfredson and Hirschi largely dismiss the very existence of white-collar crime because their argument hinges on the fact that all crime is impulsive and therefore cannot be pre-planned or calculating; and, white-collar crime, as complex financial crime, must often necessarily involve these attributes. They essentially equate white-collar money laundering to a low-level cashier stealing from her or his register.

The authors could not comment on any crime such as terrorism, which often necessitates both extensive pre-planning and complex sociopolitical and/or religious motivations. This, along with a variety of other crimes, would defy their universal theory as they attempt to present it in this book. The work would've been much better had they not endeavored too boldly to make this theory universal, thereby forcing themselves to struggle to cram every sort of crime into one model, where many do not fit.

Again, while self-control theory as it is used commonly is incredibly useful, the universal version presented in this text is not, and does not represent the application that most criminologists employ in day-to-day research. When comparing the universal theory of self-control presented here to Hirschi's social bonds theory, I would argue that Hirschi would have been better off further developing social bonds theory. His argumentation was far better reasoned, there.

As a final aside, as someone who found it bizarre that Hirschi would go from making a compelling case on social bonds to the overextended and fallacious theoretical framework in this book, I'm told by someone familiar with the two that Gottfredson may have taken advantage of Hirschi to some extent in the working of this text, for the sake of drawing attention to the book by tacking Hirschi's name on. When this book came out, Hirschi was already somewhat advanced in age, and so probably not at his best.

Hearsay, of course.