Criminology Through The Eyes of Faith

The idea that knowledge can come from any place other than science is anathema to many within the modern intellectual community. This particular blog may even place me in bad standing among some of my future intellectual peers in academia, but I think it is an important and interesting topic to discuss (or at least for me). The fundamental question is "how can I rectify the ideas of criminological theory with my personal spiritual faith and worldview?"

To those who would point to science as the pinnicle of all knowledge and require that God be proven scientifically, I ask them to consider the deeper epistemology of their scientific knowledge. How do we really know what we know? Even if one does not believe in God, are there not common fundamental principles of logic that form a foundation for discovering any kind of knowledge, whether it be scientific knowledge or knowledge of God? I believe in the importance of people having a unifying worldview that they are able to articulate and apply to every area of their lives. So, I want to use this particular post to inject some thoughts stemming from my personal faith/worldview into this blog on the topic of criminology. As always, I'm looking for discussion and people to engage me on these topics.

When I was working on my undergraduate degree in sociology at a small Christian liberal arts school, I came across a series of books in my coursework that have always stuck in the back of my mind. I'm not sure if this is the correct title for the series of books, but I refer to them as the "through the eyes of faith" series. Each book in the series examined a different academic subject "through the eyes of faith". For example, as a sociology major I was required to read the "Sociology Through The Eyes of Faith" book. But I never came across a "Criminology Through The Eyes of Faith" book. In one of my last blogs, I mentioned that I've often wondered what my first book will be when I finish my Ph.D. work. I already talked about what may be my first book idea. My second book idea, though, would be a contribution to the "through the eyes of faith" series with a new book entitled "Criminology Through The Eyes of Faith". Here's some preliminary thoughts on how I would tie in ideas from criminological theory with ideas from my faith.

First, I believe that my faith is most consistent with the classical school of criminology (my affinity to social control theory will probably become more and more obvious as I blog more on this site). Specifically, many of the modern theories in criminology that grow out of the classical school tradition in criminology begin by turning the fundamental questions of positive criminology on their head. Positive school criminologists ask how individuals become criminal, or how one is "pressured into crime" (Agnew, 2006). Classical school criminologists reverse the important questions and ask why individuals obey the law or behave, given a natural human tendency to maximize pleasure over pain. This is consistent with the Biblical worldview that all humans are born with a sinful nature. Under the Biblical worldview, a person is not born as a clean slate, as is suggested by positivist criminology. The gravitation of the human will is towards "sin" from day one. This worldview is empirically supported implicitly in the work of Nagin and Trembley on childhood aggression. In their work, they find that when aggression is used as the dependent variable instead of state-defined criminal behavior, aggression does not peak in the late teens to early twenties like criminal behavior tends to do, but instead peaks at around two years old. So two year olds are the most aggressive in our society! This would be very difficult to observe if behavior like this must be learned in life instead of being part of an inherited universal human tendency. It seems from Nagin and Tremblay's findings that we have to explain the downside of that aggression curve after age two (i.e., why do most children decline in aggression after age two?).

This is where I think theories like routine activities theory, deterrence/rational choice theory, and social control theory come in. These theories all avoid looking for predictors of some positive compulsion towards criminal behavior. Instead they examine what keeps anyone from committing crimes. Routine activities theory suggests that something within the situation deters or prevents a criminal event from occuring(i.e., the lack of a suitable target or the defense provided by a "capable guardian"), even though the motivation for criminal behavior is always there as a constant. Deterrence/rational choice theory suggests that crime is prevented when the costs of a particular criminal event outweigh the benefits to a would-be offender. Social control theory suggests that the human "sin" tendency is contained by social institutions (both formal and informal) that carry some level of attachment, commitment, involvement, and belief on the part of the individual, for which he or she does not wish to jeoporadize losing through criminal behavior.

One theory that I particularly like is Gottfredson and Hirschi's Self-Control theory (Gottfredson and Hirschi, 1990). Recall from their theory that criminal propensity is analagous to low self-control, which is a character trait that all possess originally in life but that is contained by most, primarily through good parenting, by around the age of ten. Those who do not develop self-control after that age generally possess a fixed criminal propensity for the remainder of their lives (I do not like this aspect of their theory, since it denies the Biblical concept of redemption). Their definition of self-control (although I know this definition is debatable and has evolved even for Gottfredson and Hirschi) is something along the line of discounting future costs for short term gain. Does this not basically squarely fit with modern secularism. I was listening just today to a lecture by noted Presbyterian theologian R.C. Sproul on the topic of secularism. Secularism denies that there is any reality outside of our existence here and now on earth. This is the ultimate discounting of the future. Could a measure of a secularist worldview identify an association between this worldview and criminal behavior? Would this not in part fit with self-control theory? To me, the opposite of true self-control is self-worship, and self-worship is the hallmark of secular humanism.

Here's another concept that I think fits with my worldview. I was also reading a piece by Cook and Laub (2002) today on the downturn of the youth violence epidemic after 1993/1994. They examine period and cohort explanations for these macro-crime trends. Of course they are not the only to do so. My mentor Al Blumstein has done the same in his book on the crime drop. But I find the whole categorizaton of explanations by the label of "period" and "cohort" interesting. From my worldview, since the "sinful human nature" is universal, the only cohort effect that could ever really be expected to impact macro-crime trends in any meaningful way is simply the size of the cohort. One cohort should not be expected to be more or less "sinful" than another. Thus, I think period explanations for macro-crime trends, many of which are "routine activity" in nature, fit more clearly with a Biblical worldview.

I could continue this blog but let me just wrap up by suggesting one other thing. I don't like when I hear Christians basically say that criminology is a simple discipline because the explanation for crime is just "sin". I do indeed believe that sin is the root explanation for criminal behavior. But it is also the root explanation for health problems. And yet why do some sinners commit crimes while others don't and why do some sinners get cancer while others don't. We don't say to medical scientists that they should just accept "sin" as the answer to their inquiry. We don't hear Christians going around saying that sin causes cancer either; instead they say things like "smoking causes cancer". So to me the interesting thing for a Christian criminologist to figure out is why sin plays itself out in criminal behavior for some but plays itself out for others in other areas that are not criminally related.

Parole Moratorium

If anyone out there follows Pennsylvania criminal justice news stories, you're probably aware that we currently have a parole moratorium in our state (i.e., no parole releases are permitted from our state Dept. of Corrections). This was the result of an unfortunate recent situation in which a parolee who had only been out of prison for about a month shot and killed a Philadelphia police officer. This is the latest in a series of cop shootings in Philadelphia. Everybody is asking "what could have been done differently?" and "why did this happen?" We can't probe Mr. Giddings (the parolee in this incident) for answers because he was shot and killed in the subsequent gunfight with the police. Giddings fit the perfect mold for Moffitt's "lifecourse persistent" offender typology though. He had a criminal career that began at age 10 with a strong-arm robbery of a mentally ill person (sounds like Stanley in Shaw's "Jack-Roller" huh?). He most likely was a psychopath. In retrospect, all indications were that he was going to act out violently again. The problem is that these types of individuals are very difficult to identify prospectively. Is there any risk prediction tool for early identification of an individual like this? Is there any correctional treatment program that stands any chance of being effective with such an offender? I'm interested in any thoughts/discussion on this situation, either from a policy perspective or a theoretical perspective.

Criminology In The Making (Part 2)

Has anyone read the book Criminology In The Making: An Oral History by John Laub? In this book, John presents his personal interviews with several pioneer criminologists including Edwin Lemert, Donald Cressey, Thorsten Sellin, Al Cohen, Lloyd Ohlin, and Daniel Glaser. I love this book. I think we need more students of the history of our discipline. So I often ask myself "what is my first book going to be once I'm finished this whole Ph.D. thing?". I have this idea of doing a follow-up to John's book which will include interviews with another generation of "giants" in criminology (a Criminology In The Making: Part II if you will). Particularly I'd love to do an extended interview with Al Blumstein and Travis Hirschi. John already did an interview with Travis Hirschi (who by the way was John's dissertation chair) in the introduction to the Craft of Criminology. NIJ also recently did an interview with Al Blumstein. But I'd like to explore these two in more detail and specifically get a perspective from each on looking back at the "great debate" in criminology. For those who don't know what the "great debate" is, Vold, Bernard, and Snipes coined this phrase in reference to a very heated debate in the mid to late 1980s between the Blumstein camp and the Hirschi camp on the nature of the all-too-familiar age-crime curve.

So who else would be good to interview for such a book? Oh, and don't anybody go stealing my book idea.

Outlaws and Deviants

Ok, so I finally got around to posting my first blog on this site. Between work, school, and raising three little daughters, my time is booked solid. By way of introduction, I work full-time for the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections as Chief of Projections and Population Statistics in the Bureau of Planning, Research, Statistics, and Grants. At the same time, I'm working on my Ph.D. in Criminology & Criminal Justice at the University of Maryland (#1 Crim program in the country I might add). But more importantly, my wife and I are raising our three daughters who are all currently under the age of three (yeah, I know, we have our hands full).

But enough about me. I want to move on to my blog. I set up this blog in hopes of stimulating discussion with other brilliant minds out there on issues related to what we study in the discipline of criminology. I couldn't find a similar blog out there (let me know if you know of one), and I thought it would be both fun and intellectually stimulating to set this up. So join me.

For this first blog on this site, I'm actually gonna cheat a little bit and re-post a blog that I posted last night on another site. Yesterday there was a piece on the New York Time's Freakonomics blog entitled "Who Are The Outlaws? A Freakonomics Quorum" (http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/16/who-are-the-outlaws-a-freakonomics-quorum/). In this post, a few individuals who "know a bit about outlaws" were asked to answer the following three questions: (1) Does America still have an outlaw group, (2) If so, why do you consider them outlaws, and (3) Does society need outlaws? One of the "experts" who responded was Chris Uggen, a professor from the University of Minnesota who should be familiar to criminologists. Here's what I wrote in response to his piece:

"I’m writing in response to Chris Uggen’s section in this piece on “outlaws”. As a Ph.D. student in Criminology at the University of Maryland, I’m obviously familiar with Uggen’s work and was both excited to see him writing here on this blog and interested to see what he had to say. His answer clearly demonstrates an affinity to the “status characteristic” hypothesis of labeling theory (e.g., the writings of Tannenbaum, Erickson, Becker, etc.). The part of his response that piqued my curiosity was his statement that “our standards for outlaws are relative, not absolute; they change over time and social space”. I agree that this is the case. However I’m more interested in the “should”. In other words, should this be the case? Is there a definitive standard outside of our time and space from which to we should define deviancy, where does this standard come from, and should we as a society move from our current relativistic definitions of deviancy to such an absolute standard if it exists? The problem with our relativistic definitions of deviancy (or outlaws), as I believe Uggen hints around, is that some are considered deviants (or outlaws) in their own time but are viewed down the corridors of history as heroes and saints. Some of my own personal heroes were considered outlaws during their own time. I do believe that there is an absolute standard of deviancy that separates from our human, relativistic definitions of deviancy and would be interested in engaging in discussion with anyone interested in the topic. I also believe, as Durkheim did, that deviancy is normal to a society. I believe that human nature is towards deviancy as opposed to conformity. In true “social control” fashion, I believe the question to be answered by theorists/researchers is why we’re not all deviants (or delinquents/criminals, as is the question most often addressed by social control theorists in the field of criminology).
The second concept that I believe is a natural extension of a discussion of “outlaws” (or deviancy) is the concept of redemption. Uggen makes a brief mention of redemption in his last paragraph. This is a concept that is making a come-up in our field, especially in the area of what is referred to as restorative justice and prisoner reentry. I believe we as a society need to better understand and embrace the concept of redemption. As Thomas Hill put it, how can we as a society promote moving one from “hell-raiser to family man”? Some of my mentors in the field discuss this in terms of “desistance” from delinquency/criminal behavior. I wonder, can one go through a process of desistance from deviancy and what does that look like? This is a topic that I’m fairly certain Uggen would be interested in based on his publications. Again, I’d enjoy engaging in a discussion on the topic."

So who wants to discuss this with me? Any outlaws out there? What do you think of the concept of an absolute standard of deviancy? What about the concept of redemption?