This entry focuses on the three major sociological theories of crime and delinquency: strain, social learning, and control theories. It then briefly describes several other important theories of crime, most of which represent elaborations of these three theories. Finally, efforts to develop integrated theories of crime are briefly discussed.
All of the theories that are described explain crime in terms of the social environment, including the family, school, peer group, workplace, community, and society. These theories, however, differ from one another in several ways: they focus on somewhat different features of the social environment, they offer different accounts of why the social environment causes crime, and some focus on explaining individual differences in crime while others attempt to explain group differences in crime (e.g., why some communities have higher crime rates than other communities).
ROBERT AGNEW
See also CLASS AND CRIME; CRIME CAUSATION: BIOLOGICAL THEORIES; CRIME CAUSATION: ECONOMIC THEORIES; CRIME CAUSATION: POLITICAL THEORIES; CRIME CAUSATION: PSYCHOLOGICAL THEORIES; DELINQUENT AND CRIMINAL SUBCULTURES; DEVIANCE; FAMILY RELATIONSHIPS AND CRIME; GENDER AND CRIME; JUVENILE AND YOUTH GANGS; MASS MEDIA AND CRIME; RACE AND CRIME; RIOTS: BEHAVIORAL ASPECTS; UNEMPLOYMENT AND CRIME; WHITE-COLLAR CRIME: HISTORY OF AN IDEA.
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12 months ago
Mike michaelgrosu ((at)) gmail dot com
Awesome website, everything is explained in a simple way and easy to understand. This helped me a lot with my essay. However they need to include the subcultural theory as well, because that took me a while to understand.
about 1 year ago
d.heck dheck50 ((at)) yahoo dot com
this is cool!
about 1 year ago
lani jhulean_1384 ((at)) yahoo dot com
i am suppose to conduct a research on theories on crime causation and what are the theories that is being used by the police in the enforcement of law hope that this site is available for information. in case that you can help me please contact me via my email add posted
about 1 year ago
Barb J richtrrailer ((at)) yahoo dot com
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about 1 year ago
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about 1 year ago
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about 1 year ago
Kim jtwench_1999 ((at)) yahoo dot com
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about 1 year ago
Kim JTwench1999 ((at)) yahoo dot com
Thanks! This is great for my homework.
about 1 year ago
Tommy stratman2001 ((at)) hotmail dot com
This is a good run-down of Crime theory.
about 1 year ago
Eddie eddie_cardona ((at)) att dot net
why is social control theory and social learning theory are important to a crime analyst?