Robert Agnew - Toward a Unified Criminology

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Toward a Unified Criminology

NEW PERSPECTIVES IN CRIME, DEVIANCE, AND LAW SERIES
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Edited by Ramiro Martinez Jr. and Abel Valenzuela Jr.

Judging Juveniles: Prosecuting Adolescents in Adult and Juvenile Courts
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The Technology of Policing: Crime Mapping, Information Technology, and the Rationality of Crime Control
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Getting Played:
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Punished: Policing the Lives of Black and Latino Boys
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Toward a Unified Criminology:
Integrating Assumptions about Crime, People, and Society
Robert Agnew

Robert Agnew

NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Agnew, Robert, 1953
Toward a unified criminology: integrating assumptions about crime, people and society / Robert Agnew.
p. cm. (New perspectives in crime, deviance, and law series)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 9780814705087 (hardback) ISBN 9780814705094 (pb) ISBN 9780814705278 (ebook) ISBN 9780814707906 (ebook)
1. Crime. 2. Criminologists. 3. Criminology. I. Title.
HV6025.A38 2011
364dc23 2011028152

New York University Press books are printed on acid-free paper,
and their binding materials are chosen for strength and durability.
We strive to use environmentally responsible suppliers and materials
to the greatest extent possible in publishing our books.

Manufactured in the United States of America

c 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
p 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

3 Determinism versus Agency:
Is Crime the Result of Forces beyond
the Individuals Control or Free Choice?

4 The Nature of Human Nature:
Are People Self-Interested,
Socially Concerned, or Blank Slates?

5 The Nature of Society:
Is Society Characterized
by Consensus or Conflict?

6 The Nature of Reality:
Is There an Objective Reality
That Can Be Accurately Measured?

This book has its origins in an earlier book I wrote, Why Do Criminals Offend? A General Theory of Crime and Delinquency (Agnew, 2005). I have long felt that each of the major theories in criminology has something useful to say about the causes of crime, and this book was my effort to integrate them into a general theory. The theory I developed is quite solid, but I have since come to realize that it is built on a weak foundation. While the general theory does a good job of pulling together the core arguments from several theories of crime, it does not devote sufficient attention to such foundational issues as the nature of crime, people, and society. For example, the theory barely discusses the nature of crime; instead, it focuses on the street crimes that dominate mainstream research in criminology. As a result, there is some uncertainty about whether the theory applies to other types of crime (and what those types of crime might be). The theory implicitly assumes that crime is determined by forces beyond the individuals control; it does not discuss whether people exercise free will and, if so, how that might affect the arguments that are made. Likewise, the theory says little about human nature, despite the fact that the causes it examines are derived from theories that make different assumptions about the nature of people. And the theory devotes little attention to the nature of societies and how variation in societal characteristics affects the causes that are described. Like many mainstream criminologists, I ignored or took a lot for granted in my attempt to better explain crime.

As a result, I started to think and read about the underlying assumptions on which crime theories are based, particularly assumptions about the nature of crime, people, society, and reality. For example: Are people naturally self-interested, socially concerned, or blank slates shaped by the environment? Is society characterized by consensus over core values and interests or by conflict, with some groups oppressing others? And is there an objective reality that can be accurately measured, or are there multiple subjective realities? It quickly became apparent that the assumptions that criminologists make in these areas have a fundamental impact on their work: they largely determine what criminologists study, the causes they examine, the control strategies they recommend, and how they test their theories and evaluate crime-control strategies. Further, they are at the root of the division in criminology. There are many theories and perspectives in the discipline, and the differences between them usually derive from the different underlying assumptions they make. But despite the importance of the assumptions that are made, most are seldom discussed, particularly by mainstream criminologists.

Recent research in several disciplines, however, has taken a new look at many of these assumptions, including those regarding free will versus determinism, the nature of human nature, the nature of society, and how we perceive reality. This research suggests that the different assumptions made by crime theories and perspectives have each captured a part of the truth. Drawing on this research, I offer a new set of underlying assumptions for criminology in this book. These assumptions integrate and extend the different assumptions made by current theories and perspectives. As such, they provide a more solid foundation on which to construct a general or unified theory of crime.

The construction of such a theory is critical for the success of criminology. As Weisburd and Piquero (2008) point out, criminologists are able to explain only a small portion of the variance in crime. And the amount of variance explained has not increased in recent years. In my view, the problem is not a lack of theories or explanations; the discipline is blessed (cursed?) with scores of theories. Rather, the problem is the inability of criminologists to create a general theory that captures the essential insights of the different theories and perspectives. It is my hope that this book helps pave the way for such a theory.