Ray Paternoster’s research while affiliated with University of Maryland, College Park and other places

In recent years, criminological theorists, mainly theorists of desistance from crime, have incorporated notions of human agency into their theories. Although acknowledging the importance of human agency, most desistance theorists have not presented a detailed conceptualization of precisely what is meant by human agency (what agency consists of and how it is manifested) nor have they been aware of the fact that the understanding of human agency that they have articulated is fundamentally at odds with the substantive content of the theory. This paper presents a detailed discussion of one conceptualization of human agency, a conceptualization that sees human agency as both very individualistic and cognitive. At its core, human agency is understood to be action—deliberate and intended or willed conduct. When persons act as agents, they direct their behavior toward some goal and is preceded by processes of deliberation, decision-making, intention formation, volition or activation of the will, and guidance. This notion of human agency is incompatible with event causality but is entirely consistent with a teleological explanation, an explanation of human behavior in terms of the goals that are sought by persons. The conceptualization of human agency developed here is fully consistent with rational choice theory and the recently developed identity theory of desistance because our choices, and intentional actions based on those choices, are essential expressions of our identity.

This chapter pays homage to the history that has become popularly known as the classical school of criminology. It begins with a brief discussion of the early philosophical history of classical criminology and its origins not so much in Beccaria, but in both the French Encyclopedists and the English moral philosophers and free thinkers. The bulk of attention will be devoted to the reappearance of classical theory assumptions since the late 1960s in the form of deterrence, routine activities, and rational choice theory. The most general of the decision-based theories is taken, with rational choice theory with deterrence and routine activities theories as more specific variations of rational choice theory. Regardless of any subtle differences, all these theories share the common assumption that offending is a matter of choice based upon the anticipated costs and benefits of the action, and so all are premised on classical criminology.

Theory has suggested that between-individual differences in decision making can be used to explain criminal offending. Individuals who commit crime have been described as lacking willpower or as too present oriented, leading them to think in the here and now. In this chapter, temporal discounting is proposed as one way to explain how an individual may consider immediate rewards and underweight future sanction costs, allowing criminal behavior in the present to become a rational choice under expected utility theory. This chapter provides an overview of temporal orientation as it is related to the discounted utility model and describes how these concepts may have implications for the celerity principle of deterrence.

This chapter reviews the empirical evidence on deterrence. It is divided into three sections: that pertaining to perceptual studies of deterrence, deterrence and the police, and deterrence and imprisonment. In testing these deterrence hypotheses, researchers have employed either a survey methodology based on self-reported offending or one where hypothetical crime scenarios are used. The police may also deter crime through the use of specific strategies. There is a large body of research on the effectiveness of various police strategies in regards to crime prevention. There is good evidence to suggest that both police presence and deployment strategies can effectively reduce crime, although it is not clear that this is entirely due to deterrence. The chapter examines the specific deterrent effects of harsher sanctions, including both the effect of imprisonment on reoffending and the effect of adult waiver policies.

Labeling theory is a vibrant area of research and theoretical development within the field of criminology. Originating in the mid- to late-1960s in the United States at a moment of tremendous political and cultural conflict, labeling theorists brought to center stage the role of government agencies, and social processes in general, in the creation of deviance and crime. The theory represented both a theoretical and methodological break from the past, and it could reasonably be argued that it was one of the dominant theoretical perspectives in the study of crime and deviance from the late 1960s until the early 1980s. It was also responsible for spurring countless empirical studies over this time period. Although there were periods when interest in labeling process was in decline, particularly after 1985, labeling theory has had a bit of a resurgence in recent years. Labeling theory has become part of a more general criminological theory of sanctions that includes deterrence theory’s focus on the crime reduction possibilities of sanctions, procedural justice theory’s focus on the importance of the manner in which sanctions are imposed, and defiance/reintegrative theory’s emphasis on individual differences in the social bond and persons’ emotional reaction to the label. Labeling theories of crime are often referred to as social reaction theories, because they focus primarily on the consequences of responses or reactions to crime. These responses or reactions typically focus on three sets of actors: (1) informal social others, such as the friends, parents, or partners of persons committing crimes, and who disapprove of the offender’s behavior; (2) organizations or institutions such as the criminal justice system, whose function it is to “do something about” crime; and (3) those who perceive a threat by some behavior and want to see legislation passed to outlaw it. All of these very diverse actions have one thing in common: they are all reactions to crime. As such, they are said to be “labels” because they have the quality of attaching a name or a signature to someone or some behavior—hence the name “labeling theory.” From this, labeling theory can be understood as involving two main hypotheses. First is the status characteristics hypothesis, which states that labels are imposed in part because of the status of those doing the labeling and those being labeled. The second is the secondary deviance hypothesis, which essentially argues that deviant labels create problems that the one being labeled must adjust to and deal with, and that under certain conditions labels can lead to greater involvement in crime and deviance.

This book deals with criminological theory, criminology, and criminal justice. It addresses a wide range of topics relevant to criminology, including socioeconomic factors that contribute to crime such as biology, community and inequality, emotions, immigration, social institutions, social learning, social support, parenting, peer networks, street culture, and market economy. It also examines the developmental criminology perspective and the developmental risk factors for crime and delinquency across five key risk domains (individuals, family, peers, schools, and community). Moreover, it reviews criminological research that ascribes criminal behavior to the interaction between individuals and street culture; Cesare Lombroso's views about the causes and correlates of crime as delineated in his book, Criminal Man ; the state of contemporary gang ethnography; Travis Hirschi's major contributions to the methods of analysis in criminology; the role of gender in delinquency; the link between coercion and crime; the psychology of criminal conduct; violence in drug markets in suburbs and the code of the suburb; the impact of imprisonment on reoffending; green criminology; and why crime levels are extraordinarily high in some places but low or totally absent in most places, and how place management accounts for this disparity. The book also looks at a variety of theories on criminology, including the rational choice theory, the theory of target search, Robert Agnew's general strain theory, the “Integrated Cognitive Antisocial Potential” theory developed by David Farrington, routine activity theory, and crime-as-choice theory.

This book deals with criminological theory, criminology, and criminal justice. It addresses a wide range of topics relevant to criminology, including socioeconomic factors that contribute to crime such as biology, community and inequality, emotions, immigration, social institutions, social learning, social support, parenting, peer networks, street culture, and market economy. It also examines the developmental criminology perspective and the developmental risk factors for crime and delinquency across five key risk domains (individuals, family, peers, schools, and community). Moreover, it reviews criminological research that ascribes criminal behavior to the interaction between individuals and street culture; Cesare Lombroso's views about the causes and correlates of crime as delineated in his book, Criminal Man ; the state of contemporary gang ethnography; Travis Hirschi's major contributions to the methods of analysis in criminology; the role of gender in delinquency; the link between coercion and crime; the psychology of criminal conduct; violence in drug markets in suburbs and the code of the suburb; the impact of imprisonment on reoffending; green criminology; and why crime levels are extraordinarily high in some places but low or totally absent in most places, and how place management accounts for this disparity. The book also looks at a variety of theories on criminology, including the rational choice theory, the theory of target search, Robert Agnew's general strain theory, the “Integrated Cognitive Antisocial Potential” theory developed by David Farrington, routine activity theory, and crime-as-choice theory.