Esteemed criminology writer Michael R. Gottfredson believes he and other scholars know what motivates people to commit a crime – or rather, what prevents them.
“Most people don’t commit crime because it never occurred to them,” he said. “They’d disappoint too many people and lose affection of those close to them.”
That general belief, called the Control Theory, states that people don’t commit crimes because they are afraid of the social repercussions. This outweighs the Deterrence Theory, which states that it is the fear of punishment or sanctions of the state that deters people from committing crimes, Gottfredson told a packed room at the ASU College of Nursing and Health Innovation on Thursday.
Students filled the chairs and lined the classroom walls to hear a lecture by Gottfredson, a professor of law and society and sociology at the University of California-Irvine who has published 13 books on criminology.
“I want to take a wrecking ball to Deterrence Theory today,” Gottfredson said. “It’s the one everyone tends to believe because everyone can say that the law and criminal justice system are a reason they don’t commit crimes.”
The criminology community agrees that it is hard to prove that policing directly deters crime, Gottfredson said.
He also said randomized controlled studies have shown that child rearing has a large impact on a person’s health and self-control.
“You don’t need to depend on the justice system to define crime,” Gottfredson said.
Gottfredson defines crime as a person’s pursuit of a short-term goal without regard to negative long-term consequences.
“The best way to think about crime is to think about why people don’t commit crimes,” he said. “There is so little crime, but there are unlimited opportunities to do so. The majority of the time most people aren’t committing crime, even when they have the opportunity.”
Gottfredson claims that everyone is born with the same needs and wants, but it’s the variation in people’s levels of self-control that lead to crime.
Once self-control is established, Gottfredson said, it characterizes nearly everything about a person.
“Most people would not think about stealing when given the chance,” he said. “Nor are we usually violent in arguments even though you could pick up the lamp next to you and hit the person over the head to effectively end the argument.”
Gottfredson recognized ASU’s School of Criminology and Criminal Justice for being one of the leading criminology schools in the nation and commended students for attending it.
“I think it’s great for ASU to have such a prestigious scholar come down here,” graduate student Clair White said. “The turnout shows what a prominent figure he is.”
Both students and teachers were thrilled to have such an esteemed criminologist visit.
“One of my students said to me, ‘This guy must be famous, he’s in all my criminology books!’” associate professor Michael White said.
Gottfredson’s thoughtful and thorough analysis of the Control Theory garnered student support.
“The most surprising thing he said was that Control Theory is the answer (to why people commit crimes), which is what everyone who studies criminology is looking for,” student Bethany York said. “He had the secret.”
Contact the reporter at devon.shaw@asu.edu
