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When considering why someone would commit a criminal act, there are many theories to help you understand the reasoning behind an individual’s actions. These theories apply to a range of criminal acts including general criminal acts and digital criminal acts. The self-control theory states that criminal acts depend on how much self-control an individual has, whereas the learning theory states that criminal behavior is learned behavior like anything else. Sutherland had his own ideas on the learning theory, including nine propositions and three different concepts within these propositions. Rational choice theory states that people make a rational choice to commit a criminal act. An extension of rational choice theory, routine activities theory states that people are likely to commit criminal acts when there are three conditions present. Each theory gives it’s on depiction of why criminal activity occurs, and each theory can be applied to multiple scenarios.
When you find yourself a victim of digital crime, you may ask yourself what makes a person commit a digital crime? Naturally you would want to know what made them do this to you, and why you were targeted. There are several theories that can help to answer these questions. Two of these theories are the self-control theory, and the variations of the learning theory. How do these theories relate to crime in general, and are there other ways of explaining why someone will commit a crime? There are many things that go into answering these questions, and we will talk about that here. It is important to understand some of these theories, in order to gain some understanding of criminal behavior.
The first theory, the self-control theory, is based on a social control theory. It is based on a person’s self-control or their ability to control their actions (Taylor, Fritsch, & Liederbach, 2015). This theory states that a person is likely to commit a crime if they have little self-control. Marcum and associates explain how Gottfredson and Hirschi’s version of the self-control theory emphasizes a person’s environment as both stable, and unlikely to cause an individual to be involved in deviance, or as unstable and a contributing factor to a person’s likeliness to deviate (Marcum, Higgins, Wolfe, & Ricketts, 2011). It can be said, based on self-control theory that when a person has limited self-control they are more likely to be risk takers and will prefer easy over harder tasks, in which these traits will cause an inability in the individual to assess consequences of their actions in an accurate manner. For example, a person who has an unstable family life growing up is likely to participate in deviant behavior as they get older, because they have developed a low self-control type of personality. For a person with low self-control the temptation to pirate illegal movies or music online would win out over their ability to see the consequences involved in doing so. Because they have low self-control, and it is easier to pirate the movie or music than to go out and spend their money to buy it, they are highly likely to pirate it instead.
The second theory, learning theory is based on the idea that an individual will commit a crime because they have learned the all the necessary skills and things needed in order to commit a crime (Taylor, Fritsch, & Liederbach). There are four theories based on the learning theory, but here the differential association theory is the one to be discussed. The differential association theory is Sutherland’s take on learning theory, and he believed that deviance is a learned behavior. He came up with nine propositions to explain his theory. In these nine propositions, he touches on three different concepts to explain criminality as a society, an individual, and a group (Mausueda, 2006). He uses normative conflict to describe the major cause of crime in society. Sutherland believed that normative conflict could describe how groups define the law as either rules to be followed no matter what, or rules to be broken in some situations. He used differential association to describe individual act of criminality. He believed that criminality is process that is learned from the people who are closest to us, and long the way we learn the attitudes and skills as well as justifications for our criminal actions. Sutherland explained group criminal acts by differential social organization. Here he explains that groups who are organized in favor of crime, and those organized against it exist side by side and interact in complex ways. In using the example from earlier, pirating music and movies is a widely popular behavior. Applying the learning theory, say an individual is talking with their friends about a new song by an artist they all like. One individual asks their friends if they downloaded the new song yet, and one of them says that they don’t have any extra money to buy it from iTunes. Another person in the group suggests that they just pirate it, since everyone does it. The individual without the means to buy the song is being taught (and learning) that pirating is okay and acceptable since “everyone does it.”
So how does self-control theory apply to crime in general? The same concepts can be applied to any type of criminal act. Low self-control contributes to a person being more inclined to steal a candy bar from the store because they want it badly enough, or a person who lashes out and gets violent with another person because they upset them enough. Having low self-control means that when your emotions, whether they be anger or excitement, are high you are likely to become uninhibited and act out criminally. The same can be said about the learning theory, that the same concepts can be applied to any type of criminal act. If learning theory is based on the idea that criminal behaviors are learned behaviors, then it would make sense to apply this idea to digital crime, or violent crimes, or any crime type. Let’s take a violent crime for example. If a child grows up in a household where their parents are constantly fighting and one is violent towards the other, that child is likely to grow up thinking that this is normal acceptable behavior. They are likely to act out in the same manner.
Another theory that can explain the motivation behind digital crime, as well as crime in general is the rational choice theory. This theory generally states that people choose to commit crimes, by exercising their free will, and by taking into account the potential risks versus the benefits of committing the act (Akers, 2012). Applying this to digital crime, a person might weigh the risks and benefits of creating spyware and implementing it. They would probably be inclined to implement it if they thought that the benefits, like gaining people’s personal information in order to get into their online bank account, outweighed the risks. This theory can also be applied to general crime, like for instance car theft. A person would weigh the risks and benefits of stealing a very nice, very expensive car sitting on the side of a busy street, against the risks of getting caught. It is likely the person will choose not to steal the car, because the risk of getting caught is high. An extension of rational choice theory is routine activities theory. This theory generally states that crime occurs when three conditions are present. These conditions are: someone motivated to offend, a relevant target, and absence of prevention. As Taylor, Fritsch and Liederbach (2015) note, routine activities theory is applicable to digital crime because of the sheer volume of people and activity involved with technology and accessing to the Internet. The more people access the Internet, the more likely an individual is to either become a target or be the one targeting someone. This could apply to crime in general because it has a basis in routine activity. For example, an offender who is planning on breaking into a person’s house will find a suitable target, who is likely to be gone during the day. They will study the target for a certain time period in order to learn their routine, and if all three conditions mentioned earlier are met, they will commit their criminal act.
There are many different theories that attempt to explain deviant behavior. Some of these theories can be applied to crime in general, and some of them can even explain digital crime. It is difficult to be sure of what goes into a decision to commit a crime, and whether or not one theory can clearly define a criminal act, or an offender’s mindset beforehand. It is important to have a good understanding of several theories, in order to apply that knowledge to certain criminal acts.
Akers, R. L. (2012). Criminological Theories. Introduction and Evaluation. New York: Routledge. Retrieved from http://eds.a.ebscohost.com/eds/ebookviewer/ebook/bmx lYmtfXzYwNzAwOV9fQU41?sid=8442d356-2097-4ca-b61f-3ad830d5aa2c@essioninm gr4005&vid=2&format=EB&rid=6
Marcum, C. D., Higgins, G. E., Wolfe, S. E., & Ricketts, M. L. (2011). Examining the Intersection of Self-control, Peer Association and Neutralization in Explaining Digital Piracy. Western Criminology Review, 12(3), 60-74. Retrieved from http://eds.a.ebscohost.com/eds/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=e0c0ee53-6aeb-4992-88b9- 2fcfd87fd62a%40sessionmgr4002&vid=1&hid=4113
Matsueda, R. L. (2006). Differential social organization, collective action, and crime. Crime Law Soc Change. DOI 10.1007/s10611-006-9045-1 Retrieved from www.faculty.washington. edu/matsueda/Papers/DSO.pdf
Taylor, R. W., Fritsch, E. J., & Liederbach, J. (2015). Digital Crime and Digital Terrorism. Third Edition. Pearson, Inc.
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