Culture and Crime: The Influence of Cultural Values and Social Norms on Criminal Behavior
Overview
This essay examines the relationship between culture and criminal behavior by analyzing how cultural values and social norms shape human conduct from birth. It argues that culture, defined as patterns of behavior acquired and conveyed through symbols, establishes societal standards that regulate behavior and determine whether individuals engage in criminal activity. The paper contends that the internalization of cultural values through socialization makes learned behaviors powerful determinants of criminal behavior, with social institutions playing a coercive role in transmitting these values.
What this essay covers
- Definition and characteristics of culture according to Kroeber and Kluckhohn, including culture as both product and regulator of action
- Internalization of social norms and values from birth, including general versus limited culture and the role of socialization
- Influence of cultural values on criminal behavior through reward and punishment associations, and the coercive nature of social institutions
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Culture and Crime
Although anthropologists and sociologists have different definitions of culture, the most accurate and complete characterization of the concept is given by A.L. Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn. They defined culture as entailing explicit and implicit patterns of behavior acquired and conveyed by symbols, which comprised the society's unique achievement. Cultural systems are both products of action as well as regulators of future action. Given the broad variance in how humans fulfill their biological and social needs, each society has its own behaviors that dictate how these human drives and needs should be satisfied. These behaviors are founded on geographical factors, historical events, or random occurrences and are transmitted from generation to generation. The rules regulating social relations may be based on etiquette, morality, or law, depending on the nature and strata of society. Every member of society is conditioned to observe the endorsed social rules from birth: certain behaviors are encouraged while others are strongly condemned.
Cultural values are not always authentic variables and may sometimes be shaped by the quality and structure of economic relations or moral transformations. However, they are independent in their effects once they are established: because cultural values are enacted through the involuntary socialization process, they continue to dictate human relations independent of the economic, moral, or intellectual factors that created them.