Archiwum Kryminologii (Archives of Criminology)

7-42

Authors: Krzysztof Krajewski

This article dears with some problems related to application of Wolfgang’s and Ferracuti's subculture of violence theory explanation of violent criminal behaviour. Wolfgang and Ferracuti adopted in their concept cultural approach to explanation of crime in general, and violent crime in particular. Doing so, they rejected openly usefulness in this particular area of Merton’s anomie theory. They adopted so-called normative theory of culture, when means that they understand under the term culture a normative system consisting of values, norms and behavioral patterns, which exert pressure over individuals being under their influence, what results in uniformity of human behaviour. Application of this concept in criminology means that there may exist specific normative systems containing such values and norms which may lead individuals influenced by them to criminal behaviour. In other words it means, that when we observe within certain social group high criminality rates, higher than the average ones in a given society we may explain them in terms of the specific features of the culture of this group. This way of thinking is not totally new in American criminological literature. The best example of it constitutes W.B. Miller’s concept of flower-class culture as a generating milieu of gang delinquency. Wolfgang and Ferracuti claim that disproportionately high rates of violent crimes among and members of American lower-class (especially members of ethnic minorities) result from specific subculture existing within this social group, which they call subculture of violence. This subculture is the specific normative system which is characterized by tolerance and permissiveness which respect to the use of violence in interpersonal relations. The use of violence is perceived by members of such subculture as something normal and natural, they do not consider it as either illegal or immoral. On the contrary, violent people showing physical prowess and readiness of high enjoy many social rewards, high social status and prestige. People who do not conform to the requirements of such subculture face many troubles within their groups, including even possible ostracism. Wolfgang's and Ferracuti's concept contains evidently two separate layers. The first one, sociological, deals with subculture of violence as a social phenomenon and the problems related to the existence, functioning and transmission of violence related norms and values within society. The concept of subculture itself plays here a key role. The second one, psychological, deals with psychological consequences for the individuals of being under influence of such subcultural ethos. The main concern here are changes in attitudes and ways of perceiving environment resulting from the adoption of subcultural values, which one observes among violent people. These two layers are connected by very important thesis that aggression and violence constitute learned behaviour deeply internalised in the personalities of individuals. As it was said before subculture of violence thesis was conceived by Wolfgang and Ferracuti primarily to explain excessively high rates of violent crime among members of American lower class. But they point out as well to other examples of such subcultures as for example barbaricino code in Sardinia, customary vendetta in Albanova district in Italy, Colombian violencia or ,,criminal tribes'' in India. All this means that they treat their concept as a broader integrated criminological theory of violent criminal behaviour not limited to specific American context. One can point out to many attempts in the USA at empirical verification of the violent subculture thesis. First of all it is necessary to mention researches done by S. Ball-Rokeach and H. Erlanger. They attempted to verify Wolfgang's and Ferracuti's claims that there must exist significant differences in value systems and attitudes towards the use of violence between violent and non-violent persons, and that people who engage very often in violent incidents enjoy within their communities many social rewards including high status and prestige. The subculture of violence thesis was also used to explain a well-known in the American literature phenomenon of excessively high rates of violent crimes, especially homicides in the southern states. Among attempts at cultural explanations of this phenomenon one can point out first of all to contributions by Hackney, Gastill and Erlanger as well. All mentioned above researches hardly brought conclusive results. They involve many methodological shortcomings' and generally speaking seem to be too simply conceived, using too crude tools to pretend to be real tests of the subculture of violence thesis. This concept still awaits real, comprehensive attempt at empirical verification. When evaluating Wolfgang's and Ferracuti's concept from the theoretical point of view one has to start from the proposition which seems - as it was said before-to constitute the core of the entire concept: aggression and violence constitute learned behaviour. At this moment it is easy to observe similarity with E. D. Sutherland's differential association theory. Sutherland was speaking about conflict between criminal and non-criminal cultures. Existence of this conflict made it possible for an individual to have contacts with patterns of both criminal and law-abiding behaviour. Prevalence of one of them in the immediate environment of the individual decided about its future behavior. Very similarly Wolfgang and Ferracuti speak about the conflict between dominant culture (which they call non-violent culture) and subculture (which they call subculture of violence). This conflict makes possible differential association in the Sutherland’s meaning of the term. There is however one important difference. Sutherland, as it is well know, was strongly influenced in his thinking by G. H. Mead’s symbolic interactionism and sociology of Ch. H. Cooley, what resulted in particular attention paid to the primary social groups and direct interaction. For Sutherland the process of learning criminal behaviour could take place only by means of direct interaction within primary social groups. It is not easy to interpret Wolfgang’s and Ferracuti’s theory with respect to this problem, as they are not very explicit within the subculture. It makes it necessary to carry out a more detailed analysis of what they understand under the term subculture. They say on the one hand that the concept of subculture is strictly connected with the concept of social group. It seems however that this last concept they understand very broadly, when they say that individuals sharing certain values, norms and behavioral patterns constitute social groups. This means that under the term subculture they understand just individuals sharing particular norms and values, at least partly distinct from those existing in the dominant culture. This means as well that such sharing of values does not require direct interaction between individuals. It leads finally to a very important statement that subculture may exist widely dispersed spatially. It is necessary to underline that such understanding of the term subculture is not totally alien even to the contemporary adherents of symbolic interactionism. An article by A. Fine and S. Kleinman constitutes clear example. The essence of this approach is an attempt to avoid ,,reification’’-as above authors call it-of the concept of subculture, what means equaling it with certain social structure, in other words social group. It seems however that one should not press this point of view to the extreme. Interpretation of the meaning of the term culture in terms of individuals behaviour is quite popular in social anthropology, to mention only R. Linton. But it may lead also to certain consequences absurd from sociological and behaviour point of view. It may mean that if somebody behaves in a certain way, he adheres to certain norms and values of which his behaviour is a result. If not, it means that he does not adhere to them. In fact, it is a great simplification from the point of view of the mechanisms of human behaviour. In such a situation the concept of subculture lacks clear empirical meaning and loses its explaining potential. It seem that Wolgang's and Ferracuti's stance results from a very individualistic approach paying attention only to the relation culture-individual, while neglecting a very important one: culture-social group. Very helpful in solving presented above problems may be more detailed analysis of the psychological mechanisms of learning. What is interesting is that Wolfgang and Ferracuti do not go into details with respect to this, and mention only eventual usefulness of either Eysenck's or Bandura’s concepts. This lust one seems to be particularly suitable for the purposes of interpreting subculture of violence concept. Bandura's concepts of observational learning, as well as clear distinction between learning and performance, and analysis of the process of learning from three separate points of view, i.e. acquisition mechanisms instigation mechanism and maintenance mechanisms may be here particularly useful. It means that subculture of violence supplies to individual patterns of violence and aggression which are observed, memorized and in this way learned. It is also obvious that these patterns are not supplied by abstract subculture itself, but by behaviour of other individuals in the immediate environment. It is clear however that there are no people who behave constantly violently, what Wolfgang and Ferracuti admit, but do not elaborate on it. Learned violent patterns may result in violent behaviour only sometimes, when they meet necessary instigating stimuli. They may become more consistent and durable behavioral patterns only when necessary maintaining mechanisms come into being. It is obvious that subculture of violence may, serve as the supplier of both instigating and maintaining mechanisms. Especially these last may be very important. Bandura provides a very important distinction between internal and external control of human behaviour .Internal control means rewards, reinforcements coming from the individual's self. Here internalized values and norms come into action and play on important role. Behaviour, being in accordance with them brings satisfaction to the individual. This aspect of maintaining mechanisms constiutes main subject for Wolfgang and Ferracuti. But there is another one: external control, reinforcements, rewards coming from social environment, from social groups. Wolfgang and Ferracuti pay less attention or almost none to this aspect, because to analyse it one has to connect the meaning of the term subculture with the term social group, what they refuse to do. External control can not be an attribute of subculture itself. It is the function of groups. When one recognizes that subcultural system may be analysed only as a normative system of given- social groups, the possible influence of it becomes much broader. In such an interpretation subcultural influence is not limited only to mechanisms of internal control. Individuals may behave violently because they receive many external rewards for such behaviour. Because of this violent behaviour does not have necessarily to bring special satisfaction to the individual. Such behaviour may result from well known in social psychology mechanisms of group pressure and conformity with group standards. In sum, it seems to be very profitable to use Bandura’s social learning theory to interpret and to broaden Wolfgang's and Ferracuti’s subculture of violence thesis. It is necesary of course to modify their use of the term subculture and connect it strictly with social structures and groups. In such a situation subcultural influence from the psychological point of view may not be limited to the mechanisms of internal control but extended to the external control by social groups, -what makes possible application of the theory as a theory of violent behaviour in general.

97-114

Authors: Alicja Sokołowska

The family, the child's first environment in which his social traits are formed, is imposed upon him and all it is able and wants to offer him is given to him without his consent, choice, and frequently awareness. The parents or persons who replace them decide for the child and organize his existence in his interest in the early stages of his life, and hand down to him the norm sand values according to their own consciousness and beliefs. All of their activities, aimed at the child and at other persons or things as well as their way of perception of and reaction to outer factors, constitute the fabric from which the child derives patterns for his own behaviour. The parents and the closest environment shape the child’s attitude towards himself and other persons through purposeful action and through situations specially created or rendered accessible to the child. In the early childhood in particular, before the child goes to school, his parents play the leading part in his development. For this reason, their human quality is of importance. Despite the fact that there is a vast literature on the family the specialists and practicians in social sciences keep submitting new problems that want explanation. The prognosis of the child's future fate depends first of all on his family environment. The child's socialization, development and mental growth take a normal course if conditions have been provided for his needs to be satisfied. Particularly in the case of a child, the need of love, and attachment predominates among mental needs, with that of favourable contacts with other persons developing somewhat later. A child accepted by his family and cherished with affection –provided he is convinced of that - feels safe and believes that his guardians act for his benefit. The climate at home which is created first and foremost by the parents, is not only important for the child's development but frequently leaves permanent traces in the mind of an adult –often as patterns of behaviour. Children devoid of favourable conditions of socialization in their families often cause serious educational problems and are commonly defined as difficult. The origins of their maladjustment can first of ,all be found in a faulty socialization which makes them more open to bad influence and more apt to break the obligatory social and legal norms. In studies of juvenile delinquents, the symptoms of disturbances in their families are usually found. Divorce is always a result of certain anomalies within the family and brings about disadvantageous conditions for the child's socialization. The future way or life of the child is usually difficult to forecast, during proceedings before the court in particular. For this reason, in more difficult or even doubtful cases, the court appoints an expert who is usually a psychologist or an educator. Admittedly, the expert's observations and findings influence the court’s decision; yet after the decision has become valid and the further course of events does not call for reopening of the proceedings, hardly anybody cares whether the decision concerning the child was really in his interest and whether the situation imposed upon him corresponds with his wishes. At the Faculty of Psychology of the Warsaw University, examinations ordered by the court have for many years been performed in case of children and young persons, including divorce cases of parents, Examination took at least 2-3 visits which rendered possible a comprehensive appraisal of the environment and of the child entangled in his parents conflict. Examination ordered by the court went beyond the child's future situation, including his past and future as well. This made it possible to roughly estimate the influence of a new family situation on the further course of the child's mental development and process of socialization. A follow-up was planned beforehand to verify the conclusions of the examination and the court’s decision. It was interesting to learn about the child's further fate, to compare it with the earlier prognosis, and to examine the child's attitude towards his previous situation (during his parents divorce) and the influence it exerted on him. The above follow-up was conducted in 1984. A hundred persons from Warsaw who had grown of age after the divorce proceedings were included in the study. Therefore, while at the moment of the examination the youngest examined person was aged 2, and the eldest nearly 18, at the moment of follow-up, the previously examined as children were aged 18 to over 30. The time between these two examinations varied from 5 to over 17 years. Only the youngest subjects were just finishing secondary school or starting higher education or some kind of professional training at the time of the follow-up. The elder ones were students or those starting their professional career, while the eldest ones prepared to set up a family and an independent life. The follow-up provides data to verify the prognosis which may either be confirmed or prove incorrect, particularly if new circumstances emerged (or those unknown before) that vitally influenced the examined person's fate. The follow-up may be related to the prognosis in the following four ways: the prognosis was positive which is confirmed by the follow-up (P+F+); the prognosis was negative and negative data are also provided by the follow-up (P-F-); the prognosis was positive which is however not fonfirmed by the follow-up (P+F-); the prognosis was negative but the follow-up appears positive (P -F +). The findings of the follow-up were included in all of the above four group's as follows: P+F+ 82 cases P- F- 4 cases P+F - 6 cases P-F+ 8 cases There were no surprises in the extreme groups: the fates of the child were anticipated to take a favourable course provided the court takes the expert's conclusions into account (P+F+); or the prognosis was bad irrespectively of the court's possible decision (P- F-). On the other hand, in the groups where the follow-up failed to confirm the prognosis, either the diagnosis was wrong or new facts occurred after the examination which conclusively influenced the child's situation. The most numerous was the group of cases in which follow-up confirmed a favourable prognosis. In those cases, the family environment involved was different, as much as the parents mentality and personality traits, cultural standards, living conditions, the child's emotional ties with his parents and many other features. However, there were certain common features which favourably influenced the child's fate and they justified good prognosis. Divorcing parents accepted the court's decision truly in the child's interest pushing their own wishes and ambitions to the background. They remained loyal to each other and respected the child’s rights. They were able to create a climate which guaranteed the feeling of safety of the child and respect for his affection towards the parents. In these conditions, the effects of divorce were less painful for the child and the child could regain mental balance shaken by his parents conflict. In the cases where follow-up confirmed a negative prognosis, the parents considered divorce proceedings to be their business exclusively. The child was just a supplement to their lives which they did not take into consideration; they provided no support for the child who had to depend on himself only, trying to overcome difficulties for which he was not prepared. The fates of the children in the case of whom prognosis proved not consistent with follow-up are interesting. A change for the better meant that the expertise and the court's decision mobilized the parents, and the subsequent course of events confirmed the fact that parents are indispensable if they act in genuine good faith, manifesting kindness towards the child and mutual tolerance and trust. In the last group, the follow-up failed to confirm a favourable prognosis. This was due to facts that occurred some time after the first examination and were difficult to anticipate, which negatively influenced the child's fate (e.g. death of a good guardian). The follow-up made it possible to verify the relevance of methods applied in the examination as well as its general conception, according to which the child referred by the court for examination is an important but not the only element of his parents divorce. In such cases, the expert examines in a different way and context and from a different point of view the same problems in which the court is interested; however, he is able to examine more extensively and penetratingly the conditions that are inaccessible or difficult of access for the court, due to the lack of professional knowledge if not for other reasons. The follow-up confirmed the importance of the family in the child's education and socialization. A broken home creates conditions that can eventually lead to a minor's maladjustment: if there are no factors to stop it, a broken home may produce a delinquency originating situation for the child.

151-200

Authors: Andrzej Gaberle

The basic aim of the study was to investigate the influence of alcohol consumption on the road traffic safety in Poland. For this purpose, statistical data were used, published. by the Road Traffic Department of the Civic Militia Headquarters in the years 1975-1984, as well as the data published in Statistical Yearbooks of the Central Statistical Office for these years. It was impossible to include earlier periods in the analysis as in 1975 the rules of statistical registration of traffic accidents were changed, making the data from before 1975 uncomparable. When analysing the problem of the influence the extent of alcohol consumption has on road traffic safety, attention should be drawn to two problems. Firstly, accidents are caused not only by drunk drivers of vehicles but also by drunk pedestrians. Secondly, the drunkenness of the participants of traffic is not an isolated factor but it acts in correlation with other factors, such as e.g. faulty configuration of the road or wrong organization of road traffic. The taking into account of the above problems complicates the analysis of the discussed subject; however, they should not be left out of consideration. A collision of a car with a pedestrian has for many years now been the most frequent type of a traffic accident in Poland, amounting to 43-45 per cent of all traffic accidents. Moreover, traffic accidents caused by drunk pedestrians constitute 43-50 per cent of all accidents caused by drunk persons. Therefore, the contribution of drunk persons to traffic accidents in Poland is considerable; yet it is very difficult to find out how many drunk pedestrains participate in traffic and, in this connection, what is the relation between the number of such persons and that of accidents they cause. For that matter, such difficulties arise also , when one tries to find out the number of drunk drivers of vehicles as in Poland there are no data available which would make such an estimation possible. In spite of these difficulties, the basic hypothesis has been confirmed, according to which the greater the extent of alcohol consumption, the. Higher the frequency of traffic accidents caused by drunk persons. As shown by a statistical analysis by means of the correlation coefficient, there is a strong direct correlation between the two phenomena (r =0.680). This correlation was true for the years 1975-1980 only, while for the years 1981-1984 the smaller was the extent of alcohol consumption, the greater was the frequency of traffic accidents caused by drunk persons. It should be assumed that this absurd result was caused by the lowering of the official figures on the extent of alcohol consumption in Poland in the years 198l-1984 which did not take into account the consumption of illegally distilled alcohol. An estimation was made of the above figures and thus the approximate actual extent of alcohol consumption in Poland in the years 1981-1984 was established. Also the results of traffic accidents caused by drunk persons were studied. Judged by the number of deaths per accident, they .appeared to be much more serious than those caused by sober participants of traffic. The difference between the results of accidents caused by drunk as compared with sober persons was also found to vary according to whether the drunk perpetrator was a pedestrian or a driver, and what vehicle he was driving in the latter case. For instance, while 0.114 persons per accident died in traffic accidents caused in 1979-1984 b sober pedestrians, the ratio was 0.156 in the case of drunk pedestrians; the respective ratios were 0.116 and 0.191 in the case of sober vs. drunk drivers of passenger cars, and 0.132 and 0.320 in the case of sober vs. drunk drivers of tractors. The distribution of traffic accidents caused by drunk persons according to the time of the day, day of the week and month of the year was also analysed. The yearly distribution of accidents caused by drunk pedestrians appeared to shape differently as compared with accidents caused by drunk drivers. Drunk drivers of vehicles cause the greatest number of accidents in the period from July till October. and drunk pedestrians - from October till January. Also the analysis of the territorial distribution of traffic accidents caused by drunk persons brought interesting results, Drunk pedestrians cause traffic accidents first and foremost in towns (about two thirds of such accidents), in big cities in particular, whereas drunk drivers cause accidents mainly on roads out of towns (about 60 per cent of such accidents). The lack of data concerning the extent of alcohol consumption in the separate voivodships greatly complicated the analysis of the territorial distribution of traffic accidents caused by drunk persons. However, it was possible to arrive at the following conclusion: the number of accidents caused by drunk participants of road traffic per 10.000 of the population of a given voivodship (the index of occurrence of such accidents) depends not only on the extent of alcohol consumption in the voivodship but also to some degree on its urbanization and development of road transport. Particularly in voivodships where a high level of urbanization (measured by the size of the urban population) and a highly developed road transport (measured by the number of persons per one passenger car) is not accompanied by an adequate quality of roads and good organization of road traffic; the large number of accidents caused by drunk persons cannot be explained by a high level of alcohol consumption. Bad road conditions exert the greatest influence on those of the participants of traffic who find it difficult to adapt their behavior1r to the complex situation on the road, i.e. on drunk persons, among others, whose intellectual and psychomotoric efficiency is handicapped due to the effects of alcohol. Bad road conditions may ,,produce" errors committed by drunk participants of traffic, and lead to traffic accidents caused by these persons, thus making the number of such accidents larger than that expected when considering the .number of drunk' participants of road traffic. However. there are voivodships where the factors leading to traffic accidents caused by drunk persons do not seem to be major and yet the number of such accidents is considerable. These are probably the voivodships where the extent of alcohol consumption is particularly high. It should be added that the taking up of the subject included in the title was justified by the seriousness of the problem. In the years 1975-1984, the number of traffic accidents caused by drunk persons was on a constant increase in Poland. While accidents caused by drunk persons constituted 21.5 per cent of all accidents in 1975, their respective share was 26.5 per cent in 1984. Therefore, it is imperative to apply measures that could stop a further growth of this dangerous tendency.