GENERAL ASSESSMENTS AND THRESHOLDS FOR CHRONIC OFFENDING: AN ENRICHED PARADIGM FOR EXPLAINING CRIME

• Author: ROBERT AGNEW,STEVEN F. MESSNER
• Date: 01 November 2015
• Published date: 01 November 2015
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9125.12079

GENERAL ASSESSMENTS AND THRESHOLDS FOR

CHRONIC OFFENDING: AN ENRICHED PARADIGM

FOR EXPLAINING CRIME∗

ROBERT AGNEW1and STEVEN F. MESSNER2

1Department of Sociology, Emory University

2Department of Sociology, The University at Albany, SUNY

KEYWORDS: crime theory, causes of crime, chronic offending

General assessments refer to individuals’ overall judgment of their standing on

broad dimensions that have special relevance for the explanation of crime, such as

their overall bond to society or their prospects for success. These assessments are

partly a function of the independent variables that are commonly considered in con-

temporary crime theories and quantitative research. But these standard etiological vari-

ables are far from fully determinative of general assessments because individuals differ

in how they interpret, weigh, and combine their standing along these variables. The

social–psychological factors that affect the subjective judgments underlying general as-

sessments have yet to be theorized in any comprehensive, systematic manner. Nev-

ertheless, we hypothesize that the incorporation of general assessments in models of

offending will greatly enhance their explanatory power because these assessments are

the most proximate, comprehensive, and personally relevant causes of crime. More-

over, we anticipate that once these assessments reach certain threshold levels, such as

the view that bonds to society are severed irreparably or success is beyond reach, they

result in a nonlinear jump in the frequency, seriousness, and duration of offending

(i.e., chronic offending). A consideration of general assessments and their associated

thresholds should therefore substantially improve efforts to explain crime.

Contemporary crime theories build on the classic theories by identifying the many par-

ticular variables that contribute to crime. Social control theories now list numerous types

of control, including direct control by parents, neighbors, and others; attachment to par-

ents and teachers; and commitment to conventional institutions, such as school and work

(Agnew and Brezina, 2015; Hirschi, 1969; Sampson and Laub, 1993). Social learning the-

ory directs attention to the mechanisms of learning that facilitate offending, including

differential reinforcement, modeling, and exposure to beliefs favorable to crime—with

several types of belief being described (Agnew and Brezina, 2015; Akers, 1998). Gen-

eral strain theory (GST) focuses on a range of strains; recent versions of GST list close

to 20 major criminogenic strains (Agnew, 2006). Rational choice theory identifies several

factors that influence or index the costs and benefits of crime, such as the opportunity

∗We would like to thank D. Wayne Osgood and two anonymous reviewers for their excellent com-

ments and suggestions on an earlier draft of this article. Direct correspondence to Robert Agnew,

Department of Sociology, Emory University, 1555 Dickey Drive, Tarbutton Hall, Atlanta, GA

39322 (e-mail: bagnew@emory.edu).

C2015 American Society of Criminology doi: 10.1111/1745-9125.12079

CRIMINOLOGY Volume 53 Number 4 571–596 2015 571

572 AGNEW & MESSNER

for crime and the expected excitement and status from crime (e.g., Kubrin, Stucky, and

Krohn, 2009; Matsueda, Kreager, and Huizinga, 2006). Given these theoretical devel-

opments, it is not surprising that the quantitative research on crime often has exam-

ined a long list of independent variables (Kubrin, Stucky, and Krohn, 2009). But despite

this progress in theoretical elaboration, most of the variation in crime remains unex-

plained, and there has been no meaningful increase in explained variance in recent years

(Weisburd and Piquero, 2008; also see Cullen, 2011).

We maintain that a principal reason for this limited progress is that although contem-

porary theories enumerate the many particular variables that cause crime, they overlook

an important category of variables. In particular, we argue that individuals base their

offending not so much on a straightforward cumulative calculation of their standing on

a range of particular variables, but on a more generalized assessment of their standing

on a few broad dimensions related to crime—such as the strength of their overall bond

to conventional society, their prospects for conventional success, and the extent to

which they view their world as harsh and unjust.1Furthermore, when these assessments

reach certain thresholds, there is a substantial increase in chronic offending, i.e., in the

frequency, seriousness, and duration of offending. The thresholds represent the point

at which the balance of motivations and constraints toward crime and conformity are

perceived to shift decisively in favor of crime. For example, individuals conclude that

their bond to conventional society has been severed irreparably, their prospects for

success are nonexistent, or they live in a harsh and unjust world.

We draw from several literatures that have argued for the importance of general assess-

ments and thresholds, including the classic (pre-1960s) crime theories, “constructionist”

and cognitive approaches in several disciplines, the qualitative research on crime, and the

desistence research. These literatures have not denied the importance of the particular

variables examined by contemporary crime theories and quantitative research, but they

have implied that the paradigm that now dominates efforts to explain crime is incomplete.

This paradigm is incomplete because it is insufficiently sensitive to the complex, highly

individualized social–psychological processes that translate standing along the standard

variables into overall, Gestalt-like judgments about the life situation of individuals. We

maintain that these judgments, or general assessments, serve as mediating mechanisms

linking conventional predictor variables and crime. As such, this meta-theoretical article

has key implications for the structure and content of most, if not all, broad theories of

crime—as well as the research based on these theories.

The first part of this article describes those general assessments and thresholds sug-

gested by the classic crime theories. The second part builds on the classic crime theories

by more fully describing the nature of assessments and thresholds, as well as the fac-

tors that contribute to them—including the exercise of agency. The third part presents

evidence for the utility of conceptualizing general assessments and thresholds by draw-

ing on the qualitative research on crime and the desistence literature. The fourth part

discusses how assessments and thresholds can be incorporated into contemporary theo-

ries with GST used as an illustration. The article concludes with directions for further

research.

1. Heitmeyer’s social disintegration theory of violence similarly calls attention to the role of general-

ized appraisals that span the various domains of social life, which he conceptualized as “recognition

deficits” (see Heitmeyer and Anhut, 2008).