SOCIAL CONCERN AND CRIME: MOVING BEYOND THE ASSUMPTION OF SIMPLE SELF‐INTEREST

• Author: ROBERT AGNEW
• Date: 01 February 2014
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9125.12031
• Published date: 01 February 2014

2013 PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS TO THE AMERICAN

SOCIETY OF CRIMINOLOGY

SOCIAL CONCERN AND CRIME: MOVING BEYOND

THE ASSUMPTION OF SIMPLE SELF-INTEREST∗

ROBERT AGNEW

Department of Sociology, Emory University

KEYWORDS: social concern, self-interest, human nature, biosocial, altruism, causes of

crime, crime theory

Most leading crime theories and crime-control policies are based on the assumption

that people are self-interested. But recent work in a variety of fields has challenged

this assumption, suggesting that people are both self-interested and socially concerned.

Social concern involves biologically based inclinations that sometimes lead people to

give more consideration to others than to their own interests. These inclinations include

caring about others, forming close ties to and cooperating with others, following certain

moral intuitions, and conforming. This article describes the nature of and evidence

for social concern, as well as the ways in which social factors shape social concern.

The article then presents a theory of social concern and crime. Social concern has

direct, indirect, mediating, and conditioning effects on crime. Although social concern

generally reduces the likelihood of crime, it has little effect on or increases crime under

certain conditions.

The theme of the 2013 American Society of Criminology meetings was “Expanding the

Core.” And perhaps the core assumption of criminology is that people are naturally self-

interested, focused on the satisfaction of their needs and desires. Most theories are built

on this assumption. Crime is said to result when people have not learned to control the

pursuit of their interests or are in environments where their interests are better served

through crime. Likewise, most crime-control initiatives focus on reducing the crimino-

genic pursuit of interests, usually by increasing the costs of crime.

This article presents an expanded view of human nature and discusses the implications

of this view for the causes and control of crime. It is argued that:

rPeople are naturally socially concerned as well as self-interested; that is, people

have a set of biologically based inclinations that sometimes lead them to give more

consideration to others than to their own interests. These inclinations include car-

ing about others, forming close ties to and cooperating with them, following cer-

tain moral intuitions, and conforming. People follow these inclinations even when

∗I am indebted to Frank Cullen, Matt DeLisi, Scott Lilienfeld, and Alex Piquero for their com-

ments on an earlier draft of this article. Direct all correspondence to Robert Agnew, Department

of Sociology, Emory University, Tarbutton Hall, 1555 Dickey Drive, Atlanta, GA 30322 (e-mail:

bagnew@emory.edu).

C2013 American Society of Criminology doi: 10.1111/1745-9125.12031

CRIMINOLOGY Volume 52 Number 1 1–32 2014 1

2 AGNEW

there is no extrinsic benefit and perhaps some cost to doing so. There are, however,

individual, demographic, and circumstantial variations in the strength of these

inclinations.

rSocial concern has direct, indirect, mediating, and conditioning effects on crime.

Although social concern generally reduces crime, it has little effect on or increases

crime in certain circumstances.

rThe social environment also has a large impact on social concern, influencing the

level and nature of social concern, as well as its expression. These environmental

effects suggest several strategies for controlling crime.

These arguments extend those presented in Chapter 4 of Toward a Unified Criminol-

ogy (Agnew, 2011). This article begins by discussing the dominant role that self-interest

plays in criminology. It then describes the nature of social concern, the evidence for nat-

ural social concern, and the impact of environmental factors on concern. This discussion

is followed by an outline of the effects of social concern on crime. Although the focus

is on natural social concern, this discussion recognizes the importance of social factors

and presents a theory of social concern and crime. The article concludes by describing

directions for further research and the policy implications of social concern.

THE DOMINANCE OF SELF-INTEREST IN CRIMINOLOGY

NATURE OF SELF-INTEREST

The criminological assumption of self-interest has three components. First, individu-

als are strongly motivated to satisfy their needs and desires, particularly their short-term

needs/desires. This provides substantial motivation for crime because crime is often the

most expedient way to get what you want. As Gottfredson and Hirschi (1990: 12) stated:

“the use of force or fraud is often easier, simpler, faster, more exciting, and more certain

than other means of securing one’s ends.” The focus on short-term needs and desires is es-

pecially conducive to crime, given that the benefits of crime tend to be immediate and the

costs delayed (Loughran, Paternoster, and Weiss, 2012; Wilson and Herrnstein, 1985). It

is said that individuals must be taught to delay gratification and focus on their long-term

needs and desires, with this “enlightened self-interest” reducing the likelihood of crime

(e.g., Gottfredson and Hirschi, 1990; also see Tittle et al., 2010).

Second, individuals give priority to their interests over those of others. That is, “peo-

ple think of and act first for themselves . .. they are not naturally inclined to subordinate

their interests to the interests of others” (Gottfredson and Hirschi, 1990: 5). It should be

noted that many of the key theorists who advanced the assumption of self-interest, such

as Adam Smith and Jeremy Bentham, stated that individuals also have some natural con-

cern for others, such as sympathy for those in distress (see Holmes, 1990; Jencks, 1990;

Lynne, 2006; Wilson and Herrnstein, 1985). This concern, however, finds little place in

criminological theories. Such theories generally attribute such concern to the environ-

ment, particularly the efforts of others to instill moral beliefs and build emotional bonds.

Gottfredson and Hirschi (1990), for example, rejected the idea that there is any natural

“compulsion to conformity” and stated that “consistent sensitivity to the needs and feel-

ings of others may . .. be assumed to be a consequence of training” (1990: 88, 97; also see

Tittle et al., 2010). In the absence of such training, people are said to pursue their interests

with little regard for others, harming them when expedient.

SOCIAL CONCERN AND CRIME 3

Third, it is assumed that individuals are somewhat rational in the pursuit of their inter-

ests. That is, they consciously consider the costs and benefits of possible behaviors and

tend to choose those behaviors that increase their benefits and reduce their costs. It is

recognized that people are not perfectly rational; among other things, they typically lack

full information about the costs and benefits of all of their behavioral options, they rarely

make careful comparisons of costs and benefits, and their actions also are influenced by

factors other than costs and benefits, such as moral beliefs and emotions (Jacobs and

Wright, 2010; Kroneberg, Heintze, and Mehlkop, 2010; Paternoster and Pogarsky, 2009;

Piquero et al., 2011; Piquero and Tibbetts, 2002; Tittle et al., 2010; Wilson and Herrnstein,

1985). Nevertheless, it is said that behavior, including crime, is primarily motivated by its

anticipated benefits.

Self-interest is said to be “natural” or part of human nature because it has a substantial

genetic basis and characterizes the large majority of people (see Wilson, 2012: 193, for

a discussion of human nature). Evolutionary theorists explain the pervasiveness of self-

interest by arguing that individuals who put their interests above others are more likely to

survive and reproduce (see Boehm, 2012; Nowak and Highfield, 2011). As Darwin (1871:

475) stated:

It is extremely doubtful whether the offspring of the more sympathetic and benevo-

lent parents, or those who were the most faithful to their comrades, would be reared

in greater number than the children of selfish and treacherous parents belonging to

the same tribe. He who was ready to sacrifice his life ...rather than betray his com-

rades, would leave no offspring to inherit his noble nature.

SELF-INTEREST AND THE CAUSES AND CONTROL OF CRIME

If people are self-interested, they should be most likely to offend when the costs of

crime are low and the benefits are high. And most of the leading crime theories focus

on the costs and/or benefits of crime (Agnew, 2011; Akers, 1990; Bohm and Vogel, 2011;

Lanier and Henry, 2004; Piquero and Tibbetts, 2002). Classical and deterrence theorists

focus on the formal costs of crime or sanctions by the state, whereas social control theo-

rists also examine the informal costs. These informal costs involve direct control or sanc-

tioning by parents, teachers, neighbors, and others; the individual’s emotional bond to

conventional others and investments in conventional society, both of which are jeopar-

dized by crime; and the internalization of moral beliefs, particularly the belief that crime

is wrong. These theories focus on variation in the costs of crime because they assume that

the benefits of crime are high and roughly comparable across individuals. That is because

all individuals are said to have unfulfilled needs and desires that could easily be satisfied

through crime (Kornhauser, 1978).

Social learning, rational choice, and routine activities theories, however, consider vari-

ation in both the costs and benefits of crime. Social learning theory states that the benefits

of crime are higher for some individuals because they are in environments where crime is

more likely to be differentially reinforced (e.g., delinquent peer groups). Rational choice

and routine activities theories devote much attention to the situational factors affecting

crime, and they state that some individuals are more often exposed to situations where

the benefits of crime are high, such as situations where attractive targets for crime are

present (also see Felson and Boba, 2010; Greenberg, in press).