Journal of Human Behavior in the Social Environment, 21:255–269, 2011
Copyright © Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
ISSN: 1091-1359 print/1540-3556 online
DOI: 10.1080/10911359.2011.564554
Anthropological Theories of Crime
and Delinquency
PHYLLIS JEROSLOW
School of Social Welfare, University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, California, USA
Anthropological perspectives on crime and delinquency reflect historical
contexts and the increasing complexity of societies over
time. For most of anthropology’s history, field researchers studied
small societies in an attempt to decipher the rules that governed
behavior. By the middle of the twentieth century, anthropologists
turned to class and power differentials related to resource access to
explain crime and delinquency in social groups that were part of
larger societies. Economic and political motives for defining criminality
have since become central to the ethnographies of contemporary
anthropologists. Twenty-first-century anthropological studies
encompass both local and global contexts, and continue to draw
upon the cornerstone concepts and ethnographic methods of their
predecessors.
KEYWORDS Anthropological theories, crime theories, delinquency,
deviance, cultural norms
INTRODUCTION
The anthropological theories of crime and delinquency reflect the historical
contexts in which they were developed and the increasing complexity of
societies through time. The earliest theories focused on the physiology and
genetics of the individual to explain criminal behavior. These theories were
followed by the sociocultural tradition based on the study of vanishing
cultures. This tradition had a lasting influence on anthropologists , including
Address correspondence to Phyllis Jeroslow, School of Social Welfare, University of
California at Berkeley, 120 Haviland Hall #7400, Berkeley, CA 94720-7400, USA. E-mail:
pjero@berkeley.edu
255
256 P. Jeroslow
those interested in crime who turned their attention to peasant, colonized,
and urban societies. Their studies of crime led them to global criminal issues
that affect populations around the world. Contemporary anthropological
studies of crime remain faithful to cornerstone concepts and ethnographic
methods of their predecessors.
Within this historic framework, this review of the literature describes
anthropological theories relevant to the study of crime and delinquency
as a foundation for including theories related to specific populations. The
population studies begin with the study of a small society, followed by
examinations of urban youth gangs, the Sicilian mafia, colonized peoples,
and contemporary criminal activity on a global scale. The review concludes
with a conceptual map that summarizes the contributions of anthropology
to the study of crime and delinquency along with suggestions for future
research.
METHODS
The literature review is based on an electronic database search using the
resources of the University of California, Berkeley library system (Melvyl Pilot
and Pathfinder) and focused on the anthropological databases of AnthroPlus
and AnthroSource along with Google. The keywords included crime, theory,
delinquency, anthropology, and criminal anthropology.
Suggestions for additional sources were provided by staff at the Institute
for the Study of Social Change and faculty in the department of anthropology
at the University of California–Berkeley. Much of the information concerning
prominent anthropological theories was derived from Visions of Culture
by Moore (2009). Sources for many of the recent studies presented in this
literature review were found in the reference section of The Anthropology of
Crime and Criminalization by Schneider and Schneider (2008).
A Genetic Theory of ‘‘Criminal Man’’
In the wake of Darwin’s theory of natural selection, early theories of crime
emphasized genetic and physiological explanations of human defects. The
Italian School of Criminal Anthropology was one of the earliest academic
institutions to focus on crime and was established with the publication
in 1876 of Lombroso’s L’uomo Delinquente (Criminal Man). This school
of thought spread to France and Germany and led to the publication of
criminology periodicals in Italian, French, Spanish, and Russian (Fletcher,
1891).
Lombroso was professor of medical jurisprudence in the University of
Turin. As ‘‘chief’’ of the Italian School, he attempted to develop an anatomical
profile of ‘‘criminal man’’ to support the notion that every criminal was a
Anthropological Theories of Crime and Delinquency 257
born criminal by documenting the sizes, shapes, and weight of crania, ears,
eyes, noses, and jaws of persons accused of crimes. According to Lombroso
and other proponents of the Italian school, a criminal was conceived as
an atavistic subhuman type that was not amenable to treatment (Fletcher,
1891). Lombroso’s theory was used to discredit southern Italians who had
immigrated to northern Italy.
Anatomical theories about the origin of crime held sway until the 1880s,
when Lombroso’s approach was discredited (Schneider & Schneider, 2008).
However, genetic explanations of criminal behavior were later used by Starr
in 1897 and Harvard anthropologist Hooten in 1927 to account for the disproportionate
incarceration of Blacks (Schneider & Schneider). Subsequently
Starr’s and Hooten’s theories were also discredited (Schneider & Schneider;
Cohen, 1966, in Edgerton, 1973).
Theories of Sociocultural Anthropology
To understand how anthropologists have viewed crime since the early days
of the discipline, it is important to describe some of the major theories
that inform subsequent anthropological studies of law and crime. One of
anthropology’s pioneers is Boas (1858–1942), who advanced the ‘‘four fields
approach’’ that included sociocultural anthropology, physical anthropology,
archaeology, and linguistics (Moore, 2009). Of these four sub-fields of anthropology,
anthropologists have relied primarily on the sociocultural perspective
to explain crime and deviance. Boas also established twin tenets
of anthropology: the interaction between the individual and society. These
tenets are reflected in the concepts of anthropological holism and cultural
particularism in which culture is understood as an integrated whole that is
created through an historical progression, rather than as a marker of a particular
universal evolutionary stage (Moore, 2009). According to Boas, studies
of particular cultures should include the full range of cultural behavior.
Pioneering sociologist Durkheim (1858–1917) was a contemporary of
Boas and sought to build a theory of society by studying the dynamics
of social integration and the evolution of social complexity (Moore, 2009).
Durkheim’s ideas provided substantial contributions to the anthropological
study of crime. Starting with the assumption that social behavior was learned
(Layton, 1997), Durkheim developed the concept of conscience collective,
which referred to internalized sanctions, awareness, and perceptions of the
culture among its inhabitants that articulate values, worldview, and beliefs.
This notion was significant in that it connected the societal formation of
social solidarity with the individual processes of enculturation (Moore).
The methodology of participant observation was also promoted by
Durkheim and still remains a cornerstone of anthropological research (Layton,
1997). Durkheim advocated that social scientists need to engage in fieldwork
to discover how a society conceives of its own institutions, particularly
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with respect to contract law and the types of acts that a society identifies as
crimes (Layton, 1997). Durkheim also advocated for the importance of the
comparative method in order to identify how dimensions of social integration
differed among societies (Moore, 2009).
Among his many contributions, Durkheim developed the social strain
theory of deviance that was further expanded by sociologist Merton (Edgerton,
1973). Durkheim noted that human beings engage in moral and virtuous
behaviors because they are self-rewarding. However, when there is a major
disruption of the social fabric and people cannot achieve their goals by
legitimate means, they become ‘‘frustrated,’’ ‘‘alienated,’’ ‘‘deprived,’’ or ‘‘discontented’’
and may resort to criminal behavior (Edgerton). Durkheim also
believed that people evolved into different social groups to find economic
niches in response to scarcities of resources, an idea that Moore (2009)
claims was borrowed ‘‘directly from Darwin.’’ These ideas are still relevant
to contemporary studies of criminal behavior as they relate to differences in
social class and levels of empowerment.
Durkheim posited that the manner in which deviance was punished
served to distinguish ‘‘compound’’ from ‘‘complex’’ societies (Layton, 1997).
Durkheim defined compound societies as those in which each social unit is
responsible for its own subsistence, performing identical functions, whereas
complex societies featured a division of labor whereby units performed
complementary functions.
Another contemporary of Boas was Benedict (1887–1948), whose seminal
work, Patterns of Culture (1934), set forth her thesis that cultural differences
were multifaceted expressions of a society’s most basic core values
(Moore, 2009). According to Benedict, every culture permits only a limited
number of temperaments to flourish. The accepted temperaments are the
ones that fit within the dominant configuration of societal core values.
Benedict determined that human adaptability made it possible for most
members of a society to conform sufficiently to established norms. Those
who could not conform were identified as deviants (Edgerton, 1973).
Another pioneer in anthropology was Malinowski (1884–1942), who
developed a set of ‘‘first principles’’ (Horowitz, 1962). One of his principles
was functionalism, which was employed as a scientific term for explaining
cultural phenomena. Functionalism was a way to view a culture as an organized
whole in which disparate elements are integrated (Hoebel, 1961).
Malinowski’s interpretation of functionalism is based on the idea that every
custom or set of beliefs is fulfilling a significant societal need (Horowitz).
Based on his field research, he linked ‘‘primitive societies’’ to ‘‘modern
societies’’ by noting that people, regardless of their societies, shared the
same qualities of humanity (Horowitz).
Hoebel (1961) pays tribute to Malinowski for advancing ‘‘an anthropological
definition of law.’’ Malinowski claimed that the study of more
comprehensive problems of culture, such as primitive jurisprudence, was
Anthropological Theories of Crime and Delinquency 259
a sign of the growing worthiness of the field of anthropology. In a 1925 address,
Malinowski also criticized the field of anthropology for assuming that
members of simple societies were enslaved by their customs, fully obedient
and subservient to cultural norms. In subsequent writing, he admonished
the American, German, and French schools of anthropology for seeing the
individual as completely dominated by the group (Malinowski, 1926/1932).
To the contrary, Malinowski espoused that only certain rules of custom are
truly binding and deserve to be called laws (Malinowski, 1925). Malinowski
adamantly held that members of simple societies are not blind conformists,
as he decoupled ‘‘custom’’ from ‘‘law.’’ Additionally, Malinowski cautioned
anthropologists against focusing on the sensational and noted that his interest
in primitive jurisprudence was about ‘‘the law obeyed’’ and not ‘‘the law
broken’’ (Malinowski, 1926/1932). ‘‘The true problem,’’ Malinowski wrote,
‘‘is not to study how human life submits to rules—it simply does not; the real
problem is how the rules become adapted to life’’ (Malinowski, 1926/1932).
In his study of the Trobriand Islanders, Malinowski found that they were
neither ‘‘collectivists’’ nor ‘‘intransigent individualists’’ but, instead, displayed
elements of both (Malinowski, 1926/1932). He observed that the rule of
law was experienced as an obligation of one person and the rightful claim
of another, reflecting mutual dependence and reciprocity. The ceremonial
nature of certain transactions among the Trobriand Islanders further strengthened
their binding legal force. Even so, Malinowski dispelled the myth of
slavish adherence to tradition by finding that laws were elastic and could be
circumvented by accepted means. Malinowski also perceived that laws are
embedded in a chain of social transactions ‘‘in which they are but a link’’
(Malinowski, 1926/1932). His observation figures prominently in the analyses
of subsequent studies of criminal behavior.
Contemporary Anthropological Studies of Crime
This section highlights some classic contemporary anthropological studies of
crime and delinquency by focusing on the populations studied by anthropologists:
youth gangs and the mafia. Studies of the cultures of youth gangs
and the mafia focused on the relationship of each of these groups to the
larger societies in which they were embedded.
YOUTH GANGS
Bloch and Niederhofer (1958) applied a functional analysis to the study of
American gangs in the 1950s to discover the underlying social purpose and
characteristics of the adolescent groups. Using comparative cross-cultural
studies of adolescent rites of passage, they sought to document the universal
need for all societies to induct their adolescent youths into the adult role
along with the variations in the emphases and particularity of rituals (e.g.,
260 P. Jeroslow
self-decoration, separation from the mother, hazing ordeals, and educational
processes). By noting these activities and rituals in American youth gangs,
Bloch and Niederhofer contrasted the spontaneity of American youths with
the institutionalized patterns of other less-complex cultures.
Bloch and Niederhofer (1958) found that the confluence of rapid social
changes in American society resulted in the loss of a clear demarcation
for boys to transition to manhood (e.g., advances in the technology of
communication and transportation, changes in the role of women and the
roles of the family, and a shift from rural to urban lifestyles). In the absence
of formal rites of passage, Bloch and Niederhofer observed that American
male youth invented their own rites and rituals, responding to the universal
impulse to demonstrate to themselves and to society that they have achieved
manhood.
Bloch and Niederhofer (1958) were able to suspend the negative value
judgments of American teen behavior, by viewing teen activity as serving
a universal function and recognizing that class differences and patterns of
behavior structured much gang life. Their focus on the fundamental cultural
and psychological needs for preparing youth for adult roles clearly laid the
foundation for future anthropological studies of youth gangs.
THE RISE OF THE SICILIAN MAFIA
In contrast to searching for an understanding of delinquent youth behavior,
Blok in 1974 focused on adult criminal behavior in his classic account of the
mafia (The Mafia of a Sicilian village, 1860–1960: a study of violent peasant
entrepreneurs). The complexity of Blok’s analysis marked a significant
advancement in anthropological research beyond earlier theoretical formulations
by providing a holistic treatment of economic, political, historical, and
social relationships in the analysis of crime. Blok builds upon the work of anthropologist
Wolf (1923–1999), who noted that peasant communities existed
in relationship to larger social systems (national and global) and must not
be viewed in isolation because of the differential access to power afforded
to different social groups (Moore, 2009). Blok’s treatise on the Sicilian mafia
and Wolf’s concepts were precursors to post-modern crime analyses and are
prevalent in the analysis of crime by contemporary anthropologists.
Blok (1974) describes how the superimposition of a modern central
government upon the feudal hinterland of Sicily in 1861 resulted in a power
vacuum that was filled by entrepreneurial peasants. This new class of peasants,
the mafiosi, served as a bridge between the local landowners and the
state on one hand and the landowners and the peasantry on the other. The
central government could not reach into the rural areas of Sicily and had
to depend upon the mafiosi to exercise control over the region, thereby
embedding itself in the structure of local government. As Italy industrialized,
the peasants left the land for the cities, and the mafiosi lost much of their
Anthropological Theories of Crime and Delinquency 261
power base. Younger descendants of the original mafiosi migrated to the
cities, joining the ranks of governmental agencies. The mafiosi also made
inroads into political parties, transitioning from violent means of social control
to legitimate positions of political power. Blok’s comprehensive analysis
demonstrated how the rise of the Sicilian mafia paralleled and was integral
to the development of Italy.
Post-Modern Anthropological Studies of Crime
This section builds upon Wolf’s theoretical connection of the ‘‘local’’ to the
‘‘global’’ that was applied in Blok’s mafia research. In addition to Wolf’s
notions about the relationship between peasant societies and larger social
systems (and the importance of power differentials among social groups),
Wolf was also interested in the convergence of ideas about the nature of
power, especially as they relate to the local and global linkages to crime in
the post-modern era (Moore, 2009). Based on these linkages, anthropologists
in the 1980s and 1990s displayed a growing interest in the impact of
colonialization on criminal behavior.
THE CRIMINALIZATION OF COLONIAL PEOPLES
Writing in 1985, Stoler used a political and economic power analysis (in the
tradition of Wolf) to examine the determinants of crime and criminal acts in
the colonial world of Sumatra from the late 1800s through the 1920s. Stoler
focused on the relationships between the Dutch colonial administration,
the Dutch rubber plantation owners, and the colonized Asian plantation
workers. Stoler described how the Dutch planters used their political power
to protect their economic interests and maintain control over their Asian
laborers. When the wife and children of a Dutch planter were murdered
on a plantation in 1876, the event went unreported. At that time, plantation
owners found advantage in avoiding interference from state authorities by
minimizing unrest and maintaining an image of control. Discipline and punishment
were viewed as internal estate issues. Stoler determined that crimes
against plantation owners were construed in the late nineteenth century
as private, individual, and isolated acts. Plantation owners benefited from
lack of state oversight by employing practices that kept workers indebted
and indentured, such as setting inflated prices for provisions and making
available large advances, gambling, and prostitution (Stoler, 1985).
In the early 1900s, as the Dutch rubber plantations responded to the
demand for tires in the growing American automobile industry, resistance by
plantation workers increased. Assaults and collective labor dissention were
then recast as political resistance in the communist mold, and the colonial
state was called upon to root out ‘‘agitators.’’ Crime was redefined as a
disruptive act that threatened the social order, ostensibly making way for
262 P. Jeroslow
communist infiltrators to overthrow the economic structure of the plantation.
Stoler (1985) determined that rhetoric of the Dutch plantation owners depicting
certain workers as ‘‘dangerous elements’’ served as a pretense to maintain
social order when the real purpose served by this criminal characterization
was the assurance of labor discipline.
Also utilizing constructs of political and economic power, Tolen (1991)
examined how the criminalization of colonized Indian tribes and castes of
India by the British served to induct Indian peoples into the colonial labor
force. Similar to Stoler’s examination of colonial domination in Sumatra,
Tolen focused on the subjugation of the body to serve the needs of the
market under British rule by selling ‘‘bodily activity’’ in exchange for a wage.
The Criminal Tribes Act of 1871 (extended in 1911) defined certain tribes and
castes in specified provinces of India as ‘‘criminal’’ and made possible the registration,
surveillance, and control of the affected tribes and castes. Tolen explains
that public acceptance of the notion of a ‘‘criminal caste’’ resulted from
the confluence of mid-nineteenth-century depictions of caste stereotypes
with the concept of the so-called dangerous classes of vagrants, the poor,
criminals, drunkards, the unemployed, and prostitutes in British society.
With the agreement of government authorities in 1908, The Salvation
Army established administration of reformatories in Indian provinces to provide
spiritual rescue and Eurocentric cultural training to the criminal tribes
(Tolen, 1991). The training was designed to breed ‘worthy citizens’ through
instruction about time-discipline, labor-discipline, purchasing commodities,
and studying the Bible (Tolen). By criminalizing selected tribes and castes
of India, Britain was able to extend its political and economic dominion to
control resources and engage a new labor force.
Writing in 2001, Comaroff criticized the field of anthropology for its
historical failure to address the dynamics of political domination of the
colonial period by focusing only on the ‘‘cultural encounter’’ rather than the
economic and political nature of the relationship between the colonized and
ruling nations. Comaroff found that enforcement of European law resulted
in the transformation of the social and economic relations of colonized
peoples in a manner beneficial to the dominating colonizer. He begins with
the nineteenth-century observation by Tswana-speaking peoples in South
Africa that labels English courts, papers, contracts, and agents as ‘‘the English
mode of warfare.’’ According to Comaroff, the Europeans used law in the
name of universal progress to justify subordination to a supposedly superior
European legal order. This was sometimes achieved by criminalizing local
cultural practices and defining them as ‘‘primitive’’ or ‘‘dangerous.’’ Comaroff
also observes that European law was self-justifying. For example, property
rights were formulated in places wherein private property was not even
a concept to justify confiscation by the colonizers. He also notes that the
colonized territories were used as social control laboratories to learn what
ruled people would or would not tolerate.
Anthropological Theories of Crime and Delinquency 263
YOUTH GANGS REVISITED
Bourgois’s (1995) ethnographic study of crack dealers in New York extended
the political and economic analysis beyond the theoretical by encouraging
anthropologists to assume the role of social change agent. Bourgois wrote,
‘‘I have written this in the hope that anthropological writing can be a site
of resistance.’’ Using participant-observation methods, Bourgois ‘‘became
acutely aware of the contradictory collaborative nature of [his] research strategy’’
(Bourgois). Bourgois describes the plight of the crack dealer as one of
social marginalization, drawing attention to the ‘‘interface between structural
oppression and individual action’’ (Bourgois).
Similar to Bourgois’s analysis of marginality, Vigil (2003) relied on a
‘‘multiple marginality’’ framework to examine urban street gangs, particularly
with respect to the immigrant experience. Through this holistic multi-factor
framework, Vigil was able to examine interrelationships between neighborhood
effects, poverty, culture conflict, sociocultural marginalization, and
social control. He was particularly interested in analyzing street socialization
and individual states of mind in conjunction with an ecological point of
view. Vigil determined that the source of gang aggression was often due
to the marginal social status of gang members that, for example, prevented
them from obtaining entry-level jobs and often resulted in harsh treatment
by law enforcement.
Global Studies of Crime
The interests of anthropologists in the global nature of crime grew substantially
in the 1990s and continues to the present. Post-modern anthropologists
are less interested in the relationship of laws to crime and more
interested in crime’s relationship to the structures of local and global societies.
Anthropologists are researching how people in developing countries
or marginalized groups in post-industrial nations find ways to survive in
a globalized economy. They are also investigating corporate crime and the
criminal actions of nation states. The nature of their inquiries reflects a highly
political and economic perspective of power differentials that contemporary
anthropologists combine with examinations of social relationships, symbolic
meanings, and mental representations of crime.
In her exploration of the worldwide trade in body organs and tissues,
Scheper-Hughes (2000) offers an ecopolitical analysis that takes into account
social stratification across countries and conceptions rooted in histories
of cultural beliefs. Claiming that affluent countries have manufactured the
need for organ transplants, illegal entrepreneurs (sometimes in conjunction
with corrupt governments) have preyed upon the poor and marginalized
in their countries by buying or stealing their body parts and stealing from
the dead. Within the change-agent perspective, Scheper-Hughes encourages
264 P. Jeroslow
anthropologists to take a stand on the ethical issues involved in the body
trade. In circumstances wherein the sale of body organs is viewed as legal,
voluntary, and a question of individual rights, Scheper-Hughes challenges
anthropologists to ‘‘intrude’’ upon the unethical exploitation of the powerless
and hungry.
Scheper-Hughes (2000) emphasized power differentials between the
state, affluent Western medical establishments, and donor recipients. She
determined that the trade in body organs linked the ‘‘upper strata of biomedical
practice to the lowest reaches of the criminal world.’’ Scheper-Hughes
describes how ‘‘the flow of organs follows the modern routes of capital: from
South to North, from Third to First World, from poor to rich, from black and
brown to white, and from male to female.’’ Scheper-Hughes also examines
how transplant surgery and the need for body organs ‘‘challenges customary
laws and traditional local practices bearing on the body, death, and social
relations.’’ Adding cultural factors to the economic analysis, Scheper-Hughes
addresses rumors and fears that surround organ stealing in Brazil, Argentina,
Guatemala, and South Africa, sometimes connecting their associations with
human rights violations of abusive governments or with the international
adoption market.
Scheper-Hughes (2000) describes a new widespread view in the interior
of Northeast Brazil that finds redundancy in matched body organs and eminent
practicality in selling the ‘‘extra’’ organ to feed one’s family. In the same
area, one sugar plantation worker remarked, ‘‘We are not even the owners of
our own bodies’’ (Scheper-Hughes, 1992 in Scheper-Hughes, 2000). ScheperHughes
cautions, ‘‘: : : where class, race, and cast ideologies cause certain
kinds of bodies—whether women, common criminals, paupers, or street
children—to be treated as ‘waste,’ these sentiments will corrupt medical
practices concerning brain death, organ harvesting, and distribution.’’
Extra-legal activities are a significant part of the world economy. Beginning
with the question, ‘‘Who are the contemporary criminals?’’ Nordstrom
(2007) spent 3 years exploring global crime across several continents,
seeking an understanding of the trillions of dollars that circulate the world
outside of legal channels. Nordstrom’s view is one of global connectedness,
linking the economic activities of indigenous peoples in developing
nations with the demands of capitalist markets. She explores the global arena
through the specific commodities that are illegally traded, such as ‘‘blood’’
diamonds, weapons, narcotics, food, cigarettes, pharmaceuticals, electronics,
and oil.
Nordstrom (2007) documents how ‘‘the powerful confluence of the
extra-legal and 21st century globalization and advanced technology’’ reaches
‘‘across multinational empires and into everyday lives,’’ linking the local
to the transnational. She noted that illegal trade works because it arises
from ‘‘mutual necessity’’ when the need to survive in developing countries
renders ‘‘legality [as] a fluid concept.’’ Locals do not think of themselves as
Anthropological Theories of Crime and Delinquency 265
criminals or lawbreakers. For them, the extra-state networks are equally or
more important than the state (Nordstrom).
Nader (2003) examines how corporate crime restricts access to knowledge
to perpetrate crimes such as toxic pollution without retribution. She
determines that the corporate strategy hinders the ability of victims to locate
responsibility and seek redress for the crimes committed against them. In
a similar way, Kane (2003) warns against a ‘‘: : : global addiction to crime
[that] engenders a reactionary and delusional political discourse on justice.’’
She cites the U.S. prison population, the largest in the world, as a primary
example of a government that must be ‘‘fortified by militarization.’’ She
comments on the shift of resources from educational institutions to prisons
and jails and the right to vote being stripped from felons. ‘‘In this way,’’
Kane (2003) states, ‘‘fascism can replace democracy without anyone having
to stage a coup.’’
Using cultural criminology analysis linked to contemporary ethnography
venues Kane (2004) notes that crime is not easily observed and, therefore,
participant observation is essential. She claims that it is no longer possible
to maintain the same type of distance from subjects that previously provided
comfort for ethnographers of the past. She acknowledges the urban ethnographer’s
difficulty in conducting participant observation when constrained
by the challenge of large populations and the flow of urban life wherein
‘‘city blocks ravaged by poverty, poor health and crime’’ replace ‘‘the faraway
village’’ (Kane, 2004). Echoing the earlier concepts of Malinowski,
Kane (2004) states that alternative economies, often criminal, arise because
traditional means of social reproduction and work is no longer possible and
the media heightens concern with these crimes.
Kane notes that the methodology of the contemporary cultural criminologist
needs to (1) provide rich descriptions of everyday life in selected
locations, (2) incorporate in the analysis the paradigms of institutional power,
(3) develop a full explanation of the insider/outsider position of the ethnographer,
(4) establish trusting, ethical relationships with the people who are
a focus of study, and (5) provide an interpretive range of quality insight
assisted by qualitative data that elevates ethnographic narrative to social
reality (Kane, 2004).
Synthesizing and Conceptualizing
The conceptual map reflects the historical evolution of anthropological theories
related to crime and delinquency, beginning with pioneering theories
of the founding intellectuals of modern anthropology followed by the
modernists who focused on understanding particular populations (gangs
and mafia) and concluding with the post-modernists who emphasized the
historical impact of colonialism and the contemporary dynamics of globalized
crime.
266 P. Jeroslow
The three eras of anthropological research and theory development
reflect the concepts of major theorists and their objects of study: the pioneers
of the late 1800s–1940s; the modernists of the 1950s–1970s, and the postmodernists
in the era of globalization from the 1980s to the present. The pioneering
anthropological theories focused primarily on vanishing peoples and
small societies wherein the study of crime emphasized cultural group norms
or their transgression. The modernists directed their attention to understanding
social groups within a larger society, emphasizing social relationships,
social stratification, and differential access to resources. The post-modernists
gave higher priority to political and economic analysis along with the importance
of social relationships and mental and symbolic constructs. Using this
perspective, they revisited colonized societies to understand criminality on a
global scale. They also developed a self-reflexiveness in relationship to the
social responsibility of making criminality more public and in need of redress.
Anthropology’s Contributions and Areas for
Future Research
Vigil (2003) notes that anthropology’s unique social science method of qualitative
ethnographic research makes room for a complex and nuanced understanding
of the web of social relationships and mental constructs involved in
understanding crime and criminalization. Today, the complexity of the anthropological
perspective requires immersion in the participant-observation
method. In addition, anthropological study can yield conceptual tools that
in themselves become powerful instruments for achieving social justice and
reducing inequalities (Nordstrom, 2007).
Marginalized peoples around the world seeking economic survival amid
globalization will continue to offer research possibilities for anthropologists
interested in studying crime and delinquency. In addition, the recent ‘‘call to
action’’ expressed by post-modern anthropologists who study crime could
help to focus international attention on evolving a more humane social order
that remedies the conditions that give rise to crime.
CONCLUSION
The pioneering theories of sociocultural anthropology of the nineteenth and
twentieth centuries have formed the foundation for understanding crime
and delinquency from an anthropological perspective. As noted in Figure 1,
the foundational concepts of holism, cultural particularism, functionalism,
and cultural patterns form the theoretical bases for later inquiry. In the
modern and post-modern eras, these concepts evolved to include social
stratification and globalism, further expanding our understanding of crime
and criminalization.
Anthropological Theories of Crime and Delinquency 267
FIGURE 1 Anthropological perspectives on crime and delinquency.
268 P. Jeroslow
For most of anthropology’s history, field researchers armed with their
own theories or those of others studied small societies in an attempt to decipher
the rules that governed behavior and how these rules were understood,
enforced, or evaded by members of the society. Early anthropologists were
concerned with the regularities of a culture, so much so that they ignored
rule violations that did not comport with their theories of cultural unity or
failed to see or document transgressions of cultural values (Edgerton, 1973).
In more recent times, anthropologists have turned increasingly to explanations
of class and power differentials and the disparate access to economic
resources to explain the purpose of crime and delinquency, especially in
colonized societies (Stoler, 1985; Tolen, 1991; Comaroff, 2001; Comaroff &
Comaroff, 1998). The roots of this line of analysis can be found in Malinowski’s
appeal to the British elite to use anthropological perspectives on
colonized peoples to govern them more effectively, manage an indigenous
labor force, and develop the economic resources that their land and efforts
could offer (Malinowski, 1925, 1926/1932).
Contemporary, post-modern anthropologists have focused on the motives
for how criminality is defined and on the labeling of criminals. Class,
power, and resource access differentials have served to shape analyses of
contemporary societies in the developing world, especially in places wherein
the marginalization of people external to the global economy creates a
vacuum in which crime can fester. Post-modern anthropologists have also
turned their attention to other powerful sources of behavior, such as the
world of ideas, global media, and global communication.
Anthropologists have studied unwritten laws, transgressions of laws,
deviance from norms, and class and power differentials in their ethnographic
research of vanishing peoples, during the colonial and industrial periods and
in the current era of globalization. Though early anthropologists began their
studies with small, deceptively simple societies, they now study cultures that
are so complex as to require, ironically, the examination of small sectors of
larger social groups. Nevertheless, contemporary anthropologists who simultaneously
address the small local group and its global context continue to
build upon Boas’s original ideas of holism and cultural particularism in search
of a unified field theory that combines the very small with the very large.
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