Why Might Violence Crime Be Enjoyable to Commit or Vicariously Witness - Essay Example

Seductions of Violence: Why might violence crime be ‘enjoyable’ to commit or vicariously witness? Introduction Theories in criminology have generally focused on an array of sociological and psychological forces as explanations for criminal behaviour. Jack Katz revolutionised theorising in criminology when he introduced his ‘seductions of crime’ theory in 1988 as a comprehensive explanation of the causes of crime. The ‘seductions of crime’ theory is a comparatively new theoretical paradigm that places emphasis on psychological factors, particularly the very gratifying or pleasurable effects that are related to crime. Katz (1988) argues that almost all theories of the causes of criminal behaviour do not sufficiently take into consideration the role of the inner pleasures of criminal activity. Thus, the emphasis of Katz (2003) is on the seductive pull of possible criminal behaviour and the gratifications felt by the wrongdoers. Indeed, as argued by Katz, the key drive to break the law is the crime itself. This essay tries to determine why violent crime is ‘pleasurable’ to commit or vicariously witness. Domestic violence is used as a particular case for the analysis. Seductions of Violence The seductions of violence are contextual or situational stimuli that immediately occur prior to the perpetration of a criminal act and pull wrongdoers into crime. For instance, a person tests his/her influence or ability and they subdue their adversary through aggression; or they crave for something thrilling, so they rob a store or destroy their neighbours’ properties. Engaging in criminal activities can help fulfil or gratify personal desires. For some individuals, petty criminal activities like shoplifting are appealing because being able to avoid being caught is an ‘exciting’ proof of personal skills (Ferrel, 1992). Even more serious crimes like murder can have a psychological and emotional gratification. Murderers act like avengers, deciding whether to take or spare the life of their prey. Katz discovers that engaging in criminal activities can help appease the tension caused by emotional disorder (Ferrel, 1992). For instance, when an individual is castigated for his/her actions, aggression or violence could be a way to recover the individual’s sense of worth. Public humiliation provokes response; the individual must physically harm the victim to regain his/her reputation or ‘honour’. Several studies have confirmed the assumption of the seductions of violence model that situational stimuli serve a major function in bringing about misconduct. Individuals are highly vulnerable to the ‘seductions’ of violence if they are not afraid of the possibility of anxiety or its social outcomes (Howe, 2008). Individuals who either endure legal reprimand or are afraid of losing their honour are most likely to resist the seductions of violence. Katz thoroughly explained the ‘seductive’ or, nonmaterial, components of criminal behaviour. For instance, he claims that most street crimes do not match the culture of materialism. He cites one of his subjects (Jones, 2008, p. 18): Straight people don’t understand. I mean, they think dudes is after the things straight people got. It ain’t that at all. People in the life ain’t looking for no home and grass in the yard and shit like that. We the show people. The glamour people... hear people talking about you. Hear the bar get quiet when you walk in. This individual is signifying the seductions of unruly conduct. The seductions do not have any connections with material aspects. It is this nonmaterial aspect of violence that studies have missed. Katz observes that most studies did not consider the emotional appeal of engaging in criminal activities. His ‘seductions of crime’ theory accurately describes the frenzied feeling of being part of a criminal act, the abrupt, intense violence, and swift recoil (Wykes & Welsh, 2009). Violent acts can be regarded as rational, pragmatic efforts to build up street capital. Simultaneously, since acting violently is innately thrilling, usually provoking a feeling of strength or power, it cannot be simply regarded as plain practicality or logic. Usman presented a vibrant story (Sandberg & Pedersen, 2009, p. 127): ‘But you know, when you’re young, you like that feeling, “Ah!... victory”. It’s like being in the ring, innit. “Whack!” And you survive, y’know. Gives you a kick, like. Like in a hefty car crash. Unbelievable, raw, like. That adrenalin spike, like. The above account shows how the speaker felt the thrill of aggression or violence; the adrenalin rush. Katz disapproves of the established theory of criminal behaviour. He argues that crime has been downgraded to three major interpretations. First, criminal activity has been viewed as a rational method to realise a goal, the most essential being material wealth. The theory of practical rationality of Bourdieu is an example of such account, although it is more refined or advanced than rational economic theories (Jones, 2008). The second interpretation is interesting. Criminal behaviour is regarded as a symptom of mental disorder. Offenders do not understand their behaviour; they are mentally unstable. The third account associates criminal behaviour with factors like socioeconomic standing, gender, and age (Jones, 2008). According to Katz, the seduction of violence is also integral to the study of criminal behaviour. The appeal, seduction, and desire to engage in criminal activities have internal inducements, and these are easily overlooked when social scientists focus on rational theory. Katz (2003) also questions the assumption that criminal act is driven by the craving for material wealth, claiming instead that the emphasis on material goods as a root of criminal behaviour has hampered the capacity to accurately understand people’s acceptance and toleration of wickedness. He argues that at the heart of crime are moral sentiments like retribution, virtue, and dishonour, and that with all of these, “the attraction that proves to be most fundamentally compelling is that of overcoming a personal challenge to moral—not to material—existence” (Katz, 1988, p. 9). Seductions of violence look profoundly into the ways in which criminals view and attribute value to what may seem to other people as quite ordinary occurrences. Individuals facing embarrassment and feeling anger sense that they are going beyond the limits of time. The mixture of virtue and anger concentrates a person’s awareness entirely on the present moment, as though the present time is all there is. Individuals confronting righteous anger are not able to think about the possible outcomes of their deeds. Incapable of seeing any resolution to the dishonour they are facing, incapable of making a rational decision, prospective criminals jump to a virtuous plain and relate themselves to perpetual righteousness (Howe, 2008). Katz (2003) introduces three key elements of ‘righteous slaughter’. First, the would-be offender’s behaviour should be structured in a manner that values and functions as an honour to the alleged damage inflicted by the potential victim. Second, there is a change in emotions where in embarrassment is translated into anger, which enables the person to have a deep feeling of attachment with the essential value threatened. And lastly, the would-be murderer should realise that the victim is harassing or endangering basic human values, and that the situation calls for an eventual confrontation. In their effort to give an explanation for what may appear inexplicable, many simply view murderers as mentally deranged. This belief reflects ignorance of the moral principles that are threatened for the wrongdoer. Katz claims that intense or fiery moments can become murderous episodes for a criminal who sees the situations as dishonouring and unpreventable (Ferrel, 1992). He adds, “Unable to sense how he or she can move with self-respect from the current situation, now, to any mundane-time relationship that might be reengaged, then, the would-be-killer leaps at the possibility of embodying, through the practice of ‘righteous’ slaughter, some eternal, universal form of the Good” (Katz, 1988, p. 9). Katz describes ‘the Good’ as a fundamental, established moral principle like protection of property rights, then sacredness of marriage, or valuing the authority of parents. To further strengthen the argument that murder may embody the defence of ‘the Good’, he explores when and where criminal activities happen. Katz mentions earlier studies that recognised temporal patterns of murder and discovered an uneven incidence of murder taking place on the weekends. Moreover, nearly all murders do not happen in places prone to elevated stress levels like places of work (Howe, 2008). Instead, murders are more likely to occur in casual or private situations, like during sexual interaction, or at a club. Katz (2003) believes that the informal situation is integral in studying murder because these places are the common sites for entertainment, pleasure, and relaxation. Basically, some people continually or habitually perpetrate criminal acts because criminal behaviour is empowering. Engaging in criminal activities is empowering in a number of ways. Peter Wood and colleagues present an evidence-based explanation of how criminal behaviour generates inducements from three interconnected groups (Flora, 2004, pp. 181-182): (1) physiological inducements, defined as a gratifying emotion felt through activation of internal neurophysiological reward mechanism; (2) psychological inducements, defined as the “source of identity and self-worth” and “recognition of the attainment of exogenous rewards” (Flora, 2004, p. 181); and (3) exogenous inducements, defined as “money, social status, and other instrumental rewards” (Flora, 2004, p. 181). Moreover, in comparison to law-abiding citizens, offenders are usually less receptive to reinforcements or activation that other people find repugnant. Offenders have become addicted and desensitised to pain compared to non-offenders (Segal, 2003). Whilst a non-offender may find a free hamburger adequately satisfying, an offender may have to steal the hamburger to feel the same enjoyable feeling as the hamburger alone gives the non-offender. Intensifying or strengthening the possibility of punishment for a criminal act will ironically deepen the pleasure felt while perpetrating the criminal act. Criminal behaviour consistently carries a high level or risk and serious punishment. If there was lesser or insufficient level of risk or possibility of punishment, the criminal act would not be regarded a crime at all. The simple expression ‘the perfect crime’ indicates that criminal activities can be very reinforcing (Flora, 2004, p. 182). ‘Imperfect’ activities are usually caught and punished. The higher the risk and the bigger the possible punishment the more intense the excitement is and the greater the motivation to perpetrate crime (Flora, 2004, p. 182). As offenders become ‘addicted’ to felony, or reliant on crime for stimulation, offenders usually take more and more risks to feel the same degree of thrill for crime. The first kind of case explained by Katz is characterised as ‘a typical homicide’, a passionate murder where individuals slaughter ‘in a moralistic rage’ (Howe, 2008, p. 124). His illustrations involve an infuriated husband who murders the lover of his wife; a wife who murders her husband after suffering domestic abuse for too long; and, a husband who murders his wife because she confesses that she does not want to be with him anymore. Due to his recognition of common violence, it is not unexpected of Katz to compare a husband’s murder of a wife due to sexual distrust with a wife’s murder of her husband because of years of domestic violence. For Katz these are indistinguishable examples of ‘righteous slaughter’ (Wykes & Welsh, 2009). However, Katz has to explain how these righteously driven murders are comparable instances of moral goodness. To satisfy the premises of righteous slaughter where in the murderer makes “an impassioned attempt to perform a sacrifice to embody one or another version” of “a primordial Good” (Howe, 2008, p. 124), the wife may not committed crime to finally defend herself from years of domestic abuse. Her murderous action is “a last stand in defence of respectability” (Howe, 2008, p. 124). She is defending a unanimously recognised ‘Good’—honour. Battered women who murder their husbands are trying to regain their honour and rise above humiliation. Many studies have described the severe violence or cruelty endured by domestically abused women murderers at the hands of their husbands (Segal, 2003). However, Katz (1988) sees their ultimate defence against their abusive husbands as a defence of long-established value of female identity or femininity. Domestic abusers are addicted to sex and find enjoyment from vicious and brutal acts. Many studies discovered that almost half the domestic abusers studied are unable to control their anger (Howe, 2008). These domestic abusers often rape or sexually harass their wives during or after physically battering them. Domestic abusers have a tendency to be obsessed with a macho principle. They believe that women are fragile and must be controlled and subjugated. They are incapable of fully controlling their impulses and have greater tendencies towards violence. Paradoxically, domestic abusers have a tendency to have a weak sense of worth, which in fact triggers their longing to batter a woman (Segal, 2003). They feel pleasure from hurting and debasing their wives. They feel stronger and more ‘masculine’ when they beat down their spouses (Katz, 1988). Using the ideas of the theory of seductions of violence, O’Malley and Mugford (1994 as cited in Muncie, 2009, p. 225) have stated that a new experience-based perspective of pleasure is required if the aim is to understand ‘crime’ as an offence and as a ‘virtue’. Furthermore, the expression ‘escape from the routine’ (Muncie, 2009, p. 225) gives a particular description of the numerous types of urban crime: as efforts to gain a certain extent of control in an unstable and unfriendly world. Offending creates a form of being where in people acquire control by means of a ‘controlled loss of control’ (Muncie, 2009, p. 225). Consequently, the effort to gain control unavoidably acts together with crime control processes. The ethnographic research of Ferrell (2001 as cited in Muncie, 2009, p. 225) of popular youth sports and activities, like base jumping and street busking, found out that when these activities become strictly regulated, criminalised and prohibited, the more intense thrill they are able to give, and the more the gratification of disobedience can be attained. Rules are violated because they exist; the possibility of getting caught or being punished is a challenge, not a restriction or discouragement. Stricter control mechanisms incite greater offending instead of compliance. Presdee (2000) examines the irony that as the government tries to enforce greater control over the ins and outs of daily life, it generates not just higher levels of submissive rationality but also greater levels of defiant emotionality. The quest for pleasure becomes essentially hostile to the government. Presdee (2000) accurately explains this interlinking of pleasure and control through the concept of ‘crime as carnival’. Carnival is a place where the excitement and thrill of playing over the edge is obviously satisfied. Extreme pleasure-seeking behaviour, the ridiculing of irrational actions, has traditionally been momentarily accepted in the context of carnival (Presdee, 2000). Today, as the likelihood of these moments slowly disappear, and along with them springs of festivity, absurdity, and excitement, as consumerism materialises pleasure and as the government tries to subdue ‘crime’, the essence of carnival is manifested in many edgy, reckless, and impulsive activities like extreme sports, use of recreational drugs, and computer hacking (Jones, 2008). However, being outside of the culture of ‘scientific rationalism’ makes these actions irrational and the consequent action becomes immediately criminalised (Presdee, 2000, p. 160): “in other words everyday life is subjected to a creeping criminalisation process where the carnival of crime becomes a necessity in our lives”. Conclusions Theories in criminology have mostly ignored the importance of the heart of criminal behaviour and largely focused on background attributes. Although it is widely recognised that an array of environmental, social, and psychological aspects are related to higher likelihoods of criminal behaviour, the emphasis on such concerns has been to the detriment of pursuing more rational, practical accounts of criminal behaviour. These background factors, although definitely vital, are remote from the occurrence of a crime. The theory of seductions of violence gives a persuasive account of the importance of understanding what takes place resulting in, and directly prior to the perpetration of a criminal act. The theory, especially that of Katz, captures the dominant symbolic features of criminal behaviour, and how criminal acts can appear both seductive and rational. References Ferrel, J. (1992) ‘Making Sense of Crime: Review Essay on Jack Katz’s Seductions of Crime’, Social Justice 19(3), 111-23. Flora, S.R. (2004) The Power of Reinforcement. New York: SUNY Press. Howe, A. (2008) Sex, Violence and Crime: Foucault and the ‘Man’ Question. New York: Taylor & Francis. Jones, D. (2008) Understanding criminal behaviour: Psychosocial approaches to criminality. Michigan: Willan. Katz, J. (1988) The Seductions of Crime. New York: Basic Books. Katz, J. (2003) Seductions and repulsions of crime. In E. McLaughin, J. Muncie and G. Hughes (eds) Criminological Perspectives: Essential Readings, 2nd edition, London: Sage & The Open University. Muncie, J. (2009) Youth and Crime. London: Sage Publications Ltd. Presdee, M. (2000) Cultural Criminology and the Carnival of Crime. London: Routledge. Sandberg, S. & Pedersen, W. (2009) Street Capital: Black Cannabis Dealers in a White Welfare State. UK: The Policy Press. Segal, L. (2003) Explaining male violence. In E. McLaughin, J. Muncie, and G. Hughes (eds) Criminological Perspectives: Essential Readings, 2nd edition. London: Sage. Wykes, M. & Welsh, K. (2009) Violence, Gender & Justice. London: Sage. Read More