ABSTRACT
This chapter will examine an influential body of research seeking to answer the question of whether we can understand the causes of criminality in terms of the histories of the offenders. Many assumptions have been popularly made about the backgrounds of those who commit crime. These assumptions have been clearly present in psychoanalytic work (e.g. Aichorn 1925) in which people who commit crime were seen as responding to emotionally deprived backgrounds. The assumption that crime occurs through neglect and poverty was a strong theme in more sociologically orientated work from the end of the nineteenth century (as discussed in Chapter 1). Such views have been subject to criticism, however, three particular observations being made. First, the anecdotal observation was made that many people emerged from backgrounds of deprivation and poverty without turning to crime. Second, it can be argued that those working with offenders had a biased perspective. They were learning about the past lives of the offenders from the offenders themselves. The offenders clearly had a vested interest in presenting their lives as ones marked by difficulties (in order to explain away their behaviour). Third, the more general observation could be made that although average income and general wealth among the masses of people rose enormously in the West in the second half of the twentieth century, crime rates also increased greatly. As discussed in Chapter 1, this observation cast doubt on there being any simple relationship between social deprivation and crime.
