Anthropological Theories of Crime and Delinquency

Abstract

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