Criminal Spin
The Criminal Spin is a phenomenological model in criminology, depicting the development of criminal behavior. A criminal spin occurs when there is a sudden, rapid, or gradual acceleration of behavior that is considered criminal. The model refers to those types of behavior that start out as something small and innocent, without malicious or criminal intent and as a result of one situation leading to the next, an almost inevitable chain of reactions triggering counter-reactions is set in motion, culminating in a spin of ever-intensifying criminal behavior. The abovementioned elements of the criminal spin are found in most criminal behaviors.Rabbi Huna said: “Once a man committed a sin and repeated it, it becomes permissible to him.” (Yoma 86b)
Background[edit]
The criminal spin model was developed in the department of criminology at Bar-Ilan University, Israel, by Prof. Natti Ronel and his research team. The idea of the criminal spin was first presented in 2005 at a Bar-Ilan conference entitled “appropriate law enforcement”. A phenomenological analysis of the deviant behavior and numerous studies in criminology, including individual meetings with people who displayed various patterns of criminal, violent or addictive behavior in many circumstances, as well as interviews with those who fell victim to these behaviors led to the development of a comprehensive model that attempts to indicate what most of these behaviors have in common. The phenomenological model of criminal spin allows us to analyze situations and behaviors in society, to examine whether they feature a process of criminal spin and to suggest how this spin may be stopped. As such, different interventions are necessary to stop acute versus chronic spin, and individual versus group spin.
The essence of criminal spin[edit]
The criminal spin model integrates different theories relating to the escalation in criminal or violent behavior, a criminal cycle of thinking or corresponding emotions. Although criminal behavior in its manifold manifestations has different causes, a common essence can be detected for a broad spectrum of so called criminal behaviors, and this essence is the target of the criminal theory. This theory provides a phenomenological understanding of criminal, violent, and victimized behaviors. A basic premise of this theory is that criminality is subjective by nature and accordingly, the study of criminality or victimization should represent the perspective of those involved “from within”. Being phenomenological, this description focuses on process and meaning rather than on etiology and causality. As opposed to causal models and theories, the phenomenological emphasis allows for an in-depth examination of the essence of deviant behavior in its various manifestations and offers a description and explanation of its inherent behavioral, emotional and cognitive mechanisms. This model explains group criminality as well as local criminality that relates to a specific neighborhood or community, while emphasizing the common phenomenological core. In a similar vein, a model applying to behavior in general, which is not necessarily related to deviance, and manages to unite causal and sometimes controversial explanations, can be developed in the future. The phenomenological emphasis that stresses the similarities between types of behavior stemming from different motivations, also points to the possibility to stop these behaviors, and therein lays the criminal spin model’s implement ability. It indicates the intensity and level of the desirable intervention.
Acute criminal spin[edit]
We can discern a criminal spin when there is a sudden, rapid, or gradual acceleration of behavior that is considered criminal or violent. When active, this process operates as an almost inevitable chain of linked events that generate and continually intensify criminal behavior. There is a marked diminishment of personal control as the process proceeds. The acute criminal spin phase is a distinct event or chain of events in an individual's life, or several nonrelated events that occur at different times. When this event is repeated and there is a developmental series of related incidents, it becomes a chronic criminal spin.The spin is not limited to behavior and can be ignited by an emotion or a thought. A common non-criminal example is eating: one chooses a certain diet, then “just tastes” a “forbidden” food and that is when the inner negotiations start: The voice of consciousness and the diet opposing the “seductive voice” of the loved food that “offers itself” to the person desiring it. While this inner discussion is going on, convincing excuses come to the mind such as “just once”, “this is the only opportunity”. At a certain stage the person on the diet gives in and subsequently eats more and more, despite the undesired consequences, sensing a loss of self-control. The initial intention is often to stop there but in many cases individuals find themselves tasting “the forbidden fruit” over and over again, and thus what had started out as just a small taste developed into unplanned and uncontrolled gluttony. Another typical example is of the expression of anger — a minor aversive behavior may develop into a more serious one, reaching a peak of personal aggression, despite an initial peaceful intention. Other examples that are similar to breaking a diet, in that they are not criminal but inflict injury to the individuals themselves, such as taking up smoking cigarettes again, are of equal relevance. Moreover there are examples of non-criminal behavior that do inflict pain on others, such as anger and fights in relationships and friendships; and then there are those illegitimate types of behavior which are indeed criminal and do cause injury, such as violence, theft, robbery and rape among others. The intensity of the spin, reflecting the intensity of the deviant and criminal behavior, can be evaluated according to the frequency of acute spin episodes, their intensity as well as their characteristic array of behaviors. Although the same spin process may occur in the case of a wide range of behaviors, the criminal spin has specific phenomenological characteristics. Similar spin characteristics may occur in the omission of an action required by a certain situation (e.g. child neglect, or negligence in carrying out certain tasks at work). The criminal spin as it has been described so far refers to an outburst expressed in criminal, deviant or offensive behavior. During its acute phase, the individual exhibits a one-time only, or separate, unrelated events that denote a criminal spin. However, the spin might enter into a chronic phase, where the individual is trapped in related or recurring episodes of an acute criminal spin, or a sequential development of criminal, deviant, or violent activity. When the process is repeated numerous times in a chronic spin, the whole life experience of the individual becomes deterministic, shallow, and non-rewarding.
Chronic criminal spin[edit]
A chronic criminal spin is manifested in the development of a criminal lifestyle or career, as well as in repetitive patterns of criminal or offensive behavior. For example, research on compulsive gamblers describes a characteristic chronic spin, a process wherein the gamblers delve into a world of gambling that increasingly comes to rule their lives, while their ability to get out of the spin decreases as the process goes on.The chronic spin is accompanied by secondary, ever-intensifying, behaviors that serve as a cover-up (for example, some of the gamblers also have recourse to deception and drug use). It should be pointed out that there are periods in which the individual is not involved in any criminal activity or deviance, but behaves in a normative way like everyone else. It is precisely these periods of time that may mislead the observer.
Group spin[edit]
Parallel to the individual level, a criminal spin may be detected in groups as well: a group such as an organization, an entire neighborhood, society or culture may exhibit behavior patterns that represent a chronic criminal spin. For example, research on group rape shows that there is a process of mutual encouragement generating an acute collective spin leading the offenders to commit this grave crime. Group rape is often committed while committing another offense, e.g., robbery, and in line with Ben Azzai’s warning in the Ethics of the Fathers that “one sin leads to another sin”, the planned robbery also turns into an unplanned group rape. In such a process of an acute group spin, the group operates as a whole that is larger than its parts. Even if its individual members would not have committed the rape, their collective spin leads to an extreme escalation of violence. Research on members of youth gangs exhibiting chronic group spin patterns has also validated this claim, given that the extent of the offenses committed by the members had grown since they joined the gang. In a similar vein, research on the deterioration of neighborhoods detected a criminal spin in an entire neighborhood to such an extent that the escalation of criminality was found to be greater than the other characteristics of the neighborhood’s deterioration. Furthermore, one may detect a criminal spin even in larger entities, across cultures and social classes or even at a national level, as for example in the case of Nazi Germany, where almost an entire nation adopted a hateful and deviant way of thought, feeling and behavior. Here too, the whole is larger than the sum of its parts in that the culture’s accumulated criminal hatred is greater than the one displayed by individual members.
The duration of the criminal spin[edit]
Usually, if nothing interferes with the natural order of events, the criminal spin leads to a crisis that halts its movement, or reaches a peak and then subsides. The spin can also be brought to a halt by an external intervention. In the experience of the offender, the intervention necessary to stop the spin from escalating should be more powerful than the spin. While law enforcement and social systems might provide such an external intervention, they usually target only some of the characteristics of the criminal spin. Usually their influence is only short-term and limited to the acute criminal spin, and as such they fail to bring about a change that lasts. Therefore it is necessary to generate a complementary transformation that can deeply influence the chronic spin. Positive criminology is a perspective that encompasses various models aimed at this objective.Despite the lack of choice and loss of self-control depicted by the criminal spin model, the latter does not intend to remove the responsibility from the agent, but to describe the phenomenological experience during the spin itself. It is only after the spin that the individual recalls that he experienced a reduced sense of control, which made it difficult for him to stop it by himself.
See also[edit]
•Phenomenology
•Criminal offence
•Positive criminology
•Social deviance
•Pathological gambling
Further reading[edit]
- Holy Kurt, (2013). An addiction to the experience of pain. Unpublished MA Thesis (in Hebrew, English abstract). Ramat Gan, Israel: Bar-Ilan University.
- Tahel Uzan, (2009). The descent into crime and the experience of volunteering as reflected in life stories of youth at risk. Unpublished MA Thesis (in Hebrew, English abstract). Ramat Gan, Israel: Bar-Ilan University.
- Hamutal Ben-Sinai, (2014). Young women in prostitution and recovery. Unpublished MA Thesis (in Hebrew, English abstract). Ramat Gan, Israel: Bar-Ilan University.
- Michal Faradis, (2015). The adaptation of the 12-Step as a professional model in domestic violence, Unpublished PhD dissertation, (in Hebrew, English abstract). Ramat Gan, Israel: Bar-Ilan University.
- Offer Zemel, Natti Ronel, & Tomer Einat, (2015). The impact of introspection and resilience on abstention and desistance from delinquent behavior among adolescents at risk. European Journal of Criminology. On Line, DOI: 10.1177/1477370815587770. (http://euc.sagepub.com/content/early/2015/08/25/1477370815587770.abstract).
- Ronel, Natti, (2013). From a criminal spin to positive criminology. In K. Jaishankar & Natti Ronel (eds.), Global criminology: Crime and victimization in a globalized era (pp. 335–351). Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press (Taylor & Francis Group).
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