Katz, Jack: Seductions of Crime

Criminological theories have traditionally relied on a range of psychological and sociological factors as causes of criminal behavior. When Jack Katz published Seductions of Crime: Moral and Sensual Attractions in Doing Evil in 1988, it represented a dramatic theoretical shift in the attempt to explain the phenomenon of crime. Katz argues that criminological theories tend to focus on the negative “background” of crime, such as an offender's possible psychological problems or socioeconomic disadvantage. Such theories fail to consider the “foreground” of crime, which often holds symbolic and powerful meaning and defines the moments leading up to a criminal event in ways that may be significant to offenders and victims (Katz, 1988, p. 3). “As unattractive morally as crime may be,” observes Katz (1988, p. 10), “we must appreciate that there is genuine experiential creativity in it as well. We should then be able to see what are, for the subject, the authentic attractions of crime and we should then be able to explain variations in criminality beyond what can be accounted for by background factors.” Through a careful examination of the foreground, Katz helps the reader to better understand how people can be seduced into committing criminal and sometimes violent acts.

Katz further challenges the idea that crime is motivated by the desire for material goods, arguing instead that the focus on materialism as a cause of crime has hindered the ability to understand the acceptance of evil by individuals. He contends that at the core of deviance are moral emotions such as humiliation, righteousness, and vengeance, and that with each of these, “the attraction that proves to be most fundamentally compelling is that of overcoming a personal challenge to moral—not to material—existence” (p. 9). Seductions of Crime delves deeply into the ways in which offenders interpret and assign meaning to what may appear to others as relatively unremarkable events.

Katz seeks to better understand the distinct motivations and attractions for a wide range of crimes including homicide, property offenses, and robbery. His analysis is based on numerous sources of qualitative data including college students’ self-reports of property crime, ethnographic studies of active offenders, and examination of previously published research (e.g., research on robberies in Chicago conducted by Zimring & Zuehl, 1986). He proposes that while each type of crime requires a different set of conditions, each set includes: “1) a path of action-distinctive practical requirements of successfully committing the crime, 2) a line of interpretation-unique ways of understanding how one is and will be seen by others, and 3) an emotional process—seductions and compulsions that have special dynamics” (p. 9).