Long before there was a recognized science of criminology, people have wondered: why do some individuals break the law? Despite decades of research into various theories, there is no definitive answer. Human beings are highly complex animals, and no one explanation of behavior can cover all crimes or criminals. Criminologists have several theories as to what causes crime, and, here at CJL, we shall go attempt to discuss many of the more prominent theories.
When applying criminology to a context such as supervillainy, however, one has to remember that they are dealing with fiction, and that characters in a narrative will behave in a certain way in order to further the means of the story. Since most authors of comic books are neither criminologists nor career criminals themselves, they may be assigning motivations to characters which may seem to be out of sorts with reality. Despite this glaring fact, we here at CJL will ignore the simple explanation that “supervillains commit crime because it is written in the script”.
Free will and fictional characters
Clearly, fictional characters, be they heroes, villains, bystanders or otherwise do not possess free will, as they are completely at the behest of the writers and artists who bring them to a semblance of life. However, it is my opinion that people in general do possess free will, and, therefore, are capable of making choices on their own, outside of an influence of destiny and overwhelming cosmic forces. Therefore, when it is not shown that a character within a story definitively lacks free will, be it to a mystic curse, mind control, or other plot device, we shall assume that they do possess such freedom.
The presence of free will, however, does not imply that any and all criminal act one would commit is simply a rational choice, derived at logically and with clear thought. Real world examples such as duress, mental illness and intoxication aside, superhero fiction is ripe with examples of truly insane characters, many of them villainous. Therefore, there are villains whom act seemingly at random, the victim of their own insanity – The Joker and The Green Goblin are prime examples. But also present are calm, rational individuals such as Ra's Al Ghul or The Rhino – villains who chose to engage in criminal activity for personal reasons.
In the coming weeks, we here at CJL will take a look at various theories of criminology, such as Rational Choice, Routine Activities, Strain Theory, Trait Theories and Social Control theories. For now, however, we'll end on the following lesson.
Criminals are individual beings, and their motivations and behavior is unique to each person. However, there are significant ways to predict for an individual to engage in crime, or to explain why they have done so. Join us in our next article in this series where we look at Rational Choice and Deterrence Theory.
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