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Agency, Reciprocal Determinism, and Desistance from Crime: a Reply to Thomas, Pogarsky, and Loughran

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Abstract

In their rejoinder, Thomas, Pogarsky, Loughran come to the defense of Paternoster (2017) and promise to clarify his position. They also promise to elucidate the logical flaws associated with critiques of Paternoster’s position, reveal the fundamental incompatibility between agency and determinism, and advance the case for a teleological criminology. Although the authors help to clarify some aspects of Paternoster’s position, they ultimately fail to deliver on their promises. In this paper, I clarify my own position, challenge the agency/determinism dualism embraced by Thomas and his colleagues, and highlight additional problems with their approach, which appears to assume the existence of an autonomous and decontextualized willpower. In the end, I highlight the superior utility of a sociocognitive conceptualization of agency, which is rooted in the framework of reciprocal determinism. This conceptualization of agency is appealing for a variety of reasons. It lends itself to a humanistic approach as it provides a guide for human empowerment. When applied to criminological issues, such as desistance from crime, it can inspire new lines of inquiry. But most of all, it is rooted in science and is consistent with a large body of empirical evidence.

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Fig. 1

Notes

  1. As the work of Moxley (2007, p. 73) makes clear, a single shared definition of determinism does not exist. Some definitions are narrow while others are relatively broad and encompassing. When determinism is defined in broad terms—as the view that all phenomenon are products of interrelated antecedent processes—such a view “does not exclude an interpretation that probabilistic processes are ultimately at work.”

  2. In a 2002 study of eminent psychologists, Bandura ranked number four, behind B.F. Skinner, Jean Piaget, and Sigmund Freud (Haggbloom et al., 2002).

  3. This shift was also reflected in the evolution of Akers’ (1998) social learning theory, which had its early roots in principles of operant conditioning but later incorporated social cognitive principles developed by Bandura.

  4. This does not mean that persistent offenders lack self-efficacy in general, or that they are without agentic resources. As Bandura (1997) observes, self-efficacy is domain specific. While persistent offenders may lack efficacy in conventional settings, they may possess high levels of criminal self-efficacy along with the knowledge and skills that allow them to exercise considerable self-influence in criminal contexts (Brezina & Topalli, 2012; Lindegaard & Jacques, 2014).

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Acknowledgements

This article is dedicated to the memory of Albert Bandura. I thank Alex Piquero, Francis Cullen, Paul Mazerolle, and Michael Altimore for their comments on an earlier version.

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  1. Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology, Georgia State University, P.O. Box 3992, Atlanta, GA, 30302-3992, USA

    Timothy Brezina

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Brezina, T. Agency, Reciprocal Determinism, and Desistance from Crime: a Reply to Thomas, Pogarsky, and Loughran. J Dev Life Course Criminology 7, 695–710 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40865-021-00175-7

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