Tautology in Criminology?

@Mike Sutton,

Mike Sutton wrote:

The philosopher from the website “ask a philosopher" emailed this regarding my contention that at some level "opportunities must have been present for every crime that was ever committed" and so crime reduction initiatives can never reduce opportunities unless they can make the criminal target disappear.

Here is his/her reply:

You don't believe, strictly speaking, that opportunities can ever be actually eliminated, making the original statement into an absurd hypothetical along the lines of "If the moon were green cheese, pigs could fly". Instead, you'd prefer a statement along the lines of "reducing vulnerabilities is likely to reduce incidents of crime".

I don't know if you have a background in formal logic, but this offers a good example how the artificial structures of formal logic can actually provide insight into real world situations.
****
I emailed them back saying that yes indeed: "reducing vulnerabilities is likely to reduce incidents of crime". is a much more meaningful statement.

....OK so we do need to know what the meaning of "opportunity" is. And it does seem that it is not the right word.

Out of interest, the Situational Crime Prevention theorists (including Laycock and her Crime Scientists) cite the example of how the switch over in the 1970’s of domestic gas in the UK from poisonous coal gas to North Sea Oil gas led to a massive reduction in suicides. They use this as an example of how reducing opportunity reduced harm.

The difference they do not explain however is that the target of suicide is the victim and that Gas is not a target - it is a facilitator. Removing the facilitator removed 100% the opportunity to gas yourself quickly and efficiently in privacy of your own home. They however extrapolate from this example to say it proves that opportunity reduction reduces social harms.

This thinking has been UK Government Crime reduction Policy for the past 30 years by the way…and is a major influence in the USA.

I was thinking that "good opportunity" is what you probably have in mind. If we reduce good opportunities for crime the crime rate is very likely to decrease. All crimes are done because there are opportunities to commit them. That's a tautology (or better, just a truism, since "tautology" has a technical meaning in logic, and I prefer that people not fiddle about with it. But that all crimes are committed when there is a good opportunity to to commit them is not true, since there are many less than intelligent criminals around who end up in jail because the opportunities they take for committing crimes involve a less than fortunate juncture of circumstances. So, I think the answer to you original question is that if you mean by "opportunity" simply the possibility of committing the crime, it is just a truism that all crimes imply an opportunity. But if you mean by "opportunity" a good opportunity for committing the crime, it is false that all crimes imply an opportunity of their commission. It goes without saying that if you decrease any possibility(opportunity) of committing the crime, then you reduce any good possibility (good opportunity) of committing the crime.

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@kennethamy,

Glad to see you've come around to my way of thinking Laughing

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@joefromchicago,

joefromchicago wrote:

Glad to see you've come around to my way of thinking

Huh?

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Please note. The philosopher from the website I mention - who's advice I directly quoted (in quotation marks) in my posts on this question - is Christopher Sunami, of http://kitoba.com

I am very grateful to Chris - and everyone who advised me here - for their generosity in helping me to grapple with this question.

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I think everyone here is agreed then that Laycock's statement: "The most significant and universal cause of crime is opportunity. If there were no opportunities there would be no crimes. " .... is not a tautology.

However, debate remains as to whether it is (a) a false statement (b) an example of begging the question or (c) a truism.

The philosopher and writer Chris Sunami (personal email with Mike Sutton) concludes on this question that: "Opportunity does not 'cause' crime under any widely held understanding of the word cause. At most you might call it a necessary but insufficient ‘condition’ for crime".

I think that our inability to conclusively argue that it is a case if begging the question also eliminates that possibility (for now at least).

The so called "crime scientists" , whom Laycock wishes to define and lead, are Rational Choice Theorists (RCT). RCT accepts that most offenders at least seek (try) to weigh risks and rewards, but they do so only as far as they are able to do so (quick/desperate decision making coupled sometimes with poor judgement - unknowable risks to themselves). Hence - accepting Joefromchicago's argument - their RCT meaning of the word opportunity does not necessarily mean good opportunity it means "possibility".

So Joefromchicago's argument means that Laycock's statement is a truism - but only if we accept the proposition that opportunities cause crime.

Chris Sunami proposes that as we understand the meaning of the word "opportunity" it cannot be a cause because it is a necessary, but insufficient, condition.

Does this lead us then to the conclusion that Laycock's statement is false but is not a tautology, nor is it a truism?

Perhaps the problem is with 'opportunity' - particularly for a crime science. The problem is that opportunity is a subjective social construction (how can we measure opportunity in nature?). Perhaps 'vulnerability' is a better thing to focus on. After all, we can at least find and measure some vulnerability in nature.

For example, we could say that a giant tortoise has a shell that renders it safe from all known current predators on its desert island. But that its shell is vulnerable to x kg per sq cm force to its shell. Hence if ever hungry sailors armed with hatchets come along its vulnerability will create a potential opportunity for the sailor to kill and eat it.

Vulnerability of potential targets of crime (strength of walls, glass doorframes, safes, people, cars etc) can at least be found in nature and measured to some degree.

Opportunity cannot be found in nature in the same objective way.

Although a relative concept, potential vulnerability can be measured within the bounds of current knowledge. Perhaps then, Laycock - as a "scientist" would be better off focusing on vulnerability rather than opportunity?

That said, I do not propose substituting vulnerability for opportunity in her statement.

Is Laycock's main error in her reifying of opportunity?

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@Mike Sutton,

I take back what I said above about it not begging the question. I think it does and also that it a case of fallacious circular reasoning and therefore not quite a tautology as currently defined.

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@Mike Sutton,

The conditions for crime can be resumed to :

1 - Possibility
2 - Need
3 - Opportunity

Evolution teach us that opportunity will be created every time there´s need to it given of course its possible...so opportunity its not a passive element on the equation...

...the principle implied in crime perpetration seams to be closely related with the idea of conservation of energy (work) to achieve a specific goal disregarding social conventional rules given a conflict of interests between the subject and the group...

...lack of security is just one of the numerous and often interrelated elements that can provide a sense of opportunity for crime.

...in turn its Need who seams to be the major element conditioning the degree of effort to achieve opportunity out of possibility...

...given crime is the perfect example of an entropy generator that deeply reduces the efficiency of an established social/economical system thus exponentially elevating costs to correct its consequences, an effective prevention concerning the very NEED for crime should be the first primordial factor to properly approach a solution...reducing opportunity beyond security control by diminishing poverty rates in a strong well established moral campus/field are therefore in my personnel perspective the essential elements to reduce crime rates and the substantial remnant of its pernicious effects to minimum levels...

If I remember it correctly, New York in the transition from the 80´s to the 90´s was the perfect example of this turning point on how we should integratedly approach the problem...

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all i can say on this matter is, when tying someone up in the commission of a robbery or kidnapping, keeping the ropes taut is of utmost importance

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@Mike Sutton,

Mike Sutton wrote:

So Joefromchicago's argument means that Laycock's statement is a truism - but only if we accept the proposition that opportunities cause crime.

Not exactly. If opportunity is a necessary condition for crime, then every crime must, by necessity, be preceded by an opportunity. So to say "for every crime there's an opportunity" is to state something that already set forth as a part of the proposition. That's stating a truism. On the other hand, saying "opportunity causes crime" is to confuse a necessary condition for a sufficient condition.

Mike Sutton wrote:

Is Laycock's main error in her reifying of opportunity?

Well, no, at least not in the little bit of Laycock's work that you've quoted here. Confusion seems to be a bigger problem.

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@joefromchicago,

Thanks Joefromchicago

Where I think I got muddled towards the end (I do fully understand the necessary but not sufficient condition explanation) seems to be in my erroneous thinking that if a proposition is not true then it cannot be labelled as a truism.

So - just checking here - something that is not in fact true can be a truism?

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@Mike Sutton,

Mike Sutton wrote:

So - just checking here - something that is not in fact true can be a truism?

Sure. A proposition can be logically true without being empirically true. For instance:

All unicorns are white.
This thing is a unicorn.
Therefore, it must be white.

Is true, even though there are no such things as unicorns. A truism is something that is true on definitional terms. If I define "cat" to include "an animal with four legs," then saying "I have a four-legged cat" would be to state a truism, since, by my definition, the term "cat" already includes the term "four-legged" -- even though there are some three-legged cats out there. Likewise, if I define "crime" to include "an act which is preceded by an opportunity," then stating that "for every crime there is an opportunity" is stating a truism, since the definition of "crime" already includes "opportunity."

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@joefromchicago,

joefromchicago wrote:

Mike Sutton wrote:
So - just checking here - something that is not in fact true can be a truism?

Sure. A proposition can be logically true without being empirically true. For instance:

All unicorns are white.
This thing is a unicorn.
Therefore, it must be white.

Is true, even though there are no such things as unicorns. A truism is something that is true on definitional terms. If I define "cat" to include "an animal with four legs," then saying "I have a four-legged cat" would be to state a truism, since, by my definition, the term "cat" already includes the term "four-legged" -- even though there are some three-legged cats out there. Likewise, if I define "crime" to include "an act which is preceded by an opportunity," then stating that "for every crime there is an opportunity" is stating a truism, since the definition of "crime" already includes "opportunity."

And, I suppose, if I define a cat, or a crime, to be a fried egg easy-over, then that makes a cat or a crime to be a fried egg easy-over. I tell you, words are just magical!

There is an interesting story told about Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln asked his son, Tad the following question: if I call a dog's tail a leg, how many legs would a dog have? Tad replies, "Five. The original four and now, the tail". To which Lincoln answered, "Wrong. Calling a dog's tail a leg doesn't make it a leg". Worth thinking about.

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@kennethamy,

...nevertheless I think you would agree that concepts exist...and even if it is the case that some concepts might well refer to imaginary reality´s, that of course does n´t in turn has to mean that such reality´s are not real as imaginary reality´s themselves...

...Imaginary amounts to the possible real in the imaginary "realm" of thought which is distinct from the impossible to imagine in any realm at all...

...in fact I am confident that imaginary realms are in no way less real then the "actual" realms in which we believe to exist, be it because I can perfectly exist in my dreams and even in others dreams, but essentially because if dreams are to be the product of mind and mind to be the possible measure of reality, then reality which I can conceive and speak about is as real in dreams as in "real" life...

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@kennethamy,

kennethamy wrote:

And, I suppose, if I define a cat, or a crime, to be a fried egg easy-over, then that makes a cat or a crime to be a fried egg easy-over.

Without question, it would be a fried egg according to your definition. Of course, your definition would be idiotic, but then that's your problem, not mine.

kennethamy wrote:

I tell you, words are just magical!

No, words are just words. And they all have definitions. Some are just better than others.

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@joefromchicago,

joefromchicago wrote:

kennethamy wrote:
And, I suppose, if I define a cat, or a crime, to be a fried egg easy-over, then that makes a cat or a crime to be a fried egg easy-over.

Without question, it would be a fried egg according to your definition. Of course, your definition would be idiotic, but then that's your problem, not mine.

kennethamy wrote:
I tell you, words are just magical!

No, words are just words. And they all have definitions. Some are just better than others.

So Abraham Lincoln was wrong. If I called a dog's tail a leg, then dogs would have five legs? Even if a dog's tail looked nothing like a leg, and even if a dog's tail had nothing like the function of a leg, a dog's tail would be a leg?

What then does it mean to say that it would be a fried egg "according to my definition"? Does it mean any more than to say that I called it a fried egg? Since when are individuals empowered to define things> Suppose I say that "joefromchicago" is a fried egg. I suppose that makes you a fried egg "by my definition". And what the hell does that mean? Of course, words are just words. What else do you expect them to be?

The meanings of words are conventional, and the results of human decision. Words are not born with their meanings. The woman who asked how it happened that Lou Gerhig happened to get Lou Gerhig's disease was an idiot. But that does not mean that it is up to individuals what a word means. It is up to the linguistic community.

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@kennethamy,

kennethamy wrote:

joefromchicago wrote:

kennethamy wrote:
And, I suppose, if I define a cat, or a crime, to be a fried egg easy-over, then that makes a cat or a crime to be a fried egg easy-over.

Without question, it would be a fried egg according to your definition. Of course, your definition would be idiotic, but then that's your problem, not mine.

kennethamy wrote:
I tell you, words are just magical!

No, words are just words. And they all have definitions. Some are just better than others.

So Abraham Lincoln was wrong. If I called a dog's tail a leg, then dogs would have five legs? Even if a dog's tail looked nothing like a leg, and even if a dog's tail had nothing like the function of a leg, a dog's tail would be a leg?

What then does it mean to say that it would be a fried egg "according to my definition"? Does it mean any more than to say that I called it a fried egg? Since when are individuals empowered to define things> Suppose I say that "joefromchicago" is a fried egg. I suppose that makes you a fried egg "by my definition". And what the hell does that mean? Of course, words are just words. What else do you expect them to be?

The meanings of words are conventional, and the results of human decision. Words are not born with their meanings. The woman who asked how it happened that Lou Gerhig happened to get Lou Gerhig's disease was an idiot. But that does not mean that it is up to individuals what a word means. It is up to the linguistic community.
In any case, you don't define things or words simply by calling them things. I don't define a cat by calling it a "act". That isn't what a definition is. A definition is something like, "A cat is a small domestic feline". And that definition is correct because that is how fluent English speakers use the term, "cat". If I defined a cat as "a large pachyderm with big ears and a trunk" that would not be a worse definition of cat. It would be an incorrect definition of "cat" because fluent English speaker do not use the term "cat" that way.

There are correct and incorrect definitions. That is why we consult dictionaries.

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Tautology in Criminology?

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