5.1. What is Theory? 
BRIAN FEDOREK 
A theory is an explanation to make sense of our observations about the world. We test hypotheses and create 
theories that help us understand and explain the phenomena. According to Paternoster and Bachman (2001), 
theories should attempt to portray the world accurately and must “fit the facts.”
1 Criminological theories 
focus on explaining the causes of crime. They explain why some people commit a crime, identify risk factors 
for committing a crime, and can focus on how and why certain laws are created and enforced. Sutherland 
(1934) has referred to criminology as the scientific study of breaking the law, making the law, and society’s 
reaction to those who break the law. 
2 Besides making sense of our observations, theories also strive to make 
predictions. If we understand why crime is happening, we can formulate policies or programs to minimize 
it. 
The building blocks of any theory are concepts. Crime, delinquency, and deviance are all concepts that 
need to be defined. We seek to explain these concepts with other concepts. For example, some theories 
may link crime with self-control. Self-control is another concept that needs to be defined. Once we define 
“crime” and “self-control”, we need to measure them. Operationalization is the process of determining how 
we will measure concepts, which are called variables. We could measure self-control in a number of different 
ways. For example, we could test a person’s ability to resist temptation (The Marshmallow Test). Once we 
test the relationship between two variables, we also need to make sure another variable is not affecting the 
results. Spuriousness is when a third variable is causing the other two. We know that ice cream sales and 
murder rates are positively correlated; when one goes up the other goes up. At first glance, someone may 
claim that ice cream is causing people to kill. However, what do you think might be a better explanation? 
Can you think of a third variable that might cause ice cream sales and murder rates to increase? 
When we try to explain why crime occurs, we can look at it from many different perspectives. We can 
create macro-level explanations and micro-level explanations. Macro-level explanations focus on group rate 
differences. For example, why do some countries have more (or less) violent crime than others? Why do 
young people commit more crime than older people? Why do males commit more crime than females? 
Micro-level explanations center on differences among individuals. Macro-level explanations focus on societal 
structures while micro-level explanations focus on processual differences. 
1. Paternoster, R., & Bachman, R. (Eds.) (2001). Explaining criminals and crime: Essays in contemporary criminological theory. Oxford: Oxford 
University Press. 
2. Sutherland, E.H. (1934). Principles of criminology (2nd ed.). Philadelphia, PA: Lippincott. 
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