Crime and the Bell Curve

The authors refute the arguments put forth in the best-selling book, The Bell Curve (Herrnstein and Murray 1994) that IQ is a powerful predictor of a wide range of social problems, including crime. Since IQ is not amenable to reversal, Herrnstein and Murray have led criminologists to formulate misguided policies to control crime. By reanalyzing the data on crime reported in The Bell Curve, Cullen et al. prove that IQ has, at best, a modest effect on involvement in crime. The authors take a more complex position on IQ, contending that it is only one among numerous crimogenic risk factors that should be taken into consideration. Stronger risk factors exist, many of which are amenable to correctional intervention.

Gurr, T. (1970). Why men rebel. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

The author contends that the potential for collective violence can be determined by assessing certain psychological variables in groups or classes in society. Groups's shares of social goods affect their feelings of relative deprivation. Relative deprivation is defined as the discontent that results from the perceived discrepancy between a group's expectations for their conditions in life and their ability to obtain those conditions; Gurr's focus in on economic deprivation. The author claims