Revising the Critical Gaze: An Inversion of Criminological Theories to Center Race, Racism, and Resistance

Many leading criminological theories problematically focus on individuals and communities as criminal rather than implicating structures and systems that perpetuate harm. We offer a nine-step protocol to invert and redefine three predominant deficits-based criminological theories. Our inversion method produced punitive provocation theory, critical environmental adaptation theory, and socio-structural induction theory, as theoretical inversions of deterrence, social disorganization, and self-control theory. We suggest different measurement options for each new inverted theory, including a focus on the structural antecedents of crime such as racial/ethnic discrimination, exclusion, surveillance practices, and divestment from communities. To ameliorate under-theorizing and create a more equitable and less harmful society, we urge theorists, researchers, and practitioners to adopt a more inclusive, critical, and reflexive approach to understanding human behavior.


Introduction
Austin Turk (1966) explained a criminal label does not necessarily equate to who someone is or what they have done.Turk (1966) posited that criminalization is triggered by perceptions of the individual by those in power, based on race and gender (see Beckett 1999;Hinton and Cook 2021;Muhammad 2010).Turk called upon criminologists to integrate theories that examine the individual and their context to understand "criminality."In the last several decades we have witnessed increased use of post-positivist criminological perspectives that ignore structural racism and systemic violence (Cohen 1988;Sian 2017;Woodward et al. 2016).
The critical gaze remains hyper-focused on the individual as "criminal", as defined by those in power.No balanced inquiry exists about the social engineering practices of the powerful, including the use of social stratification and criminal codes.Social stratification and criminal laws disproportionately impact those who are non-white with low socioeconomic status.Most criminological research examines criminal behavior through the prism of individual decisionmaking and psychological deficit or pathology, instead of the structural facilitators of social conflict (Turk 1966).Dominant criminological theories tend to use race as an independent variable or covariate, reinforcing stereotypes absent of context.These reinforced stereotypes perpetuate the criminalization of minoritized and racialized groups, even without the presence of criminal behavior.While critical scholars have long stressed the criminal justice system's foundation of structural racism and systemic violence (Sykes 1974), the broader society is joining the conversation and acknowledging the existence and influence of white supremacy and the culture of whiteness (Martinot 2010).The current scholastic movement recognizes the culpability of people with any level of privilege in perpetuating a racist and classist system, including criminologists.
We encourage criminologists to reflect on their involvement in practices that we believe sustain inequality.These practices include the use of agnostic language that ignore crime as a construct of social control, despite the malleability of law, and the creation/evaluation of underdeveloped theories absent of context.We believe the combination of these practices result in the reinforcement of racial/ethnic stereotypes and racist policies and practices.We contribute to existing critiques of Critical Criminology scholars in the spirit of addressing the second practice noted above.We invert the deficit perspective of three dominant criminological theories: deterrence theory, social disorganization theory, and self-control theory.We redefine these theories using a critical and strengths-based framework to center race, racism, and acts of resistance in the face of oppression.We offer measurement suggestions for creating or accessing data that can inform systemic change, challenge stigmatizing stereotypes, and lead to humanistic insights to inform our public institutions.

Select Review of Criminological Theories
A portfolio of critical criminology literature has challenged the state of criminology for decades (Wright and Friedrichs 1998).The circumstances in which these theories and literature were produced differs vastly from the current moment.The field is overdue for building new theories around the structural antecedents of crime.Three prominent theories were selected that encapsulate the shift from sociological to psychosocial explanations of crime: deterrence theory, social disorganization theory, and self-control theory.These theories represent a theoretical shift from classical to post-positivist paradigms and comprise a large portion of the knowledge base in the field.They focus on criminalizing the individual and remain widely used.. Below we briefly discuss deterrence, social disorganization, and self-control theories; their premises, measurement practices, and problematics.

Deterrence Theory
Deterrence theory has guided most existing criminal justice practices and policies in the U.S. The theory was conceptualized in the 18th century by theorists Bentham (1789) and Beccaria (1764).Bentham suggested that human behavior is steered by a desire to alleviate pain, maximize pleasure, and seek crimes with benefits that must outweigh potential sanctions, in order to deter criminal engagement.Beccaria supported the idea that fear of punishment would lessen crime and added that sanctions must be proportional to the crime, rather than barbaric, cruel, or irrational.Deterrence-based practices are intended to have a "general" or "specific" effect.General deterrence refers to the idea that sanctions can have a broad impact on the actions of the general population.
Deterrence theory has been studied and advanced for over two centuries but has little empirical support for its core theoretical tenets, which indicate certain, swift, and severe sanctions deter criminal engagement.It is difficult to measure and isolate the impact of punishment on crime and particularly challenging to account for individuals' rationality (Paternoster 2010).Existent literature suggests that swiftness and severity of punishment are essentially inconsequential to criminal engagement (Nagin and Pogarsky 2001).Certainty of punishment does seem to have a deterrent effect on criminal involvement (Nagin & Pogarsky 2001;Piquero et al. 2011), but this notion relies on individuals' awareness and perceptions of sanctions.Yet, few studies examine subjective and objective sanction risk (Pickett and Roche 2016).Kennedy's (1996) practice of focused deterrence that increases the perceived threat of a sanction has been found to alter criminal behavior in some implementation sites and not others (Braga et al. 2018).
A leading critique of deterrence theory, even held by Beccaria (1764) himself, is that sanctions are likely only to result in "temporary obedience" rather than sustained change in beliefs and behaviors (Appel & Peterson, 1965;Paternoster, 2010).The mere illegality of an act does not guarantee that individuals will internalize the act as "wrong" or "immoral" and therefore be opposed to engagement.Beccaria explained that moral education is the "surest" method to prevent crime because it enables people to "make better choices" instead of securing compliance through punishment (Becarria 1764, p. 99).It is important to note that what is deemed punishable changes over time, which confirms that these acts are not inherently immoral, and are solely a reflection of trending social narratives and interests of those currently in power.Evolving definitions of crime challenges the legitimacy of these definitions and the punishment of acts that are potentially considered acceptable the next day.The malleability of crime definitions undermine the use of punishment as a response, limiting and cancelling the possibility of deterrent effects.
Another critique of deterrence theory is that punishment can have criminogenic effects because it increases strain and decreases social control (Nagin et al. 2009).A criminal record is not just an artifact of punishment but a prolonged form of punishment, straining opportunities for employment, housing, education, and food.Individuals turn to the streets for reliable and accessible resources to support themselves and their families, when lacking the means to enter the mainstream workforce (Henson 2020).Prison communication barriers, such as visitation restrictions and costs of phone calls, attenuate the relationships between those incarcerated and people in the community (Christian 2005).The inability to maintain stable connections and the strains of re-entry, without positive social bonds supporting the individual and holding them accountable, increase the likelihood of re-engaging in crime (Mowen et al. 2019).
If punishment or the threat of punishment deterred crime, recidivism would be obsolete.
More than 650,000 individuals return to the community from prison each year.Data shows that about two-thirds will be re-arrested within three years of their release (Alper et al. 2018).At least one in four of the 4.9 million individuals who go to jail each year will return to jail within a year and at least 428,000 of those individuals will go to jail three or more times over the course of a year (Jones and Sawyer 2019).Recidivism is nearly an inevitable outcome of our criminal legal practices that hyper-criminalize, hyper-surveil, and hyper-punish individuals beyond the confines of prison and jail.The support for deterrence theory is inconclusive, yet it guides many practices, including hotspots policing, mandatory minimum sentencing, and the death penalty.

Social Disorganization Theory
Social disorganization theory is a social structural theory of crime.The original concept maintains that crime emerges as a result of anomie or a breakdown in regulation, or informal social control.In 1942, Shaw and McKay attempted to link juvenile delinquency to the breakdown of informal social control with three premises (Hart and Lersch 2015).These propositions included relative deprivation, racial/ethnic heterogeneity, and residential mobility.
Relative deprivation attempts to capture the strain associated with achieving basic sustenance and has come to be understood as a reference for poverty. .Racial/ethnic heterogeneity is a crude premise meant to explain competing norms and values among different racial/ethnic residents in a community.Residential mobility iss a reference to residential turnover considered to be destabilizing for maintaining a culture of community control.This includes constant influxes and outflows of people into and from places, less interaction, impersonal relations, greater anonymity, and reduced attachment to people and places (Kubrin 2019;Hart and Lersch 2015;Warner et al. 2010).
Most scholars shifted away from social disorganization theory in the 1980s, deeming the theory problematic, underdeveloped, and prone to scholars drawing inferences about individual motivation based on group and neighborhood dynamics (Bursik 1988).Sampson and Groves (1989) reimagined social disorganization as a community-level theory of social disorganization.
Under this model, collective efficacy was posited as the underlying mechanism necessary for informal social control.Social disorganization theory experienced a revitalization following Sampson and Groves' (1989) and Bursik and Grasmick's (1993) (Kubrin and Wo 2015;Kubrin and Weitzer 2003;Sampson and Groves 1989;Sampson and Raudenbush 1999).While some studies do not explicitly mention social disorganization in part or in whole, remnants of its premises are present in many variables selected to measure the influence of micro, community, neighborhood, or ecological context on crime.Despite conceptual improvements and clarification, social disorganization remains underdeveloped accompanied with the use of imprecise measurements that do not fully account for the structural influences on the etiology of crime.
Many scholars acknowledge political, legal, social, and economic influences that shape neighborhood and community ecology (Bursik 1988;Bursik and Grasmick 1993;Eillott et al. 1996;Jones 2020;Kubrin and Weitzer, 2003).Yet, these structural realities have been characterized as exogenous, independent, or outside of conventional models of social disorganization theory (Kubris 2019).A generation has passed since Bursik's (1988) original critique without any assessment of the formative structural practices that shape environments and the activities of places including racism, sexism, heteronormativity, and ableism.As Kubrin and Weitzer (2003) noted, "Surprisingly little attention has been given to the role of exogenous determinants, and very little is known about the connections and interactions between internal and external factors" (p.387).The criminological field predominantly focuses on people, instead of examining practices that maintain structural inequality and inequities across places.
Advancing criminological science in this way proliferates harm.McCord (2003) once discussed how all program interventions for crime prevention do not produce positive impacts; therefore, sound research must use appropriate research designs to account for the possibility of adverse effects.Adverse effects are not only artefacts of research design and endeavors, but also of under-theorizing and imprecise measurement of theories.Social disorganization theory is better conceived as a theory of consequence that explains the impact of structural inequality, racial/ethnic discrimination, and racial/ethnic inequities.What criminologists measure are the behavioral responses to structural stressors with crime as the main outcome of interest.Percentblack, percent-Latino, and female-headed households are crude measures used to capture systemic inequality.This practice normalizes racial/ethnic stereotypes of people and places, reinforcing "prejudiced analyses" (Jones 2020, p. 4).Conflating place ecology with race/ethnicity, gender, and social status treats people as disorganized (see Kubrin 2019).This research practice reinforces the biased structural arrangement of society by not empirically interrogating the policies responsible for the structural status quo.. Failing to appropriately measure meso and macro-structural processes and their local-level variations hinders the relevancy and utility of our scholarship.This inhibits our ability to inform public debates and deliberations on policy and practice.

Self-Control Theory ("General Theory of Crime")
Most control theorists assert all humans are intrinsically selfish and, without proper constraints, would participate in criminal or deviant behaviors.Bridging the assumptions of classical and positivist criminology, Gottfredson and Hirschi (1990) developed their General Theory of Crime, also known as self-control theory.They explicitly declared their theory a general theory because of its ability to explain all acts of crime, deviance, and analogous behaviors for all ages and context.Gottfredson and Hirschi (1990) argue that an individual's level of self-control can explain all differences in propensity to either commit or refrain from criminal behavior.The characteristics of people with low self-control include impulsivity, risktaking, insensitivity, short sightedness, and are posited to commit crime if the right opportunities are present (Gottfredson and Hirschi 1990).Gottfredson and Hirschi (1990) failed to elaborate on the role of opportunity in their original theory, such as the necessary conditions, target availability, and lack of guardianship that allow criminal events to occur, but other scholars have filled this gap (see Rocque et al. 2016;Wikstrom, Oberwittler et al. 2012).
The theory suggests one's self-control is developed early on in childhood and remains stable throughout the life course (Gottfredson & Hirschi, 1990).The stability of one's selfcontrol remains consistent despite any situations or events that occur throughout a person's life (Gottfredson & Hirschi, 1990).Socialization through effective parenting, appropriate supervision, and proper disciplinary techniques determines a child's self-control (Gottfredson & Hirschi, 1990).The most important institutions responsible for the socialization of youth is the family, followed by the school.A large body of research has tested the principles of self-control theory but not without controversy.Attitudinal or behavioral measures have been used to operationalize self-control and both have produced evidence in support of the theory (Grasmick et al. 1993;Marcus 2003).However, a major methodological criticism of self-control theory is the tautology in how self-control is measured.The theory does not define the tendency towards criminal behavior separately from low self-control (Kubrin et al. 2009).Gottfredson and Hirschi (1990) asserted that low self-control accounts for all risky behaviors, including smoking, gambling, drinking, and sex culture.Therefore, scholars find it difficult to create scales that measure a person's propensity to commit crime independently from indicators for low selfcontrol.Scales used to operationalize manifestations of low self-control are similar indicators used to operationalize low self-control (Akers et al. 2017).Essentially, inferring the tautological notion that low self-control equates to low self-control.
Other common critiques of the theory involve the stability thesis of self-control and how the theory fails to explain the availability of situational factors that characterize criminal events.This may include a person's lifestyle routines, proximate access to desired goods or victims, or how people perceive their surroundings when intending to commit a crime.Gottfredson and Hirschi (1990) attempted to challenge the deterministic nature of positivism through the role of parents and school in the development of self-control.However, their claims that, once established, low levels of self-control are invariable negates the idea of human growth and transformation, even though empirical support for developmental life-course theories demonstrate frequent occurrences of change over time (see Laub and Sampson 1993;Hay and Meldrum 2016;Sampson and Laub 2003).Hirschi (2004) attempted to address the critiques of self-control theory by integrating concepts of his social bonds theory (1969).Since the inception of the redefined self-control theory, many scholars have investigated different scales of the original self-control theory and new decisional self-control concept (Bouffard and Rice 2011;Piquero and Bouffard 2007;Brown and Jennings 2014).While these contributions to the advancement of self-control theory are noted for their methodological rigor, they do not address the inherent harms of the foundational propositions within self-control theory.
A more critical assessment of self-control theory calls to issue the assumptions toward human behavior and lack of attention to macro-level forces that oppress and surround human development.The language of propensity and stability within self-control theory assigns harmful labels and rejects the remarkable ability for people to persevere despite adverse circumstances.
Additionally, scholars have questioned if people truly possess any control over their lives when social forces in society reduce one's experiences to a needs-based existence (Schenwar and Law 2020).Frameworks, such as Maslow's (1943) Hierarchy of Needs has long established that human motivation is driven by the desire to fulfill basic needs, such as self-actualization, esteem, love and belonging, safety, and physiological.The theory ignores systemic racism, class oppression, patriarchy, and other criminogenic conditions of society that determine one's position in the social structure, for one's positionality provides individuals with advantages in some social systems but marginalization in others.The theory places the onus on parents and the institution of school to effectively socialize youth, without considering how the structure of society undermines the function of those domains.Madfis (2012) critiques the conceptual traps that theories, such as self-control theory, create when they attempt to generalize across all contexts.General theories ignore and erase the unique identities of people, including the problematic demographic labels attributed to individuals because of structural inequalities that result from poverty, sexism, and racism (Madfis 2012).It is important to recognize the impact and cause of blocked opportunities, the malleability of individuals' identities, attitudes, and behaviors, as well as the unique response individuals enact when subjected to oppressive conditions.

Methods
We devised a protocol to progress existing problematic theories into humanistic ones that can more accurately and fairly guide the study of race/ethnicity and crime in criminology.Our objective was theoretical inversion of the original premises of deterrence, social disorganization, and self-control theories.We develop new theoretical propositions of these theories for understanding criminological phenomena in the context of structural inequality and discrimination.Our protocol involved presenting alternative and innovative measurement approaches for each theory.The process for theoretical inversion includes nine actionable steps (Table 1).

Deterrence Theory → Punitive Provocation Theory
The purpose of the criminal legal system is to both prevent and respond to crime to ultimately achieve justice.Deterrence is a person-and deficit-based theory positing that punishment dissuades criminal engagement, reduces harm, and increases public safety.We attempt to do this strictly through the punitive removal or threatening individual liberty, and the imposition of harsh punishment.To invert deterrence theory, , we must acknowledge modes of punishment in the U.S. are criminogenic: They incite criminal engagement, increase harm, and decrease public safety (DeLisi et al. 2011;Del Toro et al. 2108;Drakulick et al. 2012;Murray and Farrington, 2008).This problematic approach, while scaled dependent on the crime, does not adequately address the harms caused to victims and their communities, and as research shows, perpetuates victimization and victimizes vulnerable populations.
Punitive Provocation Theory, an inversion of deterrence theory, is structure-based and critical of structure.It retains the deficit-based approach of deterrence theory, but turns the critical gaze upon our social structures.Punitive provocation theory posits that punishment tactics are operationalized through five mechanisms: (a) the removal of freedom, (b) the removal of individuals from the family and community, (c) the imposition of fees and fines, and (d) ceaseless stigmatization.These mechanisms facilitate a number of consequences.First, blocked opportunities for employment and housing, which provokes criminal engagement and causes harm to individuals, families, communities, and the general public, and third, increases the likelihood of victimization, threatening the safety of those beyond the scope of stigma and criminalization.Punitive provocation theory implicates punitive legislation, policies, and practices that cause harm to communities and can lead individuals to engage in crime.The critical gaze is shifted away from the individual and the analysis of attitudes and behaviors.

Measurement Possibilities
This theory examines individual and community-level variables.Individual measurements include direct and vicarious police contacts; direct and vicarious experiences of racism; and whether the individual has been incarcerated, disenfranchised or limited in terms of housing employment options.Similarly, the community-level variables measure the percentage of the individual's community who have been incarcerated, disenfranchised, and limited; historical redlining in the community; number of civilian complaints against police in the individual's community; neighborhood school ratings; percent of neighborhood schools with metal detectors; and presence of school resource officers.
When using these variables, it is important to think critically about the systemic implications of each, to not assume civilian guilt, and to consider the historical context.When examining the frequency of an individual's police contact, consider why that person might be targeted by police.What does this person dress like?What is their hair like?Where do they hang out and with whom?What are the long-standing tropes about these elements that could pique police interest?When thinking about school ratings, consider school funding, the experience of teachers, and the potential cultural mismatch between staff and students.A critical ecological perspective that challenges existing social narratives is key to a holistic understanding of criminal engagement and how harm is caused, both on an individual and systemic level.It is imperative to reevaluate policies and practices and have theories align with notions of systemic transformation.

Social Disorganization Theory → Critical Environmental Adaptation Theory
Social disorganization theory emphasizes the role of structure in the facilitation of crime.Social disorganization theory is also a deficit-based theory of crime and captures what people do in response to macro-level practices that facilitate oppression and exclusion.Relevant domains of oppression and exclusion such as legal and racial discrimination, social and residential segregation, and surveillance and police violence are overlooked.The propositions of social disorganization should translate to racial discrimination (racial/ethnic hetereogeneity), economic exclusion and divestment (relative deprivation), and social and residential segregation (residential mobility).The inversion of this theory produces a person-and strengths-based framework.The resulting theory is Critical Environmental Adaptation Theory (CEAT).
The inverted propositions focus on adaptation as acts of resistance and survival in a social environment that thrives on discrimination, exclusion, and segregation.CEAT recognizes that adaptation is individual capacity building and a decentralized activity.Adaptation is also about individual enterprise and creativity; and pioneering and decolonizing one's mind.CEAT requires consideration of the coalitions people build in response to the historical disruption and destruction of communities (see López 2019).Capacity building can take many forms, but decentralization is a key feature.All individuals emerge, through adaptation, as autonomous agents contributing to social movements for change.What we can observe are leaders helping reshape their environmental experiences as one that is "leader-full" instead of centralized in a single person or homogeneous (Bell 2008;Keating 2020).Heterogeneity is an asset, not a deficit.
CEAT also requires consideration of enterprise as an adaptation to deliberate legal, social, and economic exclusion.Historically, employment, housing, education, and business loan discrimination have stifled marginalized and minoritized individuals from obtaining stability and prosperity (Wilentz 2016).Economic exclusion acutely impacts minoritized individuals and reverberates throughout families and communities, and over generations.Racial/ethnic communities have adapted in a variety of ways: establishing community enclaves, investing in informal economies of support sustenance, novel resilience techniques, and other creative adaptations to economic strain (Lomnitz and Sheinbaum 2004;Henson 2020;Merton 1938;Miller et al. 2015;Payne 2011).CEAT posits mobility, broadly conceived, as a practice of pioneering and liberation from restrictive and oppressive environments.Part of this practice involves decolonizing one's mind, that mobility is destabilizing.Decolonizing one's mind and mobility is about resisting the imposition of unequal environmental conditions.People must be mobile and move in order "to defy the lies of colonialism, Jim Crow, apartheid, The Trail of Tears, the Holocaust, slavery, conversion therapies, and other atrocities" (Lewis 2020, p. 154) embedded in the environment.The adaptation is the movement for liberation from environmental oppression.Cognitive decolonization is a precondition (see Santos 2018).This inversion challenges how we currently view and place value judgments on adaptation to oppressive environments.

Measurement Possibilities
Operationalizing CEAT propositions requires creativity.measures are inclusive of qualitative and quantitative approaches.One construct for decentralized capacity building may be individual activities observed at places that are attached or unattached to community or collective action (see Cobbina 2019;Cobbina et al. 2019;Cobbina et al. 2019;McAdam 1988).
Measures of these activities would employ ethnography, interviews, narrative inquiry, systematic social observation, 311 calls, or scraping social media.Some relevant constructs for racial/ethnic enterprise may include racial/ethnic and LGBTIQ+ enclaves, informal economies of support, or a combination of underemployment or employment and "side hustles," and cohabitation and multigenerational households.Measures would employ data from state and national small business associations, chambers of commerce, Bureau of Labor statistics, or Small Business Administration data, particularly for small and minority-and women-owned businesses.
Measures would also include self-report data, observations and interviews, and the creation of indices to capture gig economy activities and (side) hustling.
Constructs for pioneering and cognitive decolonization may include migration patterns (see Leverentz 2020;Wilkerson 2010) or Sankofa processes, respectively (Jones and Leitner, 2015;Temple 2010).Sankofa is a Ghanian philosophical tradition that emphasizes reclamation, going back and retrieving something from the past and it not being wrong to do so.Sankofa practice "...offers a solution to reconstituting the fragmented cultural past" (Temple 2010, p. 128).The relevance of Sankofa practice is rooted in the resistance and rejection of oppression and the insistence of redefining life.Measures of these constructs would employ event or life history calendars, trajectories of activity spaces, or local repatriation and remittance practices in communities.

Self-Control Theory → Socio-structural Induction Theory
Any effort to invert self-control theory must look at how social structures, such as the institutions of law, politics, economy, family, and religion exist beyond the control of any single person.These social structures provoke criminal participation for individuals that experience adverse circumstances.Socio-structural induction theory is an inverted adaptation of self-control theory with one fundamental premise: street-level crimes are committed by marginalized people who experience unfavorable conditions induced by oppressive social structures.Socio-structural induction theory functions under a strength-based and structure-based approach.Acts of streetlevel crimes are viewed as a strength for paving alternative avenues to operate within social structures, which are characterized by systemic racism, class oppression, patriarchy, and other criminogenic conditions.Similar theoretical inversions that recognize criminal behavior with a more positive framework include criminal self-efficacy (Brezina and Topalli 2012) as a variation of Bandura's (1997) self-efficacy theory.Rather than exploring how self-efficacy relates to conventional goals, offenders perceive their criminal self-efficacy as a strength in nonconventional activities (Brezina and Topalli 2012).
Socio-structural conditions provoke criminal engagement, such as gang involvement, theft, and drug dealing.Gang involvement is often viewed as criminal; however, many studies have established how gang membership provides a sense of safety, familial structure, and validation (Sonterblum 2016;Walker-Barnes and Mason 2001).The socio-structural induction theory posits that gang membership is a response to neighborhood levels of violent crime, broken family structures, and racism.Specifically, female gang membership is regarded as "bargaining with patriarchy" for resources, as a response to circumstantial deprivation formed by experiences of gender, race, and social class (Hughes et al. 2019).Other forms of crime like theft, robbery, and drug dealing are methods of navigating poverty, lack of employment opportunities, and low wages (Dunlap et al. 2010;Henson 2020).The structural disadvantages that influence the early stages of life can have repercussions that maintain an individual's positionality in later stages of life, fueling further social structure induced criminal participation.For instance, ineffective public education and lack of community resources affect a child's educational achievements, with prolonged negative repercussions for future educational status and employment opportunities.
Socio-structural induction assesses how the social structure places individuals in a position where criminal engagement is an innovative approach to daily life (see Merton 1938).Levy and Bühlmann's (2016) socio-structural framework for life course analysis reminds us that we must view individuals as actors that inhabit a social structure that moves and adapts through time and social spaces.Social structures are responsible for creating normative sequences of behaviors related to education, employment, marriage, and family, which are assumed to align chronologically with age.One's social position and different events that occur throughout the life-course may influence the availability of resources and timeline that people achieve these milestones (Levy and Bühlmann 2016).While effective parenting and proper socialization can provide youth with tools for more optimal futures, macro-level conditions, such as family structure, income-level, and community resources determine the possibility for the family and school institutions to adequately support the needs of children.When thinking about experiences over the life-course, institutional structures may change but also remain stable to provide the social conditions people inhabit (Levy and Bühlmann 2016).Rather than observing characteristics, such as impulsivity, risk-taking, and insensitivity as manifestations of low-selfcontrol, this theory considers these attributes as powerful responses to maintain functional existence in our society.

Measurement Possibilities
Socio-structural induction theory examines key macro-level variables and systemic social forces, which drive the context for street-level criminal engagement.Measures related to racism, poverty, family structure, patriarchy, and neighborhood characteristics are used to contextualize the structural mechanisms that induce street-level crimes.Socio-structural induction theory uses some neighborhood variables, such as rates of unemployment, number of local businesses, and number of nearby liquor stores, to scrutinize environments that prompt acts.
When examining gang involvement, this theory uses rates of violent crime, fiscal spending on public education, and non-profit organizations for youth.Gang involvement would be viewed an outcome induced by a lack of neighborhood resources and safety.Other measures to consider include limited familial support because of systemic conditions that create barriers to nurturing the development of youth, operationalized through parental incarceration and time spent at work.The race variable represents a supra-macro level force because of its cofacilitation in all structures of oppression and not a variable to measure an individual level attribute.This theory specifically engages with how individuals associate their lived experiences with these social structures and how criminal involvement is a natural result of structurally induced adversity.

Future Directions in Research
We encourage researchers to not search for the individualized antecedent of criminal behavior (Garland 1985).Researchers should challenge what is criminal and why, with consideration of how definitions and the punishment of crime and criminality are determined by individuals with power and privilege.The racial disproportionality in arrests and carceral populations in the United States is the direct result of discriminatory practices and long-standing racial and social constructions that conflate Black and Brown with notions of threat and danger (Martinot 2010;Owusu-Bempah 2017).These practices and narratives are constructed and perpetuated by criminological research that blindly accepts definitions of crime.Criminologists must take accountability for how their work informs policy and center race, racism, and resistance in the discipline.What we currently measure as criminal legal system outcomes are experiences with racism on an individual, community, and systemic level.
Centuries of research informs us that lack of opportunity, traumatic experiences, and hyper-policing lead individuals to be involved in the criminal legal system (Bell 2019).These realities are all outcomes of racist policy, beliefs, and practices that result in racially disproportionate representation in the criminal legal system (Bell 2017).Traditional criminological research perpetuates a focus on criminality without consideration of race and racism, reinforcing blackness as crime (Beckett 1999)..By studying "criminals'' and not systems, criminologists fuel a vicious cycle where they produce narratives on who is "criminal" which then informs racialized criminal legal practices that then create similar groups of "criminals" for criminologists to study.To break this cycle and engage in holistic, critical, and anti-racist research, we encourage criminologists to take a strengths-based and systems-driven approach to theory as described above, as well as to engage in data equity and reflexive practices.

Data Equity
"Evidence-based" programs and both quantitative and qualitative empiricism must become reflexive throughout the research process.. Researchers must also engage in data equity and include the voices of those being studied in the research process (Monchalin, 2020).
Criminologists must engage Indigenous peoples and community members as authentic partners, support Indigenous voices, expose colonial falsehoods, tell Indigenous histories, and reflect on the real criminologies of the land, i.e. slavery, colonialism, criminalization, minoritization, etc. (Monchalin 2020).
Incorporating community input during the data collection and analysis phase allows researchers to understand the nuance and individuality that exists within a cultural collective.
There needs to be an acknowledgement that each community functions differently and holds unique needs.It is important for researchers to lead by asking the community for insights and definitions prior to any data collection rather than leading with assumptions.In testing the sociostructural induction theory mentioned above, the researcher may infer some of the structural barriers that community members endure, but it will be important to ask community members prior to constructing any scales or indexes what structural disadvantage they feel they are subjected to.This is especially important for researchers who may be unfamiliar with or removed from the community to be researched.By gaining proximity to the community of interest through service and informational interviews with community members prior to formal data collection, it is likely that the findings will be more accurate, reflexive, and grounded in reality.

Reflexivity
Scientific knowledge is socially situated: The observer and the observed are situated in the same social, political, economic, and psychological scientific planes.Accordingly, our knowledge and the knowledge we produce is not value-neutral (Harding 2016).It is necessary for researchers to acknowledge the context of their research and the multiple lenses through which research is conceptualized, constructed, framed, and analyzed, both on a personal and cultural level.Situating criminological research can expose the malleability of that which is deemed criminal and the contemporary cultural narratives that inevitably shape all aspects of research.Maximizing reflexivity stems from two practices.First, an outsider status or critical distance that both encourages participants to speak often unspoken truths and enables researchers to observe it, which might be difficult to observe for those immersed in the culture (Collins 1986).Second, reflexivity stems from critical self-reflection.By becoming aware of ourselves and our intentions, we can become more aware of social constructions, biases, and the structures that influence us.By bringing awareness to the structures and systems that influence us, we can better acknowledge the structures and systems that shape and influence others' behaviors and beliefs.Critically and accurately situating the observer enables a critical and accurate situating of the observed.Acknowledging our humanness as researchers is likely to encourage a humanizing of those who are researched.(1985) condemned criminologists for failing to critically reflect on the social conditions that formulated the emergence of the field of criminology and its subjects, the majority of whom tend to be Black, Brown, and marginalized.For decades, critical criminologists have called for and innovated strengths-based, systems-centered theoretical frameworks; however, most of these theories have been pushed to the margins of criminology.It is time for mainstream criminology to embrace a critical lens, transform problematic narratives and structures, and interrogate how theory and different forms of knowledge production are both a reflection and creation of culture.It is imperative for all criminologists to explore the structural solutions to racial inequity and simultaneously cross-examine methods in the field that perpetuate harm.

Garland
General theories of crime have introduced propositions that claim to account for behavior among all people, crimes, and contexts as a quintessential element of theorizing; however, labeling individuals with attributes and using them to categorize large populations of people is an academic form of oppression.As a counter-effort, we have presented the punitive provocation, critical environmental adaptation, and socio-structural induction theories as a critical and reflexive endeavor to transform criminological thinking and theorizing.By creating social schemas and informing policy, theorists and researchers are equally as accountable for racial disproportionalities in the criminal legal system.This ability should not be taken lightly, and in order to create a safer, more equitable and just society, we encourage researchers to commit themselves to practices that promote data equity, engage in ongoing examinations of personal positionality (reflexivity), and center race, racism, and resistance in the field of criminology.

Table 1
Theory Inversion Protocol