Book review: Glenn D Walters,Closing the Integration Gap in Criminology. The Case for Criminological Thinking

Glenn Walters is assuredly one of the most impressive criminologists of our time. Not only is he an exceptionally prolific theorist and empiricist, but his goal is to contribute to offender treatment in practice. Before Closing the Gap, he published Modelling the Criminal Lifestyle. Theorizing at the Edge of Chaos (2017) with the ambition to advance the understanding of the criminal lifestyle which, as Taxman has rightfully stated, is insufficiently conceptualised (Taxman and Pattavina, 2013). Closing the Integration Gap must be read alongside Modelling the Criminal Lifestyle as the former is a larger reformulation of the latter.

In 2020, Walters capitalised on his ‘Oeuvre’ in the true sense of the term by stating that his two main constructs (criminal lifestyle and criminal thinking styles) can be integrated, along with other models (e.g. Bandura, 1986, social cognitive theory), and thereby, provide the basis for a new integrative criminological macro-theory.

There could be a certain arrogance in taking up such a challenge. Walters begins by calling other models, such as self-control or differential association, ‘micro-level constructs’ because they rely on a ‘small number of concepts to explain a phenomenon as complex as crime’ (preface, p. X). In a way, Hirschi and Gottfredson (2020, who also wrote a book which updated and integrated their two models of control) get their comeuppance, as they have always been quite virulent towards other models. However, Walters certainly has the empirical, theoretical and practical breadth to sit at the table with the Greatest. And he is not arrogant; he is just ambitious. After his initial critique, he does not waste time on unnecessary criticism; he elaborates and builds.

In both Modelling the Criminal Lifestyle and Closing the Gap, Walters relies, as any integrative scientist should, on some of the most solid and best validated models, some of which are theories, one of which is an ensemble of empirical findings and still another is a type of psychopathology. These are the following:

Walters claims a criminal lifestyle comprised four dimensions: irresponsibility, self-indulgence, interpersonal intrusiveness and social rule breaking. In reality, however, only the last ones are behavioural; the first two are attitudinal. His subsequent criminal thinking lifestyle model is cognitively rooted in the following six dimensions:

At this point, the reader may have thought of the antisocial cognition and attitude domain in Bonta and Andrew’s Risk-Needs-Responsivity model. However, Walters further elaborates by proposing his own classification. In his model, criminal thinking can take three forms, each of which comprised three main components leading to the following list:

Walters has validated his model meta-analytically (Walters, 2020). He has also developed two tools: the Lifestyle Criminality Screening Form which addresses lifestyle (Walters et al., 1991) and has been validated by Walters in multiple contexts (e.g. Walters, 2007a) and has also been independently validated (e.g. Kroner and Mills, 2001); and the Psychological Inventory of Criminal Thinking Styles (PICTS) which addresses thinking and has been validated in a series of studies (e.g. Walters, 1996). Thus, over the last two decades, Walters has patiently and determinedly dedicated his career to developing and validating his integrative model.

However, he has primarily developed criminal thinking – in particular, cognitions and attitudes, their detailed manifestations and their aetiology – in connection with other theoretical models. He has not elaborated enough on lifestyle, which thus remains insufficiently conceptualised despite his unique effort.

In Closing the Gap, he further elaborates on thinking more than on lifestyle. He makes a second distinction between, on the one hand, distortions which pertain to the expected outcome and, on the other hand, distortions which consist of hostile attributions.

Distortions in expected outcomes are the person’s estimates of the consequences of their actions. This is consistent with ‘super-optimism’, which Walters has previously included in his PICTS. It is also consistent with self-control theory, which posits that if a person thinks that the risk is greater than the gain, he or she will be able to abstain, although delinquents with perceptual biases will often be mistaken about the reality of this differential or will prefer, as Hirshi and Gottfredson say, the immediate gain even if the loss will occur later. Within Walters’ proactive or reactive model, one of his studies has found that individuals who are mainly proactive in their offending are more likely to act on the basis of expected gain than those who are reactive (Walters, 2007b).

In turn, hostile attribution biases are social cognitive biases. This is reminiscent of hostile attribution biases, also well documented in the literature on violence (Anderson and Bushman, 2002), which consist of repeatedly attributing malicious intentions to others. These distortions are part of a four-pronged ensemble comprising general criminal thinking, low effectiveness in conventional activities and lifestyle, hedonistic value system and, indeed, hostile attribution biases. According to Walters, such distortions are mobilised in a very straightforward pattern: criminal behaviour → reactive pro-criminal thinking → more criminal behaviour. He labels this, pattern ‘psychological inertia’. His model is, therefore, essentially a cognitive model of mechanisms and distortions which have psychological inertia as a common denominator. In a previous study, Walters found that psychological inertia is twice as predictive of future delinquency as the best conventionally used items (Walters, 2016).

In Closing the Integration Gap, Walters considers that he has now developed enough theoretical and empirical material to make it a macro-level criminological theory which is coherent with the aforementioned main theories and domains he deems worthy of integration. However, in our opinion, his model better fits in Risk Need Responsivity (RNR) and particularly within the Central Eight (Bonta and Andrews, 2017). It is indeed a dynamic factor since changes in criminal thinking patterns decrease the levels of reoffending risk (Walters and Cohen, 2016).

There lies perhaps both the strength and the limitation of Walter’s model. It certainly advances the understanding of both antisocial cognitions and attitudes and, admittedly less so, antisocial behaviour (the lifestyle). What it does not do is present a new macro-model per se. This, in itself, is certainly a ‘Grande Oeuvre’. It is indeed integrative and it does fill a fundamental gap. It may not, however, cover all the bases of what ultimately causes the ‘phenomenon as complex as crime’.

A fully integrated model would indeed be parsimonious, as called for by Gottfredson and Hirschi. However, it would also integrate and explain both individual factors (Central Eight, psychopathology, strain, uncertainty and need for closure, individual vulnerabilities, including factors conceptualised by Walters, and so on), that is, those factors that can be used as targets for treatment, and institutional factors (e.g. the functioning of the Criminal Justice System), social factors (e.g. real and perceived illegitimacy of politicians, authorities and norms, poor housing, social deprivation, gender, etc.), and group factors (e.g. displacement of populations, wars, historical trauma, racism and exclusion). As long as sociology, psychology, criminology itself, neurosciences, economics or law are set against each other we will be unable to conceptualise the entirety of crime.

In conclusion, there is still much work to be done in order to better conceptualise the criminal lifestyle without confusing it with the cognitive domain. Closing the Gap is probably not a macro-theory in the true sense of the term; but then again, most macro-models are not either. The strength and superiority of Walters’ work lies elsewhere. Where Walters is exceptional is in how he articulates, in a robust and operational fashion, the cognitions and attitudes as well as the techniques of neutralisation and the distortion which constitute thinking styles and ultimately feed lifestyle. In this respect, previous theoretical efforts have been too scattered and have used confusingly different terminologies (errors, distortions, implicit theories, attributional biases, neutralisation techniques, etc.); they have also been too focused on specific categories of offending (sexual, violent, violent domestic, etc.), which is incidentally reflective of the confusion in the field of cognitive psychology. This gives much needed conceptual and operational density to Bonta and Andrews’ ‘anti-social cognitions, attitudes and behaviours’.