Citation

Moss G. J. Crim. Justice 1997; 25(3): 177-194.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1997, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/S0047-2352(97)00003-2

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

The Semai are a so-called aboriginal people of Malaysia who have maintained settlements in which violent crime is completely absent. Although the Semai have been subjected to extensive anthropological examination, they have not been the subject of previous criminological inquiry. This article demonstrates that six major criminological perspectives -- social control, self-control, strain, labeling, feminist, and social learning -- appear to have the capacity to provide criminological accounts of Semai nonviolence that are relevant as well as plausible. Anthropological accounts of Semai culture, however, reveal that the ability of the Semai to prevent violent crime appears to be significantly aided by a form of violence prevention that criminological theory has not yet addressed. The Semai, that is, appear to have universally socialized their members to react to potentially violent situations (i.e., frustrating stimuli) with a fear response that inhibits them from committing violent criminal acts. Previous theories of crime that have dealt with, either directly or implicitly, the relationship between fear and the inhibition of crime have either focused exclusively on the level of the individual (i.e., some individuals in a given social environment are more fearful, and therefore less likely to commit criminal acts), or they have focused on the ability of social environments to generate fear among potential criminals by providing them with formal or informal deterrents. Such theories have completely ignored the ability of social environments to affect, via widespread or universal socialization, the extent to which individuals will tend to become fearful when they are confronted with frustrating stimuli.