Glenn D. Walters - Böcker

Rejecting behavior as the proper topic of study in psychology, Walters defines the subject matter for psychology as the human organism's interaction with the internal and external environments. In offering an overarching theoretical model based on 12 different theoretical traditions, Walters runs counter to the currently popular practice in psychology of constructing conceptual mini-models that restrict themselves to highly circumscribed areas of psychological inquiry. In Walters' view, the proliferation of mini-models has given the field a fragmented appearance.A major tenant of the overarching theoretical conceptualization presented by Walters is that people try to manage threats to their existence by either adapting to ongoing environmental change or enacting patterned interactions known as lifestyles. These lifestyles, which are comprised of specific rules, roles, rituals, and relationships, can be organized into four general families; leader, follower, rebel, and disabled. In addition to lifestyle structure, Walters examines the three factors believed to be responsible for selection of a lifestyle over adaptation and preference for one lifestyle over another: incentive or type of fear experienced, opportunity or specific learning experiences, and choice or decision making apparatus. Walters provides a novel approach to the study of psychology, outlining the structure of lifestyles and discussing the role of motivation and learning in the selection of lifestyles and people's preference for one lifestyle over another. A provocative work of particular interest to scholars, students, and professionals dealing with theories of psychology, personality, and social interaction.

Walters sets forth an interactive model of lifestyle development, which is divided into three phases. Initiation, the first phase of lifestyle development, is the point at which lifestyle-supporting belief systems evolve from interactions taking place between incentive (existential fear), opportunity (risk factors and learning experiences), and choice (decision-making). Before a pattern becomes a lifestyle, it must proceed through a transitional phase in which lifestyle-promoting outcome expectancies are formed and lifestyle-congruent skills are learned. This is followed by a third phase in which the lifestyle is maintained by additional incentive-opportunity-choice interactions.Before a person can exit a lifestyle he or she must proceed through a four-phase process in which the first phase (initiation) is to review life lessons and form attributions that temporarily arrest the lifestyle. Once this is accomplished, the next step (transition) is to challenge lifestyle-supporting outcome expectancies and develop skills designed to build self-confidence. The third phase of lifestyle change is to maintain the change by finding involvements, commitments, and identifications incompatible with the lifestyle. This is followed by a fourth or change phase, the goal of which is to illustrate that change is an ongoing and never-ending process. Each phase of change is directed by four core elements—responsibility, meaning, community and confidence—designed to foster change by tapping into a person's natural ability to self-organize. Scholars, researchers, and practitioners involved with psychology, personality, and behavioral change will be particularly interested in this analysis.

Walters integrates information from traditional criminological models and findings from developmental psychology to form a system of five belief systems (self-view, world-view, past-view, present-view, and future-view) designed to explain crime initiation and maintenance. While reviewing belief systems that support crime, Walters also offers a model of change through which belief systems incongruent with crime can be constructed.He begins with a review of six traditional criminological models, each of which is considered to possess sufficient breadth and substance to advance our understanding of crime. Information gathered from these major theoretical systems is integrated wtih research from developmental psychology to create a system of crime-congruent belief systems. The belief systems, along with recent research on attributions, outcome expectancies, efficacy expectancies, values, goals, and thinking styles, are then used to construct a general theroy of crime and explain four specific categories of crime: violent crime, sexual assault, white-collar crime, and drug tafficking. Walters concludes with a model of assisted change whereby belief systems incongruent with crime are initiated and maintained with the intent of helping people abandon crime-congruent lifestyles. This change model revolves around four core elements—responsibility, confidence, meaning, community—each of which is emphasized in a clinician's interactions with clients seeking to abandon crime-congruent lifestyles. As Walters maintains, belief systems are instrumental in both the development and cessation of crime-congruent lifestyles. Of particular interest to scholars, students, researchers, and practitioners involved with criminology, criminal justice, and clinical and correctional psychology.

Closing the Integration Gap in Criminology: The Case for Criminal Thinking offers a multi -stage model of theory integration that organizes verified risk factors around the construct of criminal thinking to provide an exemplar working paradigm for criminology. In the model, once relevant risk factors have been identified, they are organized into triads —three-variable networks of antecedent, mediating, or moderating effects—and then those triads are combined into clusters of thematically related constructs.While debate continues to rage over how to handle the burgeoning number of theories in criminology, little significant progress has been made in reducing the number of criminological theories. This book argues that theoretical integration is vital to the continued viability of criminological theory and to the growth and development of criminology as a scientific discipline. It posits that criminal thinking may be useful as a core variable in constructing a useful integrated theory for criminology, and maps out a plan for scholars to organize information for further study. The innovative theoretical approach in this book is essential reading for students, academics, and researchers in both criminology and forensic psychology concerned with the reduction of crime via scientific inquiry.

Closing the Integration Gap in Criminology: The Case for Criminal Thinking offers a multi -stage model of theory integration that organizes verified risk factors around the construct of criminal thinking to provide an exemplar working paradigm for criminology. In the model, once relevant risk factors have been identified, they are organized into triads —three-variable networks of antecedent, mediating, or moderating effects—and then those triads are combined into clusters of thematically related constructs.While debate continues to rage over how to handle the burgeoning number of theories in criminology, little significant progress has been made in reducing the number of criminological theories. This book argues that theoretical integration is vital to the continued viability of criminological theory and to the growth and development of criminology as a scientific discipline. It posits that criminal thinking may be useful as a core variable in constructing a useful integrated theory for criminology, and maps out a plan for scholars to organize information for further study. The innovative theoretical approach in this book is essential reading for students, academics, and researchers in both criminology and forensic psychology concerned with the reduction of crime via scientific inquiry.

Recipient of Choice Magazine's 1991 Outstanding Academic Book Award Why do some individuals pursue crime as a lifestyle? After years of incarceration, why do these offenders habitually repeat criminal behavior? In The Criminal Lifestyle, Walters approaches the question of crime by examining how various biologic, sociologic, and psychologic factors interact to bring about criminal behavior. He extends the criminal career concept to include those persons who approach crime--not as an isolated incident--but as a lifelong commitment. Organized in the same manner as the study was conducted, this riveting book reviews and evaluates research, theoretical issues and practical considerations concerning crime, and develops a model of lifestyle criminality. In The Criminal Lifestyle Walters examines a variety of different perspectives, and organizes them into a framework which furthers our understanding of persons who approach crime as a lifestyle. As such, this contemporary study should be required reading in courses on psychology, criminology, and criminal justice. In addition, practitioners and policymakers who must make decisions about individual offenders will not want to pass up this distinctive resource. "This is an intriguing book that should have a wide audience both in criminology and in other fields. Upper-division undergraduates and above." --Choice

Glenn D. Walter's short book Drugs and Crime in Lifestyle Perspective is another gem; it works purposefully with the complexity and diversity of the drugs-crime linkages and connections insisting that traditional ways of researching and intervening with those caught up in deviant lifestyles where drugs and crime are endemic, are unproductive. This is a book for 'thinking' practitioners and those concerned with creating local multiagency policy or working with drug users and offenders selling or using drugs. It offers no easy assessments or solutions but is the more productive for that. --Howard Parker in British Journal of

Glenn D. Walter's short book Drugs and Crime in Lifestyle Perspective is another gem; it works purposefully with the complexity and diversity of the drugs-crime linkages and connections insisting that traditional ways of researching and intervening with those caught up in deviant lifestyles where drugs and crime are endemic, are unproductive. This is a book for 'thinking' practitioners and those concerned with creating local multiagency policy or working with drug users and offenders selling or using drugs. It offers no easy assessments or solutions but is the more productive for that. --Howard Parker in British Journal of

This engaging book presents a contextual psychological interpretation of crime. It covers essential topics including psychopathy, antisocial personality disorder, and criminal lifestyle. The author's compelling analysis explains criminal behavior, by showing how the criminal lifestyle is capable of integrating two seemingly incompatible crime paradigms: the career criminal paradigm and the criminal career paradigm. Starting with a context for criminality, and then moving from particular conceptions of crime to more evidence-based theories, this volume challenges students to think in a different way about crime and criminal behavior.

Substance misuse is one of the more common, yet baffling, problems confronting the practising mental health professional today. The issues involved in the misuse of substances can be so complex that some practitioners are inclined to avoid working with clients who have been diagnosed with a drug abuse problem.; This new guidebook is designed to assist clinicians with the task of conceptualizing, understanding and intervening with persons who abuse substances. It accomplishes this by offering practical suggestions, assessment procedures, and change strategies directed at the thoughts, feelings and behaviours believed to support a drug lifestyle. Although the approach described in this book utilizes a number of cognitive-behavioural techniques, the approach is unique in the sense that it also deals with the fear of change that frequently interferes with a client's ability to benefit from therapy. It also considers change strategies used by people who have escaped from a drug lifestyle without any type of treatment or formal intervention.; Momentarily arresting the lifestyle is the first step of intervention. This is followed by skill development in which the conditions, choices and cognitions associated with a drug lifestyle are targeted for intervention and change. In the final phase of this approach, the client is engaged in the resocialization process whereby he or she is encouraged to develop ways of thinking and behaving that are incompatible with continued misuse of psychoactive substances. The end result is a concise, yet comprehensive, examination of ways clinicans might facilitate change in persons previously committed to a drug lifestyle.

Substance misuse is one of the more common, yet baffling, problems confronting the practising mental health professional today. The issues involved in the misuse of substances can be so complex that some practitioners are inclined to avoid working with clients who have been diagnosed with a drug abuse problem.; This new guidebook is designed to assist clinicians with the task of conceptualizing, understanding and intervening with persons who abuse substances. It accomplishes this by offering practical suggestions, assessment procedures, and change strategies directed at the thoughts, feelings and behaviours believed to support a drug lifestyle. Although the approach described in this book utilizes a number of cognitive-behavioural techniques, the approach is unique in the sense that it also deals with the fear of change that frequently interferes with a client's ability to benefit from therapy. It also considers change strategies used by people who have escaped from a drug lifestyle without any type of treatment or formal intervention.; Momentarily arresting the lifestyle is the first step of intervention. This is followed by skill development in which the conditions, choices and cognitions associated with a drug lifestyle are targeted for intervention and change. In the final phase of this approach, the client is engaged in the resocialization process whereby he or she is encouraged to develop ways of thinking and behaving that are incompatible with continued misuse of psychoactive substances. The end result is a concise, yet comprehensive, examination of ways clinicans might facilitate change in persons previously committed to a drug lifestyle.

Walters provides a detailed description of how criminal thinking serves as a vital link between criminality and crime. Criminality, the propensity to become involved in criminal activity, and crime, participation in a specific criminal event, are normally treated as separate entities. Most criminological theories, in fact, can be classified as either theories of criminality or theories of crime. It is the author’s contention that criminality and crime are two sides of the same coin, and that criminal thinking can explain both. The first of three sections explores the elements of criminality and crime across biological, social, cognitive, and developmental forms. The second section integrates the individual elements into three models using mediation and moderation methodologies. Two of the models are designed to explain criminality (moral and control) and the third is designed to explain crime (decision-making). The final section of the book emphasizes application and explains that change is a function of our ability to build competencies in offenders regardless of age. The result is an integrated approach in which criminality and crime are viewed as indispensable parts of a larger theory of criminological development.

This book offers Walters's latest evolution of criminal lifestyle theory. It introduces the concept of criminal thought content to illustrate how the potential interplay between what offenders think and their thought processes can greatly aid our understanding of both crime and criminals. In this new study on criminal behaviour, Walters calls for criminological theory to be placed within a broader scientific context, and provides us with several key models which embrace constructs from numerous important theories including: the general theory of crime, social cognitive and social learning theories, general strain theory, psychopathic personality theories of crime, and labelling theory.Another unique aspect of this work is that it places lifestyle theory within a larger scientific framework, namely, nonlinear dynamical systems theory or chaos. Seven principles from chaos theory are used to explain relationships and processes central to lifestyle theory and Walters uses this to draw conclusions on what affects criminal decision-making and desistance from crime. Highly original and innovative in scope, this book will be useful to practitioners and scholars of criminal justice alike, with chapters focussed on decision-making, assessment, and intervention.