This is perhaps the easiest concept to understand, but the hardest to detect. As noted by Kaplan (The Science and Psychology of Chaos Theory 2004), ‘who is to say what is an insignificant event?’. The fact that one small event can result in notable consequences does not mean that every small event will yield such an effect. According to Young (1997a), a slight change may impact an individual, a group of individuals, businesses or even societies; for example, someone speaking up in a situation, a slight change in the frequency of police brutality, a change in legislation, such as taxation or criminalisation levels. With criminalisation levels, such as the chosen quantity of drugs to deem a dealing level, a slight change may have notable consequences to those who fall just under or over the new level. Moreover, in crime prevention by design or situation, a slight change in a train timetable or bus route might lead to two antagonistic groups being kept separate in time and space. From a policy point of view, if these variables could be identified, a small low-cost policy change could have a notable impact on a society.
2. Bifurcation (criminological examples)
According to Young (1997a:41), ‘the concept of bifurcation is most important to the criminologist in that it sensitises one to expect the emergence of alternative ways to do business, family, religion, or perchance, crime’. In criminology, identification of the bifurcation point at which ‘murder, theft, malpractice, embezzlement or warfare emerge offer some of the greatest challenges’ (Young 1997a:43). For example, identification of such points could lead to a better understanding of exploding crime rates where critical social parameters bifurcate (Young 1997b). Young (1997b:82) argues that in all complex systems, some people, even well regarded citizens, will ‘skirt the borders of criminal behaviour now and again’ as a way to accomplish their goals. A useful example of bifurcation paths is provided by Young (1997b) in the area of white collar crime. In the area of medical practice, suppose insurance companies triple their premiums to cover an increase in claims. This would create a bifurcation point. Four possible outcomes may emerge: i) doctors deciding to change their practice and move into lower-risk surgery where insurance premiums are lower; ii) doctors retaining their current practice but adjusting their outgoings to compensate for the increased premiums; iii) doctors retaining their current practice but adjusting their lifestyle ambition; and iv) doctors moving into illegal billing procedures by increasing the number of unnecessary operations or claiming for surgery not taking place. As seen in this example, the concept of bifurcation helps to identify alternative outcomes and the new area of ‘illegal billings’ as an attractor.
3. Attractors (criminological examples)
The strange chaotic attractor may be used metaphorically for social phenomena (Young 1991; Marion 1999). As Marion (1999:22) argues, ‘it is stable but its trajectory never repeats itself; likewise, social behaviour is stable but never quite repeats itself’. As attractors gain momentum, they provide structure and coherence to a system and draw people into it and influence their behaviours (Uhl- Bien & Marion 2009). Young (1997a:33) also notes, ‘why do ordinary people move from one way of behaving to another way; that is to say, when and why do new attractors arise’. In criminology, if we can locate these attractors by looking for patterns, then we can ‘experiment to see how and when small changes produce such bifurcations in human behaviour since the size and shape of any strange attractor depend, sensitively, upon key parameters’ (Young 1997a:33). In short,
‘systematic patterning’ is key to identifying attractors (Eve et al 1997:xxx).
In particular, the butterfly attractor ‘is most interesting to criminologists’ as the shape of the two wings or outcome basins is twinned with a clear juncture in between (Young 1997a:38). Using deviancy as an example, one wing may depict pro-social behaviour and the other anti-social behaviour. Given a similar set of circumstances, an individual over time may fluctuate between the two wings. The ‘point of most uncertainty occurs just at the juncture between the two wings’ (Young 1997a:39). From a criminological perspective, if we could identify such junctures, we could identify the ‘tipping point’ of where an individual chooses criminal over non-criminal behaviour. For example, in banditry, the same individual or group will be kind and supportive of some persons, while stealing and robbing others. Social histories also play a key role in ‘differing sets of attractors for differing sectors of a given society’ (Young 1997c). As Young (1997a:40) points out ‘the geometry of good and evil is not simple’. One needs to discern the specific points where individuals or groups transform from pro to anti- social behaviour.
Stroup (1997) also provides examples of the limit point, limit cycle and strange attractor in social interaction. For example, most people eat lunch around noon, sometimes earlier or later – if we place bounds on how close behaviour must be to qualify as repetition, then a limit point is acceptable. In the social sciences, social limit cycle patterns would fluctuate or cluster around a norm or average, for example, family size, matrimonial age, retirement age, solidarity or value consensus. Other examples include grocery shopping, voting, three meals a day, sleeping patterns. Again, bounds need to be placed on how close values must be to warrant repetition and an acceptable pattern. In relation to the strange attractor, irregular behaviour or order mimicking randomness would be observed. Examples include addictive disorders coupled with irregular habits, dating behaviour, or social change via ‘incremental deviance’. According to Kiel and Elliot (1997:28) ‘notions of periodicity have always been used in analyses of society’ such as fads and social movements.
Given that complexity is a science of the whole, Young (1997a) reminds us that an individual’s criminal actions need to be taken into the wider social context. For example, a burglar’s attractor may include a variety of parameters including needs
and desires, the types of goods that may be inside a house, the number of potential victims inside, and policing patterns of the neighbourhood (Young 1997a). Whilst the individual burglar is responsible for his criminal actions, there are macro- structures in society that he is not responsible for, but which he must adapt to. For example, losing his job due to a downturn in the economy (Young 1997a). Given this view, ‘recourse to violence, self-destructive behaviour, or hate crimes can be seen to be adjustments…[to] the larger structures in which a person or a group find themselves’ (Young 1997a:44). Young (1997a:35) further argues that ‘it is these whole-system variables which must be found and altered if we want a more peaceable society’.
According to Young (1997b:88), there are four types of attractors when considering society and crime in general: social power, economic power, physical power and moral power. Young’s (1998b) basic argument is that ‘when power inequalities increase beyond given limits, entirely new forms of social behaviour may emerge’. Young further argues that the life of any given individual or group could be mapped to each of these attractors and that each form of crime entails some combination of the four. Young (1997b) suggests social power arises from social relationships, be it family, friends, colleagues, church, recreation or the community. Economic power arises from one’s income and wealth. Physical power arises from the use or threat of violence and moral power arises from shared values, such as religion or professional ethics.
As a methodology to use attractors in research, Young (1997b:95) offers a five step approach that may be summarised as follows:
i) locate the attractors hidden in complex data sets; ii) determine how many attractors exist in the data set;
iii) find the change points(s) at which new attractors are produced;
iv) identify the key parameters which drive the system into ever more uncertainty (for purposes of social control); and
v) determine which setting of those key parameters is acceptable to the whole society (for purposes of social policy).
Although Young does not offer any workable examples, the approach by Young appears promising. As Jennings (2014:41) points out in organisational studies, attractors ‘can provide useful insights into organisational behaviour when trying
to understand why organisations behave in a particular way given particular inputs’ and more importantly, can be used to gain insights into ‘how to tailor interventions in order to achieve the required goals’. Young (1991) further suggests ‘rather than analysis, interaction is the focus of attention’ and ‘rather than intention, adjustment to external conditions spark the patterns of crime’. Recently, Byrne and Callaghan (2014:36) emphasise the importance of control parameters in applying complexity to social science as ‘we have to know something about what we change to make a difference’. Byrne and Callaghan (2014:36) offer a definition of control parameters, as ‘elements in a complex system which are less than the system as a whole but where changes in these elements have an effect such that the nature of the system is changed in a qualitative fashion’. Essentially, complexity suggests that as parameters in the external environment change, then individuals, organisations and/or societies ‘move to occupy differing regions/attractors in an outcome field’ (Young & Kiel 1994). An example of control parameters is offered by Young and Kiel (1994) in the form of car parking regulations, where individuals change their behaviour, such as parking illegally, to accommodate changes in parking regulations and other external factors such as weather or traffic congestion on any particular day.
4. Fractals (criminological examples)
The fractal concept of self-similarity has been applied by the work of Pepinsky (1997) in understanding violence. Pepinsky (1997:103) suggests that ‘small-time street crime is paralleled by big-time suite crime’ and that ‘the more power our social position confers on us in relation to others, the more numerous and serious crimes we will commit’. There is a parallel and scaling in place. Pepinsky (1997:103-104) further argues that ‘if violence works fractally…the more intense the large-scale violence around us, the more intense and prevalent violence should become at the interpersonal level through the social system’. In applying fractional dimension, Arrigo (1997) has applied a fractal nature to truth values. Meaning, ‘rather than identifying a behaviour as right or wrong, good or bad, just or unjust’ the fractal concept ‘takes the position that such determinations are matters of degree’ (Arrigo 1997:185). In simple terms, there is not always a clear yes or no answer to everyday questions and ‘shades of grey’ might be more useful in criminological study.
5. Interconnectivity (criminological examples)
In organisational studies, interconnectivity is associated with the concept of a ‘shared need’ where individuals interact to ‘accomplish a task, goal, objective, [or] vision’ (Uhl-Bien & Marion 2009:642). Simply put, a shared need starts with the ‘what’s in it for me question’ (Uhl-Bien & Marion 2009:642). If a shared need ‘is not felt’, then ‘individuals will not be motivated to engage’ (Uhl-Bien & Marion 2009:642). Lewin and Regine (1999) suggest that to promote the extent to which individuals interact in an organisation, leaders should create conditions to foster personal attachment with both the organisation and people within in. Moreover, to promote greater creativity and adaptability, one needs to find whatever ‘enriches the interactions’ or relationships amongst individuals (Lewin & Regine 1999:203). Although these examples are from organisational studies, these examples resonate with the ‘dark side’ of organisational life, such as criminal organisations and/or groups in criminology.
6. Feedback (criminological examples)
Feedback may be applied to how words or phrases obtain new meanings when the ‘original intent’ becomes modified and reconstructed over time resulting in problematic definitions (Milovanovic 1997b; Schulman 1997). For example, in law ‘because legal precedent necessarily is preserved through language, there is opportunity at every new reading for its meaning to be perturbed’ to fit a new situation (Simons & Stroup 1997:117). In the context of Murray Lee’s ‘fear of crime feedback loop’ the concept of feedback is clearly apparent (Lee 2007:77). Lee’s feedback loop describes a process which breeds fear in today’s society using the media to inform the public of their fears based on research polls and the like, which, in turn, politicians use to justify tougher policies on crime, which, in turn, breeds more fear and accordingly more research. In McBurnett’s (1997) complexity research in the evolution of public opinion, McBurnett argues compelling evidence that feedback is key. As noted by Stroup (1997) the pre- existing or historical character of social facts make them potential indicators for feedback. In practice, it can be argued that any aspect of society is affected by its history where feedback loops either amplify or constrain crime. In complexity, history matters.