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A CLOCKWORK ORANGE
CRIMINOLOGY IN THE BIG SCREEN
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Rita Pereira
Criminology, May 2013
Teacher Guilherme Marques Pedro

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Crime films as a whole can be seen to make use of,
exemplify and give voice to wider assumptions,
concerns and anxieties about social life, social
disorder and social change.
Rafter, 2000
This essay intends to demonstrate how the film A Clockwork Orange can be
seen to show the way occidental society perceives crime, and how it goes hand in
hand with the evolution of criminological approaches throughout History. In order to
do that it will cover the three main stages of both the picture and any common crime:
the background from where it arises, society's reaction to it (imprisonment) and the
final attempt to cure the main character's penchant for violence.
It is a type of analysis that is most relevant to a complete understanding of
crime as seen through the lenses of the community when this community is most
exposed: while producing works of art and entertainment whose main goal is not to
teach a criminology class. This art of masses goes so far as to shape our framework of
thought and concepts of good and normality. But can it also be the other way around
— can it be the mirror on which the penal movements we have experienced as a
society are reflected?
THE BIRTH OF CRIME AND ITS BACKGROUND (ALEX, THE CRIMINAL
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"Is it some devil that crawls inside of you?"
Most films of what is generally called legal cinema revolve around courts and
judicial processes. The case of A Clockwork Orange is an exception, as we never
actually see the judicial procedure that must have taken place. In this sense it defies
the usual categorization by genre: what is it, a drama, a thriller? Can it also be a
comedy? Be that as it may, it is uncontroversial that it can integrate any legal cinema
list: it depicts a very complete picture of crime and its complexities, from the point of
view of a very special character, Alexander DeLarge.
The film opens with a zoom out of Alex and his group, whom he calls his
"droogs" (throughout all the film he is the narrator, and his language is the very
peculiar language invented by Burgess, the Nadsat). They are drinking a glass of milk
in a bar, where they decide to go out and do, in the words of Alex, some of the "old
ultra-violent", which turns out to be molesting an older man (an alcoholic vagrant)
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For the subtitles I will borrow the terminology used by Gehrke, characterizing Alex as "the criminal",
"the convict" and "the patient".

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under a bridge, getting into a fight with a rival gang and finally driving (in a stolen
car) to a couple's house, where they rape the woman while brutalizing the man.
Without going any further into the narrative we can already dive into one
important aspect: that of the motivations behind these crimes. From the very
beginning we understand Alex is not being led by his friends, nor does he appear to
have some ulterior motive, such as revenge or stealing for living. His family is
introduced to us: a couple with no apparent economical problems, living in a
"municipal flat block", and providing Alex with all he wants — Beethoven's music
tapes, a pet snake, a room with a number combination lock. The school of thought
that studies the criminality of behaviour related to social disorganization apparently
cannot help us here, since Alex's background is wealthy enough and seems socially
integrated.
There is, however, a peculiarity visible throughout the whole film, regarding
his family. When we first get to know them, we see his mother knocking on his door
and trying to make him get up to go to school. We know he had just arrived some
moments ago from the night of violence described above, but we realize she does not
know it, nor does she seem too preoccupied when Alex excuses himself from school
because he is supposedly sick (although he has not gone to school the whole week).
She rapidly withdraws from his room and goes to the kitchen to make breakfast, as
she must be ready soon to go to work. His father is there, eating (it is the first time we
see him), and he asks for Alex and wonders where he could be spending his evenings.
The mother replies "like he says, is mostly odd things he does", then adding "helping
like, here and there, as it might be". The oblivious state these parents are in is
shocking, especially when we learn that Alex has already been in a corrective school
and is now supervised by a man whom he calls his "post-corrective advisor". Alex
appears as a menace on the loose, with no one to tame him: his advisor cannot do
more than warn him, and his parents do not make any efforts to be more present in his
life, their interference being limited to question him lightly, unconcerned even with
the fact that he is (and this they know for sure) missing school.

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The film intends clearly to leave us pondering the weight of Alex's
relationship with his parents in his inclination towards crime. In the tradition of
Durkheim’s thought, criminality can be a consequence of the lack of social
organization in the sense of rupture of the social link that bonds individuals in
organizations such as family. Shaw and Mackey (Clive R. Hollin, 2007: 86) associate
delinquency with the loosening of social controls, like the educational system, family
and the church: with their influence diminished, people do not feel the need to comply
with rules set by the same community to which they now do not feel associated. This
kind of anomie can be especially influential with adolescents, as they are more
inclined to have problems in their relationships with parents and school, and more
vulnerable to the pressures of group behaviour and the search for the ultimate adrenal
rush. T. Hirschi, in his book Causes of Delinquency (1969), explored precisely this
side of delinquency. He thought we should look not at the question "why do certain
individuals commit crimes" but rather "why do most people respect the law", for most
people would naturally commit crimes in order to satisfy their desires and innate
egoism, but are prevented of doing so by the community.
Alex is an adolescent integrated in a gang, where he is listened to and obeyed,
and with whom he shares a common language, filled with mannerisms. Another way
of better understanding his behaviour is Gabriel Tarde's imitation of deviance theory,
according to which the criminal tries to imitate someone he admires, whether it is a
figure of authority or simply his peers. This phenomenon can be related to that of
gangs, "informal social groups" that "have no membership rosters, no organizational
charts, no constitutions and bylaws, no written criteria for membership or for
acceptable or unacceptable behavior" (Malcolm W. Klein, 2000: 111). They form
another type of social structure that replaces those of the rest of the community,
enabling its members to escape the social constraints imposed by the outsiders and
build a system of norms of their own.
The film does not explicitly endorse these ideas as much as it implies them, by
way of the dialogues between the characters and the general feeling we are left with
after being presented with Alex's circle. In the mouth of the old man at the beginning
of the film we ear that "It is a stinky world because there is no more law and order

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about it", as plausible a discourse as that of any old man referring to the loss of values
of the current generation. Alex's post-corrective advisor, on the other hand, mentions
that he does not understand what "is wrong with you all" ("you all" being young
delinquents), then adding "We have been studying you for some time but we get no
farther with our studies. You have a good family, good brain… Is it some devil that
crawls inside of you?" It is a line by a fictional character, but it could easily have been
the complaint of any law-abiding real citizen perplexed by the reasons that motivate
those who become criminals.
THE PANOPTIC PRISON (ALEX, THE CONVICT)
"Crime in the midst of punishment"
Alex is finally caught after entering the house and gymnasium of an older
woman and killing her (accidently, it appears, because he only wanted to maim her in
order to steal her belongings). His gang — the true authors behind the crime and
responsible for his arrest as a revenge for the way he treated them — escapes, and he
is presumably taken to trial (which we never see) and then prison. Here is the first
sequence where Alex is portrayed not as a delinquent and a criminal, but almost as a
victim. To begin with, victim of the terrible conditions of the facilities, also not
expressly revealed to us but hinted at by the sterile scenarios and overcrowded areas.
Victim also of the senseless violence of his warders. They are proud of their army-like
discipline and brutal humiliation of the inmates, and we see it mainly when Alex is
first admitted to the prison and is ordered to undress and stand while his anus is
scrutinised and he is being asked about personal ideas, such as religion or his sexual
orientation. Finally, victim of the other inmates, specially those he calls "perverts".
The prison, as a physical institution, is similar to the famous Panopticon first
envisioned by Jeremy Bentham. It is used as a means for the enactment of power, a
disciplinary mechanism that facilitates the control of a few over many. We never see

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Alex in his cell, only in common areas such as the courtyard and library, but we have
no difficulty in imagining, from the aerial view presented in the film, that its cells are
"like so many cages, so many small theatres, in which each actor is alone, perfectly
individualized and constantly visible" (Foucault, 1995: 195).
Once again, what we merely deduce from what is shown is converted into the
lines of the characters: when visiting the facilities to choose an inmate to take with
him for the "Ludovico technique" experiment (which we will explore below), the
Minister of the Interior expresses his negative view on prisons and the gathering of
inmates together, saying that it only results in "concentrated criminality. Crime in the
midst of punishment." The prison's director agrees, adding that in order to improve
things "we need larger prisons, more money". The agent of the government is then
adamant: "The government can be no longer concerned with outmoded penological
theories (...) Common criminals like this are best dealt with on a purely curative basis.
Kill the criminal reflex, that's all". Panoptic prisons are now the enemy, in the words
of this character; the public opinion suffers a transformation in the film analogous to
that experienced by criminological theory in real life, a shift from the classical to the
positivist theory, from searching the solution to crime in the law and the criminal
system to look for it in the criminal individual himself.
AVERSION THERAPY AND FREE WILL (ALEX, THE PATIENT)
"Goodness is chosen"
Having heard there is a way of being released of prison earlier than expected,
Alex manages to be the one chosen by the Minister of Interior to be submitted to the
new experiment against criminality: the Ludovico technique. This method consists in
drugging him and then making him watch violent films, forced by a straightjacket and
clamps in the eyes (for preventing him from shutting them). At first Alex is even
enjoying the films, displaying images of actions very akin to his own (beating, raping,

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etc.), but at some point he starts feeling sick and wishes they would stop showing
those images. As he is submitted to more than one of those sessions, we are told that
he is not the first one to be feeling those effects, and that they comprise some kind of
body paralysis and "deep feelings of terror and helplessness" (one of the earlier
subjects has supposedly described it as "being like death"). The purpose? Creating an
inevitable connection in the body and mind of the subject between violence and
sickness, forcing him to associate the practice of those actions with the illness that
follows them. As a nurse puts it, it is the body that now responds to violence, and in
this way the criminals are "cured", since only those who are not healthy do not feel
terror and nausea towards violence.
It is not such a surprising idea, nor an unreal one: it has been studied under the
name of "Behaviorism". Though not a criminological concept, it can also be a
criminological method, using conditioning mechanisms to force on criminals the
behavior deemed appropriate. One easy way to understand it is thinking about Ivan
Pavlov's experiment on dogs: a certain stimulus causes the individual to behave in a
certain way. In this particular case, the stimulus is an unpleasant sensation, which
forces the individual to refrain from behaving in a violent manner. This is "aversion
therapy", an example of criminal behaviorism. It works by "pairing stimulus that
elicits pleasure with a noxious stimulus (typically a light electric shock or a noxious
odor)" (Vito and Maahs, 2011: 120). Its main advantage, as presented by its defenders,
is its simplicity, which makes it easy to use in different types of environments, even
within families (as the non formal contract decided between parents and child about
chores to complete and behaviors to avoid).
Behaviorism may seem the magical solution to the crime problem, but it has
two unavoidable limits: a functional and an ethical one. The functional limit is very
unsurprising, once we think of it: if we are able to condition a particular behaviour, it
is only natural that that behaviour can be conditioned back. In other words, the same
method applied to conditioning — repeated stimulus — can be used to overcome the
conditioned behaviour. The fact that it is a solution that can wear off makes it an
unreliable one. But our film does not explore this side of behaviorism, suggesting

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only at the end that Alex is back to his usual self after trying to commit suicide; it is
the second limit we talked about, the ethical one, that really matters.
In fact, Alex's free will is affected, since he cannot freely choose to behave as
he would like, the wave of sickness that overcomes him being too strong to bear. That
raises a philosophical question, one that is very relevant in the field of criminology: is
it fair or just to deprive a man — any man, even a criminal — of his free will? These
concerns are addressed in the film through the character of the priest in the prison.
Ever since Alex told him of his wish of being submitted to the treatment he told him
that it wasn't the treatment that would make him a good person: "Goodness comes
from within. Goodness is chosen. When a man cannot choose he ceases to be a man."
Later, upon the admission of the doctors that Alex is cured and is now "impelled
towards the good by paradoxically being impelled towards evil" he confronts them
with the fact that he has no real choice in the mater, "he ceases to be a wrongdoer but
also a creature capable of moral choice." It is evident for all that Alex's new behaviour
is not the result of his good intentions, quite the contrary; it is because he feels the
urge to commit violent acts that the physical sickness appears, inhibiting him from
doing so. Besides, with conditioning he lost also the possibility of hearing his beloved
Beethoven without being sick; he was not only deprived of his will but also of some
non-violent personal characteristics.
Why is this so important to criminology? For the reason that no policy against
crime is adequate if it violates the inner core of what it means to be human and a free
individual of our community: our human rights and dignity. That is the boundary
upon which we build our legal system, and agree to be submitted to penal rules. This
type of "totalitarismo mental" (Rivaya and De Cima, 2004: 321) is not admissible.
Once more, the film accompanies this trail of thought lived by our thinkers,
and so it ends with the recovery of Alex after the public reaction as expressed by
captions of newspapers: "government accused of inhuman means in crime reform",
"doctors blame government scientists for 'changing Alex's nature'". The fictional
community of the film, as our real society today, does not view techniques like
Ludovico's as desirable or morally acceptable.
CONCLUSION
The great thing about cinema — besides popcorn — is that it allows different
interpretations and opinions, depending on the spectator, the mood he is in, his age,
his experience in life. A clockwork orange is a perfect example of that, any analysis of
it being necessarily incomplete such is its complexity. Nonetheless, if we see it
through criminological lenses it is undisputable that it is a story of crimes and
punishment, depicting "the simultaneous interplay of multiple and sometimes
contradictory psychological impulses, giving a fuller, deeper, and more complex
view" on crime (Rafter and Brown, 2011: 65).

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The aim of this essay was to demonstrate how this cinematic narrative
parallels historical criminology discourses, displaying "key theoretical propositions
and analytical schemata through which criminological perspectives describe and
explain law-breaking behavior" (Tzanelli, Yar and O'Brien, 2005: 99). Films do not
only reproduce dominant perceptions of crime, but also criticize and revise them — as
this essay tried to show, with the sequential evolution of crime fighting policies seen
on the screen and accompanied by characters voicing those transformations.
Like the Law, Cinema is really nothing more than a particular way of looking
at and portraying life.
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Cusson, Maurice (2007), Criminologia, Casa das Letras
Davis, Jr. Michael Marks (2011), Gabriel Tarde, an Essay in Sociological Theory,
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Congruent Critiques of Criminological Constructions of Subjectivity", Critical
Studies in Media Communication, Vol. 18, n.º 3, pp. 270-284
Hirschi, Travis (2007), Causes of Delinquency, Transaction Publishers
Hollin, Clive R. (2007), "Criminological Psychology", Mike Maguire, Red Morgan
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