In the postmodern science with which I work, feedback replaces the concept of causality. Causal connection may well exist but, in social life, they are very different from the simple physical systems with which Newton worked and changed the world. There are three kinds of feedback one must think about in postmodern criminology. Linear and Positive feedback. If a system is designed such that positive feedback results as between systems and sub-systems, great peril for the integrity of the system ensues.
Positive feedback tends to explode the outcome field and fill it with evermore attractors.
Systems tend to fill the causal space available to them. Think of the screech of sound when there is positive feedback between a speaker and a microphone. Think of the violence which occurs when racism continues to increase the status differences between majority and minority. Linear feedback is a recipe for the deep chaos so hostile to the sensibility of those who argue for law and order. Yet linearity in policing, in trying, in judging, and in sentencing people is said to be a solution to crime.