Of the millions of law violations that occur each year, most of them are considered “Blue-Collar Crimes.” These crimes are larceny, burglary, and arson, which are mostly committed by individuals who do not consider themselves as criminals. These crimes are committed in the heat of the moment, natural, unexpected, and often not very well thought out. There are many ways of approaching criminal situations. There are also people who believe they have found the reason why individuals commit crimes such as burglary or how to prevent individuals from committing crimes. I will discuss the varies theories that justify the criminal act or ways to deter an individual from committing crimes.
Choice Theory
Choice Theory is the belief that individuals who
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General deterrence believes individuals will not commit a crime if the individual feared the severity, certainty, and speed of punishment if they were caught. With deterrence theory, the burglar knows from watching the news that the judicial system is cracking down on burglars and decides not to break into your home. Specific deterrence believes if the punishment is severe enough, criminals will not repeat their illegal act. With specific deterrence, the burglar has been arrested for burglary in the past and was given probation. The fear of getting caught again and going to jail will deter the burglar from completing the act. Both theories believe the individual must have some fear in the judicial system to prevent them from committing a criminal …show more content…
Strain theory and cultural deviance theory are two branches of the social structure theories. These theories focus on the effect of the environment in which the individual who commits criminal acts lives in has on them. Individuals living in disorganized communities are more likely to experience crime producing social forces. Although you have a job and living comfortably, your angry neighbor who is an unemployed school dropout who lives with his mother is more likely to break into your residence because of
... On the other hand, Strain theory explains deviance as the outcome of social strains due to the way the society is structured. The slight differences between theories are that labeling is placed on someone; it is something that is given, but strain is something you place on yourself due to the way many individuals cope with stress. . The White Family portrays corruption and poverty. They take part in shoot-outs, robberies, gas- huffing, drug dealing, pill popping and murders.
White-collar crime is the financially motivated illegal acts that are committed by the middle and upper class through their legitimate business or government activities. This form of crime was first coined by Edwin Sutherland in 1939 as “a crime committed by a person of respectability and high social status in the course of his occupation.” (Linden, 2016). Crime has often been associated with the lower class due to economic reasons. However, Sutherland stressed that the Criminal Justice System needed to acknowledge illegal business activity as crime due to the repercussions they caused and the damage they can cause to society (Linden, 2016). Crime was prevalently thought to only be
Crime causation is looking at why people commit crimes. There are many theories that have been developed to explain this. The theories can be grouped into eight general categories of which one is the Classical theory (Schmallegar, 2011, p. 79). A subset of this theory, rational choice theory, will be specifically looked at to explain the crime of burglary. Just as no one causation theory explains all crimes committed, the rational choice theory itself does not completely explain why all burglars commit their crimes. Therefore, the pros and cons of the rational choice theory will be discussed in relation to the crime topic of burglary.
In conclusion, both strain/anomie and social disorganization theories are both very important theories in explaining the causation of crime and deviance. Many theorists today often rely heavily on these theories. As crime and society continue to change, these theories will continue to provide a solid foundation for future theories created.
General Strain Theory was discussed by Robert Agnew, and first published in 1992. According to General Strain Theory individuals engage in crime because of strains or stressors which produce anger and anxiety (Agnew, 1992). Crimes become the outlet that the individual uses to cope with or remedy the strains or stressors. Agnew states that there are three different types of deviance producing strains.
White collar and corporate crimes are crimes that many people do not associate with criminal activity. Yet the cost to the country due to corporate and white collar crime far exceeds that of “street” crime and benefit fraud. White collar and corporate crimes refer to crimes that take place within a business or institution and include everything from Tax fraud to health and safety breaches.
This helps to counter habitual offending (N.A 2016). Next is the denunciation theory. This consists of the sentencing main objective to express society’s disapproval of the crime that was committed. the theory is less about placing blame on the particular offender and more about defining the values and moral code of society (Gardner, 2015) The fourth theory of punishment is deterrence.
...ifferent crime patterns and thought processes of criminals. The reasons can only come from these theories and will help the justice systems become more prepared to react towards different crimes. However, with adding some enhancements, projects and experiments these two theories have the potential to change the criminology realm forever.
White-collar crimes are defined as criminal violations committed by people of high respectability and high social status in the course of their occupations (Humphrey, J. A.2012) Individuals, businesses, and governments may engage in white-collar crimes (Humphrey, J. A.2012). White-collar criminals are rarely arrested or punished for their offenses (Reurink, A. 2017). For the most part corporate elites have reaped considerable financial profit from their wrongdoing; and most have avoided criminal prosecution (Humphrey, J. A., and Schmalleger, F. (2012 and Reurink, A. (2017).
Theories of criminal behavior are to have their strengths and weaknesses to their explanations about what they are to mean. A list of criminal behavior theories are; consensus theory, conflict theory, rational choice theory, psychological theories, social theories, learning theories and critical theories. For a better understanding of these theories, they will need to be briefly explained.
Deterrence theory of crime is a method in which punishment is used to dissuade people from committing crimes. There are two types of deterrence: general and specific. General deterrence is punishment to an individual to stop the society as a whole from committing crimes. In other word, it is using the punishment as an example to “scare” society from precipitating in criminal acts. Under general deterrence, publicity is a major part of deterrence. Crime and their punishments being showing in the media or being told person to person can be used to deter crime. Specific deterrence is punishment to the individual to stop that individual from committing other crimes in the future. This type of deterrence is used to teach the individual a lesson whatever action that participated in. Specific deterrence is founded on a principle called hedonistic calculus meaning, “an assumption that human nature leads people to pursue pleasure and avoid pain” (Brown, Esbensen, & Geis, 2010, p 155).
An integrated theory is a combination of 2 or 3 theories that offers many explanations on why crime is occurring, compared to a traditional criminal theory that just focus on one type of aspect (Lilly et al.2010). The purpose of integrated theories is to help explain many aspects into what causes criminal behavior and why one becomes delinquent. From this an argument arises can integrated theories be used to explain all criminal behavior. Integrated theories are successful in explaining certain aspects of crime on what causes one to become deviant; however one theory alone cannot explain why an individual engages in crime. This paper will examine three integrated theories and look in-depth how these theories can explain different aspects on why criminal behavior occurs and the weakness of each theory. The three integrated theories that will be discussed in this paper are Cloward and Ohlin Differential Opportunity theory, Robert Agnew General Strain theory, and lastly Travis Hirschi’s Social Bond theory.
Strain theory is the inability to achieve one’s goals because of the loss of positive stimuli, or the presentation of negative stimuli. Strain theory may play a pivotal role in some of my peer 's lives due to their inability to achieve their goals. In class we talk about how strain theory cause great deal of crimes through means of certain strains or stressors, which increasing the likelihood of crime. Examples of Stressors and strains is not having positive role model this may influence crimes to happen. Other issue of strains that may play a role in crime is the inability of gaining monetary success. Monetary success usually cause problems that arise due to the lack of income or lack of quality education that would drives individuals to commit crime. My perspective to general strain theory is that a lot pressure was put on me to succeed in life, and that played a factor in my of my own strain to succeed, we didn’t have a lot income in the house, but my parents did provide everything in order for me to succeed. People such as Robert Merton believed that when societal norms only accepted goals, such as the 'American Dream, ' which then place pressure on the individual to conform, they force the individual to either work within the society has produced, or instead becomes a members of a deviant subculture in an attempt to achieve those
• The Schools for crime Theory The Deterrence Theory This Theory supports that through the imprisonment of criminals, there are higher chances for a decline in the criminality rates. The fact that, according to the theory, the prisoners are going to be less immoral is due to their
Rational choice theory in Criminal Justice focuses on deterrence and how individuals are influenced by some type of factor that makes them engage in crime. This adds to conversation that criminologists started in the 1700’s because they were all about deterring criminals. They wanted the crime to fit the punishment which would deter other criminals from committing that same crime. Rational Choice Theory and Classical criminologists also believed that people committed crimes because they wanted to achieve their desired goals whether it would be for money or their sexual desires. This was based off of free will where people decided if they were going to commit a crime and what the consequences would be if they committed that crime.