In the American society criminal activity has become a part of the everyday activity. At any given time an individual can turn on the news and there has been some type of criminal activity that is headlining the news. More often then not it is a violent crime. Thanks to the media and exposure to crime on a regular basis as well as the entertainment industry, and other outlets projecting a certain stereotype of crime, and also criminals, society has developed their own definition of each. Society has also developed many myths or misconceptions about crime itself, and has distorted the realities to fit their mythical beliefs. HOW SOCIETY DEFINES CRIMINALS Most individuals in America will define a criminal as being an individual that commits …show more content…
Crime and society are inseparable since time memorial. They are interrelated. Dating back the history, it is an undaunted fact that ever since human beings started living together commission of crime erupted” (Patel, 2011). Since the time of the Founding Fathers of the United States fought for their freedom from England, they had a vision of what the United States could be. To ensure their vision would come to fruition they developed the Constitution as well as a Bill of Rights to ensure the people had rights that could not be taken from them. To bring social order to the communities the government then implemented laws to ensure there would be punishments for the actions of the citizens. Over time society has also determined a sense of morality and these morals change determined by the culture of the area that one may come from. America is a melting pot of many different cultures, nationalities, religions, and people. With in these different demographics of the nation the morals and values that some may consider the “unwritten laws” of the land will change. One must now determine when these laws that imposed by the government and also their culture, what is crime. Some would say that any violation of either laws would be considered criminal activity, while others would say that defiance of only the laws of the government is criminal activity. Who is correct? Does it have to be one or the …show more content…
This statement is a myth. White collar crimes not only affect the corporation or organization that is a victim of the crime, but often times these crimes are committed by the organizations cause financial instability or concerns for the citizens it provides services to. When the reach of financial instability impacts the lives of the citizens, the unstable income can cause more crime of many different types to be committed out of necessity. When an individual has a family to support, and the white-collar crime took away their means of support, the individual will do anything to ensure their families survival. The myth that white-collar crimes do not harm an individual is so hard to abandon because of the definition of white-collar crime itself. White-collar crimes focus on the “key institutions in which those crimes take place and normally who benefits from the crime” (TV, 2010). The idea that no one is hurt from white-collar crime is also not widely advertised, it is not a popular crime to report. These crimes are something from the “movies” that seem to be nearly impossible to accomplish, and therefore are not likely to be thought about as often as street
The Criminal Justice System can be very rewarding because it deters crime, protects and minimize recidivism all while treating all Americans equally under the law (Department of Justice, 2013). The Criminal Justice System’s Administration is composed of three system components which collectively functions the Criminal Justice System if effectively enforced and monitored (The Criminal Justice System, 2008). The Criminal Justice Administration is composed of Police Officers, Public Defenders and other Legal occupant whose main job is to protect, serve and rehabilitate (The Criminal Justice System, 2008). When the Administration’s occupants become involved in corruption they become a conflict of interest. Conflicting Rewards can negatively impact the Criminal Justice Administration and the people it was created to serve when the primary goal becomes undesirable (Kirby, 2016).
Even though there have been many ex-cons that have left the prison system many times when they are released they are merely better-educated and skilled criminals, it does not matter how much money you have, your race, color, background, religion, sex everyone is affected because we are all a part of this problem. If you vote, if you pay taxes, if you are afraid to walk alone at night, you are already involved. More than half of all US prisoners that are serving time for non-violent offenses, and most nonviolent offenders do in fact learn a lesson while in prison: how to be violent.
“Crime myths are powerful constructions of reality because they speak to our personal values and beliefs and are steeped in rich symbolism, which reinforces those values and belief.” (Kappeler & Potter, 2004) Crime myths are created when a series of fictional events that are later altered so that they become social and political problems. The media plays a major role in the creation of crime myths they broadcast images and videos to go along with the crime myths, they also use social context that play on humans thought on the community seeing it as unsafe. Myths also contain some measure of economic conditions that then cause reactions by politicians to create new laws to prevent these myths from becoming major problems in the criminal justice system. (K&P, 2004) In order for a statement to be characterized as a crime myth, if the crimes instill fear and threaten the vast majority of society. (K&P,2004) Crime myths are made up of components that targets and identify of a distinct deviant population, they involve innocent and helpless victims, the emergence of brave and virtuous hearos ,comes as a threat to peoples established norms, values, or traditional lifestyles.
People draw conclusions and profile the average committed street crimes by race, gender, and social classes. White-collar crimes are probably not as common as street crimes to the average person. Not everyone hears about every crime and some crimes manage to slide around the news. Society usually thinks of crime as violent or unethical abuse of some sort (leaving a baby in the car on accident). Poverty, social environments, and peer pressure influences decisions for people who committee white-collar crimes.
Crime is seen as deviant behaviour that violates prevailing norms which are the cultural standards prescribing how humans ought to behave normally. This violation of a law;-offences against the person, violent offences, sexual offences and offences against property, causes injury to the public or an individual and a term in jail or prison, and/or a fine are possible penalties.#
A pale amount of criminological research, which focuses on the public attitude toward crime and the public’s opinion on white-collar crime, has been done. Cullen and colleagues were one of the first to study public attitudes about white-collar crime. In there study they surveyed 240 adults and assessed various perceptions about this behavior. The researchers found that the sample “supported criminal sanctions for white-collar offenders, viewed white-collar crimes as having greater moral and economic cost than street crimes, and did not define the offenses as violent” (sagepub.com). Similar results were found in other studies. In a more recent survey conducted by the NW3C, they decided to touch upon several perception dimensions when conducting
Another reason that the criminal justice system hurts the prisoners communities is because police treat people unfairly in their arresting method. In an article called “New Yorkers Speak Out on Stop, Question and Frisk Policy”, different people discuss their experiences with Stop and Frisk. An African American medical assistant student from Brooklyn, Lashonda Jackson states “ I don’t think I should be stopped based on how I look”. A student from Bronx name Jorge Torres states “The police treat people as savages, with no respect.” This evidence shows that police are treating people bad based on how they look. Police talk to people in a rude way because they think they could do whatever they want. This evidence is important because is making
People believe that the criminal justice system is unfair too most people, especially the blacks, White police killing blacks men is a major typical stereotype that's been occurring through the years. It's been dormant, but recently its been popping up in a lot of situations. I came across the Trayvon Martin situation, where he was killed by a police officer in self-defense, even though he had no armor on him. According to the article in Florida they have self-defense laws and Zimmerman was set free without any charges because of those rules and regulation. They also elaborated about the way he was brutally beaten and shot losing his life and the family got no justice because of the justice system, this issue caused a major riot all over the
From the 1960’s up until present time crime has been defined and measured in many ways, this is because of what at the time period was and was not classified as a crime and the crime trends, swell as medias representation of crime. Defining crime is merely impossible as it means different things to different people. If crime is her to define then its even hardened to measure. Medias representation of crime shows incorrect figures of what crime trends are and who is being effected by the crimes, causing the public to be misinformed and close to clueless about crime in general.
A crime is an act against the law. Even though police systems and prisons justify an unlawful act committed, crime continues to happen every day and every minute. People commit crimes for reasons such as problems with relationships, jealousy, anger, and money. Those against the surge of immigrants believe that immigrants cause the increase of crime rates in the U.S. On the contrary, those for immigrants believe that they instead reduce the rate of crime in the U.S. I believe that immigrants do not bring up the crime rate in the U.S because they fear of crime.
Stereotyping Within the Criminal World: All people have some sort of opinion on how criminals become the way they are. Criminals becoming the way they are can be a result of stereotyping within the prison world or a variety of things from the outside world such as drugs, people, and media. Murders, rapists, and nonviolent drug offenders stay in prisons all around the world. There are two types of people who are in prison. Those who hurt people and those who are nonviolent drug offenders who were in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Crime is probably the most common problem that most of us are having and to a certain extent, we speak up about it but it is never really addressed. The works of crime are quite evident and yet we are still urged to report t as if something new or different is implemented. My argument lies fully not saying that it is not being addressed but rather saying that if our laws and orders were consistent, then crime would be less viable. This would be more clearer if we can go back to the core and actually find the definition of crime. Crime is an activity that involves breaking the law, which then means in one word it, is PROHIBITED. I am now moving closer to unfolding these mysteries.
White-collar crime results in enormous annual losses to victims and are several times the amount of Conventional or street crimes. The cost of white-collar crime is estimated well below the actual costs to the economy. It affects The collapse of major financial institutions have become major political issues. Harmful activities by corporations put worker’s safety at risk, as well as consumers. Some white-collar crime is still subject to criminal law and the criminal justice, although they are not regarded to as a crime in way burglary, murder or assault are. More often than not they are also less likely to be prompted for tougher policing and punishment. White-collar crime questions the way in which crime is defined and how it should be treated by the justice system. It involves a large
Recently, the rate of crimes has gradually increased in the society throughout the world. By referring to appendix Figure 1, the crime report has shown the crime rate increase from 2012 to 2014 in Victoria (Cowlishaw 2014). Murder, robbery, rape, illegal uses of drug and insider trading are examples of crimes.
According to a functionalist perspective, crime has always existed and plays a key role in society (Mooney, Knox, and Schact, 2007). Due to this, society has always been looking at ways to punish criminals and deter crime. It was not until the 1700’s that the prison system emerged as a new form to not only punish criminals for their actions but also to protect society from violent offenders. While it is easy to say that prisons are effective because they remove the offender from society there are also an overwhelming number of negative factors for the offender and society. There has been a plethora of research conducted by social scientists over the years that reinforces the notion that criminal activity is a common occurrence among the youth