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Major theories of criminal behavior
Relevance of theory of criminal behaviour
Freakonomics by steven levitt and stephen dubner analysis
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The book “Freakonomics” by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner is a dissection of anecdotes. The authors intensely dismantle ideas that are social norms, using economic and demographic data. The book has no central theme other than to “explore the hidden side of… everything.”pg.14 One chapter the subject will be on corruption in the sumo wrestling community, then another on how legalizing abortion lowers crime rates, then another on what effect parenting has on children. Chapter three explains why the popular idea that most drug dealers were rich is almost entirely false. The authors blame the media for this idea. When crack cocaine first started to appear en masse, the cops and the media put an emphasis on how unfair the fight was, because the …show more content…
In simplest terms, conventional wisdom must be “simple, convenient, comfortable, and comforting”pg.90. While reasoning behind the claim that drug dealers are poor might be complex, the claim itself is much simpler than all of the others in the book. Consider again the unusual topics of the book; abortion drastically lowered crime because future criminals were not being born; the Ku Klux Klan was defeated by a single man and the writers of Superman. The drug dealer claim is also convenient, comfortable, and comforting because most people would prefer to think that crime is very unrewarding. However the context of this claim in society has changed since this book was written, in a way that makes the claim seem more reasonable. “Freakonomics” was published in 2005, and it was during the 1990’s that the media was portraying drug dealers as especially wealthy. However the public perception of drug dealers has changed in the last ten years to match the authors’ claim. Nowadays people think that most drug dealers are poor, uneducated, and that only a small percentage can make a decent profit from drugs. This means that even if the authors claim on drug dealers was radical at the time, society has caught up with it, and it is even more like conventional wisdom than
In The Rich Get Richer and the Poor Get Prison by Jeffery Reiman and Paul Leighton, four multifaceted issues are focused on and examined. These issues are the Unites States high crime rates, efforts in explaining the high crime rates, where the high crime rates originally came from, and the success attained at a high price. The initial key issue that Reiman and Leighton discuss is America’s high rising crime rates with the understanding of the people that believe policy and regulations are the causes of the decrease in crime. The many graphs throughout the chapter represent information that undoubtedly illustrates that specific policy and regulation may cause rates to become stagnate or strike a plateau. While the rule makers make it appear as though their organization is functioning. Later guns and gun control policy are discussed. With the stern enforcement of the gun policy, at the time, crime appeared to decline, or become stagnate resulting in a plateau effect that is illustrated in the graphs. Countless arrests were made with large quantities of people being imprisoned. Du...
Summary In chapter one of Freakonomics, the beginning portion of the chapter discusses information and the connection it shares with the Ku Klux Klan and real-estate agents. The Ku Klux Klan was founded right after the Civil War, in order to persecute and subdue the slaves that were newly freed. The popularity of the Klan increased in the early 20th century, around the time of World War I. In the late 19th century, the Klan had only discriminated, persecuted, and subdued Blacks, but in the 20th century they did these things to Blacks, Jews, and Gypsies.
The Cocaine Kids and Dorm Room Dealers are two very different, but yet similar books. Cocaine Kids are about a group of kids, primarily of Hispanic race, with one kid of the Black race. The kids were raised in the inner city of New York. Dorm Room Dealers are about White, middle to upper-middle class college students, who was selling drugs for their status. The purpose of this paper is to prove that there are racial disparities among drug users. There will be examples from the texts that show the different takes on the drug markets and how race plays a factor. There also will be how these experiences shape the kids drug dealing and using. The paper will conclude how all the kids either remained in the drug career or left the drug career.
Written by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, Freakonomics is built upon three major philosophies: incentives are the fundamentals of life, experts on a subject use their knowledge as an advantage to serve their own wellbeing, and orthodox wisdom is wrong most of the time. This book goes into detail to explain the mindsets of humans, from school teachers to sumo wrestlers, through statistics. Levitt and Dubner claim that when the data is closely examined it can relate to more concepts than originally hypothesized. The style of this informative piece is very precise yet, at the same time, very concise and to the point. The tone carried throughout the book is informative and knowledgeable. The authors use distinct tactics to get points across
Over the past 60 years there has been a recent phenomenon in the development and rise of gangs and gang violence. This is exceptionally apparent in South Central Los Angeles, where the Bloods and the Crips have taken control of the social structure and created a new type of counter culture. Poverty in this area is an enormous problem caused by a sheer lack of jobs; but just because there is a lack of jobs doesn’t mean that there will be a lack of bills to pay, so sometimes selling drugs in order to keep a roof over your head seems like the most logical option. Crime often times flourishes in these regions because the inconvenient truth is; crime pays. Senator Tom Hayden stated “It’s been defined as a crime problem and a gang problem
“Just Say No!” A statement that takes us deep into yet another decade in the history of the United States which was excited by controversies, social issues, and drug abuse. The topic of this statement is fueled by the growing abuse of cocaine in the mid 1980s. I shall discuss the effects of the crack cocaine epidemic of the mid 1980s from a cultural and social stand point because on that decade this country moved to the rhythms and the pace of this uncanny drug. Cocaine took its told on American society by in the 1980s; it ravaged with every social group, race, class, etc. It reigned over the United States without any prejudices. Crack cocaine was the way into urban society, because of its affordability in contrast to the powdered form. In society the minorities were the ones most affected by the growing excess of crime and drug abuse, especially African Americans; so the question was “Why was nearly everybody convicted in California federal court of crack cocaine trafficking black?” (Webb: Day 3). The growing hysteria brought forth many questions which might seem to have concrete answers, but the fact of the matter is they are all but conspiracy in the end, even though it does not take away the ambiguity and doubt. I will take on only a few topics from the vast array of events and effects this period in time had tended to. Where and who this epidemic seemed to affect more notably, and perhaps how the drugs came about such territories and people. What actions this countries authority took to restore moral sanity, and how it affected people gender wise.
“My crimey here think the way to go is more drugs. But I know better. I think making money is okay, but not making it just by dealing. You gotta go legit, at least for a minute. You gotta go state fresh, all the way live, if you wanna do anything worthwhile out here. Everybody thinks they can make crazy dollars, but they confused. It aint like that. I’ve seen co-caine bust many a head – they get fucked up and be clocking out after they find out they cannot find the key to understanding that mystery skied. But you know what? But-but0but you know what? They don’t have a clue. Word.” (Williams, 1989)
...haviors he so wishes to comprehend are those whom he labels as The Cocaine Kids. Now that examples of these drug sellers’ behaviors have been provided, the criminological theories that can explain such behaviors have been made visible to the unseen eye. Criminological theories including the theory of Differential Association, the Subculture of Violence Theory, and the Social Learning Theory can be viewed as methods for developing a knowledgeable understanding of how and why such behaviors introduced individuals to the drug-selling world, kept them submerge deep within it, and allowed for them to leave it.
In Douglas N. Husak’s A Moral Right to Use Drugs he attempts to look at drug use from an impartial standpoint in order to determine what is the best legal status for currently illegal drugs. Husak first describes the current legal situation concerning drugs in America, citing figures that show how drug crimes now make up a large percentage of crimes in our country. Husak explains the disruption which this causes within the judicial system and it is made clear that he is not content with the current way drugs are treated. The figures that Husak offers up, such as the fact that up to one third of all felony charges involve drugs, are startling, but more evidence is needed than the fact that a law is frequently broken to justify it’s repeal.
“Labeling theory,” which states that our self-identity and behavior can be altered by the names or terms that people use to describe or classify us. Labeling is using descriptive terms to categorize or classify something or someone. Sometimes these labels can have positive impacts on our life or as Amanat’s mentioned that these labels can limit our full potential to do anything by believing that people’s expectation about us is how we should define ourselves. In doing so, we act against our true nature because we’re trying to live up to others expectations or deny their assumptions.
This supports the conservative’s claim that the war on drugs is not making any progress to stop the supply of drugs coming into America. Conservative writer for the magazine National Review, William Buckley, shows his outrage towards the Council on Crime in America for their lack of motivation to change the drug policies that are ineffective. Buckley asks, “If 1.35 million drug users were arrested in 1994, how many drug users were not arrested? The Council informs us that there are more than 4 million casual users of cocaine” (70). Buckley goes on to discuss in the article, “Misfire on Drug Policy,” how the laws set up by the Council were meant to decrease the number of drug users, not increase the number of violators.
The law enforcement does not look for the increase in drug activity because but the law enforcement doesn’t focus on the high income neighborhoods in search of drugs, what they do is focus on the poor low income neighborhoods because that is where they think drugs are being abused. The drug policies are very discriminatory and attack those that are non-white, or those who live in a neighborhood where everyone thinks drugs are abused there. According to the article “Race, Drugs, and Law Enforcement in the United States” it uses statistics from Seattle that show a clear example of the discrimination of the supposed war on drugs. “A recent study in Seattle is illustrative. Although the majority of those who shared, sold, or transferred serious drugs[17]in Seattle are white (indeed seventy percent of the general Seattle population is white), almost two-thirds (64.2%) of drug arrestees are black”(hrw.org 1).
As crime and corruption continues to rise in many countries and inner cities, more people and public officials have begun to discuss whether drugs should be legalized. In the passage “Legal Drugs Unlikely to Foster Nation of Zombies”, author Stephen Chapman argues in favour of his conclusion that drugs should be legalized as prohibition of drugs is causing more harm to society. Chapman’s conclusion is based on a convergent argument in which he provides three explicit premises for support that can be stated in standard from like this:
When societies finally become comfortable with reality, they begin to abandon the murderous laws that impede their growth. Currently, the social stigma and legislated morality regarding the use of illicit drugs yield perhaps the most destructive effects on American society. Drug laws have led to a removal of non-violent citizens from society- either directly by incarceration or indirectly by death - that is genocidal in quantity and essence.
In the early 1980s, policymakers and law enforcement officials stepped up efforts to combat the trafficking and use of illicit drugs. This was the popular “war on drugs,” hailed by conservatives and liberals alike as a means to restore order and hope to communities and families plagued by anti-social or self-destructive pathologies. By reducing illicit drug use, many claimed, the drug war would significantly reduce the rate of serious nondrug crimes - robbery, assault, rape, homicide and the like. Has the drug war succeeded in doing so? In Illicit Drugs and Crime, Bruce L. Benson and David W. Rasmussen (Professors of Economics, Florida State University, and Research Fellows, the Independent Institute), reply with a resounding no.