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Essay on criminology theories
Biological and sociological explanations of crime
Theoretical frameworks for criminology studies
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There was an event that took place in which people were injured, and even a death occurred in Cook County Illinois. The Offender fired three shots into a group of people, only grazing her intended target, but striking and killing a different person instead. That person died from a mortal gun shot wound to the back. The whole altercation occurred because the Offender and Intended target got into an altercation over a boy on social media and later physically as well. A couple of weeks before the shooting took place, the Offender was jumped by the intended victim’s group of friends because of the boy. The day of the shooting, the Intended Target sent the Offender a message saying that she was going to die. In an attempt to retaliate against her, …show more content…
The difference between classical and positivism is that they differ in the punishment area, and how they view offenders and non-offenders. The four objectives of classical school according to Bentham are,” To prevent all offenses if possible, persuade a person who has decided to commit an offense to commit a less rather than a more serious, to dispose to do no more mischief than is necessary to his purpose and to prevent the crime at as small a cost to society as possible (51)”. Classical School maintains that everyone is the same in that we all use rational choice. In positivism, there are three different kinds of positivism that include; biological, psychological and sociological positivism, and can be used to explain the offender’s behavior. Using biological positivism, one can come to an opinion that the offender’s behavior was caused by a genetic or environmental factor. One could also say that some criminal behavior can be caused by biological factors as well as sociological factors, according to the book. Another theory is that her behavior could be caused by psychological factors that are out of her control. Since her father was killed when she was young, she never learned how to control her natural instincts, and when a challenging or threatening event occurs, she goes into a state of natural prime behavior. Since the shooting could have a caused an emotional traumatic experience, the offender’s lawyers could argue that she was traumatized by her fathers shooting in which caused psychological problems to occur in the Offender. Using Sociological positivism, one could also argue that because the Offender grew up in a disadvantaged neighborhood filled with poverty and violence, that these could be factors that helped influence the Offender to start offending at a young age. Even though she has no prior record, does not mean she never offended during her
In the case of People v. Vasquez, a horrible crime was committed by the defendant, Jesus Vasquez, because he was upset with his girlfriend, Abigail Ramirez, for leaving him and allegedly seeing her ex-boyfriend. Instead of choosing to talk to his ex-girlfriend, Abigail Ramirez, he decided to forcefully break into her home, push her mother down on to the ground, then chase Abigail to the restroom where he violently and horrendously murdered her. There were many primary and secondary victims in this case and left people in pain from his terrible criminal act. Although the defense tries to prove that it was Heat of Passion and that the defendant did not know what he was doing, the evidence proves otherwise. The video shows evidence of shared
In determining which crime theory is most applicable to the Andrea Yates murder case, one must establish a position on her guilt or innocence. If one agrees that the original 2001 verdict of guilty is correct then the Classical theory would best apply. Beccaria’s Classical theory asserts that people think before they proceed with criminal acts. When one commits a crime, it is because the individual decided it would be advantageous to do so, when one acts without benefit of effective punishment (Pratt, 2008). However, if one agrees with the 2006 verdict of not guilty by reason o...
During the 1970’s to the early 1990’s there had emerged two new approaches to the study of crime and deviance. The discipline of criminology had expanded further introducing right and left realism, both believe in different areas and came together in order to try and get a better understanding on crime and prevention. There were many theorists that had influenced the realism approaches such as; Jock Young (Left Wing) and James Wilson (Right Wing).
A man by the name of Challer D. Wadsley was charged with attempted murder, intimidation with a dangerous weapon, domestic abuse, false imprisonment and public intoxication due to the events that took place Monday morning on October second. In which Wadsley and his girlfriend, Courtney Opheim, engaged in an argument while in Opheim’s car that escalated to Wadsley holding a .20-gauge shotgun to her head and firing threats while she was in the process of driving. Which Opheim successfully managed to pull over and have Wadsley execute her car, yet lead to Wadsley firing rounds at her vehicle as she attempted to drive away. This ending in Wadsley’s arrest after the Palo Alto County Sheriff’s Department received several 911 calls of an
Up until the 19th century, Classicist ideas dominated the way in which people looked at crime. However during the late 19th century a new form of “scientific criminology” emerged, called Positivism (Newburn, 2007). Positivism looked at the biological factors on why someone would commit a crime, this involved looking at the physical attributes of a person, looking at their genetic make-up and their biochemical factors.
Illinois resident Cristian Loga-Negru is going to be charged with first- degree intentional homicide. On November 19, Cristian a 38 year old man attacked and killed his 36 year old wife, Roxana E. Abrudan in Mount Pleasant Wisconsin. The couple was married in Arlington Heights Illinois for a period of time. The relationship that developed had was an abusive one. As a result of the abuse, Abrudan reported it to the authorities, got restraining order and moved away from Cristian. Abrudan moved in with her boss and his wife for about a month. Loga-Negru was able to find her after a short amount of time. Around 8:19 at night, on Calvin lane in front of Abrudan 's boss ' house , he attacked her with a hatchet. He then proceeded to drag her
"Metro Briefing Connecticut: Bridgeport: Emotional Disturbance Defense in Killing." New York Times: 0. May 03 2007. ProQuest.Web. 25 Nov. 2013 .
The positivist view of deviance places emphasis on individual's behavior being manipulated by outside forces (Goode, 2007, p. 23). Individual's are unable to contend with these outside forces which are beyond their control. Criminals and other deviants are created through biological defects which were responsible for their behavior, as it was something inherently organic and passed on through birth. The self-control theory of crime was developed by Travis Hirshi and Michael Gottfredson, two famous criminologists. Self-control theory, also known as the General Theory of crime, portrays deviance as stemming from the criminal's lack of ...
On March 29, 1971, a thirty-seven-year-old male was convicted of killing seven people and suspected in killing another thirty-five. His methods of killing included gunshots, stabbing with forks, knives, or swords, dissecting, and battering with clubs. He showed no remorse for what he had done, but instead created a media circus in which he had a starring role (Blundell 124-30).
There are many different aspects of criminal justice policy. One in particular is the different theories of crime and how they affect the criminal justice system. The Classical School of criminology is a theory about evolving from a capital punishment type of view to more humane ways of punishing people. Positivist criminology is maintaining the control of human behavior and criminal behavior. They did this through three different categories of Biological studies, which are five methodologies of crime that were mainly focused on biological theories, Psychological theories, which contains four separate theories, and the Sociological theories, which also includes four different methods of explaining why crime exists. The last theory is about Critical criminology. Their goal was to transform society in a way that would liberate and empower subordinate groups of individuals.
Positivism created by August Comte, he believed Positivism theories are the concepts of the natural sciences to society, looking for absolute objective truths that can shape human behavior. Positivist theory outlines the crimes that are being define objectively, not subjectively. Certain behaviors are by their nature criminal standpoint. Positivism is gender more constructed (sex is biological). Positivism can explain what leads people to kill, but is very limited to how much to apply. Labeling is more like shaping us, the process by which deviant labels are applied and received. It speculates how people are labeled as deviant, delinquent, or criminal. Labeling has the effect on future behaviors. If being treated as a deviant could relate more
Since modern times subjectivity thought has been one of the fundamental contents and the significant achievements of western philosophy. It is faced with many difficulties in its development process and has been declared to "have died", but I think that it indeed still has bright prospects of development.
Any reasonable person would expect someone to die after being shot twice in the head. Peckham did knowingly and purposefully point a gun at the victim’s head and pull the trigger, not once, but twice. The accused’s intentions could not have been clearer. A reasonable person would also expect the victim to be taken to a hospital if they were not pronounced dead at the scene, as in this case. Upon arrival at the hospital it was determined that the victim had suffered irreversible brain damage and loss of brain function. He was no longer able to breathe on his own, he was unresponsive to stimuli, and his electroencephalogram showed a flat line, indicating no brain activity. Had it not been for the machines keeping him breathing his heart would have stopped soon after arriving at the hospital. He was not able to sustain life on his own, and would have never recovered. A reasonable person would expect a doctor to eventually stop treatment on a patient who was not going to recover, such as the victim in thus case. So, given these facts his family decided to allow the doctors to remove the artificial life support. Immediately following this decision the victim did die. Now the question is who is directly responsible for the death of the victim, the accused is. Because the accused did shoot the victim in the head, and the victim was sent to the hospital where he died as a direct result of his injuries, the accused is the direct cause of the victim’s death and should be held
The classical periods of many of the great world civilizations were the golden ages of those civilizations. However, just because a civilization’s classical age has passed does not mean that the ideas, institutions, and art have passed as well. On the contrary, the effect from the classical periods of many great civilizations is still with the present civilization. The ideas, institutions, and art that has endured from these civilizations is no accident; the ideas, institutions, and art have had an influence on civilizations up to and including the present day.
Positivism is a research method that developed from the behavioral revolution, which sought to combine positivism and empiricism to politics (Halperin and Heath, 2012: 27). That is to say, this research approach is governed by natural law to observe, understand and to find meaning in the empirical world. This type of research seeks to answer two empirical questions, such as ‘what is out there’ and ‘what do we call it’ (Gerring, 2001: 156). Positivism is only interested in phenomenons that can be observed through our senses. Thus, positivism is interested in social realities that can be observed and measured by the scientific method (Halperin and Heath, 2012: 29). Furthermore, positivism believes that the gathering of evidence through scientific method can create knowledge and laws, known as induction (Halperin and Heath, 2012: 27). That is to say, evidence can be verified and later generalized then applied to multiple contexts. A positivist would investigate empirical questions that assume how the world works through the accuracy of a probable truth (Gerring, 2001: 155).