Pros And Cons Of Rational Choice Theory

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The video starts with Shaka Senghor explaining that in 1991 he was a drug dealer and ended up killing another man. When he was 17, he got shot and was sent to the hospital but no-one helped him or told him that it would be okay and he felt very unloved and isolated and spent the rest of his time in fear until eventually he was the one behind the trigger. Once he was in prison, he ran black-market operations, was a loan shark, and sold drugs that were illegally smuggled into the prison. Because of this, he ended up in solitary confinement for seven and a half years.
While in solitary confinement, he received a letter from his son saying that his mother had told him why he was in jail. This letter opened Shaka’s eyes and made him realize how his son was viewing him and so he decided to start changing his life. He said there were four major factors in helping him change his life around, his great mentors, …show more content…

The rational choice theory would not be very applicable to Shaka’s situation because of the same reasons that Dehaan points out in his analysis. Rational Choice theory assumes that the pros and cons of a crime have all been considered, but it doesn’t consider choices that are made on the fly, also known as impulsivity.In Shaka’s case, he didn’t plan to murder a man, he didn’t think about the positives and negatives of making this decision, he just sensed danger and acted upon it. Rational Choice theory only accounts for premeditated crimes but also doesn’t account for the severeness of certain emotions. Certain emotions, like rage or fear, can remove all sensibility in making choices and can completely take away someone's rationality. Shaka said that he lived in constant fear after he was shot the first time, and it wouldn’t be surprising if he had been living with PTSD, and a disorder like that completely changes how a person experiences the

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