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Crime and socio economic status
Link between poverty and criminality
Link between poverty and criminality
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Introduction The explanation of a criminal act is a two way street, while being simple, it’s often very complex. Often society asks how such a crime could occur, what was going through the individuals mind in committing, what was the cause? All factors that influence criminal deviant acts can be encompassed in the lifestyle and culture of a career criminal. Regardless of the subtype a criminal falls in, all offenders have many attributes that parallel each other and lead to deviant behavior. In studying the most common type of criminal, a street offender represents this two way street explanation. While a simple crime can be understood, it’s often layered with a complex framework of causation and external factors. This analysis will venture …show more content…
At the most basic level most offenders have in relation what’s called organizational alignment (Dabney, A. 2012). This concept refers to how offenders create and participate in networks that support a criminal subculture. This structure also allows offenders to either engage in deviant behavior by themselves, or in a range of sub working partnerships. A prime example of this are poor economic areas which have failed to provide a means for criminals to achieve economic gains through legal means. Inner cities like Detroit, have breed a stable organizational structure for criminal alternative methods to thrive, because legal means such as paying jobs are not present. Along with low job rates, most offenders lack marketable skills and the knowledge to execute those jobs often excludes them from the mainstream labor pool (Wright, R., & Topalli, V. 2012). As a result offenders are forced to use criminal traits to achieve economic means, and thus participate in some type of organizational alignment. This environment breeds groups like street gangs, organized crime, and other sub groups that commit deviant acts together, including loner groups, those who commit crime by …show more content…
While internal factors can explain causation, many external factors affect all offenders to participate in a criminal lifestyle. Cultural and environmental factors play a crucial role, more specifically economic, social isolation, and social conformity issues. These issues often lead many offenders to be attracted to criminal deviancy. According to Wright, R., & Topalli, most offenders automatically rule out legitimate forms of employment, since they are attracted to the fast timetable crime provides economic goals being met (Wright, R., & Topalli, V. 2012). This is somewhat an issue of social conformity, which many habitual offenders suffer from. Many criminals do not like an authoritative entity telling them how to achieve their economic goals. This often leads many offenders to sway and choose deviancy as an attractive solution. Since a criminal is their own boss, not only does this feature appeal too many, but it’s what leads to rejecting normal methods of labor. Abiding by a schedule, limited peer contact, long working hours were often disenfranchising factors from legitimate work. Many of these factors result in offenders to stay active in a criminalistics lifestyle. However economic factors also play a crucial role. As stated since most offenders would rather choose independent illegal labor rather than conformity, this often lead to harsh economic roles. Minimal skills and a limited marketable labor pool
A crime can be as little as stealing a loaf of bread from a bakery, and as big as murdering a person. A crime can put a person in jail for a couple months, years, or even sentenced to life. Crime has a major effect on society because it declines faith in humanity. It can destroy a neighborhood's, state's or country's own reputations and well-being. A person's life could be ruined through a crime.
Paternoster, R., & Bachman, R., (2001). Explaining criminals and crime. Essays in contemporary criminological theory. New York City, N.Y.: Oxford University
Criminology as a genre is defined as the scientific study of crime, as well as its causes, law enforcement interaction, criminal behavior, and means of prevention. In its own way criminology is the history of humanity. As long as people have been on earth there has been criminal activity. Much like most other work atmospheres, it was a male dominated field. A woman seeking to work in criminology was unheard of. Men filled the jobs as police officers, lawyers, judges, and politicians. However, in the 1860s Belva Lockwood became determined to pave the way for women in criminology. As a women’s rights activist, she became one of the most influential women in criminology.
The media is a dominating aspect of American culture. The way the media depicts crime and criminal behavior has an effect on the way society views crime and criminals. Television series such as CSI, NCIS, Law and Order, Criminal Minds and countless others, have become very popular in our society today showing that our culture has an immense interest in crime. It is clear that there is a fascination with criminals and why they do the things they do. To analyze the way crime dramas represent crime and criminal behavior, I completed a content analysis of one episode of Criminal Minds. The episode I chose was season one; episode eight, which first aired in 2005, titled ‘Natural Born Killer’.
White collar crimes do not garner as much media attention as that of violent crimes (Trahan, Marquart, & Mullings 2005). This is an odd fact because white collar crimes cost society much more than violent crimes do (Messner & Rosenfeld 2007). While there are many different definitions for white collar crime, Schoepfer and Piquero describe it as a nonphysical crime that is used to either obtain goods or to prevent goods from being taken (2006). People who commit these crimes are looking for personal or some sort of organizational gain and are being pressured to be economically successful from the idea of the American dream. The authors suggest that there are two types of people who commit crimes, those who have an immense desire for control and those who fear losing all they have worked hard for (Schopfer & Piquero 2006). Both groups have different reasons for turning to crime, but both groups commit the crime to benefit themselves. It was found that higher levels of high school drop outs were directly correlated to levels of embezzlement in white collar crime (2006). Because they are drop outs, they are less likely to be successful legitimately and turn to crime more often than their graduate
Countless competing explanations of why people commit crime have been presented over the years. Social explanations recognize crime as symptom of shared social structures while individual explanations concern factors that are unique to an individual. Despite the continued development of ideas, we are yet to fully gain academic consensus as to why certain individuals’ commit crime (Merton, 1938; Agnew, R., Cullen, F., Burton Jr, V., Evans, T. and Dunaway, R. 1996; Paternoster and Simpson, 1996; Piquero et al., 2005). This paper analyses the contrasting justifications by focusing on their ability to explain white-collar crime, an illegitimate financially motivated act. This is undertaken by solely examining Strain theory and Rational choice theory. Although individual influences in crimes are of importance; they should only be recognized as an aptitude of crime rather then its cause. For that reason, a critique of these issues promotes a change by the academic community away from discussions over their success towards the development of more unifying theory building in the current economic climate.
Messner and Rosenfeld suggested that the effects of some economic conditions for crime depended on the strength level of a noneconomic institution (Chamlin and Cochran. 1995). For instance, a weak controlled noneconomic social institution would promote higher levels of instrumental misconduct. Messner and Rosenfeld’s institutional anomie theory revealed indicators of some noneconomic institutions influenced economic deprivations (1995). The findings of Messner and Rosenfeld theory have been compared to many other theorists such as Merton, Gottfredson and Hirschi. For example, Gottfredson and Hirschi’s argued that an individual’s crime could manifest itself to engage in a variety of criminal and delinquency acts (Armstrong. 2005). They clarified
Offenders that are incarcerated within the prison quickly find a group of people commonly associated with their ethnic groups to establish a rapport with. They do this to ensure that they reduce the chances of becoming a victim within the confines of prison. The problem is that once they gain reliance with a group of people, they commonly find themselves in a gang. So instead of learning a trade to ensure that they are successful when they are introduced back into society, they more often become educated on the benefits of gang life.
Race and crime is a major topic in today’s world because it is a highly debated subject and has a major impact on how society is today. Race and crime go hand in hand. No matter who commits a crime, there is always a race involved. With race and crime there are many stereotypes that come with the subject. Race and crime are both active matters in everyday life. It is everywhere. Social Media involves race and crime in practically anything. If one is active on say for example twitter, the point of twitter is to keep your followers interested by what you are showing them. There is a reason why the news opens up with the most violent crimes and twitter is no different. As a matter of fact any form of media grasps onto it. Another example would
Safe handling of firearms at crime scene. A high priority at a crime scenes safety in collecting the firearm. Preservation of evidence is essential. The firearm used to commit the crime may not be at the scene, cartridge casings and expended projectiles may be at crime scene and provide information about the type of firearm used. When a firearm is retrieved by a suspect it can be identified by distinctive tool marks on the expended casings, and individuals bullets can be linked to the firearm. By identifying and analyzing the trajectory of a bullet you can reconstruct the events surrounding a shooting. (GSR) gunshot residue pattern is present the distance determination can be determined. The forensic technician must photograph, take measurements, and firearm evidence collection, follows protocol for all, and
They would focus on low income areas because according to Cloward and Ohlin, those who do not have the same opportunities as others, are more than likely to commit crimes than those who have multiple opportunities. The scope of the differential opportunity and delinquency theory would be the fact that individuals that do not have the same opportunity as others tend to commit illegal crimes to achieve a certain goal, but more often than not, it is not enough. The easiest way to describe the parsimony of the differential opportunity theory is to understand the different types of criminal cultures that Cloward and Ohlin have developed. According to them, individuals commit crimes because they do not receive the same opportunities as others around them. The opportunities can be presented as an education, extensive or not, and job opportunities. Cloward and Ohlin determined that there are three different subcultures that explain criminal behavior in urban
In today’s society, one will find that there are many different factors that go into the development of a criminal mind, and it is impossible to single out one particular cause of criminal behavior. Criminal behavior often stems from both biological and environmental factors. In many cases criminals share similar physical traits which the general population do not usually have. For example criminals have smaller brains than properly adjusted individuals. However biological reasons cannot solely be the cause of criminal behavior. Therefore, one must look to other sources as to how a criminal mind is developed. Social and environmental factors also are at fault for developing a person to the point at which they are lead to committing a criminal act. Often, someone who has committed a violent crime shows evidence of a poorly developed childhood, or the unsuitable current conditions in which the subject lives. In addition if one studies victimology which is the role that the victim plays in the crime, it is apparent that there are many different causes for criminal behavior. Through the examination of biological factors, in addition to the social and environmental factors which make up a criminal mind, one can conclude that a criminal often is born with traits common to those of criminals, it is the environment that exist around them that brings out the criminal within them to commit indecent acts of crime.
By the end of Dostoyesky’s Crime and Punishment, the reader is no longer under the illusion of the possible existence of “extraordinary” men. For an open-minded reader, and even perhaps the closed-minded ones too, the book is a journey through Raskolnikov’s proposed theory on crime. It is a theory based on the ideas that had “been printed and read a thousand times”(313) by both Hegel and Nietzsche. Hegel, a German philosopher, influenced Dostoyesky with his utilitarian emphasis on the ends rather than the means whereby a superman existed as one that stood above the ordinary man, but worked for the benefit of all mankind. Nietsche’s more selfish philosophy focused on the rights to power which allowed one to act in a Hegelian manner. In committing his crime, Raskolnikov experienced the ultimate punishment as he realized that his existence was not that of the “extraordinary” man presented in his theory. In chapter five of part three in Crime and Punishment, this theory is outlined by its creator, Raskolnikov. Such an innovative theory would clearly have placed him in the “extraordinary” category, but when he fails to meet its standards, by submitting to the common law through his confession, the theory crumbles right before the reader’s eyes.
A period of change from one state to another, transition, it’s never easy. In the book Crime and Punishment, by Fyodor Dostoevsky, the characters lives take place during a time of struggle. People make desperate decisions in time of struggle, making poor decisions cause characters to appear bad but upon closer inspection, goodness can be found. In the short story Young Goodman Brown, Nathaniel Hawthorne tells the tale of man that constantly faces an inner battle between good and evil. In both stories we see the conflict of good vs. evil within the characters that lead them to making their final transformations that evidently lead to their sanity or their demise.
Different schools of thought propose varying theoretical models of criminality. It is agreeable that criminal behaviour is deep rooted in societies and screams for attention. Biological, Social ecological and psychological model theories are key to helping researchers gain deeper comprehension of criminal behaviour and ways to avert them before they become a menace to society. All these theories put forward a multitude of factors on the outlooks on crime. All these theories have valid relevancy to continuous research on criminal behaviour.