Strain Theory: Social Structures and Crime

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Strain theory means that social structures within society may pressure the individual to pursue their goals legally or illegally by committing crimes. This theory is divided by two concerns such as social goals that state people in the U.S desire wealth, a high paying job that would give them a good income, material possessions such as new cars, and other life comforts. Although these goals are common to people in all economic status, this theory implies that the ability to obtain these goals is class dependent. This leads to members of lower class to be unable to achieve these goals through acceptable standards set by society which builds up a feeling of frustration and anger. The other concern is based on this previous one because since their …show more content…

This theory states that people are born as criminals because they have specific qualities such as genetics, physical and biochemical figures that have a strong impact on their deviant behavior. The first biological theory is called Physiognomy in which a person moral and behavioral trait is judge based on their outer appearance mostly their faces. Phrenology is another biological theory that focuses on the development of the brain as an important feature to describe their deviant behavior, this theory would focus on observing bumps in the head or skull to classified a criminal person. Atavism is a theory which means a reappearance of a characteristic or behavior from an ancestor after it has not been shown in a long period of time. Heredity is another biological theory that means that the criminal behavior is passed on to the next generation of family which is known as the bad seed. However a modern vision of this heredity theory is chromosome theory which includes DNA to determine gender differences. The somatotyping is the last biological theory which places human body type to be classified into 3 categories which are mesomorphs which is a person who is muscular and strong. Ectomorphs is a person who is weak and delicate and endomorphs which is a fat person , this is usually used in

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