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Six primary crime prevention approaches
Classical school of criminology theory
Classical school of criminology theory
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Early English law had many influences on law enforcement in the United States of American during the 1600s-1800s. The riot act of 1714 which was an act of Parliament for Great Britain where the local authorities in that community would choose a group of people to keep order and call the military if a fight or riot got out of hand. “The government had no civil police force to deal with mob violence therefore the government had to call in the military using the riot act to control the situation.’ (Hess, 2013; p. 10). As the law enforcement evolved urbanization turned into commerce and industry. Meanwhile in the early system of the law the watch and ward system but eventually seemed to be non-effective.
The Bow Street Runners were known as the
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The classical theory was formed by Cesare Beccaria who was an Italian criminologist during the eighteenth century. Cesare was able to create the classical theory because he believed that people knew that they were doing making them responsible for the acts they commit. The routine activity theory has three aspects formed by Lawrence Cohen and Marcus Felson. The first aspect is the availability of a suitable target, for example a home or a convenient store. Second would be the absence of a guardian which can be a homeowner, neighbor, friends, security system, etc. Third is the presence of a motivated offender some of which can be a drug abuser or a person who is unemployed looking for trouble. The reason why the three aspects were created was to inform that given those circumstances an individual’s chance of predatory crime can increase. Therefore, as the individual knowing these key aspects but not following the precautions can leave both the victim and offender at a closer …show more content…
There are many various types of law enforcement that concentrate on different functions to keep the law enforcement community under control with what duties are performed to keep order. There are specialized officers that work with specialized tasks such as K-9, intelligence, evidence and much more. Meanwhile rural policing means more response time for an officer to get to the scene or for the backup to arrive. We need to law enforcement in our community to help individuals in need of it and to serve justice for wrongful
The English Police experience influenced American policing through their practice of keeping city streets clean as well as establishing the good order and discipline of its residents. One the main ways they were able to accomplish this was through deterrence which is still used to this day. The mere presence of a police officer or officers would deter residents from getting out of line and prevent them from doing "unseemly behavior" in public places. The establishment of the police meant an active group patrolling the streets on the lookout for breaches of the moral code as well as common-law crimes, thus extending the authority of the state into the daily lives of the
The definition of Routine Activity theory states that victimization goes up when a motivated offender crosses paths with a target. In other words when someone who is motivated to commit a crime comes across a person who is an “easy target”, crime is most likely going to occur. The next term is punishment. A punishment is a penalty or consequence for a wrongful action you committed. Basically, all actions have consequences and the severity of the action will decide the punishment. The last term is Hedonism. Hedonism in layman's terms is basically the pursuit or devotion of pleasure. In other words, people will go to great lengths to acquire
American policing originated from early English law and is profoundly influenced by its history. Early law enforcement in England took on two forms of policing, one of which heavily influenced modern policing and it is known as the watch (Potter, 2013). The watch consisted, at first, of volunteers which had to patrol the streets for any kind of disorder including crime and fire. After men attempted to get out of volunteering by paying others, it became a paid professional position (Walker & Katz, 2012). The three eras of policing in America are shaped by these early ideas and practices of law enforcement. Throughout time, sufficient improvements and advancements have been made from the political era to the professional era and finally the community era which attempts to eliminate corruption, hire qualified officers and create an overall effective law enforcement system.
Police forces or Law enforcers have been used for centuries all around the world but America took particular interest in the English’s policing system. America’s policing ideas and process began based off the British model. Back in the early 1200’s when Britain first started its law enforcement program it was very unorganized and wasn’t by any means serving “justice” to its people. Trials to determine if someone was innocent or guilty were very rare, and when they did occur innocence and guilt wasn’t proven but assumed that the offender to just be guilty. This would in most cases cause the “offender” to become the victim by having public executions which normally involved torture and other inhumane practices to the victim. In the late 1200’s however British law practices started to change and become more organize and fair. A set of four rules that would become to be known as the Statue of Winchester that set the guide lines that would create a watch and ward system in English cities and towns that would codify earlier police systems and practices. Meanwhile, in the early eighteenth century in London, Henry Fielding dubbed a force of dedicated English police officers as the Bow Street Runn...
Policing in the United States has mainly been based and expanded on the ideas of English way of policing. The English way of policing has not only been used as the basis for American policing but it has also been used to commence an era of evolving police agencies. In its early years, policing in the United States was largely regarded as a civic duty or responsibility of community members. The appointed officers were neither trained nor paid for their services to community members. Consequently, the chosen Sheriffs were usually motivated by financial incentives and lost their focus on enforcement of the law, which contributed to the perception that policing was primarily reactive in nature. However, the nature and structure of policing changed significantly following the emergence of urbanization, industrialism, and the society, which resulted in increase in crime. This forced the police or law enforcement officers to adopt a more proactive approach rather than the reactive approach that was traditionally associated with law enforcement. Notably, the history of policing has been characterized by considerable changes from time to time due to several factors like technological advancements and increase in threats to security.
Based upon the evidence provided on the six elements of a good theory, the Routine Activities Theory is a sound theory. These elements provide that the theory is scientific. The theory has brought together its three elements to help determine why crime occurs. Through research by multiple detached researchers, its hypotheses have been confirmed through tests and empirical evidence.
Two of the major criminological theories of the twentieth century are Merton’s strain/anomie theory and Shaw and McKay’s social disorganization. Both theories were very important in their time, and still influence theorization today. This paper will discuss both theories and point out similarities and differences.
Trait theory views criminality as a product of abnormal biological or psychological traits. It is based on a mix between biological factors and environmental factors. Certain traits alone cannot determine criminality. We are born with certain traits and these traits along with certain environmental factors can cause criminality (Siegel, 2013). According to (Siegel, 2013), the study of sociobiology sparked interest in biological or genetic makeup as an explanation for crime and delinquency. The thought is that biological or genetic makeup controls human behavior, and if this is true, then it should also be responsible for determining whether a person chooses crime or conventional behavior. This theory is referred to as trait theory (Siegel, 2013). According to Siegel (2013), due to the fact that offenders are different, one cannot pinpoint causality to crime to just a single biological or psychological attribute. Trait theorist looks at personal traits like intelligence, personality, and chemical and genetic makeup; and environmental factors, such as family life, educational attainment, economic factors, and neighborhood conditions (Siegel, 2013). There are the Biosocial Trait theories an...
Since English colonizers were the first to establish an extravagant, European society in North America, it is unsurprising that many of the aspects of the American administration of justice stemmed from its mother country. In England, law enforcement was an unorganized mess until the year 1200 (Schmalleger 137). The police system remained static from 1285 to 1829, until when Sir Robert Peel instituted the modern police force (Schmalleger 139). However, early American law enforcement was bound to be different, due to the differences of American and English life and environment. In the beginning of the colonial law enforcement, towns and cities inaugurated versions of the English day ward and night watch, but these processes did not remain in place for long (Schmalleger 139).
The routine activities theory is a logically consistent theory. Cohen and Felson defined the concepts they used, and the proposals they hoped to convey. Their proposal was as they defined that for a crime to occur you needed three elements (motivated offender, suitable target, and lack of a capable guardian), and that when those three elements come together to form routine activities. (Akers, 35). Each element is defined by Cohen and Felson and if one of the elements is not there then a crime will not occur. Although the logical consistency is generally great, the definition of motivated offender is too broad. However, it is not clear about who the motivated offender is. It could be a person who is already inclined to commit a crime or someone who is at the right place at the right time and given the opportunity.
If we studied through the history of criminal theory, spiritual and natural theories are taken as major theories of causation of crime. During medieval period, spiritual explanations were taken as punishment given by god for doing wrong things and any natural disasters like flood, fires, etc were evaluated as curse of high power. In modern period, the basic theories of causation of crime are classical theory, biological theory, psychological theory, cultural theory and conflict theory. The classical theory explains that free will acts as center of crime giving example of free will of children that may commit crime which cannot be paid once it committed. In the 19th century, the biological theory got public attention when Cesare Lombrose suggested that criminals cannot be identified by examining their body structures, number of toes, etc giving the research data that determined that ordinary people are mostly involved in crime than militants. Now, this theory is followed by Modern biological theory which signifies that chemical imbalance in brain results violence activities. It supports remarkable example of violence occurred due to lower portion of serotonin chemical and abuse of drugs alcohol (Fishbein 1990). Fishbein(2000) mentioned the relation of the damage of frontal lobe of brain and antisocial behavior. Similarly, psychological theory explains that mental illness of person convicts crime and is supported by Freud’s concept of id, ego and superego. Freud mentioned that any emotional trauma in children of 5 yrs age or above may result long –lasting negative influence. Likewise, the most common but important theory is sociological theory that deals with the conviction of crime ...
The world will always be full of crime, thus it is necessary for scientist to grow along with the gruesome and increasing amount of violations. Due to this it sparked scientist to develop crime theories in which emerged to explain why crime is caused by individuals. Some of the few theories that have advanced over the past century and provided many answers to why crimes are committed are biological theories, psychological theories and learning theories. These theories provide an insight to its first use and change in order to provide answers.
What is street crime? According to McDonald and Balkin (1983) define street crime as “personal contact criminal victimization (p.419)”. As we read this article it argues from different viewpoint that street justice can be explained from different theoretical perspectives. There are three theoretical perspectives that examines the role of justice as a means of informal social control and as a reactionary process to dynamics of social strain and subcultural demands. This theoretical analysis is then applied to concepts of justice, including retributive, distributive, restorative, and procedural. The derived street justice paradigm incorporates these various forms of justice as they are linked with cultural imperatives associated with street culture and
The central claim of the approach is that if a crime occurs, the following three elements must be present; a person must be motivated to commit the offence; a vulnerable victim must be available; and insufficient protection to prevent the criminal offence. It also states that crime is normal and depending on the circumstances, crime will occur. The crimes that are considered to be crimes that are committed by regular people are: copyright infringement, related to peer-to-peer file sharing, employee theft and corporate crime. The routine activity theory is based on the assumption that crime can be committed by anyone given an opportunity and that victims are given choices on whether to be victims by mainly not placing themselves in situations where crime can be committed against them. Although this theory is controversial among criminologists who believe in the social causes of crime, a routine activity theory can help us understand crimes such as corporate crime, copyright infringement, etc. Crime occurs when offenders are at the same place as the target, without an effective guardian. If one or more of the controllers is present, however, the chances of crime are greatly reduced. The effectiveness of the people involved will depend, in part, on the tools they have available. Taking away or adding certain elements will alter the chances of
Human antisocial behaviour is complex and trying to understand it has always proven to be a daunting intelligent task, especially in modern culturally diverse societies. Crime, broadly defined as behaviour through which individuals obtain resources for others through uncouth means, presents as one of the most refractory internal social dilemmas. Understanding individual criminal acts such a murder, rape or motives behind them is intricate, rather their behavioral definitions and causes offers a more clear platform for argumentative reasoning. Criminal behaviour, regardless of manner, involves use of barbaric methodologies to obtain symbolic or material resources. Criminal behavior results from methodical processes that involve intricate interactions among isolated, societal, and environmental factors in people’s lives.