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Social factors that are related to criminal behaviour
Family influence on juvenile delinquency introduction
Family influence on juvenile delinquency introduction
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What makes criminals?
Have you ever wondered why some social groups are more prone to crime than others are? Should we conclude that some groups are more prone to crime or that they are just put in a situation that makes them more likely to commit crimes? In spite of the research in the past years there is still no conclusive evidence as to why some people in the same situations choose to commit crimes while the others don’t. There are numerous reasons that offenders resort to crime; Families, gender, economic status, age, and race are all valid explanations said by many theorists as to why certain social groups commit crimes, and why certain groups stay away.
Married life is the norm of our society but it can also cause strain and anguish. Along with the anointing of a new life, there also comes new problems. Often times the choice of getting married is the first major decision in a young man or woman’s life, and soon there are more relatives, more bills, conflicting plans, annoying habits that one’s spouse may develop, children, being that fifty percent of all marriages end in divorce, these are things that most couples cannot overcome, society is to the point where for every marriage there is a coinciding divorce. When these new hurdles are not overcome then a broken home is the most common result. When this happens, then the likelihood of a person being driven to crime skyrockets. One starts to think that they are worthless and that they are destined to be lonely forever, once this occurs, crime is their next option. A broken family can generate in different ways, divorce, death, or separation. Marriage is a common but not the most likely reason that some resort to crime.
Someone who usually commits a crime at a young age is often identified as a born criminal, these reckless actions for a helpless and innocent child are passed down as a result of hereditary traits that pass from one generation to the next. It is said that these offending children do not know any better because of their traits, and the enviroment that they are brought up in (Erikson 1964). These children specialize in crime and delinquency just as others may specialize in the classroom or sports. They aren’t able to tell the difference between a deviant act or something productive such as an A in the classroom.
“When we define someone or some group as deviant - we strengthen ...
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... On average, inmates are younger than the general population.
It is apparent that some social groups are in situations more conducive to crime, because of the environment they live in. Boys and men dominate in crime. Arrest, self report and victimization data all reflects that boys and men perpetrate more conventional and serious crimes than girls and women. It appears that boys and men no longer are "normal subjects" of violence and that as equal rights and feminist groups become
stronger and more profound so to do women in crime. In terms of race and crime, crime will continue among minorities until an equilibrium in social class and job ranking is met. The question of economics as a cause of crime finds that people are not forced into crime because they are poor, but because they are not capable of getting the luxuries that they have deemed necessities. They have gone from being in a comfortable,
employed state to an unemployed and very difficult state and no longer can live beyond their means. In conclusion, law offenders feel that by becoming criminally active they can elaborate themselves of any social or psychological problem they may have.
Classical and contemporary theory helps to explain gendered crime patterns. The feminist school of criminology argue criminology and criminal theory is very masculine, all studies into criminal behaviour, have been developed from male statistics and tested on males. Very little research is conducted into female criminality, this may be because women who commit crime are more likely to be seen as evil or mentally ill rather than criminal, this is because women are labe...
As Laub and Sampson (2003) analyze crime over the life course, they highlight Terrie Moffitt’s theory and discuss the limitations of her developmental explanation. In Moffitt’s developmental taxonomy, she acknowledges two categories of offenders...
Crime has always been a hot topic in sociology. There are many different reasons for people to commit criminal acts. There is no way to pinpoint the source of crime. I am going to show the relationship between race and crime. More specifically, I will be discussing the higher chances of minorities being involved in the criminal justice system than the majority population, discrimination, racial profiling and the environment criminals live in.
Many people in the world today criticize and objectify specific people, merely by their outward appearance, as more likely to commit crime or other violent acts. A theory well known to criminologists is one devised by criminologists of the Chicago school, scholars whose main area of focus were urban, impoverished areas, and called their findings the Social Disorganization Theory in which it offers an idea as to why crime occurs in urban settings. The theory explains how American society is centered on the economy and individual achievement, otherwise known as “The American Dr...
According to the conflict theory, crime is the result of inequality. The conflict theory pulls elements of Marxist, which argues that deviance is the response to inequalities of capitalist system not from factors biology, personality and labels. They believed that crime is the result of unequal power between the working class and the upper class, which hold the privileged position. It is also important to pay attention to race and gender in this perspective, where they are seen as an enduring struggles in society. Giddens, Duneier, Appelbaum and Carr states that “men are more likely than women, for example, to commit crimes; the young are more often than older people.”(173). In society, women are more likely to commit crime that are domestic and men are more to commit nondomestic crime. This result in men having higher rate of crime than women. Furthermore, there is also crime which is committed by the elite power rather than the poor. Crimes such as white collar crime and corporate
Many people claim that the child did not know any better, or that he was brought up with the idea that this behavior is acceptable. Although there is some truth to these allegations, the reality of this social issue is far more complex. Therefore we ask the question, "Should childhood offenders of capital crimes be treated as adults?" To begin with, numerous reasons for why a child acts in the manner he exhibits and why he continues to exert such dangerous and even fatal schemes. Recent research shows that factors ranging from inherited personality traits to chemical imbalances and damages suffered in the womb can increase the odds that a child will become violent (Johnson 234).
Crime exists everywhere. It is exists in our country, in the big cities, the small towns, schools, and even in homes. Crime is defined as “any action that is a violation of law”. These violations may be pending, but in order to at least lower the crime rate, an understanding of why the crimes are committed must first be sought. There are many theories that are able to explain crimes, but three very important ones are rational choice theory, social disorganization theory and strain theory.
This theory however as some have argued has emerged from social disorganisation theory, which sees the causes of crime as a matter of macro level disadvantage. Macro level disadvantage are the following: low socioeconomic status, ethnic or racial heterogeneity, these things they believe are the reasons for crime due to the knock on effect these factors have on the community network and schools. Consequently, if th...
Harris, A.J., & Shaw J.A. (2000) Looking for Patterns: Race, Class, and Crime. Chapter 4(
If crime were mainly the result of individuals with “crime genes”, it’s useless to try to reduce the level of crime thro... ... middle of paper ... ...would be favoured by sociobiologists. Humans develop as social, cooperative, language-using toolmakers. It’s unreasonable to assume that humans could be biologically or genetically determined for competitiveness and inequality. The conclusion is, there is much more to social behaviour and social structures than genetic determinism because evidence against genetic determinism is tremendous.
If women in the family are held to more social control, and men hold more social power, these practices are further replicated, allowing boys more freedom, and forcing more rigid boundaries and control over girls. More freedom provided to male youth could explain why the rate of total crime for male youths is higher than female youths, as the opportunity for delinquency is much higher for males than females. However, the egalitarian families who raise their children with equal levels of supervision could explain why female youth delinquency (total crime rate) still exists, although at significantly lower rate than that of male youths. The same concept applies for the differences between adult male and female total rates of crime, which are similar to the rate differences between male and female youths.
Crime and criminalization are dependent on social inequality Social inequality there are four major forms of inequality, class gender race and age, all of which influence crime. In looking at social classes and relationship to crime, studies have shown that citizens of the lower class are more likely to commit crimes of property and violence than upper-class citizens: who generally commit political and economic crimes. In 2007 the National Crime Victimization Survey showed that families with an income of $15000 or less had a greater chance of being victimized; recalling that lower classes commit a majority of those crimes. We can conclude that crime generally happens within classes.
From 1991-2000, statistically there was a dramatic decline in crime nationally. The statistics studied were of all categories of crimes considered serious, including: homicides which decreased by 39%; rape which decreased by 41%; robbery which decreased by 44%; aggravated assault which decreased by 24%; burglary which decreased by 41%; auto theft which decreased by 37%; and larceny which decreased by 23%. The statistics show a range of decline of 23-44%! (United States Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation 1990, 2000. Uniform Crime Report. Washington, D.C.) The evidence indicates that the benefit of declining crime rates are concentrated on specific groups with...
They also explore the myths about the connection between genetic factors and criminal behavior. The first myth they looked at was “Identifying the Role of Genetics in Criminal Behavior Implies That There Is a “Crime Gene.”” This myth is dismissed because of the unlikelihood that that a single gene is responsible for criminal behavior. The second myth they look at is “Attributing Crime to Genetic Factors is Deterministic.” This myth is also easily dismissed because of the fact that just because someone has a predisposition to a certain behavior doesn’t mean that the person will take on that behavior.
I now know that criminology prefer to highlight the correlations between crimes’ social climates and criminals’ psychological states of mind. While some argues that criminal behavior is a result of individuals’ association with criminal peers, other claims that crime is a reflection of an individual’s genetic disadvantages. I have come to learn that there are no universally agreed formulas on decoding crimes and criminal behaviors. What we have, however, is a manual full of academic opinions and subjective views that have emerged alongside of the development of criminology. At the same time, the volume of conflicting perspectives that I have stumble upon in studying criminology reminded me again that the success of our current assessment models has yet to be determined. Thus, the study of criminology is an appropriate practice that will further prepare me to conduct meaningful research on legal studies and to provide accurate and in-depth findings in the near