Hayes And Prenzler Definition Of Crime Essay

640 Words2 Pages

Introduction:
- Provide a simple definition of crime using Hayes and Prenzler (2015).
- List different categories of crime, including street and violent crimes with a brief definition, and graffiti and homicide as examples (Hayes and Prenzler 2015).
- An overview of the idea that psychological and sociological theories can be used in understanding crime.
- Introduce social learning theory in relation to graffiti (Winfree, Backstrom and Mays 1994).
- Introduce evolutionary theory in relation to homicide (Durrant 2009).
Body paragraph 1:
- Elaborate on the issues with the definition of crime, including acts that are not only “criminal” but also morally wrong (Hayes and Prenzler 2015).
- Explain the basic purpose of crime theories, being to identify …show more content…

Body paragraph 2:
- Social learning theory is one crime theory which combines the ideologies from behavioural theories, classical and operant conditioning, and explores how individuals’ mental processes impact such conditioning (Hayes and Prenzler 2015).
- Bandura (1971) explains that behaviour is not restricted to conditioning theories wherein an individual will learn from responding to direct experience, rather can also be learnt from simply observing the experiences and behavioural responses of others.
- Include quote: ‘Man’s capacity to learn by observation enable him to acquire large, integrated units of behaviour by example without having to build up the patterns gradually by tedious trial and error.’ (Bandura 1971, p. 2).
Body paragraph 3:
- Graffiti is classified as a street crime which costs Australia approximately $1.34 billion per year (Hayes and Prenzler …show more content…

- Troubled youth often experience positive emotions when engaging in graffiti thus, when applying social learning theory, if other individuals observe a positive response to this crime it increases the occurrence of graffiti (Morgan and Louis 2009; Winfree, Backstrom and Mays 1994).
- Bandura’s social learning theory consists of four processes including a behaviour being noticed, the behaviour being remembered, that behaviour being re-enacted, and a consequence resulting from the behaviour (Hanna, Crittenden and Crittenden 2013).
- Social learning theory is an effective criminological theory as its application to graffiti in particular reveals characteristics of likely offenders, and such findings can be utilised to predict future incidence.
Body paragraph 5:
- To optimise the basic functions of individual survival and reproduction, evolutionary history has encouraged the biological foundations of humans to inherit adaptations (Hayes and Prenzler 2015).
- Individuals that identify more with the r/selected strategy in the r/K theory tend to portray more opportunism, impulsivity, aggression and dominance (Hayes and Prenzler

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