When committing a crime, even in good faith, does the criminal expect to be punished or does he do so without fearing the consequences? The purpose of the essay was to raise controversies in people’s minds of such an issue and to show that humanity is not as cruel as it is portrayed through society and through the law, and it has done so through careful studies and real examples of cases where crime is not merely an action punishable by law but it can be a triumph with a story behind it.
For example, if a teenage boy hangs out with criminals and learns criminal behavior (including its rationalizations and reward) from them, then he will likely engage in criminal behavior because he will have more definitions for it than against it, according to the theory (McNamara 2014: pp. 118). On the other hand, social control theory maintains that humans are inherently bad and must therefore be “resocialized” to create stronger community influences to lesson the hedonistic tendency to engage in crime—or pressured into conforming through formal and information sanctions (McNamara 2014: p. 120). The theory explains that people engage in criminal behavior due to low self-control and low attachment to “society and significant others” (McNamara 2014: p. 121). For example, when a child doesn’t have strong connections to family, friends or school involvements, he is more likely to engage in delinquent behavior because he has less connection to
The study of criminology is important because it helps society understand what the crimes are, and how criminals who commit this crimes are punished. Understanding crimes from inside out allows us to avoid breaking the law and being considered criminals. Most criminals have a reason to
In 1989 John Braithwaite proposed a theory of crime causation. Braithwaite’s primary proposal was that a society’s structure and culture can influence individual deviant acts by the process of disintegrated shaming. Most punishments may consist of some type of shaming either from friends, family, and the community or law enforcement. Braithwaite argues that the result of guilt serves both as the social process which builds our consciences as well as a form of informal social control when wrongdoing occurs. People often become stabilized in criminal roles when they are labeled as a criminal and they also begin to develop criminal identities.
The last purpose of criminal law is to protect the community from criminals. Criminal law acts as the means through which the society protects itself from those who are harmful or dangerous to it. This is achieved through sentences meant to act as a way of deterring the offender from repeating the same crime in the future. Criminal law has several purposes depending on how people view it. A few of the functions of criminal law are to divide criminals from society, rehabilitate the criminal and punish the offenders.
The learning theory was described by Tarde as “something learned by normal people as they adapted to other people and the conditions of their environment” (Bohm & Haley, 73) this was set to be called imitation. But, further studies of this theory by Sutherland developed that “persons become criminal do so because of contacts with criminal definitions and isolation from anti-criminal definitions” (Bohm & Haley, 73). In other words, crimes varied in how the community was structured. Advancements to the theory followed and divided the learning theory into four sections positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, extinction and punishment. The idea of positive reinforcement meant that people did something for the reward such as stealing.
For instance, an alleged criminal suspected of a crime has been convicted and this reinforces the views that the system can protect and serve the community. Society admires the idea of convicting people rather than letting them into the society again and risking the danger that can happen. In many cases, officers and prosecutors will use their power to arrest and indict the person that best fits the description of the suspect of the crime. Therefore, the alleged criminal will most likely be convicted based on the description and circumstances of the individual. However, this plainly shows that the system fails to aid the innocent who were merely in the wrong place at the wrong
Sutherland’s differential association theory contends that people whose environment provides the opportunity to associate with criminals will learn these skills and will become criminals in response to strain. If the necessary learning structures are absent, they will not. Sutherland relied heavily upon the work of Shaw and McKay, Chicago school theorists, in high rates of juvenile delinquency. Sutherland's theory of differential association still remains very popular among criminologists due to its less complex and more coherent approach to crime causation. It is also supported by much evidence.
Understanding the average criminal mind requires us to understand how a criminal might place themselves in our society. The concepts of determinism and free will may be the preliminary stepping stones to the mind of a criminal. If we begin the psychological analysis of a known criminal with his or her concept of free will and determinism, then determine their self imposed social identity we may discover psychological deterrents to the crime they committed. And by focusing on the understanding and developing of psychological deterrents we can reduce certain types of crime rates with less use of monetary resources than are spent today on the fear deterrent. Works Cited Challenge of Democracy
Sutherland capitalized on these ideas in his theory of differential association which according to Cullen and Agnew (2011) was the first attempt at explaining crime from an individual’s perspective to what societal factors cause this individual to commit crime. In the beginning, according to Cullen and Agnew (2011) Sutherland’s central thesis to the differential association theory explains why any individual gravitates toward criminal behavior, and that criminal behavior is learned through interaction with other people. Furthermore, Cullen and Agnew (2011) stated that that a person becomes delinquent( criminal) because of an "excess" of “definitions” favorable to committing crimes over “definitions” unfavorable to committing crime. Feldmeyer (Lecture, 3/12/2014) stated that “definitions” can be describes as exposure to social message towards behavior that you pick up over time and shape your views on crime such as: motives, rationalizations, beliefs, attitudes, life experiences. Furthermore, according to Feld... ... middle of paper ... ...nce in order to try and explain deviant behavior in society.