The concept of cultural context defines how a person’s culture and background can affect the manner in which they choose to behave. Each individual person on this earth has different cultural contexts whether ethnical, financial or gender based. In recent years, criminologists have long sought to find out how an individual person’s cultural context influences their chances at becoming criminals. After searching through numerous amounts of criminological statistics, research has revealed that there are not only many implications that the contextual role of culture has played, but there is also an answer that exposes certain cultures who are likely to become offenders or victims as a result of the implications of culture context.
The Background
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The first theory is known as the social conflict theory. This theory states that people are more likely to commit crimes against people from a higher social and economic status than theirs. This theory can best be exemplified in the earlier example of the rich African man and the poor Hispanic woman. The poor African woman cannot find a job because she has an extensive criminal history, so she needs money and food to provide for her three children. She walks in the rich African man’s residence and finds a wallet full of money. She grabs twenty dollars out of his wallet and sneaks out. A few minutes later she is caught by the rich African man’s security guard and he calls police. Upon arrival, the police arrest the woman for trespassing right on the spot. After police ask the woman why she trespassed, she states that she was desperately trying to find money to support her kids. The second theory involves the cultural deviance theory. According to Julian Hermida, the cultural deviance theory states that conformity to the norms of lower class society is what causes crime (n.d.). In the previous example, the woman was conforming to standards of the lower class by trying to steal from the rich simply because of the idea that poor cannot afford …show more content…
Not only have researchers found two cultural theories that explain why people commit crimes, there are statistics in the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Uniform Crime Report that further emphasis the overall correctness of those two theories. Furthermore, culture has implications on what the types of situations a police officer can expect to encounter while on patrol in the
As stated in The Pillar of Democracy”, by Haberfeld M.R. (MAKI), Charles Lieberman and Amber Horning (pg.201), the way culture evolves depends on the individual persons. Police cultural is a set behavioral patterns passed on by the members of the teams to the new members and such patterns of behavioral pattern stay long after the retirement or departure of the one who originated the behaviors.
Not only does sub-culture play a big role in police corruption, but also so does
Cultural criminology is a relatively new perspective and approach to understanding crime and deviance. Cultural criminology first began to develop in the 1990s and rapidly progressed in to a new field of criminology that is both influential and informative. The core concept of cultural criminology is built upon by using traditional approaches from different disciplines such as sociological studies, cultural studies, symbolic interactionism and many other disciplines, theories and methods. (Oxford bibliography Keith Hayward) Although it would seem that cultural criminology is nothing more than an interdisciplinary field, using only the studies and theories of some of the disciplines mentioned above - it actually does offer a new line of thought and individuality that other fields of criminology in the past did not. This is because instead of viewing crime objectively, it instead looks at crime subjectively by analysing the idiosyncrasies of the modern sociocultural environment. It offers an explanation of crime and deviance as a constructed result from either political, social or cultural actors and groups who commit crime, because of a shared sense of meaning, emotions, symbols, styles and even fashion within different subcultures. (Oxford bibliography Keith Hayward) Cultural Criminologists hope to explain and examine how the meaning of certain aspects of a subculture can play an active role in society and the construction of crime, not only by explaining why crime is committed, but also how crime is controlled. This essay will explain what cultural criminology is by using The 1989 Hillsborough disaster as an example in illustrating some of the research findings by cultural criminologists. There have been many different topic area...
...nd race. In other words, race and gender have an effect on crime considering there is not only a clear distinction between the types of crimes, but also the frequency of crime being committed. Furthermore, psychological positivism suggests that crime is the result of mental disorders and ineffective parenting, which goes completely against the classical idea that people choice to become criminals. In addition to biological and psychological elements, there are the social factors that can influence people to engage in criminal activity. As a matter of fact, social and economic pressures play a major role in the cause of crime since people are more likely to break the law when they have nothing else to lose. Therefore, the biological, psychological, and social factors should all be considered when trying to establish a reason for every crime.
Criminals are mistakenly seen as “people with stunted psychological development or…[a] consequence of moral failure…or people with genetic predispositions for crime.” (Gladwell 156) That is not true. They are simply byproducts of the environment around them. Change the environment; change the behavior. Gladwell explains how context and environmental cues affects behavior, but it goes further. Powerful forces that change environments change what those inside them experience. Sometimes those changes are purposeful, with the intention to reduce crime, sell drugs, or recruit students. It is self evident that cultural expectations are dependent on the experiences individuals have together. Gladwell, combined with Watter and Ho’s analysis, explicitly shows that the environment changes those
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.
Newburn (2011) stated, “Until well into the 1960’s while there were a few people from minority ethnic communities represented in sport, business, politics, and the civil service, there were no Asian police officers whatsoever” (p. 611). Some of the challenges that police recruiters may face when recruiting Asian-Americans are as follows: (1) language barriers; (2) cultural differences; (3) racist attitudes; (4) historical distrust; and (5) racial biases (Scaramella et al., 2011). Law enforcement agencies that are culturally and linguistically diverse are prone to be more effective in serving diverse communities. The underrepresentation of Asian-American police officers can negatively impact the solvability of violent crimes such as home invasions and arm robberies in Asian communities (Le, 2015). Asian immigrants are more willing to address criminal activities to Asian-American police officers as oppose to non-Asian-Americans (Cao, 2011). Reporting criminal activities to the police is beneficial for both the victim and the department. An offense report could either
A highly debated topic concerns whether criminals commit crimes because of a social pressure or an individual urge. The strain theory supports crime as a social pressure because, as Frank Schmalleger suggests in Criminology Today 222, crime is an adaptive behavior that coincides with problems caused by frustration or unpleasant social surroundings. Also, culture conflict theory states the cause of delinquent behavior is because different social classes conflicting morals of what is appropriate or proper behavior, (Schmalleger 228). Other people believe blaming crime on the economy or where they grew up is making an excuse for criminals instead of making them take responsibility for their actions, as stated by CQ writer Peter Katel. These different views started with statistics taken on crime in the early 1800s. Andre Michel Guerry of France was one of the first examiners of “the moral health of nations” in the early 19th century, (Schmalleger 35). Another early crime statistician was Adolphe Quetelet of Belgium . Quetelet evaluated the crime rates between weather, sex, and age. His findings that climate contributes to high or low crime rate is a main factor in today’s fight against crime. It is doubtful this issue will ever be settled since there are too many pros and cons to each side. However, while specialists’ dispute this, crime is not stopping. There needs to be a way, or possibly several ways, to reduce criminal activity. It is doubtful criminal activity will ever be put to an end. The same is to be said about why people commit crime, but knowing if it is done socially or individually can help with the fight against it. In the end, individuals should take responsibility for their actions, but...
Winslow, R. W., & Zhang, S. (2008). Contemporary Theories of Crime. Criminology: a global perspective (). Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Pearson/Prentice Hall.
However, this may be better explained by the fact that the crimes of the poor are more visible and they are more likely to fit the criminal profile than by the fact of economic need. In addition, the poorer you are, the more likely you are to be a victim of crime. Using the strain theory, it is a matter of social class, not race. Most Blacks are poor, and poor people living in the midst of affluence are more likely to perceive society as unjust and turn to crime. weakness is that the theory fails to take into account the fact that even within the lower classes, Blacks are still more likely to be arrested and sentenced then
...y residents would most likely be categorized as a cultural theory because he focuses more on “the roles of ideas in causing criminal behavior” (Vold 184). Not only would I classify Anderson’s theory as a cultural theory due it its prominent argument crime is learned through association, but I would constitute “code of the streets” as a cultural control theory. One assumption Anderson is able to conclude is how “street” people justify their criminal behavior, such as the denial of responsibility as seen throughout the article when the criminals claim the victim should of known better. This directly correlates with the control theory concept that people naturally commit crime and it is the bonds we make and restraints we form which will inevitably categorize our behavior as “street” or “deviant”.
Hayward, K. and Young, J.(2004) 'Cultural Criminology: Some notes on the script' in International Journal of Theoretical Criminology, 8 (3) pp.259-285
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
Conflict theory. “Conflict theories emphasize the political nature of crime production, posing the question of how the norms of particular groups are encoded into law and how; in turn, law is used as a means by which certain groups dominate others.” (Hess, Orthmann and Wright) This theory is to deal with the group(s) that are in control politically and how they are to dominate certain groups within their power. Radical theory. This is about the rich and the poor citizens within in society. The rich are to have power because they are to have money. The poor are to be at a disadvantage because they do not have the power to be able to get done within
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.