Crime is an in inevitable occurrence in today 's culture. Despite the best efforts of our country 's criminal justice system, crime continues to be on the rise. In an effort to reverse this rising tide, efforts are being made to understand the underlying cause of crime and factors that can lead an individual into the life of crime. From the sociological perspective, there are three theories that are used to explain the cause of crime. They are the social structure theory, the bad neighborhood theory, and the social process theory.
Crime:
Crime is typically classified as either a property or personal crime. Personal crimes embody crimes of violence like murder and theft. With a private crime you'll have a offender and a victim. Property crimes area unit simply that, crimes against a bit of property wherever there's no use or threat of force against someone. the foremost common crime sorts area unit violent crimes, white collar and company crime, social group, and crime.
“Failure to make friends at school or poor academic performance can often be the cause of juvenile delinquency. Poverty and living in a dangerous neighborhood will sometimes lead children to engage in criminal activities” (Fisher, 2015). Environmental factors take their place in many theories of criminality, including juvenile criminality. Sociological theories maintain that “lack of education, poverty-level income, poor housing, slum conditions and conflict within home and family increase crime commission” (Hess et.al, p.76). Fisher also manages to hit at the social ecology theory and anomie theory in his final sentence on the topic of environmental factors: “If your child has easy access to drugs, alcohol, cigarettes or weapons, he may turn to risky behavior as a way to escape the pressure of what he feels is an unhappy life.” Delinquent behavior becomes both a normal reaction to the environment (social ecology) and a means to attain the American dream (anomie).
The Natural Sociological theorizing focuses on the nature of the power of relationships that exist between social groups and on the influence that various social phenomena bring o the bear on the type of behaviors that tend to characterize groups of people. Sociological Perspectives on crime causation assume that Social groups, social institution arrangements of society and social roles all provide information for criminological research. It also, Society’s structure and degree of organization is also assumed as major factors of criminal behavior. The The perspective also thinks that group dynamics, group organization, and subgroup relationships form the causal integration of factors that from which crime develops.
Deviance. When we hear the word deviance the first thing that comes to mind is doing something that you probably shouldn’t be doing, something bad, illegal. We find deviance everywhere we go and see it in many varieties through several different perspectives. Looking back a couple decades back deviance in “good” neighborhoods also known as the suburbs, deviance, if there was considered any, would be considered maybe getting a bad grade in school or not doing your chores when you are told. On the other hand, we look at the opposite end and see “bad” neighborhoods such as underprivileged homes and what was seen is deviance that included criminal acts such as stealing, drug dealing, and violence. Back then neighborhoods had set norms made by society and each had a destined future, it was either good or bad. Kids who grew up in good neighborhoods were the ones who would have successful careers and a bright future while the children in bad neighborhoods were looked at as kids who did nothing with their lives and didn’t get anywhere in life.
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.
ACR101 INTRODUCING CRIME & CRIMINOLOGY Research & Writing Exercise
Neighborhood characteristics and TV viewing in youth: Nothing to do but watch TV? (Timperio, Salmon, Ball, te Velde, Brug & Crawford, 2012) conveys the detrimental impact that too much television exposure has on youths. Timperio, Salmon, Ball, te Velde, Brug and Crawford also express the need for more recreational activities and facilities in many neighborhoods with a high rate of youth crime. Furthermore, the effects of more recreational activities available for youths have been revealed to have a more positive impact on their behavior.
Actus reus, mens rea…A guilty crime, a guilty mind. These words ring true for and crime, whether it is a simple misdemeanor, or as bad as a felony. Crimes can be any manner of things, from crimes against the person to crimes against property and against justice. The law has the extent of inchoate offenses, or “planning” to do a crime. These include an attempt at serious crime, conspiracy, incitement, or solicitation of services. Each of these is viewed differently in the eyes of the public and the eyes of those who interpret the law. In the United States, crime was at one of the highest rates in the world in the 1990’s, but has since decreased steadily. However, through massive amounts of mainstream media, the public is now far more aware of crime that does happen. The U.S. now spends far too much money and time focusing on legislation involving capital punishment, allowing jails to become over crowded with too-small crimes such as possession of marijuana, allowing ridiculous amounts of money to be spent on jails and prisoners.
“All social groups make rules and attempt, at some times and under some circumstances, to enforce them” (Wright 2007; Pg. 75). Some individuals within the social groups may see a particular crime and consider it completely unacceptable, and others may not. Within the social group, there are hundreds of different definitions for deviance. Some scientist even try to find a mental reason for certain acts of deviance. They stated the individual is completely normal and healthy, but they are not in the right state of mind during the acts of deviance. I feel as this is important because there are certain individual, who truly have a mental blockage or mental condition that causes this acts. However, this doesn’t no excuse the crime it means that
The central fact about deviance is that it is created by society. Without society dictating what is normative behavior, deviance, as it’s currently defined, would cease to exist. Becker’s article states that simply because someone is labeled as a deviant it doesn’t mean that they have committed a deviant act. The labeling process in and of itself is fallible and may lead to someone being labeled a deviant when in fact they haven’t violated any rules or mores. Additionally, the article notes that people may commit deviant acts but society, for one reason or another, fails to take notice or fails to apply sanctions.