Objective Strain Theory: Understanding The Root Causes Of Crime

Theoretical Background During the past decades, various criminologists developed different theories in an attempt to explain the causes of crime within the society. In return, they were successful, as of today it was adopted or accepted, indeed all of theories explain the root causes of crime. One of these theories is anomie or strain theory which originally argues that the lower class frustration to higher class causes crime (Merton, 1938) in an attempt to explain why the majority of the people who commits crime are lower class. In 1985 Robert Agnew a sociologist come to an interest of studying the theory and finds a potential for the theory in explaining several causes of crime in society, but due to its limitation he developed and reformulated

GST defines strains as negative life events and conditions which are commonly disliked by the people who experience it or negative experiences of a person in a given group (Agnew, 1992; 2001; 2006). Strain is often classified into two distinct types, the Objective Strain and the Subjective Strain. Objective Strain refers to those negative life events and conditions experienced by an individual that are rejected by most members of people in a given group (Agnew, 2001), this person usually cannot achieve their goals or just lack of means in achieving it and usually suffers from Poverty (e.g., Lack of adequate food and shelter), Unemployment (e.g. unable to find a good work), and Discrimination regardless of gender, race or ethnicity while, Subjective Strain refers to those negative life events experienced by individual who doesn’t want it (dislike by him) or experiences rejected by them (Agnew, 2001; 2006). Some of these events are Divorce of parents, Failure at school, Death of love ones’ or family member, death of a close friend,

Those specific strains are most related to crime when they; are seen as high in magnitude, are seen as unjust, are associated with low social control, and provide some pressure or incentive for criminal coping (Agnew 2001, 2006). Based on these characteristics, it is predicted that not all strains are related to deviance and delinquency. The first factor that influences the likelihood of negative life events and conditions to result in crime is the perception of strain as high in magnitude and its influence the person’s ability to cope in a noncriminal manner, the perceived costs of noncriminal versus criminal coping, and the disposition to engage in criminal coping (Agnew 2001). The presence of severe strain increases the likelihood of an individual to commit crime and reduces the ability of the person to cope in the noncriminal manner because it is more difficult to legally cope with a big severe problem than a smaller one (Agnew 2001,