At first when you think of a criminal, you may think of someone out to harm another human or humans. The category of what kind of criminal, conventional versus non-conventional, may not occur to you. At least, that was my experience when I first started to learn more about these types of criminals. In regards to a psychopath, both have characteristics that fit into that category. However, non-conventional criminals include corporations that are harder to classify because you cannot apply relationships, emotions, or view their history as you could one person such as a conventional criminal. Yet these two categories have many similarities, but of course differences as well to make them unique.
One aspect that both conventional and non-conventional criminals share is their lack of empathy and remorse. It does not matter what kind of crime you commit, there has to be a sense of disregard for those around you in order to commit it. In the Enron case, they did what they could to gain the most money, but they did it in the shortest amount of time. They did not care for the law and continued to do what they could that affected stockholders as a result. They thought of themselves before everyone else and wanted their needs benefited without even taking a second look at who they were troubling (Fersch 126-127). Enron’s lack of empathy and remorse lead them to keep going as far as they could before they had to file bankruptcy.
Conventional criminals also have that lack of remorse in order to commit the crimes they do. Many, if not all, the conventional criminals we studied this semester had this disregard for those around them. One case that really stuck out was that of Velma Barfield. Her case was quite unique because she would have few...
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... committed such heart wrenching murder. Some conventional criminals are involved in raping, others like to be involved in arson, either way it is not the organized white-color crime that non-conventional criminals are involved in.
Another difference between the two types of criminals as Stephanie Knox has pointed out in her discussion post from week 6, is a conventional criminal uses more violence than the non-conventional criminal. Not only are they committing a murder, but they are doing so in a sadistic way. Devin Moore was a fan of using guns and pretending he was in a video game murdering people, specifically cops, while driving recklessly. Non-conventional criminal would rather steal your money without you knowing. However, a non-conventional criminal could cause more crime than the conventional criminal because they tend to target a larger group of people.
Crime and deviant behavior surprisingly helps increase “social activity” among various different people within a society. Therefore, crime and deviant behavior brings “people together in a common posture of anger and indignation…when these people come together to express their outrage over the offense…they develop a tighter sense of solidarity than existed earlier” (Erikson 4). For example, in the Steven Avery case, the people of Manitowoc, Wisconsin, all had very strong feelings of Steven Avery and his family, and as a result they were seen as deviant people in their own hometown. Those feelings towards him, and his family, would be a critical factor when he was accused of the horrendous crime (Making). Based on their feelings towards the Avery family, the society in which he lived developed the overall concept of us versus them (Erikson 11). Therefore, another concept that arises as a result of crime and deviant behavior is public temper, which is described as a “mutual group feeling” (Erikson
The films “The Birds” and “Psycho” do not portray your typical family and clearly have some dysfunctionalism going on. Throughout the film In “The Birds” Mitch continually refers to his own mother as “darling” and “dear” – clearly this is a sign of an enmeshed dysfunctional relationship between mother and son. Mitch and his mother Lydia’s relationship has more of a husband and wife's role; for example, when Mitch and Lydia wash dishes, their conversation is like husband and wife. There are three relationships with Mitch that are disrupted by Melanie’s arrival in Bodega Bay; Lydia, Annie, and Cathy. The first attack comes to Cathy’s birthday party, which Melanie attends. While Cathy welcomes Melanie she seems to subconsciously harboring the fear that her brother’s affections will be replaced by Melanie. The other attack comes after Melanie leaves the lovebirds for Cathy; the seagull’s attack is a warning shot that Melanie ignores. When the birds attack the schoolchildren, it's after Melanie has arrived at the school to pick up Mitch's sister. Another warning shot arrives as another gull slams itself into Annie’s front door when Melanie invades Annie’s territory by choosing to board with her for the night. During another attack, Annie is killed, leaving Melanie to take her place. Mitch's mother Lydia, a woman portrayed as cold to anyone not in her immediate family, and especially cold to other women who might have an interest in her son. The bird attacks are just a metaphor for Melanie's "invasion" of the peaceful world of Mitch & his family, a world that seems peaceful on the surface but in fact has all these repressed feelings and anxieties bubbling underneath. Every scene in the film is about Melanie's "invasion" of M...
Psychopaths are strict when committing a crime. They plan there crime before they do it. Because they think there crimes through, they are hardly found about. In the article, “Psychopath vs sociopath” it says “tendency to participate in schemes and take calculated risks to minimize evidence or exposure.” People portray them to be very violent people but it is rare for them to do violent crimes. They tend to do smaller crimes but they can be serial killers. As they feel no guilt when doing the crime, although, when they do a big crime they can be undetected for a long
While this is a type of corporate culture, it plays a significant enough role in corporate crime that I’m going to touch on it individually. The goal of most every company is to make a profit, but when corporate profit is put above all else, it can easily lead to corporate crime. The phrases ‘profit over people’ and ‘money over morality’ come to mind here, especially when thinking about Enron. One example of Enron putting company profits above all else occurred during the California Energy Crisis. Enron traders learned that by manually shutting down power plants they could create artificial power shortages during California’s already occurring energy crisis. This would send energy prices sky rocketing. These traders would then bet on the price of energy rising, which it did, making them around 2 billion dollars. While those at Enron were fixated on the drive for profit, they were unconcerned with the consequences these outages had such as people getting stuck in elevators, fatal car crashes due to traffic light malfunctions, and deadly
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
Not all psychopaths are killers, despite how they are portrayed in popular culture. There are numerous successful qualities that can be found in psychopaths. For example, charm and courage as well as confidence are often considered useful traits to have in the workplace. Also, psychopaths have the ability to be decisive and keep calm under pressure. ("Harness Inner Psychopath"). Politicians tend to have qualities similar to that of a psychopath. Both have charisma and are bold. There are careers besides politicians that are also perfectly suited for psychopaths like spies, Special Forces, police officers, physicians and lawyers. Some of the most influential workers in society have the same tendencies as the most destructive citizens. It 's
Cunning, seductive, and ruthless represent the enigma in the mind of a psychopath. Unlike common murderers, psychopath feels no guilt, remorse, or shame after committing an inhuman act.
Depictions of psychopaths today have become exaggerated based off of what you see in movies and films. The psychopaths in movies are believed to be dangerous or have an anti-social personality disorder. Not all psychopaths can be defined in that manner. Psychopaths are identified as people who are emotionally unstable. They are ultimately suffering from a chronic mental disorder with abnormal or violent social behavior. There have been studies ultimately wondering if a psychopath is born, or is it raised? Genetics and environment combine to produce conditions that create psychopathology. By paying attention to environmental variables we can potentially reduce the amount of people who become dangerous psychopaths.
...would type him as a lust killer? Do the bodies show evidence of cleaning or posing, which may be a symbolic attempt at “undoing” the murder (Bartol, 2002, p. 248)? This undoing is not to be confused with staging, which is, in the context of serial killings, generally an attempt at misdirecting the investigation (Douglas & Munn, as cited in Bartol, 2002).
Taylor, Ian R. and Young, Jock. and Walton, Paul The new criminology : for a social theory of deviance / Ian Taylor, Paul Walton, Jock Young ; [with a foreword by Alvin W. Gouldner] Routledge and Kegan Paul, London : 1973
At the most basic level most offenders have in relation what’s called organizational alignment (Dabney, A. 2012). This concept refers to how offenders create and participate in networks that support a criminal subculture. This structure also allows offenders to either engage in deviant behavior by themselves, or in a range of sub working partnerships. A prime example of this are poor economic areas which have failed to provide a means for criminals to achieve economic gains through legal means. Inner cities like Detroit, have breed a stable organizational structure for criminal alternative methods to thrive, because legal means such as paying jobs are not present. Along with low job rates, most offenders lack marketable skills and the knowledge to execute those jobs often excludes them from the mainstream labor pool (Wright, R., & Topalli, V. 2012). As a result offenders are forced to use criminal traits to achieve economic means, and thus participate in some type of organizational alignment. This environment breeds groups like street gangs, organized crime, and other sub groups that commit deviant acts together, including loner groups, those who commit crime by
Trait Theory suggests that the criminal behavior that one may partake in is related to personality traits inherited at birth. “Psychological traits are stable personality patterns that tend to endure throughout the life course and across social and cultural contexts.” (Schmalleger, 2016) This theory also suggests that these traits give criminals “predispositions to respond to a given situation in
Criminal justice through “moral panic” is “a condition, episode, person or groups of person emerges to become defined as a threat to societal values and interests; its nature is presented in a stylized and stereotypical fashion by the mass media; the moral barricades are managed by editors, bishops, politicians, and other right-thinking people; socially accredited experts pronounce their diagnoses and solutions; ways of coping are evolved or (more often) resorted to; the condition then disappears, submerges or deteriorates and become more visible.” (Kraska, 2004) Thus by creating this moral panic, which is an emotion, by involves media, government officials, public, politicians and interested parties that exaggerate the problem from how big the problem really is. “The idea of emotion as a kind of cognitive shortcut explains why jurors, like children are more likely to make emotional judgments than judges.” (Bandes, 311, 1999) Society alone has many emotions towards criminals and victims ranging from hate, anger, fear towards ...
Crime develops from the wanting of certain things that attract or bring attention to certain individuals. A subject that is involved in breaking the law or a moral can be considered a criminal suspect according to the law. Crimes can range from violating less serious traffic code, which is basically a breach of a charter that is imposed by a city and up to the more serious things like murder. Anything that goes against the penal system of a country i...
The causes of crime seem to be indefinite and ever changing. In the 19th century, slum poverty was blamed; in the 20th century, a childhood without love was blamed (Adams 152). In the era going into the new millennium, most experts and theorists have given up all hope in trying to pinpoint one single aspect that causes crime. Many experts believe some people are natural born criminals who are born with criminal mindsets, and this is unchangeable. However, criminals are not a product of heredity. They are a product of their environment and how they react to it. This may seem like a bogus assumption, but is undoubtedly true.