The Evidence that Criminals Make Rational Choices

The Evidence that Criminals Make Rational Choices

Research has shown that people who are predisposed to committing crime

are more concerned about gaining the approval of peers and significant

others and are more likely to believe that crime is not morally wrong,

than any fear of detection, punishment, educational sanctions or even

rejection by parents

The tendency to commit a crime is related to the life experiences of

children and the exposure to society as they grow up.

When an individual is prone to committing a crime, he/she will become

more inclined by the social norms that encourage/discourage criminal

activity and they will have a need to fit in rather than a fear of

reprisals.

The Rational Choice Approachis the choices we make about how to

respond in certain situations, whether they are rational or not.

The two theories that explore the link between criminal intentions and

actions and the Rational Choice Approach are:

* Theory of Reasoned Action- proposes that the intention to commit a

criminal act is determined by our attitudes and perceptions of what

other significant people in our lives expect of us. Our attitudes

arise out of the beliefs that we hold about the consequences of acting

in one-way or another.

* Ajzen and Madden (1986) included a third factor: Perceived Control.This

can help to explain why someone might not commit a criminal act even

when everything else supports the action e.g. a teenager may not

perceive themselves to have any control to stay out all night because

of the problem of justifying their behaviour to the parents.

Both theories assume that criminals and non-criminals weigh up t...

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...ions on a facilitator.

Facilitator: something that influences you to do the deed that you did

i.e. drugs or alcohol

Scully and Marolla (1984) "stated" that convicted rapists have:

"Learned the attitudes and actions consistent with sexual aggression

against women including the acquisition of culturally derived

vocabularies of motive which can be used to diminish responsibility

and to negotiate a non-deviant identity".

There appears to be enough evidence to suggest that criminals make

rational choices about whether to commit a crime or not and that they

are responsible for their own actions. However, they may get off with

a minor sentence because of insufficient evidence for a higher

sentence. Some criminals may escape conviction from the judgements

made in the courtroom due to some technicalities in the law.