Cuban Relations
In the year 1959 a politician named Fidel Castro led a revolution against the Cuban government under Fulgencio Batista.
Castro used his influence to persuade the Cuban people to fight for him in the revolution against Batista’s government. With the people on his side, Castro successfully overthrew the Cuban government and was eventually elected President. These people believed in Castro, and that he would make Cuba a better place to live and work in. Once Fidel Castro had control, he named himself dictator for life and made Cuba a socialist nation who openly embraced communism. Cuba became the only communist nation in the Eastern Hemisphere. As a result of this new socialist regime many Cubans fled to the United States into south Florida, which is only a mere ninety miles from Cuba. Shortly after Castro took control of the government, relations with the United States declined. Capitalist leaders, like the United States wanted to make sure that socialist countries trying to establish a communist system, such as Cuba would fail because the goal of communists is to develop a system free from private ownership, which is not in the best interests of the countries who are wealthy due to private ownership i.e. the United States of America. Under The Kennedy administration, America attempted to dethrone Castro from power in Cuba many times, including the Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961. While these attempts to get rid of Castro failed, in 1962 American President John F. Kennedy signed the Cuban Embargo to stop all imports, exports, and diplomatic relations between the United States and Cuba. The signing of this embargo was basically the beginning of the end for diplomatic relations between the United States of...
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...the sanctions which have suffocated the Cuban economy in the past four decades. Until Castro wishes to comply with the government of the United States, the embargo will stand and Cuba’s economy will hurt because of it.
Works Cited
1. U.S. Rejects Ending Trade Embargo on Cuba. Website.
<http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2002-05/21/content_401520.html.>.
2. Senators who vote in order of Ending the Embargo. Website.
<http://www.autentico.org/oa09653.php.>
3. The Cuban Economy. Website.
< www.pitt.edu/~press/books/cubaneconomy.html.>
4. Faces of Cuba. Website.
<64.78.50.150/codev/faces/economy.htm. >
5. Fidel Castro:History Archive. Website.
<www.marxists.org/history/cuba/archive/castro.>
6. U.S. Department of State. Website.
< www.state.gov/www/regions/wha/cuba/.>
Among the goals of rational choice theory is to explain all types of crime (Cornish and Clarke, 1986). However, it does not propose that there is an underlying unity between different types of crime like other theories. Instead, these diverse elements are important in explaining why such events occur. Also, it incorporates factors that lead to crime, emphasizes the pattern of decisions throughout a criminal career, and accounts for situational variables of crime.
Along with the above mention things, the U.S. disrupted trade with Europe and outright requested that Europe not trade with Cuba. Also during this period, the CIA began to plan assassination operations against Cuban Leaders, and have eight separate plots to assassination Castro (Perez 252).
The United States embargo of Cuba has its roots planted in 1960, 53 years ago, when “the United States Congress authorized President Eisenhower to cut off the yearly quota of sugar to be imported from Cuba under the Sugar act of 1948… by 95 percent” (Hass 1998, 37). This was done in response to a growing number of anti-American developments during the height of the cold war, including the “expropriation of United States-owned properties on the island… [and] the Soviet Union [agreeing] to purchase sugar from Cuba and to supply Cuba with crude oil” (Hass 1998, 37). Bad sentiments continued to pile up as Cuba imposed restrictions on the United States Embassy and especially when, after the United States “officially broke off diplomatic ties with Cuba, and travel by United States citizens to Cuba was forbidden ... Castro openly proclaimed his revolution to be ‘socialist’” (Hass 1998, 38). The day after this, the Bay of Pigs invasion occurred, but it failed in its job to topple Castro (Hass 1998, 38). Left with no diplomatic options and a failed military attempt, the United States decided that the only way to end Castro’s socialist regime was to sever all ties, and from 1961 to 1996, a series of acts were passed prohibiting the majority of trade and interaction with Cuba. (Hass 1998, 38).
Rational Choice theory says that criminal behavior is not only a response to social pressures and upbringing, but it is also a choice. The offender’s choices may not always be rational and may draw on previously established beliefs about their opportunities to commit acts of violence. This theory focuses on the effectiveness of interventions to decide how to best reduce the benefits of crime and increase the cost of criminal action. Rational Choice theory is in the classical school, which is based on the idea that individuals choose to engage in crime (Gosselin, pp. 67-68, 2014).
It was after Castro took power that the United States changed its way in which it dealt with Cuba dramatically. The United States decided it would place major sanctions against Cuba and would try to cut Castro off of dealing with not only the United States, but any other country the US dealt with as well. It was during this time that the Cold War was in its adolescence stage and the United States was doing everything in its power to make sure that smaller, third world countries did not become communist or even associate themselves with the Soviet Union in any way.
The index crime I have chosen for this paper is murder. The theory I believe that best defines why people commit murder is the rational choice theory. The rational choice theory implies that people who commit this offense know that killing is wrong and that a punishment may follow if they are caught. They are fully aware of what they are doing and they deliberately plan and successfully murders someone. A perfect example of this theory is a serial killer, especially those that kill for the excitement of it.
The Cuban Revolution, lasting from 1953 to 1959, imposed a communist regime onto a republic-turned dictatorial government, a change that resulted in the US trade embargo against Cuba in 1960. Fidel Castro, a prominent leader of the revolution, sought to overthrow the U.S.- backed president, Fulgencio Batista, in order to implement a communist government in Cuba. He proved victorious in this effort and further antagonized the U.S. by establishing a relationship with the Soviet Union. These developments compelled U.S. president Eisenhower to place an economic embargo on Cuba. This transformation in diplomatic relations placed Cuba in a perpetual state of poverty as it was cut off from its neighbor, the most powerful country in the world. Photographer
According to Clarke and Cornish (2001, p. 34), “the rational choice perspective was explicitly developed to assist policy thinking … specifically through detailed modeling of criminal decision making. The theory theorizes that offenders who have chosen to commit criminal acts, do so because of the reward it brings to them. Coupled with the different conditions that are needed for specific crimes to occur, with its emphasizes on the role of crime opportunities in causation.
Originally a dictator ran Cuba: President Fulgencio Batista, who was an ally to the United States. Cuba during this time enjoyed a healthy urban middle class, and its citizens enjoyed some degree of freedom without a police state. Many other countries seemed a lot more likely to revolt, because economically and developmentally, Cuba seemed stable. However, the United States’ role and control of Cuba’s economy started to take its toll on the “peasants”. In 1953, the United States owned many of the major entities, such as 50% of the railroad. Just as much development as there was in the urban areas there was a lack thereof in the rural areas. Not just economically, Cubans started to resent the image of Sin City that Americans gave the country. Cuba was a popular tourist spot where Americans came to behave badly. Castro’s success came from these opposite sides of distaste for the United States, the peasants economically and the middle class socially & nationally. Castro was not originally a socialist; he was a nationalist first. However when he attacks Moncada Barracks, he is arrested and exiled to Mexico City. During this time his failures are turned into “successes” through propaganda. Castro meets with Che Guevara in Mexico City and when he returns, he purges the military of 483 Batista loyalists and enacts land reforms and nationalizes US
There is an attempt in criminology to find an all-encompassing theory of crime in order to develop a more scientific approach to crime. This means that a universal theory of crime must be devised. This would give criminology the status of science. Thus, criminology has borrowed and further developed the concept of rational choice from the areas of economics and sociology as a background theory for situational crime prevention (Clarke, 1992). This of course, has sparked a debate among criminologists as to whether rational choice offers a complete explanation of all kinds of crime or its validity is reduced when dealing with crimes of anger, hostility and excitement (Farrell, 2010).
The term criminal desistance refers to when offenders desist, or stop, committing crime. Desistance from crime exists when an individual has an absence of criminal behavior in their lives for a sustained period of time. By studying desistance, a better understanding of what causes individuals to commit crime is created; as well as, a better understanding as to why certain individuals discontinue their lives of crime. The criminal justice field often encompasses, serving justice by locking people up and keeping the “bad guys” away from the general public. Little thought was given as to what can be done in order to help prevent people from committing crime, until more recent years. Most criminological theories attempt to explain why people commit
By the early 1960’s the U.S. had cut off ties with Cuba and was engaging to overthrow the Castro regime. In 1961 the Bay of Pigs Invasion, a fumbled CIA attempt to crush the government, inflamed
Based upon prior criminological research, criminologists have long since tried to explain why criminals commit crime. Their research produced numerous theories and perspectives in an attempt to answer why crime is committed and in the process created new knowledge in criminology research as more data was acquired. The information learned has become a valuable tool for the criminal justice system because they ultimately have the responsibility to punish the law breakers. Deterrence research, in particular has been used to support additional punishments when sentencing criminals (Schmalleger, 2012).
In my opinion, I feel people commit crimes for numerous reasons, and many factors contribute to whether a crime occurs, and what types of crimes are committed. Furthermore, present in all criminology theory are two ontological assumptions, and the first assumption addresses whether human behavior is free willed or determined (Bohm & Vogel, 2011). Subsequently, the next assumption considers the inherent condition of human beings, or the condition of human beings in a hypothetical state of nature (Bohm & Vogel, 2011). Consequently, I feel different factors apply to different crimes, which include biological, psychological, or sociological factors (Bohm & Vogel, 2011). For instance, let us examine crimes of opportunity in Davidson County,
Socioeconomic status, psychological behaviors and of course, the legal aspect are just a few factors criminologists analyze when determining criminal behavior. The next few paragraphs will provide an explanation of rational choice theory and the various factors that are studied to determine how criminologists categorize crime and criminal behavior. Along with an explanation of the theory will be an example of how that theory is utilized in the justice system.