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Criminal Crime Theory Essay

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As part of human nature we seek to define and explain the unknown. When it comes to crime, we develop theories to explain why criminals do what they do. Theories like Social Structure theories, Social process theories, and social conflict theories. Each theory has its own developed ideas on what makes people tick, what causes bad thoughts, bad actions and bad people. This paper will discuss the theories listed above and the logic behind them that explain criminal behavior.
The first theory to argue is social structure. The social structure theories emphasize poverty, lack of education, absence of marketable skills, and deviant subcultural values as fundamental causes of crime. (Frank Schmalleger, 2012) These theories are based upon the …show more content…

The first type of social process theory is the social learning theory that says all criminal like behavior is learned from their communities and others in their community. Individuals who are raised in a strict social setting with a lot of guidance are likely to learn good habits and behavior rather than an individual surrounded by other criminals and little guidance. The Social control theory however believes that the bond a person shares with an individual and their institutions around them drastically effect their behavior and can be the difference between committing several crimes and giving back to their communities. The labeling theory is a type of social process theory that believes that when an individual is labelled and not given the opportunities by society, they become what society has classified them as. This changes everything because all of an individual’s opportunities to be anything else are not afforded to them. The last Social Process theory is the dramaturgical perspective theory which believes that individuals make decisions and behave as if they are performing or playing a role. The social process theories believe in the fact that society effects an individual’s ideas and behaviors and how society treats them can effect if they make decisions to commit crimes or not. (Dramaturgy, n.d.) The last group of theories to discuss are the social conflict theories. All of these theories are based on the general idea that the inequalities in society

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