Criminal Justice Theories

Each of these theories had led to many new theories used today, such as the Rational Choice theory, Biosocial and Psychological Theory, Critical Theory, Cultural Deviance Theory, Life Course Theory, and many more. The one thing in common with every theory is that they all explain at least one behavioral factor that leads to crime. Today, all these theories, and more, are researched and taken into account when trying to understand why a criminal does what they do.

This essay will outline how crime theories are able to assist in recognizing the causes of criminal activity, as well as demonstrating two criminological theories to two particular crimes. Overviews of trends, dimensions and victim/offenders characteristics of both crime groups will be specified. The two particular crimes that will be demonstrated throughout this essay are; Violent Crime (focusing on Assault) being linked with social learning theory and White Collar crime (focusing on terrorism) being linked to General Strain theory. In criminology, determining the motive of why people commit crimes is crucial. Over the years, many theories have been developed and they continue to be studied as criminologists pursue the best answers in eventually diminishing certain types of crime including assaults and terrorism, which will be focused on.

How can theories help us to understand criminal behavior and to design strategies intended to control such behavior?

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Kendy Menelas, Department of English, Seminole State College, Sanford, FL 32773.

Most people get killed over what is known as the “Code of The Street.” In the movie it shows that their code of the street was revenge. They killed Ricky Doughboy and his friends killed them. It also shows that violence and crime happens all over something petty. In one scene in the movie they show Ferris walking into Ricky

Sociological theories of crime contain a great deal of useful information in the understanding of criminal behavior. Sociological theories are very useful in the study of criminal behavior because unlike psychological and biological theories they are mostly macro level theories which attempt to explain rates of crime for a group or an area rather than explaining why an individual committed a crime. (Kubrin, 2012). There is however some micro level sociological theories of crime that attempts to explain the individual’s motivation for criminal behavior (Kubrin, 2012). Of the contemporary

A conspiracy theory is a theory that argues that the rich and those with power seek the make sure the criminal justice system fails because they benefit from that failure. Conspiracy theories are hard to be proven and for it to succeed, it has to be kept a secret. There’s no credibility in the sources due to the degree of secrecy. Conspiracy theories are invalid because it doesn’t correspond with how people behave most of the time. The Pyrrhic defeat theory isn’t a conspiracy theory because the theory bases itself on why the criminal justice system fails and that’s due to our own shortcoming of not trying hard enough to prevent it.

Criminology has emerged as a science in the recent years, and various theories and perspectives have been developed by the social scientists and criminologists in this regard. With the development of sociology as a new subject of study and defining the sociology by the August Comte in 1822, the way was paved for the development of criminology, as the new branch of study. This Branch deals with the study of crime and it gradually developed as academic discipline in Britain in 1950s. Cesare Lombroso became the founder of criminology which also founded the positivist movement in the criminology, thus giving this field a more scientific and modern approach (Anon., 2014). The main features of the positivist approach include the

There are many different aspects of criminal justice policy. One in particular is the different theories of crime and how they affect the criminal justice system. The Classical School of criminology is a theory about evolving from a capital punishment type of view to more humane ways of punishing people. Positivist criminology is maintaining the control of human behavior and criminal behavior. They did this through three different categories of Biological studies, which are five methodologies of crime that were mainly focused on biological theories, Psychological theories, which contains four separate theories, and the Sociological theories, which also includes four different methods of explaining why crime exists. The last theory is

Throughout the years, the association between a criminal offense and a criminal have become more relevant. Although there are many theories that try to illustrate the concept of why crimes happen, no theory has a profound influence of understanding an individual’s nature, relationship, development, and a society itself (Coleman & Ganong, 2014). To further explain, “theories of crime are defined in relation to modernity, spanning their development from the enlightenment to the present, with the advent of postmodernism” (Miller, 2012, p. 1798). In other words, theories of crime are an approach to understanding an individuals behaviour and actions in their environment, society, and themselves that may lead to crime. Nevertheless, within this paper, it will be comparing the case of

A theory is an explanation of why or how things are related to each other (Bohm & Vogel, 2011). Additionally, a theory is defined as a plausible or scientifically acceptable principle, or a body of principles, offered to explain phenomena (Merriam-Webster Dictionary, 2017). Furthermore, crime theories examine and attempt to identify relationships among humans, criminal behavior, and specific factors such as biological factors, psychological factors, sociological factors, and economic factors (Bohm & Vogel, 2011). Since we have defined a theory, let us further discuss how theories are created beginning with the components of a theory.

The article seeks to address the question of why there is so little criminal justice theory. The thesis of the article is that disregarded associations between the inconvenience of political power and authoritative structures in the criminal justice framework hold a vital component to understanding the tasks of this framework, in regular and additionally atypical circumstances. The article begins by discussing the absence of theoretical initiative in criminal justice research.

Three broad models of criminal behaviors are the following: psychological, sociological and biological models. Actually, it is difficult to completely separate them and it is generally accepted, that all of them play a role in the interpretation of behavior. Though psychological principles can be applied across all the three models, they all have some specific ones, which would help in implementing across different crime control policies.

However, after his check is rejected, he turns instead to impersonating a Pan Am pilot after seeing one sign autographs to a small child outside the bank. After acquiring a uniform from the company by saying that he “lost” his, he forges his credentials and passports after he creates a fake, Pan Am Air salary check and successfully cashing it in. His need for money to survive on his own drives these decisions to act on these illegal activities, outweighing the cost he will end up paying for committing them. Part of the Rational Choice Theory is whatever techniques the criminal learns and perfects to avoid detection from authorities. Frank’s first run in with authority is when FBI Agent Carl Hanratty tracks him through his forged Pan Am bills to a hotel he was staying at. In Frank and Carl’s first meeting, Frank impersonates a Secret Service agent named Barry Allen (after The Flash) when confronted by Carl’s gun, convincing the agent long enough in order for him to escape. After his close call, he retires to Georgia, where he impulsively convinces the hospital and town that he is a Harvard medical doctor after meeting a new, young nurse named Brenda, whom he ends up falling in love with. The branch that Frank was assigned to was chief doctor of the pediatric ward, where they don’t do much work. The motivation behind this was to get closer to Brenda, whom he had an attraction to when he first met her. His growing love for

First off, there have been ample amounts of disapproval in relation to the general theory of crime, because many scholars feel that Gottfredson and Hirschi (1990) failed to include the