Criminals Are Rational Decision Makers

Within the various fields of criminology, the examination of the reasoning behind why individuals commit crime is important in modern debates regarding how crime should be controlled and prevented. Over the years, numerous theories have developed and continue to be explored – both individually and collectively. Some of the most significant theories with regards to the criminal behaviour of Jeffrey Dahmer include: rational choice theory, attachment theory, differential association theory, biosocial theory and social control theory. This assignment will focus solely on social control theory and how it relates to the case of Jeffrey Dahmer.

In criminology, is very important to study why people commit crime when deciding how crime should be handled and prevented. This type of study is known as criminal profiling. Many theories have developed over the years, and they continue to be researched, alone and in combination, as criminologists seek the best solutions in reducing specific types and levels of crime. While all crime theories are designed to try to explain and understand criminal activity and the people that commit them, it is an ongoing science. No one theory can define all crime. However, it can be used usefully to help us understand crime a little better and help criminologists find new ways to deal with and eliminate criminal behavior. I am going to discuss one

The third study that was done, is a study that extends the idea of helping to learn why some criminals act on their impulses the way they do. The third study is a research done on the mindsets of criminal’s not only in a community or prison setting, but instead that of one hundred and twenty two inmates that have been diagnosed with mental illnesses. The name of this article is “Criminal Thinking Styles Among People With Serious Mental Illness in Jail” and the major focus of this research was to further the knowledge about the amount of people in not only prisons but jails who have been diagnosed with a severe mental illness and what makes their thinking different from those who are also in jail but were not diagnosed with a mental

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

No human being is born with an innate desire to commit crime; growing up in an impoverished community with subpar education and little opportunity

Initially, the main belief was that criminal behavior was based on rational choice or thought, where criminals were believed to be intelligent beings and weighed the pros and cons before deciding to commit a crime; classicists Cesare Beccaria and Jeremy Bentham introduced this view. Essentially, these criminals would compare the risks of committing the crime, such as getting caught, jail or prison time, being disowned by family and friends, and so forth; and the rewards, such as money and new possessions. After making comparisons, the person would make a decision based on whether the risk was greater than the reward. This is like what is presented in an article on Regis University Criminology Program’s website, which states that a criminal “operates based on free will and rational thought when choosing what and what not to do. But that simplistic view has given way to far more complicated theories” (“Biological Theories Primer”). Nowadays, biological theories make attempts in explaining criminal behavior in terms of factors that are primarily outside of the control of the individual.

No one can be certain whether nature or nurture is the cause for criminal behavior. However, research has stated that it is more often an interaction between genes and the environment that predicts criminal behavior (Jones, 2005). Through a biological perspective, it is determined that criminal behavior is due to genetics and/or neurological conducts. It concludes that criminals are born due to their criminal traits being passed down through genetic or chromosomal mutation. Another explanation of criminal behavior within the biological perspective are the neurochemicals within our brains and body. There many regulated chemicals in the brain that determines thought process, perception and action. Like the arguments for genetic and chromosomal mutation, any abnormal anomalies or chemical imbalance can heavily impact behavior (Schram, 2018). This goes for any damages to some parts of the brain that controls emotions, reason and logic. Problems with the biological perspective are the following: 1. It provide little explanations for a small of minority of offenders with specific conditions (Levitt, 2013). 2. Disregard the effect of environmental influences and life experiences that also impact behavior. 3. Since criminality is based on biology, it is unchangeable, therefore, no one is to be blamed for their actions. Lastly, 4. Famous studies on biological factors of criminality (ex: the twin, family and adoption studies) maintained an intertwined relationship with social

There are various theories within the biological explanation as to why individuals commit criminal behaviour, these include:

The majority of sociological theories believe, that the criminal behavior mainly is influenced by a combination of the social surrounding, political and economic factors. Offenders are not necessarily viewed as bad people, these theories tend to look at the social context of a person’s situation, examining his race, neighborhood, intelligence, education, family, political and media influence, income level, job and career, childhood history to determine why did he/she become criminal.There are many different theories seeking to explain criminal behavior such as Social Structure Theory (which itself consists of Social disorganization, Strain, and Cultural deviance theories) differential association, the theory of anomie, neutralization theory, Social Control Theory and many others. I don’t think this would be an acceptable reason for crime because this is something that an individual has learned from their surroundings and or peers this wasn’t something beyond their

When looking at criminal activity and the direct connection to the criminal behavior we see that there have been many research trials that have taken place over the history of humankind (Mishra & Lalumiere, 2008). Two of these research areas that have been developed to attempt to understand the causes of criminal behavior are known as biological and psychological perspectives of crime causation. These two sectors have their principles that are held in their theories as a standard scientific understanding of the basics that each evaluation of criminal behavior is built on (Dretske, 2004).

Choice theory was born out of the perspective of crime causation which states that criminality is the result of conscious choice. This theory is also known as the rational choice theory. According to this theory, the choice whether or not to commit a criminal act is the result of a rational thought process that weighs the risks of paying the costs of committing a crime, against the benefits obtained. In other words, if the benefits--monetary or otherwise--outweigh the risks of sustaining the costs, such as fines, imprisonment or execution, then according to this theory the individual would be inclined to commit the crime, all other things being equal. In this calculus, the benefits are known. For example, “this diamond that I want to

The Classical School of Criminology was developed by two utilitarian philosophers, Cesare Beccaria and Jeremy Bentham during the early 17th century. The Classical School of Criminology is an important theory in the framework of criminal behavior, with principle themes that include: criminal acts are of individuals free will and rational deliberation, calculating, and hedonistic beings. Criminals make a rational choice and choose criminal acts due to maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain. As well as minimizing crime, the would be offender must be convinced that the likely punishment for the crime would be swift, certain and proportionately (Paternoster & Bachman, 2001, p. 11).

Other criminal acts are due to how much will power and individual has to obey the law which is known as the Social control theory. Social theorists claim that a person’s actions and feelings of strong emotions are influenced by internal and external forces. People who do not have well valued morals and lack self control are more likely to commit a crime. Individuals that are poor, do not have a good job, and or do not have a close and respectable support system of friends and family, do not have much to lose. Everyone needs to obtain some sort of social tie or bond in their life otherwise the person has no boundaries for themselves. Travis Hirschi states, “Lawbreaking is often the most immediate source of gratification or conflict resolution, and no special motivation is required to explain such behavior” (Hirschi, 1969). If a person has nothing else going

There has always been a fascination with trying to determine what causes an individual to become a criminal? Of course a large part of that fascination has to do with the want to reduce crime, and to determine if there is a way to detect and prevent individuals from committing crime. Determining what causes criminality is still not perfectly clear and likewise, there is still debate as to whether crime is caused biologically, environmentally, or socially. Furthermore, the debate is directly correlated to the notion of 'nurture vs nature'. Over time many researchers have presented various theories pertaining to what causes criminal behavior. There are many theories that either support or oppose the concept of crime being biological rather

People commit crimes for various reasons. These various reasons got to do with social, economic, and cultural reason. These factors trigger an individual to do criminal activities. Social reasons are peer pressure, and school failure. Economic reasons are poverty. Cultural reasons are hatred. The combination of these factors is behind a person who commits crimes.