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Deterrence Crime Rate

Decent Essays

Sean Fitzgerald
Crime Rate of Children Affected by Domestic Violence Domestic violence has been a large problem for as long as societies have been around, but more recently in the past century, it has received more attention. The part of domestic violence that has gotten the largest amount of awareness is the act of spousal abuse. Between 600,000 and six million women and between 100,000 and six million men are victims of domestic abuse each year. Of course this is paralleled by the effect on children. For every family household that a spouse is abused in, if there is a child there is a large chance that the he or she will be affected by the incident. It is estimated that about 3.3 million children will witness some type of domestic abuse …show more content…

Shaming is a deliberate effort to attach a negative meaning to a behavior. Deterrence is a measure that prevents a person from doing something because of fear of the consequences. Shaming will help establish a norm for a small group of people, but for most people who feel the need to break norms of society shaming will not be very effective. Deterrence will be much more effective in preventing people from committing crimes. There are two types of deterrence: general deterrence and specific deterrence. General deterrence applies to the general population that helps ensure that they will not commit crimes in the future. It is the fear of experiencing consequences that have been applied to others who have committed the crime. This is the primary method of preventing crime in the world to create a fear of having negative sanctions brought onto a person if they fail to follow the norms set out by society. Specific deterrence on the other hand is the changing of the attitude of individuals who have been or are still being punished by the law, to deter them from committing crime again. Specific deterrence is effective, but still flawed as evident by the high recidivist rate. One of the most important sociological topics is the differential association theory. This theory was created by Edwin Sutherland and he states that criminal behavior that violates society’s norms is learned. A person learns to commit deviant behavior through his or her environment, primarily through communication. A person learns not only how to commit the crime, but also the mindset of how to commit the crime. The learning process that comes with crime is the same as any other learned idea, it is usually developed through small intimate groups of people that help shape one’s perception of the world. A person often will see a law as being unfavorable to their previous dispositions and feel a need to

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