Proposed Theories And Approaches Surrounding The True Nature Of Crime

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.

Robert Agnew developed his theory called General Strain Theory based off of Robert Merton’s Classic Strain Theory. Agnew introduced three types of strain. Generally, “the higher the dose of strain that a person experiences the greater the likelihood of the person becoming engaged in crime or in some form of deviance” (Lilly, Cullen, & Ball, 1989). A journal article called “General Strain Theory and Delinquency: the Developmental Process of Robert Agnew’s Works from a Historical Perspective” says that “the strain may result from when others (1) prevent an individual from achieving positively valued goals; (2) remove positively valued stimuli pertaining to individual; (3) present

Causes of crime are arguably criminology’s most important and largest research topic. In this process of research, criminologists and academics have used numerous theories in attempts to explain how and why people resort to crime (Ellis, Beaver, Wright, 2009). The purpose of this paper is to examine a case study first with the use of strain theories (ST), followed by social learning theory (SLT). The first section will involve a summary of the case of R v Mark Andrew HUGHES (2009) NSWDC 404 involving an outline of the offender’s personal life, of his crimes, and his punishment handed down by

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

One may avoid negativity for any kind of reason. One may be distressed by it, or perhaps one may find negativity traumatizing to their emotions. Whatever it may be, some people attempt to dodge any sort of negativity. The topic of my independent novel serves to not only challenge the idea of avoiding any kind of depressing news, but to bring light to new ways of thinking that humanity should adopt should we want to understand the roots of crime. Furthermore, we should use our knowledge of these roots to prevent crime.

The theory of General Strain is how the strain on an individual leads them toward criminal activities and behaviors. The main concepts of general strain theory explain how a negative relationship affects the individual and their future in the expansion towards delinquency. Negative or harmful relationships are defined as affiliations with others that are partake in similar criminal activity and how an individual believes they should be treated. The strain theory is broken down into three types: (1) Strain as the failure to achieve positively valued goals (Traditional Strain), (2) Strain as the removal of positively valued stimuli from the individual, and (3) Strain as the presentation of negative stimuli.

In the 1980’s, Criminologist, Robert Agnew, presented his theory of general strain, in which he covers a range of negative behaviors, especially how adolescents deal with stresses of strain. General strain theory focuses on the source, such as anything that changes in the individual’s life that causes strain. His theory provides a different outlook on social control and social learning theory for two reasons: the type of social relationship that leads to delinquency and the motivation for the delinquency (Agnew, 1992). He states that certain strains and stresses increase the likelihood for crime such as economic deprivation, child abuse, and discrimination. These factors can cause an increase of crime through a range of negative emotions. For some people it can take a lot of willpower to take a corrective action and try to deter away from committing crime in a way that they can relieve these negative emotions. When people cannot cope with the stresses of the strain, they turn to crime as a coping mechanism. Agnew also states, that not all people that experience the stresses of strain will go forward to committing crime and live a deviant life.

The proposal of Robert Agnew’s General Strain Theory in explaining criminal deviance is based on three concepts. The first concept is that people

The aim of this essay is to compare, contrast and evaluate two sociological theories of crime causation and two psychological theories of crime causation.

Sociologist Robert Agnew introduced the General Strain Theory (GST) in 1992, which argues that strain is the leading factor that causes someone to be delinquent or criminally motived. He categorizes three major types of strain that produces delinquency: the failure to achieve positively valued goals, removal of positively valued stimuli, and the introduction of negatively valued stimuli (Agnew et al., 2002, p. 44). These different forms of strain greatly increase the chances for an individual to experience negative emotions such as anger, depression, and frustration. When anger is the result of strain, Agnew et al. (2002) argue delinquent and criminal behaviors are more likely to occur. Until recent research, the GST has

a. Imagine asking 100 strangers to describe a criminal. Predict whether those descriptions would be likely to focus on street criminals, or the variety of topics covered in this video.

After carefully conducting research to find information about theoretical perspectives, I have found many articles that carry well noted information about each perspective; however there is one research paper that presented really good information. I have seen that many of us have only found 3 theoretical perspectives, but this research paper that I found have 4 perspective in full disclosure. After spending time dissecting the information, I came to conclusion that the Psychological theory gives a much better comprehensive approach when it comes to explain crime.

Every theory of crime has at least 2-3 meta-theoretical levels above it. The fundamental issues are usually addressed at the approach level, and are often called the assumptions, or starting points, of a theory, although the term "assumptions" more strictly refers to the background or domain boundaries one can draw generalizations about. Above the approach level is the Perspective level, the largest unit of agreement within a scientific community, and in fact, the names for the scientific disciplines. Perspectives are sometimes called paradigms or viewpoints, although some people use the term paradigm to refer to untestable ideologies such as: (1) rational choice; (2) pathogenesis; (3) labeling;

Since long time immemorial, many of people figured out explanations and theories about crime and those circumstances what encourage people to become criminals. Researchers of crime have looked of issues from different approaches, such as biological, psychological, and sociological. These developed thoughts created a fundamental basis of the criminology as a science and become to one of the most important issues of discipline. Furthermore, they figured out thoughts about who are criminals and how to recognize, and treat them. One of explanation of the term a criminal could be define as, a person who has committed a crime. History knows many of scientists, such as Cesare Lombroso, those sociologists of Chicago School, Nels Anderson, Ernest Burgess, Ruth Shonle Cavan, Edward Franklin and others, who came up with different sociological theories, supported by evidences of research work, about circumstances to commit a crime. These theories have looked to find solutions for concern of criminals are born or created by society. However, to discover an answer to issues is necessary to pay a particular attention to the early pioneering work of Lombroso and subsequently the sociological ideas of the Chicago School thinkers.

Strain theory is an occurrence within society where pressure to the juvenile to commit crimes, the juvenile is compelled remains in a specific settings like family and school. Therefore if said juvenile is experiencing pain or aversive it is hard for them to escape the situation. So to alleviate this discomfort they turn to crime, this mainly seen within the subculture of gangs (Agnew, 2012).