Pros And Cons Of Game Theory

One in six American women, and one in thirty-three men are murdered by serial killers. The government has announced an even more horrifying fact: One in nine underage girls were killed as well. Society has rushed to arms to imprison the killers and attempt to recover from this horrible tragedy -- wait. I apologize; this is the wrong crime. These are the statistics for rape according to RAINN (Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network). The public immediately takes on a different outlook. Rape is much less damaging than murder, right? After all, surely the victims deserved it. They were drinking or dressed wrong. If they didn’t want to be raped they shouldn’t have been walking alone at night. It must have been the victim’s fault. There are countless websites and classes which teach women how not to be raped; they shouldn’t drink, shouldn’t take public transportation, and should return to their homes and lock their doors by nightfall. If the victims had only followed these rules, they would have been safe.

This idea of a rational calculation of the advantages and disadvantages of crime runs parallel with the Rational Choice Theory offered to us by

22). Many people believe that the women could have prevented the rape if they knew who the attacker was. The truth is there is no way to determine who is going to get raped; only the attacker knows. Most people have a “gut feeling” when it comes to new people, and many just push it aside until something bad happens, and then the feeling comes back again. If a woman goes on a date or is with friends and they get that “gut feeling” again, then it could possibly end badly. People do not know what is going to happen to them every second of their lives. There is no way to know who it will happen to or when it will occur and by whom. An evening planned with friends could all go awry without any warning. A victim usually doesn’t think that someone they know would even consider raping them. So the attacker is to blame because they are the ones who planned it.

One difference is that murder has always been seen as the most violent crime and unacceptable, whereas rape has not. As previously mentioned; in the past, it was not illegal for a man to rape his wife because they were married and had signed a marital contract (Myhill and Allen, 2002). Another difference is that although both crimes do have an effect on others, rape has a more singular effect on the victim in particular especially in regards to mental wellbeing, whereas if a victim is murdered then it affects the family rather than the victim itself as they have been killed (Sparks et al, 1996). Lastly, another difference is that the killing of one can actually be seen as legal depending on the circumstance (Brookman, 2010. Pg.218) whereas rape there is no exception to the law and it is forbidden (Gordon,

Then two decades later, in 1993, the capital punishment statutes had been reinstated and performing executions, once again striking the thing criminals fear most, death (Tucker). During the 1990s as more states began to reinstate capital punishment statutes, murder rates began to plummet. They went from 9.6 people per 100,000 in 1993 dropping to 7.7 in 1996 and as low as 6.4 in 1999, which was the lowest rate since 1966. In other words, as the author observed during his study of the forty year period, homicide rates have risen when the rate of execution went down and as the execution rates had risen, the rate of homicides had decreased (Tucker). Not only does the death penalty engender an aversion amongst criminals and people who are considering performing heinous actions, it additionally promotes a positive influence towards themselves and others around. The mandate of capital punishment establishes the attitude of abhorrence toward criminals, and causes people to think about what they are doing because of the possible consequences. With people believing that living the criminal life is not the best of decisions, they are deterred away from making the decision of performing the crime (Caldwell 598).

Carly M. Hilinski (2010) The role of victim–offender relationships in predicting fear of rape among college women, Criminal Justice Studies, 23:2, 147-162, DOI: 10.1080/1478601X.2010.485477

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.

In 1999, a law was introduced in Columbia. Bublick, in her article "Citizen No-Duty Rules: Rape Victims and Comparative Fault.", explains how this law blames victims for their own rape. The law is considered to be a rape victim’s rape case to be ‘comparative fault’. This means that the victim is blamed for the rape case. As some laws blame the victims, other laws give rapist the minimum sentence possible for this disgusting crime. As Giacopassi and Wilkinson explained in their article ‘“Rape and the Devalued Victim.” Law and Human Behavior’, capital punishment has no longer become a sentence a rapist has to worry about. Capital punishment can no longer be sentenced to a rapist, and there are lower sentences for those who have raped after the new rape reform legislation. Law like these make it almost impossible for the judicial system to do

The classical theory became popular again in the 1970s, and this is when the choice theory came about. The new choice theory is known today as the rational choice theory because it is based on intelligent thought process and criminal decision making. Rational choice is a decision made by an individual to commit a specific crime. This theory is both offense- and offender-specific. Offense-specific crimes are when offenders will react selectively to a particular offense. Offender-specific crimes are considered by a criminal by their skills, needs, or fear before committing the act. This proves that criminals are not just some antisocial person who goes and commits a crime randomly; they give it some thought process. The theorists believe that crime is an event and criminal behavior is a personality trait.

Most people believe that men are supposed to commit crime because it is the masculine thing to do. When a woman commits a crime, people think that she is not feminine enough and possess several different issues. Males

There have been some studies conducted and evidence has been gathered that likely supports both parts of the sexual preference theory, however, many studies have also concluded that there were no differences between rapists and nonrapists during testing. (Looman, 2005) According to Barbaree and Marshall (1991), the level of sexual arousal a rapist experiences is determined by what type of rapist he is. A sexual sadist, as predicted, would likely show sexual arousal when presented with stimuli indicating sexual coercion. However, an opportunistic rapist would likely show no evidence of arousal when subjected to rape stimuli. On the other hand, a revenge-seeking or anger-driven rapist would show more sexual arousal from the violence displayed during the stimuli. Based on this evidence, it is this author’s conclusion that sexual desire plays little to no role in the motives of the nonsadistic rapists. (Barbaree & Marshall, 1991)

According to the rational choice theory human actions are based on rationality. In other words an individual that commit a crime is rational and he/she thinks that the decision that they are taken is the one that bring the most benefits. Crime is committed for a rational person after the pros and cons from disobeying the law are evaluated.

Rational choice theory, also known simply as choice theory, is the assessment of a potential offender to commit a crime. Choice theory is the belief that committing a crime is a rational decision, based on cost benefit analysis. The would-be offender will weigh the costs of committing a particular crime: fines, jail time, and imprisonment versus the benefits: money, status, heightened adrenaline. Depending on which factors out-weigh the other, a criminal will decide to commit or forgo committing a crime. This decision making process makes committing a crime a rational choice. This theory can be used to explain why an offender will decide to commit burglary, robbery, aggravated assault, or murder.

People chose all behavior and including all criminal behavior. Which in this case the choices that criminals make brings them pleasure and adrenaline. Criminal choices can be controlled by fear of punishment, but not all the time. The crime will be limited when the benefits are reduced and the costs increase. Rational choice theory is a perspective that holds criminality in the result of conscious choice. Not to mention, that it is predicted that individuals choose to commit crime when the benefits outweigh the costs of disobeying the law. In the rational choice theory, individuals are seen as motivated offenders by their needs, wants and goals that express their preferences. This theory has been applied to a wide of range in crime, such as robbery, drug use, vandalism, and white collar crime. Furthermore, rational choice theory had a revival in sociology in the early 1960s, under the heading of exchange theory, and by the end of the decade was having a renewed influence in criminology, first as control theory and later as routine activities theory.

It has been argued that death penalty will encourage rapists to kill their victims for their victims can’t testify against them. Jody Plauche, who was abducted in 1984 by his karate instructor, argued that rapists would kill their victims if they know that they will be given death penalty from a victims testimony, so if they kill their victims, they will not