Summary Of Michael Kingston's 'Creating A Criminal'

In the article “Creating a Criminal”, Michael Kingston targets California voters to argue that the new law, Section 598b of the California Penal Code, is simply a law that discriminates a minority group. In his article, Kingston manifests that the new law simply penalizes Vietnamese-American for their culture of raising dogs or pets for food although there had always been practices in American culture that abuse these same pets; such as, the practice of euthanasia on pets whose owners no longer want them, or even the use of pets for scientific experiences. Indeed, Kingston was successful in arguing that the Section 598b in a racially discriminatory law by appealing to logos, ethos and pathos.

Michael Kingston’s “Creating a Criminal” Discuss a new law known as Section 598b of the California Penal Code. 598b states Every Person is guilty of a misdemeanor who possesses, import into the state, sells, buys, gives away, or accepts any carcass of any animal traditionally or commonly kept as a pet/companion with the sole intent of killing and using the animal for food. Kingston brings up a good point on what exactly is constituted as a pet? In America cats and dogs are traditionally regarded as pets. However people who traditionally eat dogs or cats as food are Vietnamese. He also explains that “ A Vietnamese-American family, canine-eating family is no more a threat to the pet-trading industry than a family of European

Prisoners are citizens too. They may have committed a felony, but they are still citizens of their home country. Some people think prisoners should not have the right to vote, but many others think they should. About two million people in U.S. are in prison. All those people do not get to cast a vote in the election. They are not able to decide who runs the country they live in. Imagine not being able to have a say in our country. We are a democracy, which means everyone has the right to vote in our government. Prisoners should be allowed to vote because they still are citizens and still have

10.  Discuss what is required for mistake to be a defense. How does this relate to the types of culpability in the Model Penal Code? Be sure to discuss the debate over whether to call mistakes a defense.

In any and every society, there is a level of deviance or crime, no matter how big or small. Deviance is when the norms of a society are disregarded, while crime is when there is a defiance of laws within a society. Individuals who are deviant tend to be nonconforming to the society in which they live, challenging social expectations and deviating from what is considered the norm. Meanwhile, crime is a form of deviance that also discards norms, but in a way that breaks the laws of a certain society or community. When looking at deviance and crime in a micro-level perspective, there are three different theories often used to analyze the reasoning for both in a society. These theories include the Differential Association Theory, the Control Theory and the Labeling Theory. In further dissecting these theories, one can gain a greater insight into the workings of society.

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

The criminal justice system plays an important role in this society, it is meant to protect and serve. This “system” is also meant to maintain the peace and enforce the laws set by the government. However, the criminal justice system is not even close to perfect. It has many flaws, some of which are: police brutality, death penalty, mass incarceration, gun violence, and especially wrongful convictions. A majority of the flaws that the system has can be easily fixed and can be set straight. For example, the issue of wrongful convictions has been relevant for quite some time and has the potential to decrease its probability of occurring by focusing on the importance of scientific evidence, rid of faulty witness testimonies, and make sure that the lack of evidence and/or government misconduct, if applicable, does not determine the outcome of the case.

Crime is a social construction, and behaviour defined as criminal varies across time and place. Crime is an act that violate moral behaviour, but why is that not all behaviours that violate moral behaviour are labelled as crime? This is because crime is defined differently across different societies and different times. Neutralisation and drift theory helps us to explain why people abuse children by showing us how perpetrators rationalise their guilt for these actions before they physically, sexually, emotionally abuse or neglect children. They do this by blaming their actions on other people, higher forces or believing their acts are harmless. In this essay I will begin by talking about crime as a social construction then touch on child abuse in New Zealand followed by a discussion of how my social contract theory helps us to explain this crime.

ideas on what exactly crime is, how it is represented by the media, and how

Conflict perspective says law is an expression of political power, on the other hand, consensus perspective says it is an expression of values. Clifton D. Bryant argues that ‘subjects who conflict with the norms and demands of authority are more likely to be labeled criminal; therefore, authority plays a bigger role in criminalizing behaviour compared to subjects committing the behaviour.’ For instance, slaughtering cow in Nepal is criminalized by the state because the authority’s religion is Hindu and they worship cow as a God. But, there are other 70% people who are not Hindu and sometimes they slaughter cow for meat. If Nepal’s authority finds this kind of act, it is an offence and the offender is punished. Nepal’s law has defined that slaughtering a cow is same like slaughtering a man. But in Hong Kong and in other parts of the world millions of cows are slaughtered every day for restaurants’ kitchen and it is not criminalized. In Nepal time to time political voice is aroused for demanding that slaughtering cow for meat should be legalized. But the interest of the authority does not match the demand; therefore, slaughtering cow is still criminal act in Nepal.

Michael Pollan’s, An Animal’s Place, analyzes the controversial topic of animal abuse while Pollan himself struggles to comprehend the relationship between humans and non-humans. Whether animals are used for food or clothing, Pollan’s impartial view of the moral ethics behind the treatment of animals acknowledges that we as readers are susceptible to influence and he encourages the questioning of our own beliefs. Rather than succumbing to Singer’s, All Animals are Equal demands of making it our “Moral obligation to cease supporting the practice” (pg.4), Pollan conveys the benefits as well as the concerns to the consummation of animals. From the personal connection Pollan establishes with his readers, his progressive beliefs

The environment a child is surrounded in is what develops a child’s perception into the mind of a criminal. The mind of a child is made purely of innocence until one is exposed to destructive developmental patterns. Children that have grown into the shoes of a criminal had been raised into a home with no control and where the environment creates vulnerability. Those who grow up into childhood with an unorganized lifestyle only want to possess the control and power that criminals contain. Children raised in this unstable environment develop a slow pace of skills adolescents learn earlier on (Shi and Nicol par.2). Juvenile sex offenders do not fully develop basic skills which makes it easier to be negatively pressured by society (par.

The characteristics of the genre the work does meet is provide the reader thought provoking questions over their morals of what is considered a crime and what punishment should be made by delving into the mind of a criminal tormented by the guilt of a murder which presented psychological aspects, and displaying a situation that involves a criminal with motive and events that led to his imprisonment.

Sentence was passed and in that moment my whole life completely changed. In the background, you could hear the people chant, “Justice has finally been served!” They don’t know me I thought. Everybody makes mistakes, right? But, where was my second chance in life. My luck, the death penalty became legal again and eagerly waiting for me to become its newest member. My palms grew sweaty as always when I grew nervous and scared. There was nothing I could do. These people wanted me to pay for what I put them through.

This essay will discuss the strengths and weaknesses of sociological explanations of crimes with links to Durkheim’s anomie theory, Merton’s strain theory and the Labelling theory which will draw upon different academics that will highlight these specific areas of research. In sociological terms, crime is a social concept as it does not exist as an autonomous entity, but it is socially constructed by people. It can be analysed that sociological explanations of crime attribute deviance to various aspects of the social environment. For example, crime is strongly related to modern city life where this type of social environment creates cultural enclaves which results in producing criminal or deviant behaviour (Carrabine et al, 2014).