The Pros And Cons Of Crime

Rational choice theory is predicated on the idea that crime is a matter of choice in which a potential criminal weighs the cost of committing an act against the potential benefits that might be gained (Siegel, 2011, p. 84). James Q. Wilson expands on this decision in his book Thinking About Crime, stating that “people who are likely to commit crime are unafraid of breaking the law

The criminal justice system is a used to protect our society from those who try to harm it. Departments such as courts, and police officers study the behavior of criminals; they want our communities to be safe. When a crime is committed these departments work together to protect the rights of our society and our own. As stated in the textbook, a crime is the “Conduct in violation of the criminal laws of a state, the federal government, or a local jurisdiction for which there is no legally acceptable justification or excuse” (Schmalleger). Our system is a balanced system, there are times where have to think about our own rights as one person, but there are also times where we have to include other people. We must think of our society and

The criminal justice system has been proven to play a very important role in society. The criminal justice system is used to keep the citizens in check and to make sure that the laws that are made are being followed. It also is there to penalize anyone who disobeys the laws. In the criminal justice system, there are 3 main parts, law enforcement, adjudication, and corrections. Law enforcement is self-explainable. It consists of the law enforcers such as police officers and sheriffs. Adjudication is made up of people in the court house such as judges and lawyers. Corrections is made up of jailhouse matters such as prison officials. In these many components of the criminal justice system, there are all put in place to help correct people to do the right thing. There are punitive efforts and rehabilitative efforts. At time, the system may lean towards one category or more, which can be dangerous in terms of disciplinary action. The criminal justice system is more punitive than rehabilitative which makes the system ineffective.

The rational choice theory gives insight in to why otherwise law abiding citizens would commit crime. Most burglars do not burglarize because they want something specific from the victim's property nor are they saving the cash proceeds for a long-term goal. They burglarize because they need the money right now to pay off bills, buy food and clothes for their family or to purchase alcohol and illegal drugs. Most burglars would turn to making an honest living, but, even that does not meet their immediate desires for cash. Nor would the earned wages support their lifestyles. (Wright & Decker, 1994).

Criminal justice is defined as the system of law enforcement that is directly involved in apprehending, prosecuting, defending, sentencing, and punishing those who are suspected or convicted of Committing a crime. Jews and Christians consider to be a product of divine inspiration and a record of the relationship between GOD and humans. Criminal justice is a process, involving a series of steps beginning with a person committing an alleged crime, a criminal investigation and ending with the release of a convicted offender from correctional supervision. Rules and decision making are at the center of the process.

In chapter 4, the textbook discusses the Criminal justice system and how the system works. The criminal justice system is a system setup to punish those accused of criminal offenses. Crimes such as murder, rape, robbery or crimes that are considered felonies. Many people are found guilty of their crimes and others are found innocent. People find this a good system to properly punish those who have committed offenses. I disagree that the system is a good system that helps people. The reason for me disagreeing is that the system is not perfect. There have been cases where the jury has come to a verdict that was wrong. Cases where the jury wrongly incarcerated somebody or cases where the jury acquitted somebody when they were guilty. A system

The Rational Choice Theory, as more commonly referred to as Choice Theory, is a view as to why criminals commit crimes, and more importantly why juveniles choose to be delinquent. The problem of juvenile delinquency in keeping with this viewpoint, makes juvenile delinquency an individual problem and not a social problem. The Rational Choice theory will be detailed throughout this paper as well as the theory’s established ways in which the theorists believe juvenile delinquency can be prevented. The validity of the Rational Choice Theory will also briefly be discussed.

One of the theories that we have been addressing within the last three weeks is the Rational Choice Theory. The Rational Choice Theory explains a reasoning why someone might commit a crime. For those who believe in Rational Choice Theory, they deem every person to have the free will to make their own decisions. With that being said, when an individual is forced to make a decision between committing a crime or not, they willingly choose to weigh the consequences of their actions. If the risk of committing the crime outweighs the benefits then the crime will not take place (Steele, 2015). Within the standards of this theory, the choice to commit a crime is often one of opportunity and not one that is spontaneous. The thought process to commit a crime would consists of not only cost and benefits but also of a plan that would help the individual get what they desire. Thoughts such as time of day, who their victim would be, how will they accomplish their goal, will they have a weapon, will someone else be involved, and more would all be considered (Beauregard & Leclerc, 2007).

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.

The first criminals this paper will look at are burglars. The rational choice theory can be applied to most burglars by looking at three main questions criminals will ask themselves. First, what is the likelihood of getting caught? Second, if I do get caught, how bad is the punishment? Third, what is the benefit of committing the crime? Of the over two million burglaries in the US last, only 13% of burglars were arrested. In Iowa, the maximum sentence for burglary is 25 years. The final deciding factor for the potential burglar is if he thinks the value of what he might steal outweighs the potential danger of the crime. With such a low percentage of burglars being caught it could be perfectly rational to commit the crime.

Crime is generally perceived as a form of employment in economics as it requires time and effort and generates wealth. This implies that crime and work are substitutes (Witte and Tauchen, 1994). Becker (1968) and Ehrlich (1973) were the first to model the choice between crime and work. The one period decision-making model introduced here is based on their models and illustrates how rational individuals decide whether to engage in a criminal activity by comparing expected benefit and cost. Thus, individuals decide to engage in a criminal activity if:

In recent decades, economic analysis is no longer only applied to economic phenomena, instead, the economic approach has made significant contributions to the study of crime. Economists as one of the latest entrants start the research of crime with its dominant paradigm, rational choice theory. It is stated by Albertson & Fox (2011), the approach predicts potential criminals are rational and makes a hypothesis that people make choice by balancing cost and benefit and incentive structure. Economists can identify the prices of any goods, including the choice of committing crime, and determine the expected relationship between crime and punishment. For the supporters of rational choice theory, they stated that even addictive behavior is the same as any other economic behavior (Tomer, 2001). It should be mentioned that the analysis of addictive behavior was reserved for other non-economic disciplines for a long time. Through a sociological perspective, addictive behavior, such as alcohol or drug abuse, is

Crime and violation are growing problems in all countries nowadays. Engagement in crime means that a person has committed an illegal activity such as murder, human trafficking, drug trafficking and a lot of other things. Crimes are committed all over the world everyday by either men or women. The rate of crime activities committed by men and women have been fluctuating over the past years. Nowadays the changes happening all over the world from the economy to politics has made human-beings more prone to accepting the frequency of crimes. The fluctuation in the economy changed people to being depressed and not in control of what they are doing due to survival needs which lead them to committing crimes. The gender of people committing crimes has divided people into 2 groups, some of which believe that crimes are more likely committed by women and the other group believe that they are more likely by men. Studies have been done to prove both point of views. Women and men are very different in how they perceive the world and what motivates them and demotivates them, which is why it has divided the opinion and studies. Crimes are easy to commit these days because people are no longer being monitored as they once was due to the events happening all over the world involving different countries, so the crimes committed such as robbery seem trivial. Although many women are engaged in crime, crime is most likely committed by men.

After reevaluating my three policies that I would have provided to the mayor of an urban city, I realized that they are all still great policies and should still be used in some way to help with the crime in that city. I truly believe that there are many things to prevent crime and although many of them will not stop it by reducing the rate is what is most important when it comes to cities who has a high rate of crime involved. Preventing some crime is better than increasing it, after researching my three proposed policies I found plenty of great information. Crime will never come to a complete end but there are many things and ways that people can do to certainly prevent the crime that could potentially be surrounding them.

In this study, we will attempt to examine the relationship, if any, between criminal activity and the unemployment rate. My hypothesis is that higher unemployment leads to higher crime rates. Our belief stems from the fact that the cities in the United States with the highest crime rates all have a poverty level higher than the U.S. average of 15.1%.2 For Example, Detroit had the highest reported violent crime rate of 2,072/100,000 people, with almost 40% of their population living below the poverty level.3