The Theory Of Crime And Crime

The following essay will outline and discuss the various theories used by psychologists to explain criminal behaviour. According to White and Haines 2008 crime was seen as the result of externally caused biological problems or internal psychological factors that were treatable. They believe the criminal was made, not born. Psychological theories tend to focus on how characteristics of an individual lead to criminal behaviour, however these theories may also be irrelevant, challenge existing thinking and make people and institutions think.

The social disorganization theory is directed towards social conditions. This theory argues that crime is due to social conflicts, change, and lack of consensus in the group.

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

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.

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

Biological Theories have been related to crime for a long time. The Biological Theory talks about how one’s brain has an impact on committing crime or not. Dr. Jim Fallon, a neuroscientist from California talks about the biological influences in a brain. He believes that the combination of three major aspects can determine whether someone is psychopathic or not. Fallon states a combination of genes, damage to the person 's brain and the environment surrounding the individual will have the biggest impact on a person (Fallon, 2009). A real world example of the biological theory in full effect was the crimes of David Berkowitz, aka “Son of Sam. Berkowitz was accused and found guilty of killing over 6 people in New York City. After being convicted and locked up for a few years, studies had shown that Berkowitz had been diagnosed with schizophrenia. Berkowitz also claimed that his neighbor’s dog, Sam had told him to do the killings as well (Biography). Comparing the Biological theory to my own life was pretty simple because there is a genetic factor that runs in my dad’s side and that is tempers. Tempers tend to flare fairly easy, and luckily so far there has no issues with the law, however like Fallon had said, with the right combination, anyone is possible to commit a crime at any time. I feel like in a biological theory, this would have a major impact on my life

Response Paper Crime in the 20th century has become one of the most widely studied areas of research. Today, I am going to briefly outline some of the theories of crime that are used to study the subject. What I will be evaluating these theories against will be small scale property crime such as theft.

The UCR utilizes the hierarchy rule that implies that when multiple crimes are linked to one offender within the same reporting year, only the most serious crime is counted. The UCR also uses another category termed clearance rate, this category highlights number of cases solved based on arrests, usually some cases where there are suspects but cannot be cleared for one reason or another when suspect flees the country, commits suicide, dies, or is convicted in another jurisdiction.

Examine and assess the usefulness of one of the following theories of crime and deviance in terms of explaining crime and the social problems in modern society.

The second theory I would like to discuss is the Strain theory. The strain theory basically states that crime breeds in the gap, imbalance, or disjunction between culturally induced aspirations for economic success and structurally distributed possibilities of achievement. The theory assumes fairly uniform economic success aspirations across social class and the theory attempts to explain why crime is concentrated among the lower classes that have the least legitimate opportunities for achievement. It is the combination of the cultural emphasis and the social structure which produces intense pressure for

A theory is an explanation of why or how things are related to each other (Bohm & Vogel, 2011). Additionally, a theory is defined as a plausible or scientifically acceptable principle, or a body of principles, offered to explain phenomena (Merriam-Webster Dictionary, 2017). Furthermore, crime theories examine and attempt to identify relationships among humans, criminal behavior, and specific factors such as biological factors, psychological factors, sociological factors, and economic factors (Bohm & Vogel, 2011). Since we have defined a theory, let us further discuss how theories are created beginning with the components of a theory.

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;

First off, there have been ample amounts of disapproval in relation to the general theory of crime, because many scholars feel that Gottfredson and Hirschi (1990) failed to include the

Many theories of crime are macro theories, which are used to explain crime based on a large group of people or society. While macro theories are the predominant type of theory used to explain crime, there are also a variety of “individual”, or micro, factors which are equally important. Two such individual factors s are maternal cigarette smoking (MCS) and cognitive ability, or Intelligence Quotient (IQ).

Many people have different theories as to why crime exists. Some believe crime happens because of the individual’s culture, education (or lack there of), or even their race. Others believe crime is associated with whom we surround ourselves with. There are three sociological theories that suggest why crime happens in society; they are social learning theory, social control theory, and social reaction (labeling) theory. These theories suggest it is our relationships and social interactions that influence our behavior.