Why People Commit Crimes

Crime is a difficult concept to define as everyone is different in the way they think and because it varies so greatly. It also depends on what stage of time we are in and how we perceive things. This is because the idea of crime also draws upon how an individual, or a set of individuals are linked with the society. For some people crime is an act that breaks a law which is made to keep the society safe. However, some

Biological factors alone are not a sufficient reason why crime occurs. An example would be looking at testosterone and adult deviance. Most studies have shown no correlation with circulating testosterone and behavior. However, there is significance to examining biological factors. The answer lies in the fact that biological explanations of crime understate the important role of social conditions. (Conklin, p 93). When looking at biological and social combined, there is a moderately strong relationship between testosterone and social integration while growing up. Social integration can be fragmented due to less social opportunities by being in lower-class status, unmarried, and an unstable work history. (Conklin, p 96).

In criminology, is very important to study why people commit crime when deciding how crime should be handled and prevented. This type of study is known as criminal profiling. Many theories have developed over the years, and they continue to be researched, alone and in combination, as criminologists seek the best solutions in reducing specific types and levels of crime. While all crime theories are designed to try to explain and understand criminal activity and the people that commit them, it is an ongoing science. No one theory can define all crime. However, it can be used usefully to help us understand crime a little better and help criminologists find new ways to deal with and eliminate criminal behavior. I am going to discuss one

The third study that was done, is a study that extends the idea of helping to learn why some criminals act on their impulses the way they do. The third study is a research done on the mindsets of criminal’s not only in a community or prison setting, but instead that of one hundred and twenty two inmates that have been diagnosed with mental illnesses. The name of this article is “Criminal Thinking Styles Among People With Serious Mental Illness in Jail” and the major focus of this research was to further the knowledge about the amount of people in not only prisons but jails who have been diagnosed with a severe mental illness and what makes their thinking different from those who are also in jail but were not diagnosed with a mental

In society, things are not as they seem at times. The criminal justice system was created to help deter crime and to punish those who break the law. Laws are put in place to be fair to all citizens. Your economic situation, gender, race should not become a factor for you to be given “due process”. Years have come and gone and the crime rates increases and decreases with the years. There have been many senseless killings and everyone has their point of view as to the causes. The focal point of this report will be the findings from the readings of, “The rich get richer and the poor get prison by Jeffery Reimer and Paul Livingston”. I will discuss the causes of the rise and fall of the many different types of crimes ; why the rise and fall of crime rates; what contribution has the criminal justice and or police system has contributed whether positive or negative; and lastly discuss which economic group ends up in prison and why.

People have a tendency of ascribing external stimuli as reasons for actions and behaviour of man. If a person becomes a criminal, we look for reasons in his background and social setting. However, it is not always necessary that a poor person will take to crime to alleviate his misery.

Another question exists however. Why are Black individuals more likely to commit crime? This can be confusing as to why this occurs. Both Black and white people who grow up in the same society are capable and have the same opportunities, so why is it that black individuals have a higher crime rate. We can figure this out by looking at examples of other first world countries and data seems to show that major causes of crime are traced back to poverty, family conditions, and drugs. The fact is even though many black families are living prosperous successful lives in north America they still lag behind economic status with 35 % of African Americans living in poverty compared to 13% of all Americans. Also 72% of black children are raised by a single

Why do criminals commit crime? How to we learn to commit crime? These questions can be answered using social learning theory. "Social learning approach is the assumption that all human behavior is socially learned" (Thompson, Bynum 2013 115). The theory of differential association was developed by Edwin Sutherland to try and explain the development of criminal behavior. Essentially what this theory says is that deviant group behavior results from normative conflict. Normative conflict arises when multiple probable rules exist, specifying how one ought to behave in a given situation. Conflicts among norms affect deviant people of a variety of social groups. An individual is part of many social groups including friends, family, and school. Every group has its own set of social norms. Sometimes the norms between these groups can conflict with each other resulting in the possibility of deviant behavior

There are many theories for why criminals are criminals. These theories have been developed, changed, and even thrown out over the years. Each one has been contradicted and reaffirmed, until eventually there is a consensus for both biological and sociological reasons which would explain why a person would act criminally or participate in a criminal act/behavior. I argue that the most relevant theories to answering why a person would do these things are social disorganization and neurological factors, specifically testosterone levels in males.

The definition of a serial killer is traditionally noted as a person who has a particular psychological motivation for killing. For centuries detectives and psychiatrists around have been curious as to what makes someone want to be a serial killer. Many theories have been proposed as to what make someone begin to be a serial killer, yet we still do not know for sure. There are many conclusions as to why people become serial killers, the most accurate being the diathesis-stress model, which states that all serial killers have a propensity to act and think a certain way due to environmental stressors, because of these stressors and a combination of other factors such as self-esteem and self-control coupled with social skill issues, the person is sent over the edge and into serial killer mode.

In looking at the Marxist explanation of crime and deviance one must also look to the non-sociologist explanations and those of other different groups in order to come to an informed view of the subject.

Crime as a social construction is the idea that reality is created in our minds. What we perceive something to be ends up to be what it is. Crime, often described as deviance is a labelled behaviour. If one does not view an action as deviant at the time then it is not deviant, this shows us how deviance is a relative concept. In terms of how different people perceive crime, depending on what religious or ethnic backgrounds one may come from, there is heavy variation between individuals. What is illegal or legal in one culture can be very different in another culture. It can

The question, why do people become criminals raise a lot of views when it comes down to personal, social and environmental factors. While many think that people become criminals due to the environment and people they have grown up around, other’s think it is due to mental illness or just out of pure enjoyment. The following report will discuss how a person’s environment can impact them to become vicious killers, particularly discussing the Ivan Milat, a serial killer based in Australia, known for the case of the “Backpacker murders”.

People commit crimes for various reasons. These various reasons got to do with social, economic, and cultural reason. These factors trigger an individual to do criminal activities. Social reasons are peer pressure, and school failure. Economic reasons are poverty. Cultural reasons are hatred. The combination of these factors is behind a person who commits crimes.

But I was wrong and quite premature in blaming the reality, I fail to notice the macro (social) aspects of people’s doing. Only it seems to me different when I come to study this paper of criminology. My perception of the criminal offense is therefore totally transforming; I now think that offense is a collective construction and serve only in a given context and time but might not be applied to another setting. I, therefore, believe that offense is not born with or constrained by our biological being but instead by our social being.