The Major Theories Of Criminal Behavior And The Impact Of Crime On Victims And Society

Crime and deviance is one of the sociological disciplines that deals with crime and questions whether the crimes that are being committed are pre-determined through their genes, their upbringing or socialisation. Studying different sociological theories as to why people commit crimes within society has helped me gain more insight in to the topic and this allows me to be able to interpret different types of behaviour from different sociological

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 deviation. The lower classes are the most vulnerable to this pressure, or strain, and will maintain their unfulfilled economic aspirations in spite of frustration or failure.

The overall goal of a good theory is to be of assistance in helping one understand crime and how the criminal justice system works. Theories cover the making and the breaking of the law, and also criminal and deviant behavior. Furthermore individual theories may be either macro or micro, along with showing patterns of criminal activity along the way. Theories can also be used to guide policy making, and can be evaluated with a number of different circumstances including: clarity, scope, parsimony, testability, practical usefulness, and empirical validity

Crime causation theories can vary. Some people believe that concentrated poverty is the cause of crime. Others believe that criminal behavior is generally the result of negative reactions in human characteristics. There are also theories that suggest that substance abuse and mental health problems are largely responsible for criminal

Criminological theories help professionals better understand why individuals commit crimes. The hope is that by gaining a better understanding of why people commit crimes, we can help prevent them better in the future. Currently, there are several different theories that individuals have claimed to be the reason for criminal behavior. Some of those theories include classical, neoclassical, biological, sociological, psychological, social, choice or strain. Each theory, while sometimes intertwined with another, focuses on different aspects that the supporters of it believe are the main causations for crime.

They blame lack of equal opportunities, neighborhood disarray, and the social environment for crime causation. The theories associated with this idea are; Strain Theory, Cultural Deviance, Social Learning and Control, and Labeling theories (Hall, n.d.). One interesting thing about sociological theory is that society makes up criminality. Simply put, some types of activity are deemed to be harmful by society and thus viewed as criminal. On a side note, some of these behaviors that are viewed as criminal, are harmless in nature and do not have a victim.

Crimes are committed by individuals for various reasons. There is no definite answer as to why crime is committed, but several theories help explain them. Biological theories of crime explain criminality “as a result of an inherited trait in an individual” (Mallicoat 80). This theory focuses on the genetic makeup that leads to criminal behavior. Similarly, psychological theories of crime “explain criminal behavior by individual factors, such as deficiencies in early childhood socialization or experiences, that lead to gaps in cognitive development” (Mallicoat 81). Psychological theories focus on the individual as well, but specifically on the mind. However, sociological theories of crime “look at how larger social structures, such as environments and institutions can help explain criminal behavior” Mallicoat (84). Sociological theories focus on factors outside of the individual. Contemporary theories of crime focus on the crucial role adolescence has

The first theory to argue is social structure. The social structure theories emphasize poverty, lack of education, absence of marketable skills, and deviant subcultural values as fundamental causes of crime. (Frank Schmalleger, 2012) These theories are based upon the

Founded on W.I. Thomas’ and Florian Znaniecki’s research, crime rates were shown to rose among individuals who were placed in disorganized positions in society. Therefore, the suggested cause of social disorganization was from a person’s inability to successfully transfer standards and beliefs from home cultures into the new ones. Next, the classical strain theory proposed crime to be an adaptive behavior committed in response to complications involving infuriating and disagreeable social environments. Developed by Robert K. Merton, he based innovation to be the most important factor related with crime. However, the general strain theory, developed by Robert Agnew, reformulated the strain theory and proposed that delinquency is a coping device used to help juveniles deal with socio-emotional problems produced by undesirable social reactions. Lastly, the culture conflict theory proposed crime to be a result from the conflict of values between two inversely socialized groups over what is conventional or acceptable behavior. In general, primary conflicts occur when there is a fundamental conflict of cultures, whereas secondary conflicts occur when minor cultures within the primary one

Sociological theories on crime, whether they are macro or micro, look at external factors in determining causative reasons for criminal conduct (Bohm & Vogel, 2011). This process is very different from biological and psychological crime theories, which focus on internal characteristics of a person (Bohm & Vogel, 2011). Macrosociological theory accounts for the overall big picture of a society taking into account the physical structure of an area and how it is laid out. This information is used to theorize if they have an influence on criminal activity for that particular location or neighborhood (Bohm & Vogel, 2011). Microsociological theories focus in on a more concentrated view of individual’s external interactions with each other or specific programs such as church or school (Bohm & Vogel, 2011). These theories try to explain if these interactions foster a criminal environment or cause the opposite (Bohm & Vogel, 2011).

A general theory of crime attempts to explain most forms of criminal conduct through a single, overarching approach. Theories in criminology tend to be unclear and lacking in justifiable generality. Many past theoretical approaches to crime causation were uni-causal, posing a single identifiable source for all serious deviant and criminal behavior. Integrated theory does not necessarily explain all criminality, but is distinguished since it merges concepts drawn from different

Different criminology theories explain the origin of crime and factors influencing offenders to commit a crime. Sociological and social control theories state that every person has the ability and chance to commit criminal offenses, but they choose not to due to social constraints and fear. Through the social strain and learning concepts, people of all ages including the youth engage in criminal activities due to Therefore, juvenile delinquency is viewed as a reflection of an inadequate external control and internal values among children, hence providing an opportunity for them to become delinquents (Flowers, 2002).

The definition of General Theory of Crime, by our book states, “According to Gottfredson and Hirschi, a developmental theory that modifies social control theory by integrating concepts from biosocial, psychological, routine activities, and rational choice theories.” The theorists that formed this idea were, Michael Gottfredson and Travis Hirschi (Siegel, 308).

The theory currently has more weaknesses than strengths, and this is what inhibits it becoming a more relevant theory. One of the biggest-criticisms of the theory that Shaw and McKay neglected to propose ways to meliorate the biggest source of criminality in zone 2 of the concentric zones (Tibbetts, 2015). They identify that the introduction of factories and businesses into residential areas is a major-problem, and source for criminality, but fail to recommend a way to diminish this production (Tibbetts, 2015). Furthermore, the assumption in this theory is that social disorganisation is the cause of delinquency, and fail to considering that other more basic factors such as the biological dynamics of the individual having a role in the actions of individuals (Lowman, 1986). In addition to only focusing on the individual’s environment, the theory ignores a range of power-processes involved in creating laws, and how those laws are policed (Roh and Choo, 2015). The theory fails to consider the impact legal and other social control measures could have-on an individual’s actions (Lowman, 1986). Additionally, Lowman (1986) discusses that there are limited methods available to utilise the theory in examining crime, the main measurement currently available is that crime and deviance within an area is significantly high, and this is tautological, therefore alternative methods need to be sought to allow more application of the theory.

It is known that people commit crimes for various reasons, such as social factors, economic and cultural reasons. All these factors have negative impact on the individuals and trigger them to be involved in criminal activities. For example, social factors are focused on the role of society in the life of an individual. The reasons of many crimes are concluded in peer pressure, school failure, prejudices and stereotyping, etc. Economic reasons are focused on unemployment, poverty, lack of financial support, etc. Cultural reasons are based on hatred between different cultural groups, lack of mutual understanding, poor education, etc. In most cases, the combination of different factors leads to sever crimes (Young, 1996, p.35). The major goal of this paper is to discuss the major reasons of crimes and the types of people who commit crimes.