Thesis For Certificate of English Competency: Calistrat Hogas Arts and Sciences High School

Calistrat Hogas Arts and Sciences High School
THESIS FOR CERTIFICATE OF ENGLISH COMPETENCY
Coordinating teacher : Tania Bucur
Candidate : Bianca Anghelescu Grade XII E
Philology Bilingual English May 2012

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Contents
I Foreword 4 II Introduction .. 5
Chapter I : Definition of criminology

1.1 1.2 1.3 History ..7 Social-Structural Criminology.10 Social-Process Criminology.12
Chapter II : Theories of Crime

2.1 Social-Structure theories..15 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 Social disorganization .16 Social ecology .. 20 Strain theory 22 Sub cultural theory 25
2.4 Control theories .. 27
Chapter III : Contemporary cultural and critical criminology

3.1 Individual theories . 31 3.2 Trait theories .. 34 3.3 Rational choice theory 37 3.4 Routine activity theory .. 40 3.5 Types and definitions of crime .42 3.6 Causes and correlates of crime ..44 Bibliography
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Foreword
It is widely known that sooner or later, we all have dreams, wishes and goals that will show us the path through life. As far as Im concerned, I have always known how my future would look like. Ever since I was a child I had a huge passion for criminology, the scientific study of the causation, correction, and prevention of crime. Furthermore, the most exciting thing about criminology is the beginning of the journey in this fascinating world, which starts at university where you have a various range of courses such as Theories of Crime, Social disorganizations, Types and definitions of crime, and so on; that are meant to keep you active during all years of college, but also to enlarge your curiosity and enthusiasm, which will later be continued and applied in your future job. Anyway, I am personally interested in enrolling to Simon Frasier University from Vancouver, Canada, where I will be studying a various range of courses all from the field of Criminology, hoping this way to finally come true my dream, to become a Forensic Scientist. So, in my opinion, the answer to why criminology is such a fascinating world is due to the fact that it creates an explanation to most unpredictable situations, and solving them involves permanent alert and continuously growth in knowledge.
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Introduction
Criminology is the fascinating combination of sociology, psychology and criminal justice. Experts in criminology are faced with the daunting task of deciphering crime statistics, studying law enforcement, invading the minds of criminals and applying forensic science to criminal justice. Unlike other aspects of law, criminology allows for speculation and assumptions, which have led to the understanding of criminal behavior as a whole. The main purpose of criminology is to get inside the heads of criminals and to figure out ways to prevent future crimes. Criminologists know that criminals are consistently find new avenues of violence and deceit, and that society expects progress from law enforcement. Criminology experts are asked for advice when it comes to legal prosecution, the formation of laws, the punishment of criminals and the corrections system. They counsel government and political officials on preventing crime and setting stiffer penalties for criminals. There is, however, dissention in the ranks, as all criminology experts do not think alike. Classical criminology theorists are more likely to support mandatory minimums for heinous crime, capital punishment and longer sentencing. Others, such as positivist criminology theorists, are more likely to advocate the strict regulation of law enforcement officers and to give criminals the benefit of the doubt. There are criminology experts who believe that the prison system should be geared more heavily toward rehabilitation goals, rather than the classical theorists who prefer the idea of punishment. The American Society of Criminology publishes papers and theories on a regular basis. They have experts ranging from addictions research to wrongful convictions, and work hard to educate both the public and law enforcement about the nature of criminology.
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Chapter I : Definition of criminology
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Calistrat Hogas Arts and Sciences High School 1.1 History
According to dictionary, Criminology is the scientific study of the causation, correction, and prevention of crime. As a subdivision of the larger field of sociology, criminology draws on psychology, economics, anthropology, psychiatry, biology, statistics, and other disciplines to explain the causes and prevention of criminal behavior. Subdivisions of criminology include penology, the study of prisons and prison systems; bio criminology, the study of the biological basis of criminal behavior; feminist criminology, the study of women and crime; and criminalities, the study of crime detection, which is related to the field of Forensic Science. Criminology has historically played a reforming role in relation to Criminal Law and the criminal justice system. As an applied discipline, it has produced findings that have influenced legislators, judges, prosecutors, lawyers, Probation officers, and prison officials, prompting them to better understand crime and criminals and to develop better and more humane sentences and treatments for criminal behavior. The origins of criminology are usually located in the late-eighteenth-century writings of those who sought to reform criminal justice and penal systems that they perceived as cruel, inhumane, and Arbitrary. These old systems applied the law unequally, were subject to great corruption, and often used torture and the death penalty indiscriminately. The leading theorist of this classical school of criminology, the Italian Cesar BONESANO BECCARIA (173894), argued that the law must apply equally to all, and that punishments for specific crimes should be standardized by legislatures, thus avoiding judicial abuses of power. Both Baccarat and another classical theorist, the Englishman Jeremy Bentham (17481832), argued that people are rational beings who exercise free will in making choices. Baccarat and Bentham understood the dominant motive in making choices to be the seeking of pleasure and the avoidance of pain. Thus, they argued that a punishment should fit the crime in such a way that the pain involved in potential punishment would be greater than any pleasure derived from committing the crime. The writings of these theorists led to greater Codification and standardization of European and U.S. laws. Criminologists of the early nineteenth century argued that legal punishments that had been created under the guidance of the classical school did not sufficiently consider the
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widely varying circumstances of those who found themselves in the gears of the criminal justice system. Accordingly, they proposed that those who could not distinguish right from wrong, particularly children and mentally ill persons, should be exempted from the punishments that were normally meted out to mentally capable adults who had committed the same crimes. Along with the contributions of a later generation of criminologists, known as the positivists, such writers argued that the punishment should fit the criminal, not the crime. Later in the nineteenth century, the positivist school of criminology brought a scientific approach to criminology, including findings from biology and medicine. The leading figure of this school was the Italian Cesar Lombroso (18361909). Influenced by Charles R. Darwin's theory of evolution, Lombroso measured the physical features of prison inmates and concluded that criminal behavior correlated with specific bodily characteristics, particularly cranial, skeletal, and neurological malformations. According to Lombroso, biology created a criminal class among the human population. Subsequent generations of criminologists have disagreed harshly with Lombroso's conclusions on this matter. However, Lombroso had a more lasting effect on criminology with other findings that emphasized the multiple causes of crime, including environmental causes that were not biologically determined. He was also a pioneer of the case-study approach to criminology. Other late-nineteenth-century developments in criminology included the work of statisticians of the cartographic school, who analyzed data on population and crime. These included Lambert Adolph Quenelle, (1796 1874) of France and Andr Michel Gerry, of Belgium. Both of these researchers compiled detailed, statistical information relating to crime and also attempted to identify the circumstances that predisposed people to commit crimes. The writings of French sociologist Emile Durkheim (18581917) also exerted a great influence on criminology. Durkheim advanced the hypothesis that criminal behavior is a normal part of all societies. No society, he argued, can ever have complete uniformity of moral consciousness. All societies must permit some deviancy, including criminal deviancy, or they will stagnate. He saw the criminal as an acceptable human being and one of the prices that a society pays for freedom. Durkheim also theorized about the ways in which modern, industrial societies differ from nonindustrial ones. Industrial societies are not as effective at producing what Durkheim called a collective conscience that effectively controls the behavior of individuals. Individuals in industrial societies are more likely to exhibit what Durkheim called anomiea Greek word meaning "without norms." Consequently, modern societies have
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had to develop specialized laws and criminal justice systems that were not necessary in early societies to control behavior. Early efforts to organize criminologists in the United States attracted law enforcement officials and others who were interested in the criminal justice system. In 1941, a group of individuals in California organized for the purpose of improving police training and the standardization of police-training curricula. In 1946, this movement developed into the establishment of the Society for the Advancement of Criminology, which changed its name to the American Society of Criminology in 1957. Initial efforts of this organization focused upon scientific crime detection, investigation, and identification; crime prevention, public safety, and security; law enforcement administration; administration of criminal justice; traffic administration; and probation. The American Society of Criminology has since attracted thousands of members, including academics, practitioners, and students of the criminal justice system. Studies of criminology include both the theoretical and the pragmatic, and some combine elements of both. Although some aspects of criminology as a science are still considered radical, others have developed as standards in the study of crime and criminal justice.
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1.2 Social Structural Criminology
During the twentieth century, the sociological approach to criminology became the most influential approach. Sociology is the study of social behavior, systems, and structures. In relation to criminology, it may be divided into social-structural and social-process approaches. Social-structural approaches to criminology examine the way in which social situations and structures influence or relate to criminal behavior. An early example of this approach, the ecological school of criminology, was developed in the 1920s and 1930s at the University of Chicago. It seeks to explain crime's relationship to social and environmental change. For example, it attempts to describe why certain areas of a city will have a tendency to attract crime and also have less-vigorous police enforcement. Researchers have found that urban areas in transition from residential to business uses are most often targeted by criminals. Such communities often have disorganized social networks that foster a weaker sense of social standards. Another social-structural approach is the conflict school of criminology. It traces its roots to Marxist theories that saw crime as ultimately a product of conflict between different classes under the system of capitalism. Criminology conflict theory suggests that the laws of society emerge out of conflict rather than out of consensus. It holds that laws are made by the group that is in power, to control those who are not in power. Conflict theorists propose, as do other theorists, that those who commit crimes are not fundamentally different from the rest of the population. They call the idea that society may be clearly divided into criminals and non criminals a dualistic fallacy, or a misguided notion. These theorists maintain, instead, that the determination of whether someone is a criminal or not often depends on the way society reacts to those who deviate from accepted norms. Many conflict theorists and others argue that minorities and poor people are more quickly labeled as criminals than are members of the majority and wealthy individuals. Critical criminology, also called radical criminology, shares with conflict criminology a debt to Marxism. It came into prominence in the early 1970s and attempted to explain contemporary social upheavals. Critical criminology relies on economic explanations of
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behavior and argues that economic and social inequalities cause criminal behavior. It focuses less on the study of individual criminals, and advances the belief that existing crime cannot be eliminated within the capitalist system. It also asserts, like the conflict school, that law has an inherent bias in favor of the upper or ruling class, and that the state and its legal system exist to advance the interests of the ruling class. Critical criminologists argue that corporate, political, and environmental crime are underreported and inadequately addressed in the current criminal justice system. Feminist criminology emphasizes the subordinate position of women in society. According to feminist criminologists, women remain in a position of inferiority that has not been fully rectified by changes in the law during the late twentieth century. Feminist criminology also explores the ways in which women's criminal behavior is related to their objectification as commodities in the sex industry. Others using the social-structural approach have studied Gangs, juvenile delinquency, and the relationship between family structure and criminal behavior.
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Calistrat Hogas Arts and Sciences High School 1.3 Social Process Criminology
Social-process criminology theories attempt to explain how people become criminals. These theories developed through recognition of the fact that not all people who are exposed to the same social-structural conditions become criminals. They focus on criminal behavior as learned behavior. Edwin H. Sutherland (18831950), a U.S. sociologist and criminologist who first presented his ideas in the 1920s and 1930s, advanced the theory of differential association to explain criminal behavior. He emphasized that criminal behavior is learned in interaction with others, usually in small groups, and that criminals learn to favor criminal behavior over noncriminal behavior through association with both forms of behavior in different degrees. As Sutherland wrote, "When persons become criminal, they do so because of contacts with criminal patterns and also because of isolation from anti criminal patterns." Although his theory has been greatly influential, Sutherland himself admitted that it did not satisfactorily explain all criminal behavior. Later theorists have modified his approach in an attempt to correct its shortcomings. Control theory, developed in the 1960s and 1970s, attempts to explain ways to train people to engage in law-abiding behavior. Although there are different approaches within control theory, they share the view that humans require nurturing in order to develop attachments or bonds to people and that, personal bonds are key in producing internal controls such as conscience and guilt and external controls such as shame. According to this view, crime is the result of insufficient attachment and commitment to others. Walter C. Reckless developed one version of control theory, called containment. He argued that a combination of internal psychological containments and external social containments prevents people from deviating from social norms. In simple communities, social pressure to conform to community standards, usually enforced by social ostracism, was sufficient to control behavior. As societies became more complex, internal containments played a more crucial role in determining whether people behaved according to public laws. Furthermore, containment theorists have found that internal containments require a positive self-image. All too often, a sense of alienation from society and its norms forms in modern individuals, who, as a result, do not develop internal containment mechanisms.
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The sociologist Travis Hirsch has developed his own control theory that attempts to explain conforming, or lawful, rather than deviant, or unlawful, behavior. He stresses the importance of the individual's bond to society in determining conforming behavior. His research has found that socioeconomic class has little to do with determining delinquent behavior, and that young people who are not very attached to their parents or to school are more likely to be delinquent than those who are strongly attached. He also found that youths who have a strongly positive view of their own accomplishments are more likely to view society's laws as valid constraints on their behavior.
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Chapter II : Theories of Crime
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2.1 Social Structure Theories
Social structure theories assert that the disadvantaged economic class position is a primary cause of crime. The theories state that neighborhoods which are lower class create forces of strain, frustration and disorganization that create crime. These theories have certain truths in regards to resources and certain peoples experiences. However the theories also have certain disparities. General strain theory, for example had to be revised in 2004 to better ascertain the research methods in which data was obtained. (Stephen W Baron. Criminology. Beverly Hills: May 2004. Vol. 42, Is. 2; p. 457) When you look at the theory, the strains might not necessarily come from peoples frustrations with acquiring The American Dream, but rather a mixture in strains such as homelessness, abuse and neglect, subcultures, deviant values and frustrations about poverty. Meaning, there might be more than one factor in play when a person is influenced to commit a crime by interacting within an imposed economic class. A person might encounter one of these factors by themselves and not decide to succumb to peer pressure or let his/her abuse trauma lead them to a life of crime. A person might face poverty but have enough resilience through family values to make a choice of lawful actions. Some aspects of these theories seem a bit outdated because there have been many community initiatives that promote culture pride and community involvement in the disadvantage neighborhoods which are not being accounted for in the theories. But even more disturbing is how Institutional Anomie is focusing on the individuals choice to leave their neighborhoods without considering the disruptions as if there were any choice in the matter. Quote: People think nothing of leaving
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Anyone who has the experience of immigration would disagree with this kind of portrayal. Family and community distance has a distinct expression in the Latino community. We think everything and still have no choice but to leave, would be a more appropriate choice of words in this particular scenario. The theories are addressing factors and events in our neighborhoods that need constant attention, such as the choice to form gangs, drug trafficking (to a certain extent) and counter-cultures. However, there are as many forces that counter these crime inspiring situations as there are ones who may potentially foster it. The conditions of lower class neighborhoods are more diverse and in the gray area than some of the theories vocabulary have taken into account.
2.2 Social disorganization ( neighborhoods)
In sociology, the Social disorganization theory was one of the most important theories developed by the Chicago School, related to ecological theories. Social disorganization theory: linking (directly) low crime rates to neighborhood ecological characteristics, youths from disadvantaged neighborhoods were participants in a subculture in which delinquency was approved behavior and that criminality was acquired in social and cultural settings through a process of interaction. A core principle of social disorganization theory is that place mattersi.e., one's residential locationas much or more than one's individual characteristics (age, gender, race) in shaping the likelihood that a person will become involved in illegal activities. The theory is not intended to apply to all types of crime, but instead to street crime at the neighborhood level. The theory has not been used to explain organized crime, corporate crime, or deviant behavior that takes place outside neighborhood settings. Up to the
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beginning of seventies, this theory took a back seat to the psychological explanation of crime. A recent overview of social disorganization theory, including suggestions for refining and extending the theory, is a journal article by Kubrin and Weitzer (2003).
Thomas and Znaniecki (19181920) introduced the idea that a person's thinking processes and attitudes are constructed by the interaction between that person's situation and his or her behavior. Attitudes are not innate but stem from a process of acculturation. Any proposed action will have social importance to an individual both because it relates to the objective situation within which the subject has to act, and because it has been shaped by attitudes formed through a lifetime of social and cultural experiences. This is based on the "four wishes" of the Thomas theorem, viz., "If men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences". These four wishes are the desire for new experiences, the desire for recognition, the desire for domination, and the desire for security. Combined with the cultural values of a pre-existing situation, the four wishes give rise to certain attitudes which are subjectively defined meanings and shared experience, strongly emphasized and embodied in specific institutions. The root of new attitudes arises from the formation of new relationships and interaction between the person and the world outside the community. For example, the emergence of economics as an independent sphere reflected the tendency to reduce quality to a quantity in barter transactions and led to the development of money.
Edwin Sutherland Sutherland adopted the concept of social disorganization to explain the increases in crime that accompanied the transformation of preliterate and peasant societies where "influences surrounding a person were steady, uniform, harmonious and consistent" to modern Western civilization which he believed was characterized by inconsistency, conflict and un-organization (1934: 64). He also believed that the mobility, economic competition and an individualistic ideology that accompanied capitalist and industrial development had been responsible for the disintegration of the large family and homogeneous neighborhoods as agents of social control. The failure of extended kin groups expanded the realm of relationships no longer controlled by the community and undermined governmental controls leading to persistent "systematic" crime and
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delinquency. He also believed that such disorganization causes and reinforces the cultural traditions and cultural conflicts that support antisocial activity. The systematic quality of the behavior was a reference to repetitive, patterned or organized offending as opposed to random events. He depicted the law-abiding culture as dominant and more extensive than alternative criminogenic cultural views and capable of overcoming systematic crime if organized for that purpose (1939: 8). But because society is organized around individual and small group interests, society permits crime to persist. Sutherland concluded that if the society is organized with reference to the values expressed in the law, the crime is eliminated; if it is not organized, crime persists and develops (1939:8). In later works, he switched from the concept of social disorganization to differential social organization to convey the complexity of overlapping and conflicting levels of organization in a society.
Robert E. Lee Faris Faris (1955) extended the concept of social disorganization to explain social pathologies and social problems in general, including crime, suicide, mental illness, and mob violence. Defining organization as definite and enduring patterns of complementary relations (1955: 3), he defined social disorganization as the weakening or destruction of the relationships which hold together a social organization (1955: 81). Such a concept was to be employed objectively as a measurable state of a social system, independent of personal approval or disapproval. When applied to crime, Faris' central proposition was that, "A crime rate is ...a reflection of the degree of disorganization of the control mechanisms in a society." In turn, crime also contributes to disorganization, and disorganization of such conventional mechanisms is especially likely in large, rapidly growing industrial cities where such disorganization permits highly organized criminality as well as less organized forms of group and individual crime and delinquency.
Robert J. Sampson Sampson (1993) claims that any theory of crime must begin with the fact that most violent criminals belonged to teenage peer-groups, particularly street gangs, and that a gang member will become a full-time criminal if social controls are insufficient to
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address delinquent behavior at an early age. He follows Shaw and McKay (1969) in accepting that if the family and relatives offer inadequate supervision or incomplete socialization, children from broken families are more likely to join violent gangs unless others take the parents' place. But, even children from unstable families are less likely to be influenced by peer groups in a community where most family units are intact. Tightknit communities are more likely to identify strangers, report deviants to their parents, and pass warnings along. High rates of residential mobility and high-rise housing disrupt the ability to establish and maintain social ties. Formal organizations like schools, church, and the police act as surrogates for family and friends in many communities, but poor, unstable communities often lack the organization and political connections to obtain resources for fighting crime and offering young people an alternative to deviant behavior. Sampson concludes that "the empirical data suggest that the structural elements of social disorganization have relevance for explaining macro level variations in violence." Social disorganization may also produce crime by isolating communities from the mainstream culture. Sampson and Wilson (1995) proposed a theory of race and urban inequality to explain the disproportionate representation of African Americans as victims and offenders in violent crime. The basic idea proposed was that community-level patterns of racial inequality give rise to the social isolation and ecological concentration of the truly disadvantaged, which in turn leads to structural barriers and cultural adaptations that undermine social organization and ultimately the control of crime. Sampson and Wilson (1995) pursued this logic to argue that the community-level causes of violence are the same for both whites and blacks, but that racial segregation by community differentially exposes members of minority groups to key violence-inducing and violence-protecting social mechanisms, thereby explaining black-white disparities in violence. Their thesis has come to be known as "racial invariance" in the fundamental causes of crime.
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2.3 Social ecology
Social ecology is a philosophy developed by Murray Bookchin in the 1960s. It holds that present ecological problems are rooted in deep-seated social problems, particularly in domination hierarchical political and social systems. These have resulted in an uncritical acceptance of an overly competitive grow-or-die philosophy. It suggests that this cannot be resisted by individual action such as ethical consumerism but must be addressed by more nuanced ethical thinking and collective activity grounded in radical democratic ideals. The complexity of relationships between people and nature is emphasized, along with the importance of establishing more mutualistic social structures that take account of this.
The philosophy's "social" component comes from its position that nearly all of the world's ecological problems arise from deep-seated social problems. Conversely, social ecologists maintain, present ecological problems cannot be clearly understood, much less resolved, without resolutely dealing with problems within society. They argue that apart from those produced by natural catastrophes, the most serious ecological dislocations of the 20th and 21st centuries have as their cause economic, ethnic, cultural, and gender conflicts, among many others. Social ecology is associated with the ideas and works of Murray Bookchin, who had written on such matters from the 1950s until his death, and, from the 1960s, had combined these issues with revolutionary social anarchism. His works include PostScarcity Anarchism, Toward an Ecological Society, The Ecology of Freedom, and a host of others. Social ecology locates the roots of the ecological crisis firmly in relations of domination between people. In the framework of social ecology, "the very notion of the domination of nature by man stems from the very real domination of human by human." While the domination of nature is seen as a product of domination within society, this domination only reaches crisis proportions under capitalism. In the words of Bookchin:
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The notion that man must dominate nature emerges directly from the domination of man by man But it was not until organic community relation dissolved into market relationships that the planet itself was reduced to a resource for exploitation. This centuries-long tendency finds its most exacerbating development in modern capitalism. Owing to its inherently competitive nature, bourgeois society not only pits humans against each other, it also pits the mass of humanity against the natural world. Just as men are converted into commodities, so every aspect of nature is converted into a commodity, a resource to be manufactured and merchandised wantonly. The plundering of the human spirit by the market place is paralleled by the plundering of the earth by capital. Beginning in 1995, Bookchin became increasingly critical of anarchism, and in 1999 took a decisive stand against anarchist ideology. He had come to recognize social ecology as a genuinely new form of libertarian socialism, and positioned its politics firmly in the framework of a new political ideology which he called Communalism. Since the founding of Social Ecology its evolution has been considerable. Now it is involved in research and instruction and Is informed by and contributes to knowledge in the social, behavioral, legal, environmental, and health sciences. Social Ecology faculty apply scientific methods to the study of a wide array of recurring social, behavioral, and environmental problems. Among issues of long-standing interest in the School are crime and justice in society, social influences on human development over the life cycle, and the effects of the physical environment on health and human behavior. While the field of ecology focuses on the relationships between organisms and their environments, social ecology is concerned with the relationships between human populations and their environments.
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2.4 Strain theory
In criminology the strain theory states that social structures within society may pressure citizens to commit crime. Following on the work of mile Durkheim, Strain Theories have been advanced by Robert King Merton (1938), Albert K. Cohen (1955), Richard Cloward and Lloyd Ohlin (1960), Robert Agnew (1992), and Steven Messner and Richard Rosenfeld (1994). Strain may be either:
Structural: this refers to the processes at the societal level which filter down and affect how the individual perceives his or her needs, i.e. if particular social structures are inherently inadequate or there is inadequate regulation, this may change the individual's perceptions as to means and opportunities; or
Individual: this refers to the frictions and pains experienced by an individual as he or she looks for ways to satisfy his or her needs, i.e. if the goals of a society become significant to an individual, actually achieving them may become more important than the means adopted.
Strain/Anomie Theory Robert Merton The very definition of the word strain can be used to help understand strain theory. According to Websters dictionary strain (in the form of a verb) means to be subjected to tension or stress; to suffer strain. In the form of a noun, strain is known as a great or excessive effort or striving after some goal, object, or effect. Thus, it is rational to grasp how strain theory insinuates that social structures within society may ultimately pressure citizens to commit crime. Like many sociological theories of crime, Robert Mertons strain/anomie theory has advanced following the work of Emile Durkheim. In Mertons theory anomie is very similar to the very meaning of the word strain, as he proposed anomie to be a situation in which societies inadvertently bring to bear pressure, or strain,
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on individuals that can lead to rule-breaking behavior. This pressure, or strain if you will, is caused by the discrepancy between culturally defined goals and the institutionalized means available to achieve these goals. To illustrate this Merton argues that the dominant cultural goal in the U.S is the acquisition of wealth, as a message was depicted that happiness often equated with material success which is often associated with wealth. The socially accepted institutionalized manner of achieving these material goals was believed to be hard work and education, meaning it is widely believed that people who apply themselves to study and work will succeed financially and that those who do not succeed are labeled as either lazy or defective. According to Merton, the problem with this type of society is that the legitimate means for achieving material success are not uniformly distributed. In other words, those from wealthier backgrounds have considerably more access to legitimate means than do those who are economically disadvantaged. As a consequence, anomie, or strain, is generated and produces certain modes of adaptation, or (simply put) coping strategies, that the disadvantaged use to deal with the pressures that are brought to bear on them. Merton identifies five modes of adaptation: conformity, innovation, ritualism, and rebellion. According to Merton, the innovator is the most likely to engage in criminal behavior, as the innovator accepts the socially recognized goals of society, but reject the legitimate means to achieve these goals. Consequently, the innovator uses proceeds from crimes such as fraud, theft, and illegal drug dealing to access culturally defined goals. Critique of Strain/Anomie theory Although Mertons Strain theory continues to play a role in the sociological theorization of crime today, there are limitations to this theory of crime that have been identified. The first critique of this theory, put forth by Albert Cohen, addressed the fact that there is an ample amount of crime/delinquent behavior that is non-utilitarian, malicious, and negativistic (OGrady, 2011), which highlights that not all crimes are explicable using Mertons theory. Although Merton could explain crimes such as fraud and theft on the basis of innovation, he is unable to explain youth crimes that are often engaged in for social status rather than material acquisition. Furthermore, Strain/Anomie theory fails to adequately address issues such as race and gender. Additionally, Strain/Anomie theory is unable to explain the phenomena of white collar crime. Robert Agnew In 1992, Robert Agnew asserted that strain theory could be central in explaining crime and deviance, but that it needed revision so that it was not tied to social class or cultural variables, but re-focused on norms. To this end, Agnew proposed a general strain theory that is neither structural nor interpersonal but rather individual and emotional, paying especial attention to an individual's immediate social environment. He argued that an
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individual's actual or anticipated failure to achieve positively valued goals, actual or anticipated removal of positively valued stimuli, and actual or anticipated presentation of negative stimuli all result in strain. Anger and frustration confirm negative relationships. The resulting behavior patterns will often be characterized by more than their share of unilateral action because an individual will be a natural desire to avoid unpleasant rejections, and these unilateral actions (especially when antisocial) will further contribute to an individual's alienation from society. If particular rejections are generalized into feelings that the environment is unsupportive, more strongly negative emotions may motivate the individual to engage in crime. This is most likely to be true for younger individuals, and Agnew suggested that research focus on the magnitude, regency, duration, and clustering of such strain-related events to determine whether a person copes with strain in a criminal or conforming manner. Temperament, intelligence, interpersonal skills, self-efficacy, the presence of conventional social support, and the absence of association with antisocial (e.g., criminally inclined) age and status peers are chief among the factors Agnew identified as beneficial. Up to this point, strain theory had been concerned with types of strain rather than sources of strain whereas the stress of events can be shown to interfere with the achievement of natural expectations or just and fair outcomes. These may be significant events or minor "hassles" that accumulate and demoralize over time. Frustration leads to dissatisfaction, resentment, and anger all the emotions customarily associated with strain in criminology. It is natural for individuals to feel distress when they are denied just rewards for their efforts when compared to the efforts and rewards given to similar others for similar outcomes. Agnew (1992) treats anger as the most critical emotion since it is almost always directed outwards and is often related to breakdowns in relationships. Research shows that the stress/crime relationship appears to hold regardless of guilt feelings, age, and capacity to cope when events occur simultaneously or in close succession.
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2.5 Subcultural theory
In criminology, subcultural theory emerged from the work of the Chicago School on gangs and developed through the symbolic interactionism school into a set of theories arguing that certain groups or subcultures in society have values and attitudes that are conducive to crime and violence. The primary focus is on juvenile delinquency because theorists believe that if this pattern of offending can be understood and controlled, it will break the transition from teenage offender into habitual criminal. Some of the theories are functionalist assuming that criminal activity is motivated by economic needs, while others posit a social class rationale for deviance.
Culture represents the norms, customs and values which both guide behavior and act as a framework from which behavior is judged by the majority. It is transmitted socially rather than biologically. A subculture is a distinctive culture within a culture, so its norms and values differ from the majority culture but do not necessarily represent a culture deemed deviant by the majority. A subculture is distinguished from a counterculture which operates in direct opposition to the majority culture. Cultural Transmission Theory and Social Disorganization Theory posit that, in the poorest zones of a city, certain forms of behavior become the cultural norm transmitted from one generation to the next, as part of the normal socialization process. Successful criminals are role models for the young, demonstrating both the possibilities of success through crime, and its normality. See Shaw (1930) who describes the social pressure to engage in criminality. Sub cultural Theory proposes that those living in an urban setting are able to find ways of creating a sense of community despite the prevailing alienation and anonymity. The cultural structure is dominated by the majority norms, which forces individuals to form communities in new and different ways. More recently, Fischer (1995) proposed that the size, population, and heterogeneity of cities actually strengthens social groups, and encourages the formation of subcultures, which are much more diverse in nature compared to the general culture. Fischer defines a subculture as, "...a large set of people who share a defining trait, associate with one another, are members of institutions associated with their defining trait, adhere to a distinct set of values, share a set of cultural tools and take part in a common way of life" (Fischer: 544). In less densely populated and less diverse environments, the creation of such subcultures would be
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nearly impossible. But ethnic minorities, professionals, the artistic avant-garde, displaced agricultural families, etc. come to live in cities and their lifestyles come to typify cities. Albert K. Cohen (1955) did not look at the economically oriented career criminal, but looked at the delinquency subculture, focusing on gang delinquency among working class youth in slum areas which developed a distinctive culture as a response to their perceived lack of economic and social opportunity within U.S. society. He was a student of Edwin Sutherland (Differential Association Theory and Social Transmission Theory) and Merton's (Strain Theory). The features of this subculture were:
anti-utilitarian: in many cases, there was no profit motive in thefts or other crimes. The main intention was to foster peer bonding through sharing the experience of breaking the laws. collective reaction formation: the gang inverted the values of the majority culture, deliberately pursuing the mirror image of the American Dream. malice: many acts of vandalism and property damage were motivated by spite, contempt, and personal intention to injure. short-termism: the gang lived for the moment, looking for instant gratification. group autonomy: everything was aimed at consolidating group loyalty.
Cohen (1958) explained this in terms similar to Strain Theory, (i.e. as a form of rebellion) in that education taught the young to strive for social status through academic achievement but, when most of the working class failed, this promoted "status frustration" or reaction formation, inverting middle-class values to strike back at the system that had let them down. Middle class values stress independence, success, academic achievement, delayed gratification, control of aggression, and respect for property. Lower class parents encourage different values in their children (i.e. different socialization). In lower class families ambition and planning must give way to pressing issues of the moment. They depend more on others, and have more of a group orientation, watching each others backs.
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2.6 Control theories
Control theory is an interdisciplinary branch of engineering and mathematics that deals with the behavior of dynamical systems. The external input of a system is called the reference. When one or more output variables of a system need to follow a certain reference over time, a controller manipulates the inputs to a system to obtain the desired effect on the output of the system. The usual objective of a control theory is to calculate solutions for the proper corrective action from the controller that result in system stability, that is, the system will hold the set point and not oscillate around it. The inputs and outputs of a continuous control system are generally related by nonlinear differential equations. A transfer function can sometimes be obtained by 1. Finding a solution of the nonlinear differential equations, 2. Linearizing the nonlinear differential equations at the resulting solution (i.e. trim point), 3. Finding the Laplace Transform of the resulting linear differential equations, and 4. Solving for the outputs in terms of the inputs in the Laplace domain. The transfer function is also known as the system function or network function. The transfer function is a mathematical representation, in terms of spatial or temporal frequency, of the relation between the input and output of a linear time-invariant solution of the nonlinear differential equations describing the system. Extensive use is usually made of a diagrammatic style known as the block diagram. Control theory is

a theory that deals with influencing the behavior of dynamical systems an interdisciplinary subfield of science, which originated in engineering and mathematics, and evolved into use by the social sciences, like psychology, sociology, criminology and in the financial system.
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Control systems can be thought of as having four functions; Measure, Compare, Compute, and Correct. These four functions are completed by five elements; Detector, Transducer, Transmitter, Controller, and Final Control Element. The measuring function is completed by the detector, transducer and transmitter. In practical applications these three elements are typically contained in one unit. A standard example is a Resistance thermometer. The compare and compute functions are completed within the controller which may be completed electronically through a Proportional Control, PI Controller, PID Controller, Bitable, Hysteretic control or Programmable logic controller. The correct function is completed with a final control element. The final control element changes an input or output in the control system which affect the manipulated or controlled variable.
Classical control theory To avoid the problems of the open-loop controller, control theory introduces feedback. A closed-loop controller uses feedback to control states or outputs of a dynamical system. Its name comes from the information path in the system: process inputs (e.g., voltage applied to an electric motor) have an effect on the process outputs (e.g., speed or torque of the motor), which is measured with sensors and processed by the controller; the result (the control signal) is used as input to the process, closing the loop. Closed-loop controllers have the following advantages over open-loop controllers:

disturbance rejection (such as unmeasured friction in a motor) guaranteed performance even with model uncertainties, when the model structure does not match perfectly the real process and the model parameters are not exact unstable processes can be stabilized reduced sensitivity to parameter variations improved reference tracking performance
In some systems, closed-loop and open-loop control are used simultaneously. In such systems, the open-loop control is termed feed forward and serves to further improve reference tracking performance.
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Modern control theory

In contrast to the frequency domain analysis of the classical control theory, modern control theory utilizes the time-domain state space representation, a mathematical model of a physical system as a set of input, output and state variables related by first-order differential equations. To abstract from the number of inputs, outputs and states, the variables are expressed as vectors and the differential and algebraic equations are written in matrix form (the latter only being possible when the dynamical system is linear). The state space representation (also known as the "time-domain approach") provides a convenient and compact way to model and analyze systems with multiple inputs and outputs. With inputs and outputs, we would otherwise have to write down Laplace transforms to encode all the information about a system. Unlike the frequency domain approach, the use of the state space representation is not limited to systems with linear components and zero initial conditions. "State space" refers to the space whose axes are the state variables. The state of the system can be represented as a vector within that space.
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Chapter III : Contemporary cultural and critical criminology
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3.1 Individual theories
Today's cultural and critical criminologists define themselves through their opposition to positivism, which reduces complex emotional and communicative human beings to statistics, and to rational choice-inspired theories, which they perceive to rest on an ontologically simplistic conception of human beings as hedonistic opportunists whose behavior can be manipulated by adjustments of costs, benefits, opportunities and technologies of control. Early romantic accounts of crime/delinquency as a form of seduction or proto-political resistance to the powerlessness and dull monotony of working life are now being challenged by late-modern hybrid theories. These theories examine the ways in which criminals are incorporated into consumerism's value-system and fantasies, as argued by Robert Reiner in his book Law and Order, yet initially excluded in their economic and social lives. Combining elements of strain theory with cultural theory and symbolic interactionism, Jock Young, in The Exclusive Society, uses the metaphor of bulimia to depict the tense opposition between inclusion and exclusion. Simon Hallsworth and Keith Hayward adopt a similar approach in their respective works Street Crime and City Limits. In further work Hayward reintroduces the Freudian term 'narcissism' to explain the insecure yet aggressive, acquisitive sentiments and motivations behind criminality. In Criminal Identities and Consumer Culture, Steve Hall, Simon Winlow and Craig Ancrum draw upon Continental philosophy and Lacanian psychoanalysis to take late-modern hybrid theories to a new level of sophistication as they explain how the dynamic tension between inclusion and exclusion prolongs the narcissistic subject throughout the lifecourse in an aggressive struggle for identities of social distinction expressed by the acquisition and display of consumer culture's status-symbols.
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When it comes to understanding the theories behind connections between crimes and individuals or the community, many people may not realize that the beliefs that differentiate the theories are not as complex as they may seem at first. By simplifying the core of the theories, individuals are able to more properly understand the different theories that can help individuals to identify the theory that they most identify with when considering the interactions of crime and society. Once the foundation of the theories are understood, it is much easier to build upon the theory by including some of the more complex ideas supported by the theory. A number of theories exist, and many are being created daily on the part of individuals. However, there are a few theories that are more common and widely held as beliefs than other theories may be. There are social structure theories, or those theories that the status and construction of the social setting will define the likelihood and amount of crime in the area. Individuals that are exposed to poverty and other signs of social deterioration are believed to be more prone to crimes and acts of violence. There are other specific social theories that believe crime is perpetuated by the inequality that exists within the social structure that is established. When people are unable to achieve that which society expects of them, such as the American Dream, these individuals turn to crime to try to realize this dream. Individual theories exist in order to explain criminology within a society. Trait theories are those based on scientific knowledge of the human body and how chemicals and genetic material will determine or alter how an individual responds to stimuli. Aggressive behavior and antisocial tendencies are just some of the many personality traits of individuals that are involved in crime, and the links to genetics, hormones and other biological factors are currently being studied. Some theories stop looking at what encourages an individual to become corrupt, and instead focus on the effects of society to explain how and why some people are able to lead productive and admirable lives. These theories are commonly referred to as control or social control theories. In an example, it is illustrated that an individual that has a greater degree of self control will be able to wait patiently while attaining their dream or goal instead of using possibly degenerate means in order to gain immediate access to their desire. Symbolic interaction as a theory examines the relationship of the powerful, ruling class and those that are less powerful. By integrating themselves into the belief that they were less powerful, youths that were looked down on played up to the role designated to them. It represents a self-fulfilling prophecy of sorts since the youths are taking the more powerful group at their word and transferring the definition onto themselves as criminals.
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When it comes to understanding the theories behind connections between crimes and individuals or the community, many people may not realize that the beliefs that differentiate the theories are not as complex as they may seem at first. By simplifying the core of the theories, individuals are able to more properly understand the different theories that can help individuals to identify the theory that they most identify with when considering the interactions of crime and society. Once the foundation of the theories are understood, it is much easier to build upon the theory by including some of the more complex ideas supported by the theory. A number of theories exist, and many are being created daily on the part of individuals. However, there are a few theories that are more common and widely held as beliefs than other theories may be. There are social structure theories, or those theories that the status and construction of the social setting will define the likelihood and amount of crime in the area. Individuals that are exposed to poverty and other signs of social deterioration are believed to be more prone to crimes and acts of violence. There are other specific social theories that believe crime is perpetuated by the inequality that exists within the social structure that is established. When people are unable to achieve that which society expects of them, such as the American Dream, these individuals turn to crime to try to realize this dream. Individual theories exist in order to explain criminology within a society. Trait theories are those based on scientific knowledge of the human body and how chemicals and genetic material will determine or alter how an individual responds to stimuli. Aggressive behavior and antisocial tendencies are just some of the many personality traits of individuals that are involved in crime, and the links to genetics, hormones and other biological factors are currently being studied. Some theories stop looking at what encourages an individual to become corrupt, and instead focus on the effects of society to explain how and why some people are able to lead productive and admirable lives. These theories are commonly referred to as control or social control theories. In an example, it is illustrated that an individual that has a greater degree of self control will be able to wait patiently while attaining their dream or goal instead of using possibly degenerate means in order to gain immediate access to their desire. Symbolic interaction as a theory examines the relationship of the powerful, ruling class and those that are less powerful. By integrating themselves into the belief that they were less powerful, youths that were looked down on played up to the role designated to them. It represents a self-fulfilling prophecy of sorts since the youths are taking the more powerful group at their word and transferring the definition onto themselves as criminals.
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3.2 Trait theories
Trait theory in psychology, is an approach to the study of human personality. Trait theorists are primarily interested in the measurement of traits, which can be defined as habitual patterns of behavior, thought, and emotion. According to this perspective, traits are relatively stable over time, differ across individuals (e.g. some people are outgoing whereas others are shy), and influence behavior. Gordon Allport was an early pioneer in the study of traits, which he sometimes referred to as dispositions. In his approach, central traits are basic to an individual's personality, whereas secondary traits are more peripheral. Common traits are those recognized within a culture and may vary between cultures. Cardinal traits are those by which an individual may be strongly recognized. Since Allport's time, trait theorists have focused more on group statistics than on single individuals. Allport called these two emphases "nomothetic" and "idiographic," respectively. There is a nearly unlimited number of potential traits that could be used to describe personality. The statistical technique of factor analysis, however, has demonstrated that particular clusters of traits reliably correlate together. Hans Eysenck has suggested that personality is reducible to three major traits. Other researchers argue that more factors are needed to adequately describe human personality including humor, wealth and beauty. Many psychologists currently believe that five factors are sufficient. Virtually all trait models, and even ancient Greek philosophy, include extraversion vs. introversion as a central dimension of human personality. Another prominent trait that is found in nearly all models is Neuroticism, or emotional instability.
Trait theory is also useful in marketing for discovering more information about consumer behavior. As stated before, personality traits are identifiable characteristics that define a person. When regarding consumer behavior, marketers use quantitative measurement of these personality traits to discover more about their consumers, including why they make their purchases. The five main traits that are relevant to consumer behavior include: innovativeness, materialism, self-consciousness, need for cognition, and frugality. Innovativeness is the tendency to first buy new products, this is product category specific. For example, some 37 | P a g e

individuals may always be first in line to consistently buy the latest Apple product that is released. Materialism is when individuals focus on buying and owning products, not just about spending money, but they focus on the material. The appeal of having "stuff" is greater than simply spending the money on it. The third trait is self-consciousness, or when individuals care more about the things that will be seen in public, for example, shoes and makeup. The need for cognition is aimed at consumers who need to think and want to have more information. The last trait is frugality. Being frugal is not necessarily paying the least, but making sure that the product is used resourcefully. These individuals want to use their product to the end of its life. These consumers tend to deny short term purchases and just make due. Mixed success has been seen when using this method to predict product choices using the standard personality trait quantitative measurements. The scales are not valid or reliable since each person may have a different idea for what each trait is or what it really means and there is really no thought of scale application. Constant ad hoc instrument changes also severely affect the accuracy of this method.
Both approaches extensively use self-report questionnaires. The factors are intended to be orthogonal (uncorrelated), though there are often small positive correlations between factors. The five factor model in particular has been criticized for losing the orthogonal structure between factors..Hans Eysenck has argued that fewer factors are superior to a larger number of partly related ones. Although these two approaches are comparable because of the use of factor analysis to construct hierarchical taxonomies, they differ in the organization and number of factors. Whatever the causes, however, psychoticism marks the two approaches apart, as the five factor model contains no such trait. Moreover, psychoticism, unlike any of the other factors in either approach, does not fit a normal distribution curve. Indeed, scores are rarely high, thus skewing a normal distribution. However, when they are high, there is considerable overlap with psychiatric conditions such as antisocial and schizoid personality disorders. Similarly, high scorers on neuroticism are more susceptible to sleep and psychosomatic disorders. Five factor approaches can also predict future mental disorders.
Although both major trait models are descriptive, only the three-factor model offers a detailed causal explanation. Eysenck suggests that different personality traits are caused by the properties of the brain, which themselves are the result of genetic factors. In particular, the three-factor model identifies the reticular system and the limbic system in the brain as key components that mediate cortical arousal and emotional responses respectively. Eysenck advocates that extraverts have low levels of cortical arousal and
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introverts have high levels, leading extraverts to seek out more stimulation from socializing and being venturesome. Moreover, Eysenck surmised that there would be an optimal level of arousal, after which inhibition would occur and that this would be different for each person. In a similar vein, the three-factor approach theorizes that neuroticism is mediated by levels of arousal in the limbic system and that individual differences arise because of variable activation thresholds between people. Therefore, highly neurotic people when presented with minor stressors, will exceed this threshold, whereas people low in neuroticism will not exceed normal activation levels, even when presented with large stressors. By contrast, proponents of the five-factor approach assume a role of genetics and environment but offer no explicit causal explanation. Given this emphasis on biology in the three-factor approach, it would be expected that the third trait, psychoticism, would have a similar explanation. However, the causal properties of this state are not well defined. Eysenck has suggested that psychoticism is related to testosterone levels and is an inverse function of the serotonergic system, but he later revised this, linking it instead to the dopaminergic system.
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3.3 Rational choice theory
Rational choice theory, also known as choice theory or rational action theory is a framework for understanding and often formally modeling social and economic behavior. It is the main theoretical paradigm in the currently-dominant school of microeconomics. Rationality (here equated with "wanting more rather than less of a good") is widely used as an assumption of the behavior of individuals in microeconomic models and analysis and appears in almost all economics textbook treatments of human decision-making. It is also central to some of modern political science and is used by some scholars in other disciplines such as sociology and philosophy. It is the same as instrumental rationality, which involves seeking the most cost-effective means to achieve a specific goal without reflecting on the worthiness of that goal. Gary Becker was an early proponent of applying rational actor models more widely. He won the 1992 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for his studies of discrimination, crime, and human capital. The "rationality" described by rational choice theory is different from the colloquial and most philosophical use of the word. For most people, "rationality" means "sane," "in a thoughtful clear-headed manner," or knowing and doing what's healthy in the long term. Rational choice theory uses a specific and narrower definition of "rationality" simply to mean that an individual acts as if balancing costs against benefits to arrive at action that maximizes personal advantage. For example, this may involve kissing someone, cheating on a test, buying a new dress, or committing murder. In rational choice theory, all decisions, crazy or sane, are postulated as mimicking such a "rational" process. Thus rationality is seen as a property of patterns of choices, rather than of individual choices: there is nothing irrational in preferring fish to meat only first time, but there is something irrational in preferring fish to meat and preferring meat to fish, regularly. The practitioners of strict rational choice theory never investigate the origins, nature, or validity of human motivations (why we want what we want) but instead restrict themselves to examining the expression of given and inexplicable wants in specific social
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or economic environments. That is, they do not examine the biological, psychological, and sociological roots that make people see the benefits encouraging them to kiss another, cheat on a test, use cocaine, or murder someone. Instead, all that is relevant are the costs of doing sowhich for crimes, reflects the chance of being caught. In rational choice theory, these costs are only extrinsic or external to the individual rather than being intrinsic or internal. That is, strict rational choice theory would not see a criminal's self-punishment by inner feelings of remorse, guilt, or shame as relevant to determining the costs of committing a crime. In general, rational choice theory does not address the role of an individual's sense of morals or ethics in decision-making. Thus, economics Novelist, Amartya Sen sees the model of people who follow rational choice model as "rational fools." Because rational choice theory lacks understanding of consumer motivation, some economists restrict its use to understanding business behavior where goals are usually very clear. As Armen Alchian points out, competition in the market encourages businesses to maximize profits (in order to survive). Because that goal is significantly less vacuous than "maximizing utility" and the like, rational choice theory is apt. Although models used in rational choice theory are diverse, all assume individuals choose the best action according to unchanging and stable preference functions and constraints facing them. Most models have additional assumptions. Those proponents of rational choice models associated with the Chicago school of economics do not claim that a model's assumptions are a full description of reality, only that good models can aid reasoning and provide help in formulating falsifiable hypothesis, whether intuitive or not. In this view, the only way to judge the success of hypothesis is empirical tests. To use an example from Milton Friedman, if a theory that says that the behavior of the leaves of a tree is explained by their rationality passes the empirical test, it is seen as successful.
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However, it may not be possible to empirically test or falsify the rationality assumption, so that the theory leans heavily toward being a tautology (true by definition) since there is no effort to explain individual goals. Nonetheless, empirical tests can be conducted on some of the results derived from the models. In recent years the theoretical vision of rational choice theory has been subject to more and more doubt by the experimental results of behavioral economics. This criticism has encouraged many social scientists to utilize concepts of bounded rationality to replace the "absolute" rationality of rational choice theory: this points to the difficulties of data-processing and decision-making associated with many choices in economics, political science, and sociology. More economists these days are learning from other fields, such as psychology, in order to get a more accurate view of human decision-making than offered by rational choice theory. For example, the behavioral economist and experimental psychologist Daniel Kahneman won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 2002 for his work in this field. Because of the relative success of economics at understanding markets, rational choice theory has also become increasingly employed in social sciences other than economics, such as sociology and political science in recent decades. It has had far-reaching impacts on the study of political science, especially in fields like the study of interest groups, elections, behavior in legislatures, coalitions, and bureaucracy. Models that rely on rational choice theory often adopt methodological individualism, the assumption that social situations or collective behaviors are the result of individual actions alone, with no role for larger institutions. The poor fit between this and sociological conception of social situations partially explains the theory's limited use in sociology. Among other things, sociology's emphasis on the determination of individual tastes and perspectives by social institutions conflicts with rational choice theory's assumption that our tastes and perspectives are given and inexplicable.
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3.4 Routine activity theory
Routine activity theory is a sub-field of rational choice and criminology, developed by Marcus Felson and Lawrence E. Cohen. Routine activity theory premise is that crime is relatively unaffected by social causes such as poverty, inequality, unemployment. For instance, after World War II, the economy of Western countries was booming and the Welfare states were expanding. During that time, crime rose significantly. According to Felson and Cohen, this is because the prosperity of contemporary society offers so much opportunities of crime: there is much more to steal. Routine activity theory is controversial among sociologists who believe in the social causes of crime. But several types of crime are very well explained by routine activity theory including copyright infringement, related to peer-to-peer file sharing, employee theft, and corporate crime. For crime to be committed, three aspects are needed: 1) A Motivated Offender 2) A Suitable Target 3) The Lack of a Capable Guardian Lack of a capable guardian can range to anything that would make a suitable target easier to victimize. From a person walking alone, to a poor police presence, to anyone else who would deter a motivated offender from offending in that circumstance. It should be noted that the guardian does not have to be a person at all, nor does the suitable target; there are many examples of objects and environmental designs that act as a guardians or security measures to deter motivated offenders as well. This branches into the realm of CPTED (crime prevention through environmental design) where seemingly small measures like
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the addition of lights, fences, better locks, open or visible areas and security cameras act as the capable guardian and can prevent crime against a suitable target, in this case a building, park or other areas. Furthermore, crimes rate if generally proportional to the number of motivated offenders, such as teenagers and unemployed people, in the population. Of course, motivation can be lowered when legitimate means are available for offenders to achieve their goals. Motivation can increase, when the option of crime is the only viable choice available for an offender to achieve their goals. Another deterrence that influences the routine activities that produces crime is the moral beliefs and socialization of the offender. If a person has been socialized to hold conventional beliefs, even in the presence of criminal opportunities, offenders would refrain from crime. Such is the strength of social bonds that serve as a buffer to counteract the lure of criminal activities.
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3.5 Types and definitions of crime
Crime is the breach of rules or laws for which some governing authority (via mechanisms such as legal systems) can ultimately prescribe a conviction. Crimes may also result in cautions or be unenforced. Individual human societies may each define crime and crimes differently, in different localities (state, local, international), at different time stages of the so-called "crime", from planning, disclosure, supposedly intended, supposedly prepared, incomplete, complete or future proclaimed after the "crime". While every crime violates the law, not every violation of the law counts as a crime; for example: breaches of contract and of other civil law may rank as "offences" or as "infractions". Modern societies generally regard crimes as offences against the public or the state, as distinguished from torts (wrongs against private parties that can give rise to a civil cause of action). When informal relationships and sanctions prove insufficient to establish and maintain a desired social order, a government or a state may impose more formalized or stricter systems of social control. With institutional and legal machinery at their disposal, agents of the State can compel populations to conform to codes and can opt to punish or attempt to reform those who do not conform. Authorities employ various mechanisms to regulate (encouraging or discouraging) certain behaviors in general. Governing or administering agencies may for example codify rules into laws, police citizens and visitors to ensure that they comply with those laws, and implement other policies and practices that legislators or administrators have prescribed with the aim of discouraging or preventing crime. In addition, authorities provide remedies and sanctions, and collectively these constitute a criminal justice system. Legal sanctions vary widely in their severity, they may include (for example) incarceration of temporary character aimed at reforming the convict. Some jurisdictions have penal codes written to inflict permanent harsh punishments: legal mutilation, capital punishment or life without parole.
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Usually a natural person perpetrates a crime, but legal persons may also commit crimes. Conversely, at least under U.S. Law, nonpersons such as animals cannot commit crimes. The sociologist Richard Quinney has written about the relationship between society and crime. When Quinney states "crime is a social phenomenon" he envisages both how individuals conceive crime and how populations perceive it, based on societal norms.
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3.6 Causes and correlates of crime
Many different causes and correlates of crime have been proposed with varying degree of empirical support. The causes of crime is one of the major research areas in criminology. A large number of narrow and broad theories have been proposed for explaining crime. The Handbook of Crime Correlates (2009) is a systematic review of worldwide empirical studies on crime publicized in the academic literature. The results of a total of 5200 studies are summarized. In order to identify well-established relationships to crime consistency scores were calculated for the factors which many studies have examined. The scoring depends on how consistent a statistically significant relationship was found in the studies. The authors argue that the review summaries most of what is currently known of variables associated with criminality. Crime is most frequent in second and third decades of life. Males commit more overall and violent crime. They also commit more property crime except shoplifting, which is about equally distributed between the genders. Males appear to be more likely to recidivate. Mesomorphic or muscular body type is positively correlated with criminality. Testosterone is positively correlated to criminality. Low monoamine oxides activity and low 5-HIAA levels are found among criminals. There is a relationship between race and crime. Many different theories have been proposed for the relationship between race and crime in the United States.
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Ethnically/racially diverse areas probably have higher crime rates compared to ethnically/racially homogeneous areas. Most studies on immigrants have found higher rates of crime. However, this varies greatly depending on the country of origin with immigrants from some regions having lower crime rates than the indigenous population
Higher total socioeconomic status (usually measured using the three variables income (or wealth), occupational level, and years of education) correlate with less crime. Longer education is associated with less crime. Higher income/wealth have a somewhat inconsistent correlation with less crime with the exception of self-report illegal drug use for which there is no relation. Higher parental socioeconomic status, probably have an inverse relationship with crime. High frequency of changing jobs and high frequency of unemployment for a person correlate with criminality. Somewhat inconsistent evidence indicates that there is a relationship between low income percentage under the poverty line, few years of education, and high income inequality in an area and more crime in the area. The relationship between the state of the economy and crime rates is inconsistent among the studies. The same, for differences in unemployment between different regions and crime rates. There is a slight tendency in the majority of the studies for higher unemployment rate to be positively associated with crime rates. Crime rates vary with temperature depending on both short-term weather and season. The relationship between the hotter months of summer and a peak in rape and assault seems to be almost universal. For other crimes there are also seasonal or monthly patterns but they are more inconsistent across nations. On the other hand for climate, there is a higher crime rate in the southern US but this largely disappears after non-climatic factors are controlled for.
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Conclusion
Thus concluding, this field of social science does not deal with equipping one another to nail men, women, children or organizations involved in crime. This thought-provoking, socially meaningful and fascinating field of study involves a scientific analysis of criminal behavior, of the criminalization process as well as of the social control processes. This applied discipline involves in-depth research pertaining to conflict resolution in society. Universities provide various courses on criminology by which students learn the nature and dynamics of rule breaking and also become aware of the different theories and methods essential for understanding the realities of crime and its control better. Let's try to understand what is criminology by having a closer look at this applied discipline. Criminology does not fancy waving off the smoke, but identifying the root cause of the illegal activity. This study considers various factors that could have influenced the person or a group of people to commit crimes. Factors such as dysfunctional families, sexual abuse, illiteracy, poverty, etc., can be conducive to emergence of criminals. Thus, criminology is not about pinning the criminal with his crime and pronouncing him guilty, but is the effort taken to try to understand the psychology of the person before, during and after he or she committed the crime. Criminology also focuses on how crime and lawlessness affects different levels of society. Crime no matter where, how and when it is committed has consequences. While some crimes leave scars for life on the lives of millions, some conduce to temporary damage. Nevertheless, they all have consequences. Studying and analyzing these consequences on the victims, neighborhood and even the criminal himself or herself is a part of criminology.
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Bibliography
Books
E. Glueck, Criminal Careers in Retrospect (1943, repr. 1966)
E. Sutherland and D. Cressey, Criminology (8th ed. 1970) E. Sutherland, White Collar Crime (1983 L. Ohlin, Human Development and Criminal Behavior (1991). Stephen W Baron. Criminology May 2004. Vol. 42
Online
http://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/criminology http://www.criminology.com/ http://autocww.colorado.edu/~blackmon/E64ContentFiles/LawAndCourts/Criminol ogy.html
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Calistrat Hogas Arts and Sciences High School