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| What causes crime?; Broken windows? Capitalism? Us? | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Mon Nov 23, 2009 3:55 pm (1,544 Views) | |
| Honda Civic | Mon Nov 23, 2009 3:55 pm Post #1 |
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Officer
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Crime is something that has happened ever since laws have existed, considering crime is, by definition, when one breaks the law. For a long while, particularly in medieval times, crime was thought to be the work of a person being controlled or influenced by Satan or other evil spirits. But, after the Dark Ages ended, scholars delved into a more serious study of crime and its causes. The first serious theories came from people in the 1700s who studied philosophy and abstract thought, such as Cesare Beccaria. These theories were largely based upon a rational choice concept that people seek to maximize pleasure and minimize pain. These theorists said for crime and punishment to be worthwhile, that it had to deter a person from crime after said person logically weighed the advantages and disadvantages of his actions. In other words, is the committing the crime worth it? These theorists said that punishment had to be swift, certain, and severe to be effective. For instance, if auto theft had a sentence of fifteen years in one jurisdiction, but the likelihood of being caught there was 5%, these theorists say people would steal cars all the time, because the lack of certainty in punishment would have a weak deterrence effect. The punishment had to fit the crime and be socially acceptable to the populace though. For example, throwing people in jail for twenty years for stealing a loaf of bread would cause bread theft to go down, but the people would eventually get angry at their oppressive government and become less controllable. There are several criticisms for classical rational choice theory though. The biggest one is that the theory makes the assumption that people go through a calculated process of weighing pros and cons before any crime. Many crimes happen in the heat of the moment, and people don't think about much of anything when they commit the crimes. Also, many crimes are not reported to police. Rape and sexual assault are good examples of this. A lot of rape and sexual assault is done by people the victims know, and the victims don't feel inclined to report the incidents for a multitude of reasons, such as shame, fear, financial reliance on the perpetrator, and so forth. There are other criticisms as well, but those are two of the most glaring ones. Still, the criminal justice system heavily relies on deterrence theory to create laws and policy. The biggest reason for this is because solutions are generally fast and easy in comparison to considering other theories. If something isn't working to prevent crime, the legislature just has to pass new laws. Rational choice theory is one of many theories though, and I won't inundate you with them in the opening post. If a reply does prompt a discussion of another theory, I'll present it then. But, what do you all think causes crime? What can be done to prevent it? |
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| JasBell | Mon Nov 23, 2009 4:03 pm Post #2 |
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Death is only a natural cause of the Battlefield.
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Interesting topic, Honda Civic. There's alot of reasons that causes crime. Retribution, Sadness, Depression, Envy, Heartbreak, and people calling it "it helps them live." Most of every single one of the reasons I just said is the main factor of causing crime. Everytime when you watch TV and see that someone has been murder it's mainly those factors. But the sad part about this is that the innocents doesn't know what is going through the killer's mind before they get killed, some innocents does this because they want to talk the killer out of it, Most of the time it works, but some of the time it doesn't sadly. There's just no end to crime, sadly.
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| Honda Civic | Mon Nov 23, 2009 4:10 pm Post #3 |
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Officer
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Thank you! Hm... So, you think it has to do with emotions? Could you elaborate on this? For example, everyone gets jealous of someone at some point or another, but very few of them will resort to murder or some other criminal act to satiate their emotions. What makes these few different from the many? Edited by Honda Civic, Mon Nov 23, 2009 4:11 pm.
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| JasBell | Mon Nov 23, 2009 4:29 pm Post #4 |
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Death is only a natural cause of the Battlefield.
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Yes, i do think is has to do with emotions. Like for an example, when an person is angry at one person that person will go out and kill that said person. Crime happens because it has to do with people trying to satsified their emotions. When a serial killer is angry they go out and kill and then they''ll feel better. |
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| Godlikephoenix | Mon Nov 23, 2009 4:30 pm Post #5 |
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Mercenary General
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Emotion I would be certain plays a part in some aspects of criminal activity...but not all of it, as not all of it would be committed on such a personal basis. Murders, assults and other crimes of that nature can have a strong emotional side to it...but they can also be completely devoid of emotion, for instance a paid crime like a mob hit, or something like that. Crimes such as robbery and other along those lines arent all that emotionally based, as some turn to that kind of crime as a means of survival...or something like that. Crime in general you could say stems from an emotional place, but it can also be done is such a way that emotion can be taken completely out of the picture...or so I seem to think it can
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| Honda Civic | Mon Nov 23, 2009 4:51 pm Post #6 |
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Officer
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I understand that. What I'm trying to ask you is what is the difference between someone who gets angry and shoots someone and someone who gets angry and punches a punching bag at a gym? Why does the first person commit crime while the second person does not?
There are a slew of theories that stem from being part of a disadvantaged group. Conflict theories, which are derived from Marx, are an excellent example. There are also theories that explain the desire for what society values and how deviant one's methods for attaining those things intertwine. Explaining both of those would require much more time than I have right now though. I may edit this post later. (EDIT) There are two theories in particular that I think help explain crime, law, and justice from the desire and need of money. Conflict theory, particularly in capitalist societies, is an excellent topic to discuss when talking about crime. All forms of conflict theory agree that power is in the hands of a few bourgeosie ("haves," as opposed to proletariat, who are "have nots") who control the means of production, and in effect, society. As part of controlling society, the bourgeosie create the laws and shape how those laws are enforced. According to a conflict theory standpoint, even in democracies, those who control the economic interests hold the power, and as such, want to continue to be powerful. When it comes to explaining crime from a conflict theory perspective, there are multiple interpretations. Two of the biggest are the idea that those with economic control create laws and protocol to put down those who don't have economic control and the idea that those who benefit from capitalism create laws and policies to put down anyone who is "bad for business." The first school of thought states that the bourgeosie tries to directly control the proletariat, so that the bourgeosie's interests are protected. This means that laws are created in such a way that the rich and powerful can hold down the poor. An example of this is eminent domain. I can only speak for the United States here, so it may work differently in other countries (although I do know it exists in other countries). But, in the U.S., the local, state, and federal levels of government can force landowners off their land, assuming they are given a fair price for it. This fair price is determined by the government, I might add. Moreover, tenants in housing that is bought by eminent domain are generally forced out with no recourse. After the government forces these people off what was their land, the land is either used for government projects or turned over to the private sector. A conflict theorist would say here that the law is meant for the wealthy and powerful to crush any resistance the poor might have in making them more money. Furthermore, it runs the poor out and forces them to flee to constantly moving quarantine areas (slums), particularly when an area has an aggressive gentrification program. The disenfranchised poor is kept under the thumb of the rich. Another school of thought claims that those who benefit from capitalism strive to keep capitalism alive. In other words, those who abuse the system are punished, regardless of their social class. A good example of this is all the heads that rolled after the Enron fallout. I won't get into the intricacies of the scandal. Read the Wiki entry on it, if you're interested. In short, insider trading and deceptive accounting went on, causing a lot of people to lose their jobs and investments. Moreover, when people weren't completely revolted by Enron's greed, Enron became a complete laughingstock among the public. This debacle was a black eye to capitalism, and aggressive measures were taken to rectify the situation. According to a conflict theorist who believes in the "bad for business" concept, the government took such an active role in handling this situation, because the rich and powerful thrive on a system where people are confident in capitalism, and Enron's complete disregard for preserving the system needed to be punished. Although everyone who was punished was also rich and powerful, their recklessness made things bad for the rest of the bourgeosie, hence the need for action. While conflict theory discusses social stratification and uses the effects of keeping capitalism afloat to discuss social issues, including crime, another theory, strain theory, uses the values created by society and the ability to attain them to better understand deviance. Although there are many different iterations of strain theory, as well as Durkheim's earlier writings on anomie, I will mostly focus on Robert Merton. Merton created a classification of deviance that explained people's acceptance of society's norms as well as doing so in a socially acceptable way: Conformity - (accept norms, accept means) - These people are the ones who try to go for the gold, and go about it in a way that is considered fine by society. For example, people who get an education and a career, and seek to be the best they can be to amass wealth and live comfortably in American society would be part of this group. Another example is when a guy who wishes to get a girlfriend asks a girl out, takes her on dates, and treats her well, so she will like him back and eventually have a long-term relationship with him. Ritualism - (reject norms, accept means) - These people still obey society's rules in regard to pursuing goals, but have lost the will to hold onto those goals. For example, when a student, employee, and so forth, just "goes through the motions" and doesn't really care anymore, he or she belongs to this group. In American society, someone holding onto a loveless marriage and staying in it just for the kids that have already been born would also be part of this group. Innovation - (accept norms, reject means) - When one accepts the goals of society, but doesn't agree about how to attain those goals, he or she belongs to this group. This is where most property criminals are. For instance, if one wants to lead a life of relative comfort in the United States, why get an education when you can become a pimp or a smuggler? Moreover, if one's family cannot eat, he or she may steal food or money to survive. An inclination to self-preservation is a norm in most societies. Retreatism - (reject norms, reject means) - When a person just doesn't care about anything anymore, he or she belongs to this group. Many heavy drug addicts belong to this category; other than satiating their addictions, they really don't care about law, norms, values, or much else. Rebellion - (reject norms, reject means, create new norms and means) - These people have a complete disregard for current society and wish to create a new one. Many radical extremists fall under this category. In general, the rejection of society's means to follow norms is some form of criminal act, at least in consideration to overall society. (One can reject means within a small group that can violate group dynamics or rules of the group, but that's another subject.) In the case of money and other material goods, whether it is a matter of gaining wealth or simply surviving, there are ways that society says are acceptable to do so, and ways that aren't. Crime is usually committed when one rejects the means. For instance, if a person's family is starving, it is socially acceptable to go to a charity to ask for help, while it isn't socially acceptable to shoplift at Wal-Mart. Although this statement is obvious, people reject the means of following norms because they either cannot or will not accept those means. As for whether they can follow the means or not, that is a matter of perception. Once someone feels he or she cannot do something, he or she will try something else, particularly when still accepting the norms themselves. In this case, there is a dichotomy of following the law and breaking the law; if he or she cannot follow the law and still follow the norms, he or she will break the law, instead. As for choosing not to follow the means, it generally is a matter of perceiving greater ease in rejecting the means. As elementary as this paragraph may seem, it is key for understanding strain theory. Edited by Honda Civic, Tue Nov 24, 2009 1:49 am.
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| JasBell | Mon Nov 23, 2009 4:57 pm Post #7 |
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Death is only a natural cause of the Battlefield.
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It's because everybody has a different way of dealing with their emotions. Thus why some people think it's better to relief themselves by taking the lives of other people. For example: When one person is depressed they will try to make feel everybody else feel depressed also by doing horrible things to them. Edited by JasBell, Mon Nov 23, 2009 4:58 pm.
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| Honda Civic | Mon Nov 23, 2009 5:05 pm Post #8 |
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Officer
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I think we've established well that people are different and handle things in different ways. The point I'm trying to extract from you is what makes the criminal different from the law-abiding citizen. I understand your point that a criminal has a different way of expressing and handling his emotions than others do, but why is he different? Why does the killer feel inclined to kill as opposed to taking his anger out in a more constructive way? |
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| JasBell | Mon Nov 23, 2009 5:08 pm Post #9 |
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Death is only a natural cause of the Battlefield.
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It's because the Killer thinks he is above the law as usual, like all killers. Thus why they go out and do horrible things to innocent people. Another thing is that Criminal don't think before they do these things. They want to be hasty and do these things. |
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| Honda Civic | Tue Nov 24, 2009 2:40 am Post #10 |
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There are many different motivations for why people kill. Legislators themselves show an understanding of this by having such a wide classification of crimes related to killing another person, such as capital murder, first-degree murder, second-degree murder, felony murder, manslaughter, gross vehicular manslaughter, and more. For example, these three situations will get treated considerably differently in court: 1. A guy walks into a mom and pop convenience store and holds up the cashier. The guy being robbed has a baseball bat behind the counter and tries to defend himself, but the robber pops off two rounds in the guy's head, instantly killing him. The robbery obviously went bad, and the robber had no intention of killing the guy beforehand. In this circumstance, most states would convict this guy of felony murder or second degree murder. The guy didn't walk into the convenience store to kill the cashier. Things just got out of hand, and the perpetrator made a snap decision. 2. Two drunk guys get into a fight in front of a bar. One guy punches the other guy in the face and knocks him head-first into the pavement. The guy on the ground is hauled off in the ambulance and is pronounced dead-on-arrival. There is no evidence to believe the assailant had any intention of killing his opponent. Here, the killer will probably get either voluntary manslaughter or third degree murder in states that have a third degree classification. He didn't mean to kill his victim, but he did mean to injure him. As such, he won't get punished like someone who actually meant to kill the victim. 3. A woman is in an abusive marriage and her husband beats her up all the time. She doesn't leave out of fear that her husband will find her and kill her. Eventually, she gets a hold of some potassium cyanide and laces her husband's dinner with it. In this case, it will boil down to lawyers. If the prosecution has a strong case, and the woman has a poor lawyer, she'll probably get first degree murder. Even with her mitigating circumstances, she still committed a premeditated murder. If the prosecution's case is weak, and the woman has a good lawyer, she'll likely get her charge bumped down to second degree murder or even manslaughter, if there's a big enough disparity. Juries are hard pressed to convict women, particularly ones who are victims of domestic violence, and prosecutors know this. Of all these killers, the only one who possibly may think he's above the law is the one from the first situation. The second one wasn't thinking about what he was doing, and the third did what she did out of desperation. Moreover, the third killer carefully planned out her murder. These are but three examples, but they do illustrate the varying reasons and provocations for killing. So, I believe it's not entirely fair to lump all killers into one mold. |
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| scholar | Tue Dec 8, 2009 11:19 pm Post #11 |
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Crime is caused by people. More specifically the people who made things illegal in the first place. Before, doing drugs was perfectly legal, and in fact promoted by most pharmaceuticals. "Heroin, Cheap" and other things. Since it was made illegal a number of people became criminals overnight. It was the people who made the laws that made the crime. While it was the people that actually enact the crime, there would be no way to commit it if not for the lawmakers. |
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| Demonic Warrior | Sat Oct 30, 2010 1:53 am Post #12 |
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Crime is caused sometimes by mental problems, others because of the feeling of "power", majority of times because of money issues and very rare these crimes have revenge proposals |
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| Ruro | Fri Nov 5, 2010 9:05 am Post #13 |
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Iron from Ice
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There are many reasons but i pick these reasons as the top two reasons Corruption-Mainly if a place is poor then people will Steal and do other things To get money,Food and other things to survive. Hatred torwards Another Person-Well this is the main reason for assault and Murder even sll things can cause someones hatred to burst. |
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| Paragon of Light | Tue Nov 16, 2010 7:30 pm Post #14 |
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The Comeback King
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There are many reasons to why people commit crimes. Like everything has said previosuly. However, it all stems from the fact that we are human. We are not infallible and everyone has faults. Ever since we've been around, crime and war has existed because of us. If not for us, the world would stayed the way it was in the hunter-gatherer state. |
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| Kratos Aurion | Tue Nov 16, 2010 11:41 pm Post #15 |
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MOAR
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I'm afraid people probably already said what I've been thinking. Emotions almost always have something to do with it, so you could argue it's just human nature to have people who break the law or go against the societal "norm". There's no logical way to prevent people from doing crimes entirely, it's bound to happen. There's not really a whole lot left to be said. It's the sad truth about our species. |
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| Matsunaga Hisahide | Wed Nov 17, 2010 7:21 pm Post #16 |
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Eyes of the devil, smile of a winner
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Is it a crime to steal water or food, when you are about to starve and neither have one penny nor any other way of getting clean water or not spoiled food thatīd kill you if you even take one bite? Is it a crime to beat someone nearly to death, who assualted/tried to rape a young girl and it was the only way of preventing him to hurt you, her or even others? Itīs like asking what makes someone bad/evil. Thereīs no right and wrong, just human thinking. I for one think a big cause for crimes is any form of poverty. Having no money, food, water, clothes, freedom, etc. and seeing others having said things will cause misfortune, pain and thus anger/hatred. Thus as many have said emotions come into play, seeing as anger is one of them. Sadly, you could say those arenīt "true crimes", seeing as most of them have a reason like not being able to pay the bills for your famliy, living in a poor country, were water and food is rare but rich hotels use water for golf parks and food for big buffets were 30% of the perfectly fine food is thrown away cause "we fat rich people" just donīt know how to treat food, water and other truly valuable things the right way. Then there are those who have the reason of being a victim themselves. Being abused as a child or some other trauma like wittnessing a crime, might turn them into an abuser or a criminal themselves. Or just because they have some kind of REAL metal illness and didnīt even know what they were doing, or at least doing wrong. Of course those arenīt real excuses for heavy crimes like rape, assaulting or murder, but itīs a reason that the court and the law shouldnīt just ignore, while doing there work. But then there are the despicable people in this world, who hurt or kill just for the fun of it, commit crime because they are bored or do it, because they fall under some sort of political or just immunity and think they can do whatever the f*** they want. Those are the people, that most of the time, donīt get what they deserve and those I mentioned above get to feel the full force of the law seeing as they are poor or donīt have powerfull friends or just the intelligence/education that would help in these kind of situations (namely when they are confronted with the law), because the latter ones are most of the times spoiled, rich brats or just those who know, how to play/trick the human mind, so having the might to turn the tides on the law. So itīs not easy to say what causes crime, seeing as you first have to define "crime", then you have to think about which country weīre talking about, which political/law system they have their, population in that country, overall well being of the people, recoursces/medical system they have there, who was the one commiting the crime, did he do it before, what were his reasons for the crime, what were his parents/the person that took care of him like, his friends like, etc., etc. Crime is nothing natural, seeing as animals steal and kill for surviving, itīs a human thing. So basically crime is in our "nature", seeing as back then it wasnīt really a crime, when we had to fight for our lives. |
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9:49 AM Jul 11