Personal Criminological Theory
Essay by michelle • September 30, 2013 • Essay • 876 Words (4 Pages) • 1,458 Views
Personal Criminological Theory
Criminology is defined as being the study of nature, causes as well as the extent and control of criminal behavior. Criminology covers not only why an individual may commit a crime but also how society handles crime. It is imperative that all of the Criminology theories be known and understood by any individual who works in the criminal justice field, they should know the theories as well as understand the importance of corruption. Criminology could also be defined as being the process of study that deals with nature and the extreme of law breaking behaviors. Criminology incorporates all of the concerns that are jumbled in rule making, rule breaking and the reaction toward the course of breaching said rules.
It could be said that there is a thought process that lies behind anyone committing a crime, and as such it can be said that these individuals know what they are doing is wrong but they choose to ignore that thought and commit the crime anyway. An individual who is going to commit a crime will collect information as well as organize said information in an attempt to find the best way to commit any given crime. By going through all of these steps it is their hope that they will not get caught while committing the crime. There are various elements that would lead an individual to commit a crime. Any city with gang activity will have a level of crime in that city. This would be true due to the ways an individual would have to get in to a gang to begin with. Some gangs require that an individual rob a place of business, some require that a potential gang member murder a rival gang member and the list goes on and on. There are those individuals who simply like the rush the get when they are committing a crime and they will to continue to commit crimes as long as they are receiving that rush. There are other various reasons an individual will contemplate committing a crime some of these reasons would be they feel as if the punishment may be worth the crime they are going to commit, they firmly believe that they will get away with committing the crime. To put it in simple terms a crime will occur whenever an individual feels the benefit of said crime will outweigh the cost of the punishment. In some cases desperation could also be a reason for an individual to commit a crime.
The rational choice theory is based on the idea that an individual who will commit a crime has the ability to have an intelligent thought while committing a crime (Criminological Theories, 2010). All this really means is that an individual's behavioral actions can be affected, as well as conducted, by rational individuals. In part society can be blamed on why these individuals choose to commit a crime. These would be individuals who have weighed the consequences against committing a crime and determined that the having to handle the consequence is worth the risk of committing a crime.
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