Social Control Theory: Why People Obey The Law

The due process model is seen to focus on the suspect whereas the crime control model focuses on the society. This paper analyzes these two models and based on the rate of crime in the society, makes recommendations as to which is the best model in criminal justice. The principle in law that one is innocent until proven guilty has created much discourse. There are those who feel that the moment that one is arrested, there is reasonable belief that they committed the crime. However, there are those who feel that just as the principle states, one is, and should be taken as a victim and the outcome could be either way: guilty or not guilty.

The supporters see the need to protect the public from predatory criminals. They also believe that granting to much leeway to the law enforcement officials will end up with the loss of civil liberties and freedom for all the Americans. Between the two justice models I would choose the due process model. This is because it seems more logical.

This placed a strong reliance on psychological remedies for crime, including psychological analysis, diagnosis, and treatment of the root causes of criminal behavior similar to the treatment of a patient with a mental illness. In theory this would prevent recidivism because the true cause of the behavior would be resolved. The crime control period views crime as more of a rational choice and values punishment that is swift, certain, and severe in order to prevent/suppress criminality which threatens the functioning of a free society. This “us vs them” mentality supports greater prosecutorial power, increased usage of punitive processes like imprisonment/fines, and greater police power to deter

The ability to put in place more strict penalties in this case could often deter the offender from committing a rules violation. If the facility is having an issue with a particular rule violation, then it would be a good idea to use rational choice theory to help assist in rewriting policy to make violating the rule have a stricter penalty, so that the risk does not outweigh the reward. The next theory that should be looked at in assisting departmental policies is the labeling theory. If the labeling theory labels offenders as just that it will make it more difficult for the offender to be successful upon re-entry to society. If one is labeled something such as a convicted felon then they will be more like to re-offend and return to the prison system.

The rational choice theory has been popular with deviant profiling, but its drawback is that one rationalizes their behavior before completing the criminal offense (Siegel, 2015). However, deviants who participate in this behavior may not be doing this for personal gain (Carney, 2015). Some may be pressured into doing this because of their peers, not

Racial profiling is a positive thing. Racial profiling is a practice used by law enforcement officials to target individuals and groups of people who are suspicious of crimes based on their ethnicity. Racial profiling should be allowed for the police to use because it is easier for them to track down criminals, to prevent crimes from happening and to create a safer place. Racial profiling should be allowed for the police to use because it is easier to prevent crimes from happening. Judging someone based on the way they look is never good but in this case it is because a suspicious looking black man could be taken in by the police for questioning on gang violence and that would help prevent some crimes.

Deviance is violation of norm while crime is violation of laws. Deviance can be crime but we must remember not all crime is deviance and not all deviance can be crime because deviance is not a subset to crime. Usually crime were more punishable because crime is something people do that break the law that been supported by codified social sanctions while deviance is less punishable because deviance

Furthermore, the punishment of the criminal offence could be prison, fines, community sentence and so on. Criminal law is set to deter people from committing criminal offences and to protect people from being attacked by others. Rickard (n.d.) claims that criminal law is being enacted to make sure that people do not use the law to seek for the personal justice by punishing the people which has harm us. For example, maybe someone has been raped by a person. If there is no criminal law, the victim or the family member of the victim could punish or even kill the person by saying that they are doing it only to gain the justice.

It does not consider other factors such as criminal associations, individual traits, and inner strains, which plays a significant role in determining punishment for the individuals in committing crimes. It is observed that this theory endeavours to know that whether the activities of crime as well as the victim’s choice, criminals commit the activities on start from rational decisions. The theory also determines that criminals consider different elements before committing crime. They engage in the exchange of ideas before reaching on any final decision. These elements consist of consequences of their crimes, which include revealing their families to problems or death, chances of being arrested, and others elements, which comprises of placement of surveillance systems (Walsh & Hemmens, 2010; Lichbach,

Although being in the lower class doesn’t necessarily link with poverty this study was done to show the relationship with both poverty and delinquency. Theories predict that there is an existence to such a relationship. It was prophesied that peer pressure, the structure of the family, and family relations are significant facilitating impacts when talking about the relationship between lawbreaking and insufficiency. What is also significant in understanding the connection is that crime is the timing of insufficiency or even throughout a person’s life some form of insufficiency might have happened. For many persons that may be poor, a life of crime can be seen as the only way out and also a way to improve their living conditions.