Social Conflict Theory: Why People Turn To Crime

Five of prisons in Tennessee are presently over capacity with another eight currently operating over 95% of assigned capacity (Malcolm, 2014.) “When prisons become overcrowded, there is less money and manpower to provide much-needed treatment, educational, and skills-enhancement programs in prison, and inmate-to-staff ratios can grow to levels that are unsafe for prison staff and other prisoners” (Malcolm, 2014, paragraph 11.) I believe a way to fix that issue it through using different reforms to affect the overall percentage all together. These reforms include limit sentencing, more programs, more parole and probation officers, and specialized courts.

Social structure and social factors are a huge component in the creation of criminogenic environments. Using a structural approach in explaining the creation of criminogenic environments “helps us understand why poor urban areas have higher street crime rates than wealthy suburbs” (page 128). There are many different theories and ideas that can help us explain this structural approach and what roles they have in creating a criminogenic society. Durkheim’s theories are extremely known in today’s society. His theories on socialization and social ties help us to explain how the structure of society can contribute to the crime in those areas. If an individual is socialized within crime or has social ties with criminal perpetrators, that individual

Imagine you are a fifty-one year old man and you have not eaten in two days, and you resort to theft. Stealing a fifty-cent package of doughnuts from the corner store. You are at your home when suddenly officers burst in and arrest you. Then during your court proceedings, the prosecutor brings up two prior convictions from thirty years earlier so he can charge you under mandatory sentencing laws. This means a life sentence without parole over a fifty- cent pack of doughnuts. Though this scenario sounds too outrageous to be true, it happened to Robert Fassbender, a California man. States Attorney Yraceburn stated," Because of his (Fassbender) history of recidivism and the number of crimes he 's been convicted of," Fassbinder

Due to the unprecedented expansion of the war on drugs by the Reagan administration started a long period of skyrocketing rates of incarceration. The huge number of offenders incarcerated for nonviolent drug offenders increased from 50,000 to 1980 to over 400,000 by the year 1997. In 1981, Nancy Reagan began a highly publicized antidrug campaign called “Just Say No”, as public concerns arose due to the portrayals by the media about people addicted to a smoke-able form of cocaine dubbed as “crack”. This campaign set the stage for zero tolerance policies implemented in the late 1980’s.

Over the past 40 years U.S. incarceration has grown at an extraordinary rate, with the United States’ prison population increasing from 320,000 inmates in 1980 to nearly 2.3 million inmates in 2013. The growth in prison population is in part due to society’s shift toward tough on crime policies including determinate sentencing, truth-in-sentencing laws, and mandatory minimums. These tough on crime policies resulted in more individuals committing less serious crimes being sentenced to serve time and longer prison sentences.

The conflict standpoint is based on the idea that the society is comprised of various different groups who are in constant friction with one another for the access of scarce and valuable resources; these may include wealth, fame, power, or the authority to apply one’s own value system onto the general society. The conflict theorists argue that a conflict exists in the society when a group of people who believe that their interests are not being met, or that they are not getting a fair share of the society’s resources, work to counter what they perceive as a handicap or a

There are many theories that suggest that crime is constructed socially, or is a product of the society in which the crime is committed. One such theory, proposed by Robert Merton, is known as strain theory. While strain theory is a useful model for explaining how societal values can drive people to commit crimes, it has several flaws and does not focus on how laws are made and how this contributes to the formation of crime. While Merton suggests that laws are created from consensus within a society, it will be argued that strain theory can also support the idea that laws are a “product of conflict” (Hagan 5).

Conflict theory is everywhere I look within American; the country was born and thrives on conflict theory. This is something I have felt strong about for years. After doing some reading, the cross correlation between the three is amazing. However, I feel we have an extensive amount of Conflict Theory in society

Many people have different viewpoints as to what criminal justice and criminology are, in my point of view I believe these two terms have a distinct definition and action. Although they might sound somewhat similar based on the textbook criminal justice is said to be defined as “institutions, policies, and practices with the goal of maintaining social control through sanctions and rehabilitation.” and it also states that criminology is “academic discipline that investigates the nature extent and causes of criminal offending”. In my own words, what my understanding of criminal justice is that it refers to the system of law enforcement, courts, and corrections in the U.S. that includes actions from the government in which aim to lessen the occurrence

Why do people commit crimes? What goes through their minds before they actually commit a crime? These are questions asked from society to criminologist every time one decides they want to commit a crime. Criminologists has given us different crime causations, theories, to explain the answer to these questions. A theory is a speculation about how phenomena, behavior, or process are caused and what takes place after the cause is determined (Anderson, 2015). There are numerous theories that have evolved over time to explain why crimes are committed. These theories include anomie, strained, social control, and rational choice theory. In this research paper I will be focusing on rational choice theory. Majority of these theories focus on a macro-level, which is the largest, meanwhile some focus on a micro-level, the smaller level, depending on the circumstances. The purpose of this paper is to synthesize how rational choice theory is integrate with different crimes. The crimes included are burglary, white collar crime, and murder.

There are many phenomena that could cause or correlate with crime. In addition to this, there are many characteristics to these phenomena that cause/correlate with criminal behavior. Furthermore, these characteristics can be individual, sociological, or both that could have an effect on criminal behavior. This paper will take the educational avenue on crime. Also, there are numerous ways that education can correlate with crime. The first way of correlation is through an economic scope. This way will take a look at how education can have an effect on an individual’s wages that may deter them from crime. The second way education has an affect on crime is the principles that a school would teach to kids that could keep them from crime. In addition, this section will focus on some key sociological aspects. The next way that crime is correlated with education is that crime could be a barrier to education. Finally, some statistics to present the education and crime correlation. There is a correlation between education and crime that shows the more education an individual obtains, the more opportunity costs, which would reduce the risk of the individual participating in criminal behavior.

Social process theory depends on the interaction between individuals and society as an explanation and is also known as interactionist perspective. This theory assumes that everyone has the potential to violate the law and that criminality is not an innate human characteristic but is instead a belief that criminal behavior is learned by interaction with others (Schmalleger, 2012). Social process feels the socialization process that occurs because of group membership is the main way through which learning occurs (Schmalleger, 2012). Social process theory views criminality as people’s interactions with various organizations, institutions, and processes in society (Siegel, 2000). This theory feels that people from all areas have the potential

Criminal behaviour has always been an interest for psychologists, for they could never quite come to a conclusion between nature and nurture. Research concerning this topic has been organized for many years and due to the never ending debate, is still being conducted. I have decided to read and write about this myself, for I was genuinely curious about the matter and wanted to be a part of the research, as I felt responsible to do so. I believe that in order to stop something, it must be discussed and scrutinized. What effects do genes have on criminal behaviour, why do peer pressure and habitat influence a person to commit crimes and are men really more violent than women? My paper aims to discuss the three different factors of criminal behaviour, what causes it and why. My essay will examine and focus mainly on the genetic makeup of a person, the environment in which they are raised in and gender differences.

Crime is any act which breaks the laws of society, such as murder, rape, speeding etc. Social control is enforced by agencies such as police and the courts, more specifically defined than deviance.

This essay will discuss crime as both a social problem and a sociological problem. Crime is seen as a typical function of society. Crime doesn’t happen without society. It is created and determined by the surrounding society. According to the CSO, the number of dangerous and negligent acts committed between the years of 2008 and 2012 rose from 238’000 in 2008 to 257’000 in 2012. This is an increase of nearly 20’000 recorded crimes in just 3 years. Note that these are only the recorded figures. Many more crimes go unreported. This may be because of intimidation, blackmail or embarrassment among many reasons.