Sociology why do people commit crimes

Graduates can apply their skills to a wide range of fields, from marketing to law enforcement. National University also has several degrees in criminal justice that enable graduates to pursue degrees in an equally wide range of criminology-related career paths.

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Please review our privacy policy for more details or contact us at dataprotection nu. Home Resources Sociological Theories of Crime. Sociological Theories of Crime What is crime, exactly? What is Crime in Sociology? Some of the most commonly defined types of crime in sociology include: Violent crime — A crime in which a person is harmed or or threatened.

Violent crimes include murder, assault, rape, sexual assault, robbery, kidnapping, and harassment. Property crime — Property crime involves criminal activity that does not do bodily harm to a person, but rather focuses on private property.

This type of crime involves burglary, theft, arson, defacement of property, motor vehicle theft, and more. White-collar crime — White-collar crime is the name for acts of fraud committed by businessmen. Violent behavior is typically not associated with white-collar crime. Rather, these types of crimes are committed to gain or avoid losing money or property.

Some examples of white-collar crimes include money laundering, corporate fraud, mortgage fraud, Ponzi schemes, and embezzlement among others. They also take a sociological view of how the criminal justice system, including police, prosecutors, and judges, responds to victims and offenders.

Of course, criminologists do not ignore individual causes of crime, such as personality and psychological characteristics, but in general, they are especially interested in factors related to the larger world in which individuals live.

Yes, there are. I already mentioned one distinction, between research that is mainly about crime itself and that which is mainly about the criminal justice system. Within these there are further differences. In the first group, some criminologists may focus on neighborhoods and crime, while others may study differences in crime rates across nations. In the second group, some researchers examine the police while others look at courts and corrections. Research projects may draw on more than one of these areas, but the scope of criminology has grown too large for one researcher to know all its parts.

One of my specialties is homicide clearance. It is important to study crime clearance since it is the first stage of criminal justice processing of a crime incident. When you look at the homicide clearance rate in different countries, there turns out to be great variation. That got me interested in why the U. Juvenile delinquency is participation in illegal behaviors by minors. A juvenile delinquent is typically under the age of Describe the factors that influence the development of delinquency in youth and the ways the legal system deals with this delinquency.

Juvenile delinquency is participation in illegal behavior by minors. Most legal systems prescribe specific procedures for dealing with juveniles, such as juvenile detention centers and courts. A juvenile delinquent is a person who is typically under the age of 18 and commits an act that would have otherwise been charged as a crime if the minor was an adult.

Depending on the type and severity of the offense committed, it is possible for persons under 18 to be charged and tried as adults. Young men disproportionately commit juvenile delinquency. Feminist theorists and others have examined why this is the case.

One suggestion is that ideas of masculinity may make young men more likely to offend. Being tough, powerful, aggressive, daring, and competitive becomes a way for young men to assert and express their masculinity. Alternatively, young men may actually be naturally more aggressive, daring, and prone to risk-taking. Beaver, adolescent males who possess a certain type of variation in a specific gene are more likely to flock to delinquent peers.

The study, which appeared in the September issue of the Journal of Genetic Psychology, is the first to establish a statistically significant association between an affinity for antisocial peer groups and a particular variation called the repeat allele of the dopamine transporter gene DAT1.

There is also a significant skew in the racial statistics for juvenile offenders. When considering these statistics, which state that Black and Latino teens are more likely to commit juvenile offenses, it is important to keep the following in mind: poverty is a large predictor of low parental monitoring, harsh parenting, and association with deviant peer groups, all of which are in turn associated with juvenile offending.

The majority of adolescents who live in poverty are racial minorities. Delinquency prevention is the broad term for all efforts aimed at preventing youth from becoming involved in criminal or other antisocial activity. Because the development of delinquency in youth is influenced by numerous factors, prevention efforts need to be comprehensive in scope.

Prevention services may include activities like substance abuse education and treatment, family counseling, youth mentoring, parenting education, educational support, and youth sheltering. Increasing availability and use of family planning services, including education and contraceptives, helps to reduce unintended pregnancy and unwanted births—which are risk factors for delinquency.

Juvenile Delinquency : Juvenile delinquency refers to antisocial or illegal behavior by children or adolescents, for dealing with juveniles, such as juvenile detention centers.

There are a multitude of different theories on the causes of crime, most if not all of which can be applied to the causes of youth crime. Cure Juvenile Delinquency by Planned Housing : Poster promoting planned housing as a method to deter juvenile delinquency, showing silhouettes of a child stealing a piece of fruit and as an older minor involved in armed robbery. This entails both crimes in which the violent act is the objective, such as murder, as well as crimes in which violence is the means to an end, such as robbery.

The comparison of violent crime statistics between countries is usually problematic due to the way different countries classify crime. Valid comparisons require that similar offences between jurisdictions be compared. Often this is not possible because crime statistics aggregate equivalent offences in such different ways that make it difficult or impossible to obtain a valid comparison.

According to the BJS, the rate of violent crime victimization in the United States declined by more than two thirds between the years and Chicago Violent Crime Map : Map of violent crimes in in Chicago community areas per , residents.

Since the 13 th century AD, evidence shows large long-term declines in the rate of murder, from one hundred people to one person per , between and AD. By contrast, there is a widespread belief that violent crime is on the rise, due largely to a mass media, which disproportionately reports violent crime. Property crime is a category of crime that includes larceny, theft, motor vehicle theft, arson, shoplifting, vandalism, and burglary.

Property crimes are high-volume crimes, with cash, electronics, power tools, cameras, and jewelry often targeted. Car Window Burglary : This is a photographic example of a car that has been burglarized. Burglary of residences, retail establishments, and other commercial facilities involves breaking and entering, and then stealing property. In the United States, burglary rates are highest in August and lowest in February, with weather, length-of-day, and other factors having an effect on rates.

Fall and winter are peak seasons for burglary in Denmark. Most residential burglaries occur on weekdays, between 10 to 11 a. Some crime prevention programs, such as Neighborhood Watch, have shown little effectiveness in reducing burglary and other crime.

Theft of cash is most common, followed by vehicle parts, clothing, and tools. Shoplifting is a specific type of theft, in which products are taken from retail shops without paying.

Items popular with shoplifters include cigarettes, alcoholic beverages, and fashionable clothing. Motor vehicle theft is a common form of property crime, often perpetrated by youths for joyriding. Crime prevention and target-hardening measures, such as car alarms and ignition locks, have been effective deterrents against motor vehicle theft, as have been practices such as etching VINs on car parts.

Theft : An example of theft: someone took everything except for the front wheel. Statistics for violent crimes are accessible and available to the public. The percentage of U. Moreover, from to , the number of arrests in the United States for property crime has declined by These were brought about as the new right believed the family to be an integral part of society.

Before I attempt to answer why people commit crimes, we have to decipher what type of crimes people commit. There are many different types of crime, and each has different reasoning behind it. Anti-utilitarian crime is perhaps the most seen in our everyday lives, such as graffiti and theft for no material gain.

There are also 'Career Criminals' who commit crime on an everyday basis as means to get what they otherwise could not afford and to support themselves in society. There are also many sociological perspectives that approach this question in various ways. The functionalists see crime as a 'Safety valve'.