A LOOK INTO OUR WORLD OF CRIME

    This paper will explore the patterns and trends of what makes up the motivation for engaging in criminal acts.  The material used for this exploration is drawn from many sources including: the internet, books, magazines, and journals.  One of the primary concerns is to discover what is the first motivational component that constitutes wanting to engage in crime for the first time and for those that are already in the crime game, what makes them want to continue along these lines.  

    This paper will also focus and elaborate on current crime statistics, to explore how far we have come in fighting crime and how much further we need to go.  Truths and untruths that people believe about crime will be uncovered. A better understanding of criminals, their patterns of thinking, and what drove them from law abiding status in the first place is urgently needed.

    Crime and all that comes with it are certainly no stranger to anyone that lives anywhere in the World.  Studies have indicated that a gradual increase in the crime rate, especially violent crimes, occurred from 1830 to 1860, following the Civil War.  Studies have also shown that there tends to be an increase in violent crimes after a country comes back from a war (Siegel 1999).

    Many criminologists for many years have been trying to say that they reason why there are so many criminals out and about is because of; the growing number of children that are being raised in single parents, the unemployment rate, one’s race, gender or ethnicity.  What if in actuality these are really not the reasons for crime but something that is right there in front of our eyes that has not yet been studied and has been there for a very long time.

   “ If we continue to ignore the future impact of demographic changes on the juvenile system, and we fail to enact policies that are effective in curbing juvenile crime, the wave of criminals replenishing the adult system will create another major and costly criminal justice crisis in just 10 to 15 years." (Filkac 1996)

   Criminologists have developed a number of theories over the years to explain criminal behavior.  There could actually be some good that have come out of these explanations as to why people are committing crime, but it seems more and more that all these theories and ideologies confront the American public like so many promises that crime will go down year after year.  There seems to be too much widespread thought that many groups are exploring a crime epidemic every day. 

   Biological scientists say that it all lies in the genetic explanation of the criminal mind, Psychological theories put forward that criminals are suffering from some long term trauma, and the social scientist say the reason why there is so much crime is because of the environment in which the criminal its brought up in.  All of these theories separately make sense but it is the way they work together that needs to be better researched.  Every individual study has its own way of figuring out exactly what the problem is with the person and what make that person tick.  The thing is that there are too many theories going around that every time there is a crime there are a wide number of theories that can describe the person, while none of them are wrong, which one exactly is the right one.

    Crime has been around since the beginning of time and should not be a subject that no one person is aware of anywhere in this country.  There are however many downsides into the outlook of crime in this country.  There seems as though there is a major dividing line between the races when it comes to the crime rate and those that are assumed to be committing all the crime.  There seems to be a tremendous pressure on those in the African-American and Hispanic communities when it comes to the ever growing crime rate in America.

   Crime however, is such a broad word and topic that can include so many things.  The word perplexes the minds of psychologist, sociologist and criminologist alike.  Thought is devoted every day to figure out why the crimes are taking place and how they are going to be stopped.  The reason for the unclearness is that although they are the same crimes, like murder, robbery, and rape they are in so many ways different, and almost always involve the element of the unexpected.

   …while Americans are more secure from threats from abroad, I think we all know that in many ways we are less secure from threats here at home… Violent crime and the fear it provokes are crippling our society, limiting personal freedom and fraying the ties that bind us. (State of the Union address 1994)

     Crime and criminal behavior often brings horrible images to mind, such as the World Trade Center and Pentagon Bombings, the random number of high school shootings, and the thousands of other horrible crimes that are committed by criminals everyday.  Indeed criminals come in all shapes, sizes, colors, and genders but there are many things that link the way a criminal thinks and acts.

    Researchers all over the world are trying to generalize the criminal mind and break down its components.  The thing is, that no matter how many divisions and generalizations that go into understanding criminals in our society no one person or persons can explain why there is such a wide range of crime going on in the United States and all over the world everyday.

    The sad thing is that instead of digging deeper into the problem and trying to get to the source, researchers just tend to put a label on it, saying that those who commit crime at a young age are suffering from some psychological disorder such as ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder) or MBD (Minimal Brain Dysfunction).  Another problem is that a majority of the older criminals in jail now were once the juvenile criminals of the many years before.  The most alarming statistic is that the majority of crime being committed today are by those between the ages of 18-24 (Siegel 1999).

    So many charts and statistics come into effect when talking about family situations, household income, and educational levels but where are the charts and graphs that examine the statistics of those that have endured the same life trials and tribulations and do not turn to a life of crime but instead are out in the world trying to make situations better and neighborhoods a little more safe to live in.                    

LITERATURE REVIEW

    What has been written on the topic of criminals and their patterns can be divided into the different areas of crime that they look into and the time periods in which the books, articles, and or journals were published.  The times range from the late 1800’s to present day research.

The earliest time period that this paper starts off with is a book that was written by Sheldon and Eleanor Glueck called Unraveling Juvenile Delinquency (1950)  that is about trying to figure out the patterns of what cause one’s mind to go from “good” to “bad” and how society can get them back to the law abiding side of society.  Their biosocial perspective on crime raised some challenging questions.  Critics find some of these theories racist and dysfunctional.  If there are biological explanations for street crimes such as assault, murder, or rape, as official crime statistic suggest, the poor and minority group members commit a disproportionate number of such acts, then by implication, biological theory says that members of these groups are biologically different, flawed, or inferior to others (Sellin 1938).

            The Biosocial view, then, is that behavior is a product of interacting biological and environmental events.  Physical impairments may put some people at risk for crime, but when these impairments are linked to social and environmental problems, such as family dysfunction, they can trigger criminal acts.

    In Chicago in the early 1900’s, 300 people with various backgrounds of expertise were interviewed and ask how they would classify the crime problems into theories.  There were two theories that they came up with.  One was the Social Disorganization Theory which broke down the tradition of biological inferiority of criminals in aspects to the deteriorating neighborhoods, inadequate social control, and the law violations.  The second theory was about Relative Deprivation which looks into critiquing the neighborhoods and the ratio between certain neighborhoods and the amount of criminals and crimes that come out of them.

    Robert K. Merton, an American sociologist, borrowed the concept of Durkheim’s anomie, and in his own words and by using other methods, he formed his own theory, which he ended up naming after himself.  Anomie, which is described in many criminology textbooks as a condition produced by normlessness.  Because of the rapidly shifting moral values, the individual has few guides to what is socially acceptable.  According to Merton, anomie is a condition that occurs when personal goals cannot be achieved by available means (Siegel 1999).  Strain theory differs somewhat from Durkheim's theory in that Merton proposed that the real problem is not one that is created by a sudden social change, as Durkheim has originally proposed, but rather by a social structure that holds out the same goals to all its members without giving them equal means to achieve them.  In other words it is kind of like the American Dream, which is available for everyone to obtain, but not everyone in America has the ability or even the means to be able to reach a goal that so many think is standard. There are certain goals that everyone strives towards achieving such as; education, good job, and a lot of money. So basically boils down to the lack of integration between what the culture calls for and what the structure permits, that causes the onset of deviant behavior.  So the end result in this situation is the deviance, and that seems to be the primary symptom of the social structure.  Merton’s theory does not focus on crime purse, but rather upon the various acts of deviance, which may be understood to have an end result, which is the criminal behavior. However, it is very evident that everyone does not have the same opportunities to achieve the means of the American Dream, therefore a stage is being set and this is the part of the theory where the deviance comes in. 

    Albert Cohen first articulated the theory of the delinquent subculture in his classic book, Delinquent Boys.  Cohen’s central position was that delinquent behavior of lower class youths is actually a protest against the norms and values of the middle class U.S. culture.  Because social conditions prevent them from achieving success legitimately, lower-class youth experience a form of culture conflict that Cohen labels status frustration (Cohen 1955). According to Cohen, the development of the delinquent subculture is a consequence of socialization practices found in the environment of the lower-class.  The children brought up in this position tend to lack the basic skills necessary to achieve social and economic success.  They also tend to lack the proper education, and therefore do not have the skills on which to build a knowledge or socialization foundation, which is very important in order to be classified as a success in the world today.  He suggests that lower-class parents are almost always incapable of teaching their children the necessary techniques for entering the dominant middle-class culture.  The consequences of this deprivation include; developmental handicaps, poor speech and communication skills, and the inability to delay gratification.

    When theorists begin to put their theories into effect or even to begin to want to research these certain things, the put all those that commit crimes into a category.  By putting people into categories the whole race, gender, or creed has a label put on it.  Labeling is said to be the process by which a person becomes fixed with a negative identity, and is forced to suffer the consequences of the negative outcast status (Siegel 1999)

One of the better-known views of the labeling process is Charles Lemert’s concept of primary deviance and secondary deviance.  According to Lemert, primary deviance involves the violation of norms or crimes that have little influence on the actor and can be quickly forgotten.  In contrast, secondary deviance occurs when a deviant event comes to the attention of family members or friends (people that are the closest to the deviant), who apply a negative label.  The newly labeled offender then recognizes his or her behavior and personality along the consequences of the deviant act. 

Secondary deviance involves resocialization into a deviant role.  The labeled person is transformed into what Lemert says, “employs his or her behavior or role based upon it as means of defense, attack, or adjustment to the overt and covert problems created by the consequent social reaction to him or her” (Siegel 1999).

Primary and secondary deviances are not the only parts of the Lemert equation, but rather the dependent and independent variables in a broader picture. The variables and the order in which Lemert study them are as follows:

    The independent variable in any theory always tends to be the first thing or the first ingredient to cracking the theory.  In this case it is primary deviance.  The dependent variable is the end result, what makes the theory complete and in this theory it is secondary deviance (O’Connor 2001).

    In 1983, Brodsky and Smitherman published the Handbook of scales for research in crime and delinquency which looks into criminal statistics of crime and delinquency and the extent that those who commit the crime go through to get the ending result of the crime that they have committed.  Along with this there is also publications that look in the criminals mind and takes a view point of looking at the reason that the crime rate is so high is due to the way most criminals look at crime as a type of career.  The book Prediction and Classification: criminal justice decision making  (Gottfredson 1987) is also another source of looking into the reason why criminals are the way that they are.

The book Crime and Human Nature (Wilson & Herrnstein 1985) takes a look at the environmental aspect as to why persons commit crimes and the things that  drove them to commit them in the first place.

    Criminologists look for stable crime patterns to gain insight into the nature of crime.  If crime rates are consistently higher at certain times, in certain areas, and among certain groups, this might help to explain the onset of crime.  There can be a number of reasons why the crime rates may fluctuate up and down and in certain areas can be due to things that are beyond the control of anyone such as, Day, season, climate, and the region in which one lives. 

In the latter parts of the 20^th and going into the 21^st century there have been a remarkable number of sources that have become available in the discovery of crime and the minds behind the crimes.  Such sources include: prison statistics from a statistics collection website on the internet that has the statistics of the prisons from 1994-1998.  Another site on the web is on that lets people view the crime rates of the United States between the years of 1973 and 1996.  This sites aims at analysis to find some significant determinates of crime rates in the U.S.  Another site is one from the sourcebook.  This site gives criminal justice statistics along with over 600 data tables on a wide variety of criminal justice topics.

RESEARCH METHODS   

    To uncover some of the significant determinants of crime rates in the United States requires that we obtain a graphical overview of the crime problem. By looking at the charts and graphs there tends to be an easier time at exactly trying to pinpoint where the root of the problem is coming from, and what others are doing in order to prevent these things from happening where they live. The following graphs illustrate an index of that problem and the amount of fluctuations over time.

    In addition, another table providing the offense categories reveals patterns and trends that are evident over certain year periods.

    Other researchers (Varon, Burnstine & Sokol 2000) have taken various economic indicators, such as poverty, unemployment, income, and education as possible causes, or independent variables to be analyzed against these crime rates. The following is one such effort. 

    Perhaps the most commonly seen variable in criminological explanations of crime, however, is Rotter's Locus of Control scale (available online at Rotter 2001). Rotter’s Locus of Control Scale (1966) is a social learning theory in which an individual believes that the occurrence of reinforcements is contingent on his or her own behavior.  The factors involved with the reinforcement expectancy are labeled “internal” and “external”.  The internal locus of control refers to the perception of positive and negative events as being consequences of one’s own actions and therefore are under one’s own personal control.  The external locus of control refers to the perception of positive and negative events as being unrelated to one’s own behavior in certain situations and therefore beyond one’s own personal control.

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

    There are so many people that come up with ways to make a person feel bad on a regular basis. Many criminologist do this when they are coming up with their theories to an explain the reasons why persons choose a life of crime. There is no one out on the streets saying that the labeling that goes on in these theories does not pertain to everyone that belongs to that group but rather a select few who choose to live a life of crime.

    Crime can be committed because of the time of the year that it is or what the weather is like outside. There is still no one reason as to why we have crime and even why we have criminals and those that want to be.

    People have been able to look at the criminals that are currently in the jails and group them into categories because they seem to share similar aspects of their life and therefore a theory, a label, and whatever else you want to call it is put upon these people.

    There are actually people in the prisons and jails today that do not want to continue on the road that they have been on. It is society that treats criminals as outcast and labels them as deviants, thinking that since they have done wrong in the past there is no way that they can turn around and do good in the future.

    Since crime has been around for such a long time and there are means to obtaining records and files on the crime rates, why hasn't there been other studies or theories that are as famous as the ones mentioned previously that show what the effects of the so called American Dream do to people who feel as if they are not ever going to be able to live that dream and therefore, there is no hope for them, so why shouldn't they be criminals.

    Theories by Merton and Lemert are good to look at when you want to discover why criminals want to partake in the act of crime in the first place but there are still holes in the theories where the good aspects can also be looked at. Society puts pressures on everybody and the thing that needs to be looked at is what can society do as a whole to elevate some of the stigma that is apparent to everyone.

    Maybe there no one will ever quite discover what exactly makes a person turn to a life of crime and what makes them continue down this road, but it is always worth a try.

REFERENCES

Brodsky, Stanley & H. Smitherman (1983) Handbook of scales for research in crime and delinquency. NY: Plenum.

Cohen, Albert (1955) Delinquent Boys New York: Free Press.

Disaster Center, U.S. Crime Statistics, URL - http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/

Filkac, Peggy, Associated Press 3/27/1996

Glueck, Sheldon & E. (1950). Unraveling Juvenile Delinquency. NY: Commonwealth.

Gottfredson, Don (1987) Prediction and classification in criminal justice decision making. In D. Gottfredson & M. Tonry (eds.) Prediction and classification (pp. 1-20) Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Lanthrop, Teri (2000) The effects of locus of control on helping behavior and the bystander intervention effect. URL - http://www.clearinghouse.mwsc.edu/manuscripts/3.asp

Mearns, Jack (2001) The social learning theory of Julian B. Rotter - URL - http://psych.fullerton.edu/jmearns/rotter.htm

O'Connor, T.  2001.  MegaLinks in Criminal Justice  http://faculty.ncwc.edu/toconnor/ 
Last Updated: 12/05/01

Rotter's Locus of Control Scale (2001) - URL http://www.ballarat.edu.au/bssh/psych/rot.htm

Sellin, Thorsten, (1938) Culture, Conflict, and Crime, The New York Social Science Research Council, Bulletin no.41

Siegel, Larry (1999) Criminology: Theories, Patterns, and Typologies. 6th ed. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.

Sourcebook of Criminal Statistics, URL - http://www.albany.edu/sourcebook

State of the Union Message (January 25, 1994), as reported in The Washington Post January 26, 1994, p. A14

Varon, C., Burnstine, R. & Sokol, M. (2000) Crime Rates in the United States, URL - http://kendrick.colgate.edu/msokol/cosc100/main.htm

Wilson, James & R. Herrnstein (1985) Crime and human nature. NY: Simon & Schuster.

Last updated: 12/06/01