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Assess The Importance Of Rational Choice Theory In Criminology

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Rational choice theory in criminology views man as a reasoning actor who weighs means and ends, cost and benefits, and makes a rational choice. The foundation of rational choice theory is behavioral choices, that includes the choice of the person to engage in criminal activity based on intent/premedication and that the possible benefits outweigh the risk. Rational choice provides the best evidence of criminal behavior, it implies that criminals are rational in their decision-making, and despite the consequences, that the benefits of committing the crime outweigh the punishment. A decent case of judicious decision hypothesis is salaried wrongdoing. A venture broker chooses to skim cash from his customers' records and shrouds the misfortune,
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905 Words | 4 Pages

A crime that recently happened was the Marrisa Alexander case. A mother of 3 sentence to 20 years in prison for firing a warning shot at her abusive husband. Can we use rational choice theory to state that Marrisa Alexander, was a delinquent who committed this crime with all understanding of the law and knowledge of penalty? Physical and verbal abuse can blur the line for a victim that rational thinking may sometimes become and irrational. We will review if Ms. Alexander case, to better understand was this crime committed by a criminal or someone under duress, was rationality used during this incident, and was all preventive measures taken to prevent this crime or was this a case where the law provided no justice for the victim.

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186 Words | 1 Pages

Supposed someone name Alice enjoys street racing with the thrill of winning big prizes and competing against other street racers in their fancy cars. But Alice also enjoys the danger of this illegal activity. As a street racer, she enjoys trespassing on private properties, carjacking, vandalism, and the possible contact with law enforcement. She understands all these risks can lead to her in jail or be killed, but she doesn’t regret her decision in participating in street racing. This is one of the examples of a rational choice theory.

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675 Words | 3 Pages

For my article I chose, “Decision Making in the Crime Commission Process: Comparing Rapist, Child Molesters, and Victim-Crossover Sex Offenders” by Eric Beauregard, Benoit Leclerc, and Patrick Lussier. In traditional beliefs it suggests sex offenders are mainly driven by an uncontrollable urge to sexually offend. This article takes a looks into comparing how rapist, child molesters, and victim-crossover sex offenders make their criminal decisions. It investigated how decision-making is involved in target selection. The researchers used mixed methods along with Clarke and Cornish’s decision-making model to evaluate the offender’s actions.

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939 Words | 4 Pages

When comparing rational choice theory to the Andrea Yates story it is evident that rational theory was in fact present throughout the duration of Andrea completing her heinous crime. According to the document provided via Investopedia, the rational theory could be defined as “... an economic principle that states that individuals always make prudent and logical decisions.” Throughout the case and its entirety, Andrea depicted characteristics of being fully rational and aware of her decisions. Several factors played a key part in determining whether or not Andrea Yates was rational at the time of the crime, factors such as; Andrea exclaimed that “she knew through a “feeling” that Satan wanted her to kill her children,” She struggled back and forth in her mind for one to two months about whether to take the lives of her children or herself. According to the rational choice theory document,

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110 Words | 1 Pages

Rational choice theory is the most useful for understanding white collar crime. These are crimes that often require specialized knowledge, or access. They are often committed by individuals with advanced educations. This theory is vital to contemporary political science in addition to other chastisements for instance sociology and philosophy. The core of the rational choice theory can often be challenged amongst several courses of encounters, people typically do according to what they consider to result in the best inclusive outcome.

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810 Words | 4 Pages

Integrated theory does not necessarily attempt to explain all criminality but is distinguishable by the idea of merging concepts drawn from different sources. Integrated criminology tries to bring together the diverse bodies of knowledge that represents the full range of disciplines that study crime (Schmalleger, 2012). Integrated theories provide wider explanatory power (Schmalleger, 2012). Integrative theories are like diversified theories and focus on criminal behavior and criminal activity while other theories focus on punishment and crime control (Jeffery, 1959). Integrated approach combines concepts and propositions from two or more prior existing theories into a single new set of integrated concepts and propositions (Elliot, 2017).

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606 Words | 3 Pages

“‘You don’t really get into the world that he’s creating until you take that step with him, that first step into a world he’s creating in his mind,’” (Mika Brzezinski). Danny DeVito, a renowned actor, describes the difference between one of Tim Burton’s scripts and the corresponding movie. He adequately describes how Burton takes imagery to the next level, where someone feels they left reality for Burton’s mind. One of Burton’s most well-known movies, Edward Scissorhands, is about an outcast named Edward who has scissors for hands.

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1831 Words | 8 Pages

There are different types of “white collar crime” that exists inclusive of fraud, embezzlement, insider trading and Ponzi schemes. “White collar crime” affects everyone and the main driving force of the perpetrator of the white collar crime is mainly greed plain and simple. There are different theories associated with “white collar crime”. One of these such theories is the rational choice theory. The rational choice theory indicates that persons have a choice of whether to commit an offence or not.

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156 Words | 1 Pages

There is no shortage of disagreement with the perception of Officer Beserra and Rational choice theory. As Officer Beserra stated that individuals make a conscious decision to commit crime to gain a benefit from the criminal act. Also, that an individual wouldn’t deter from committing crime if the benefit is greater than the consequence, even if they got apprehended. In the same manner, Miller & Miller professed that people voluntarily and willfully choose to commit criminal acts similar as they choose to do other things such as working in a grocery store.

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1457 Words | 6 Pages

Criminology is the wider area that is used to evaluate the context of crime. The scientific study of criminals and crime is used for evaluating the basis and reasons of crime done by people. It makes use of different theories and school of thought in order to analyse the reasons behind criminal activities. The main purpose of this paper is to consider one criminology theory or school of thought. The criminology theory that is used for analysing the requirements of this paper is rational choice theory.

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268 Words | 2 Pages

Enlightenment also known as the Age of Reason, was a European movement that was built upon ideas like natural law, rationality and free will. This movement inspired the possession of a fundamental freedom of choice, free will and rational thought was recognized as the linchpins of all significant human activity (Schmalleger) . It was within this movement that the Classical School developed, leading to believe that crime is the exercise of free will and that punishment should be about preventing future crimes from being committed. This classical school gave way to other approaches such as positivism, hard determinism and eventually neoclassical criminology. Neoclassical criminology is the resurgence of classical ideas (free will, rationalism,

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1505 Words | 7 Pages

Situational crime prevention (SCP) and rational choice theory (RCT), together, provide an insightful explanation as to why people commit crimes and what can be done to deter them. Much of the work done in RCT and SCP was founded by Derek Cornish and Ronald V. Clarke, who wanted to understand the decision-making process of potential offenders and focus on the spatial and situational factors that make such crime possible (Farrell and Hodgkinson, 2015). This paper aims to explore SCP and its relationship to RCT, as well as analyze the works of Keith Hayward and Graham Farrell in their discussion of these ideas. This paper has four objectives: first, the paper will discuss SCP and RCT and explain the link between the two concepts. Second, this paper will examine Hayward 's discussion of RCT, SCP, and cultural criminology.

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1163 Words | 5 Pages

Assignment Nine Critical criminology is the idea that the media and the criminal justice system are the things that shape the publics view on crime. These sources influence our ideas of who commits crime and who is victimized by crime. These sources use their influence of crime to continue to control how the public sees crime and uses that to further their own agenda. Whereas, left realism is the idea that the depicted visions of crime are somewhat true. Some people are more likely to be victimized, however the media and criminal justice systems over exaggerate these crimes in order to instill higher levels of fear.

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405 Words | 2 Pages

Theories Some of the theories that can explain why are there prostitutes lingering around my neighborhood are rational choice, social learning, and Strain theory. Rational choice theory of criminology, says that people make logical choices about under what circumstances to commit crime. For example, Mike’s girlfriend had to meet with the prison guard who accepted a blow job and thirty dollars in exchange for smuggling in three pills of oxycodone to Mike, which he took to ease the pain from a severe beating received in the yard. “Social learning theory has had a distinct and lasting impact on the field of criminology. This framework evolved from the Edwin Sutherland’s Differential Association in the 1940s, which argued that crime is learned through interactions with intimate

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1526 Words | 7 Pages

Rational Choice Theory, in layman terms sees people as maximizers of self-interest who engage in a cost-benefit calculation to achieve a better outcome over a worse one (Lim, 78). The self-interest of an individual is subject to change, based on the surrounding conditions. This is further explained by the assumption that rationality can be institutionally, culturally or socially defined (Lim, 82). Hence, it can be said that rational choice theory takes into account the effect of the environment on the decision making capability of an individual. This is also referred to as the ‘’thick variant’’ of rationality and using this variant enables this theory to be applied on both micro and meso-levels.

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