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Boardwalk Empire, By Robert K. Merton

225 Words1 Pages
Numerous theories of criminality have been proposed, attempting to explain what exactly causes people to commit crimes. Robert K. Merton argues that a strain put on people from society causes them to commit crimes while Sigmund Freud posits a preexisting sense of guilt as the cause. In Boardwalk Empire, an HBO drama television series, crime is depicted as a necessary evil in the new age of prohibition. In sharp contrast with Freud’s theory of criminality but similar in some ways to Merton’s theory, Boardwalk Empire depicts a lack of regulation of criminal behaviors, a desire for wealth and power and pressure from influential upper class individuals as the chief causes of crime in the ever changing society. In Boardwalk Empire, crime is a daily
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