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Rational Choice Theory: Why Do People Commit Crimes

912 Words4 Pages

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. Rational Choice Theory Do people think before they commit a crime? This question is answered by the rational choice theory that was proposed to us first as the classical theory …show more content…

White collar crime is an organized crime committed by person of higher socioeconomic status in the course of their business, occupation, or profession (Sutherland, 2002). It was introduced to the Criminal Justice system in 1939, but was overlooked by many people because they never noticed it was happening. White collar crime has been taking place in America for a long time and is summed up as lying, cheating and stealing. There are numerous types of white collar crimes such as bribery, bank fraud, embezzlement, and insurance fraud to name a few (National Check Fraud Center, 2011). One case that we all know of, Enron, not only wiped out lifesavings, but cost investors billions of dollars. White collar crime requires intelligence and lots of

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While a few theories are not as regular, others have developed and are utilized as a part of numerous criminal reviews today. Cutting edge criminologists consolidate the most important aspects of sociology, psychology, anthropology, and biological theories to advance their comprehension of criminal behavior. Rational choice theory, psychological, biological, and strain theory are used to analyze the

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938 Words | 4 Pages

While some theories are not as common, others have evolved and are used in many criminal studies today. Cutting edge criminologists consolidate the most important aspects of sociology, psychology, anthropology, and biological theories to advance their comprehension of criminal behavior. Rational choice theory, psychological, biological, and strain theory are used to analyze the facts of Hernandez’s crime. Biological Theory is

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Within the past couple of decades, criminologists have developed different criminological theories that apply to the social behaviors and decisions of criminals. One of the earliest theories developed regarding criminality is the rational choice theory, in which describes the rationalization of determining if the rewards from committing the crime outweigh the consequences. In Scarver’s case, his decision to engage in criminal activities outweighed the potential consequences, or the other alternatives if he did not engage in such criminal activities. In addition to the rational choice theory, Scarver’s criminality can be related to the social disorganization theory, which describes the influence of one’s social and physical environment on one’s decision to commit a crime. Lastly, the strain theory can be related to Scarver’s criminality as well, as it is used to describe an individual who lacks the means to obtain such goals, and aspirations, so therefore, he or she engages in criminal activities to acquire the goals.

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In class, we watched a scene from the film Goodfellas. The scene was about Henry Hill as a kid how he got introduced to the gangster lifestyle. Throughout this essay, I will explain three behavioral theories, how it applies to a criminal behavior and Goodfellas. Rational choice theory is Attempts to explain all (conforming and deviant) social phenomenon in terms of how self-interested individuals make choices under the influence of their preferences. It treats social exchange as similar to an economic exchange where all parties try to maximize their advantage or gain and to minimize their disadvantage or loss.

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CHOICES “White collar crime” refers to those offenses that are anticipated to generate fiscal gain using some form of dishonesty. This type of crime is usually committed by people in the commercial world who, as a result of their employment position, are able to get a hold of large amounts of other people’s money. “White collar crime” does not involve forceful, drug-related, or blatantly illicit activities. In fact, perpetrators are typically involved in otherwise lawful industries and may hold respectable positions in the community prior to the discovery of their fraudulent schemes. The slogan “white collar crime” was made up in 1939 by Edwin Sutherland during a dialog which he gave to the American Sociological Society.

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In a recent article published by the Wall Street Journal, journalist Nicole Hung explored the role of gangs in white-collar crimes. According to the article, entitled “Gangs Turn to Bank Fraud”, crimes such as “check fraud and identity theft are…lucrative, harder to detect and carry lighter prison sentences” (Hung). Thus, providing gangs an opportunity to use their critical thinking skills as an advantage in order to commit while-collar crimes. In addition, according to the article in recent years the rate of white-collar crimes by gangs has increased as a result of a number of “high-profile data breaches…of credit card numbers” (Hung). Most importantly, the increase of white-collar crimes by gangs has become a major focus the police whose goal is to prevent gangs from continuing to defraud banks and people nationwide (Hung).

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Through the development of these ideas, several philosophers came up with five basic assumptions to make when questioning the causation of crime. The first is that crime is a product of human free will. Human beings have a base of rationality,

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Third, I will explore Farrell 's critique of Hayward 's article and consider his arguments made in response to Hayward 's conclusions. Fourth, this paper will engage in its own critique of both Hayward 's and Farrell 's work and conclude with which article makes the most compelling argument. Tenets of Rational Choice Theory and Situational Crime Prevention Rational choice theory originated in the Classical School of thinking as it is based on the ideas of utilitarianism, which states that individuals make decisions that provide the greatest pleasure, as well as the ideas of free will and rational thought (Farrell and Hodgkinson, 2015). According to Farrell and

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The rational choice perspective has a six core concepts and for decision making models: criminal behavior is purposive, criminal behavior is rational, criminal decision-making is crime-specific, criminal choices fall into two board groups: ’involvement’ and ‘event’ decisions, there are separate stages of involvement, criminal events unfold in a sequence of stages and decisions (Cornish and Clark). Criminal behavior is purposive when a person decided to commit an offense just to satisfy their needs and wants. Criminal behavior is rational when an individual commit an offense because of the benefits they might get despite how risky is their action just to achieve that goal. Criminal decision making is crime specific, it’s because each individual

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Professor Edwin Sutherlands defines white-collar as “crimes committed by a person of respectability and high social status in the course of description.” (Rosoff, Pontell, & Tillman, 2010). On the contrary, this does not include white-collar criminals who do not work in a particular industry, but commit the similar crime for personal financial gain, secure an advantage. Some people believed white-collar only target victims with large income. A small number of people think white-collar victims deserved to be victimized.

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A white-collar crime is defined as “the illegal act of deceit, concealment or violation of trust, without violence or physical force to achieve financial gain within a company or organization" (Fbi.gov, 2017). White- collar crimes can be devastating to companies and commit them to financial hardship. Furthermore, organizations and individuals that commit such crimes has a sole purpose of obtaining money or other services from their act. Throughout the years there have been numerous cases of white-collar crimes that have defrauded a numerous of companies and individuals. Substantial amounts of acts that may constitute a white-collar criminal act are embezzlement, bank fraud, tax fraud, health care fraud and money laundering.

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There are loads of theories on crime and why people commit them. If I had to pick a favorite one I would pick rational choice theory. Rational choice theory definition is the view that people behave as they do because they believe that performing their chosen actions has more benefits and less costly than living a legal life. That is, people make rational choices based on their goals, and those choices govern their behavior.

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1202 Words | 5 Pages

Department of social work Assignment on social defense and correctional services What is white-collar crime? White collar crime refers to those types of offenses that are designed to produce financial gain for one’s ownself using some form of deception. This type of crime is usually committed by people in the business world who, as a result of their job position, are able to gain access to large amounts of peoples money. It is a financially motivated non violent crime committed by business and government officials.

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Researchers have invested decades worth of time and data, attempting to answer the question of what causes crime. The study of criminological theory contains a great number of explanations, focused on discovering why exactly, crime occurs. Whether causations are biological, psychological, or sociological in nature, theory has lead us closer to answering the question of why crime happens. Perhaps causations are best explained using hybrid explanations that include a little bit of everything.

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TERM PAPER TOPIC: CRIME FACTORS INTRODUCTION A crime is essentially an act forbidden by the law, and considered sufficiently grave to warrant providing penalties for its commission. It does not necessarily follow that such an act is either good or bad; punishment follows for the violation of the law and not necessarily for any moral contravention. Before 1968, most theories of crime were resulted from recommendations given by sociologists, psychologists, political scientists, and criminologists.

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