ipl-logo

Constructionist Perspectives On The Socially Constructed Nature Of Crime

81 Words1 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Crime social construct theory

Constructionist perspectives emphasize the socially constructed nature of crime and the idea “that we cannot fully understand crime and its causes and consequences unless we also accept that the identification, coding, and counting of crime” (Modern and Payls, 2015,77) are built on the basis of interactions among people. In addition, constructionists suggest that crime statistics like the UCR is considered more of measuring police activity and how many crimes the police detects rather than the amount of crime reported to
Show More
Related
625 Words | 3 Pages

Criminal and conflict gang whose primarily intent of crimes for tangible gains. Social structure theorists consider that the main components to illegal behavior are the ascendancy of social and economic influences that are distinguished in rundown communities where the population is predominantly lower-class citizens (Siegel, 2010). This following theory goes into helping us comprehend ways the human behavior, is the result of physical

Read More
731 Words | 3 Pages

The Uniform Crime Report can be perceived from numerous different standpoints: structuralist, constructionist, positivist, and integrationist. People may argue which perspective best represents the UCR, but it is not definite. The structuralist perspective is based off of conflict theories, such as feminist and Marxist theories where they demonstrate the “unequal distribution of power in society” (Morden and Palys, 2015, p. 75). Structuralists would also interpret the data from the records and analyze it with the intent to determine the distribution of societal power instead of the fact that it is simply data based off societal misconduct reported by the police (Morden and Palys, 2015). Essentially, individuals who follow the structuralist form, focus more on the qualitative facts rather than the quantitative facts as shown within the UCR’s, thus the structuralist perspective is not an accurate depiction of the

Read More
1417 Words | 6 Pages

Between the mid-late 1970s and the early 1980s, Dennis Nilsen began mass murdering young men in Great Britain that had at least 15 men through strangulation (Crime Investigation, 2014). In analyzing his life, many of contributions throughout his life could have influenced his criminal behaviour when committing his crimes. Many theories such as broken home hypothesis and schema therapy theory use psychological explanations that determine how the individual resulted into committing their crimes. With schema therapy theory, not only does it discuss the justification for criminal behaviour, but suggests how to reduce the relapse of criminal acts by identifying the cause or the trigger of the individual’s criminal behaviour (Vos et al., 2016). In Dennis Nilsen’s life, there are several indications such as the abandonment of his family members, the termination of a past relationship, and the reclusiveness from society that could have resulted

Read More
605 Words | 3 Pages

The Case for Progressive Perspectives The average American citizen 's perspective of Congress is equivalent to only viewing a still of a three-hour documentary. This is a compelling factor of why mass Americans are adapting a negative prospective concerning what our country is doing and the, albeit slow, progress made by our public servants. News castors commonly broadcast stories covering the latest scandals and setbacks in congress.

Read More
1605 Words | 7 Pages

Introduction: Module two focuses on revisiting the three lenses that we learned in CHYS1F90, the three lenses are developmental lens, exceptionalities lens, and sociocultural lens. These lenses will help us understand children and youth in a different perspective that will help prepare us for service-learning placement experience. The explanation of the lens gives us a better understanding what each lens focuses on and how it differs from the rest. Professor Zinga provides a description of each lens by going in detail what the purpose and focus for each lens. This explanation helped to remind what we learned last year in CHYS1F90 of what each lens entails.

Read More
2613 Words | 11 Pages

What impact has the social construction of crime had on fear of crime, our view of victims and offenders and resulting criminal justice policy? The media has been influential in shaping the way society thinks about certain issues, including crime. This essay argues that social construction has a negative impact on society’s view of the fear of crime, victims, and offenders. It’ll also study how social construction affects government policy.

Read More
822 Words | 4 Pages

There are many theories that suggest that crime is constructed socially, or is a product of the society in which the crime is committed. One such theory, proposed by Robert Merton, is known as strain theory. While strain theory is a useful model for explaining how societal values can drive people to commit crimes, it has several flaws and does not focus on how laws are made and how this contributes to the formation of crime. While Merton suggests that laws are created from consensus within a society, it will be argued that strain theory can also support the idea that laws are a “product of conflict” (Hagan 5). Strain theory is founded on the idea that the goals of a society and the accepted means of achieving said goal causes strain that can

Read More
605 Words | 3 Pages

As we have learned in previous readings, people relate crime to the typical criminal which is characterized as black, poor, urban and male. This racial typification has led to greater social control, which currently aims at reducing crime and deviance, as stated in our previous reading. We also know that media, specifically the news plays a big role in perpetuated these racial stereotypes and fear through the selection of the violent crimes and criminals they portray. This perpetuated fear affects mainly whites, which leads to their support in harsher punishments and policies that are directed towards blacks because whites support the idea that crime is racial as evidenced through their exaggeration of black involvement in violent crime and burglary. Of course, other variables like education, religious beliefs, and racial prejudice impact this view that crime is a racial activity, but even after controlling for these mainly whites still use racially typification to substantially support harsh punishments and polices.

Read More
1364 Words | 6 Pages

Cultural criminology’s “framework is concerned with meaning, power and existential accounts of crime and punishment and control” (Hayward, 2016:300). Which allows cultural criminologist to study crime in the relation to culture and its impact on criminality. Cultural criminology believes it is always “necessary to state and restate what crime is, if nothing else a human activity” (Presdee, 2004:276). The commodification of culture relates to Cultural Criminology in the sense of the many faucets of crime and deviance and what is getting exploited through the media to the public. Commodification of crime is becoming more prevalent as time goes on as the media has such a large influence on society.

Read More
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.

Read More
869 Words | 4 Pages

Social process theory depends on the interaction between individuals and society as an explanation and is also known as interactionist perspective. This theory assumes that everyone has the potential to violate the law and that criminality is not an innate human characteristic but is instead a belief that criminal behavior is learned by interaction with others (Schmalleger, 2012). Social process feels the socialization process that occurs because of group membership is the main way through which learning occurs (Schmalleger, 2012). Social process theory views criminality as people’s interactions with various organizations, institutions, and processes in society (Siegel, 2000). This theory feels that people from all areas have the potential

Read More
704 Words | 3 Pages

Most crime is violent, interpersonal, pathological. However, that is sometimes not the case. The media has a profound influence on the general public understanding of crime. Various sources of information, commentary, and debate on crime exist in print, video and electronic media outlets. These outlets create the parameters of perceived wisdom on crime.

Read More
2749 Words | 11 Pages

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.

Read More
891 Words | 4 Pages

Crime is defined as an action which evokes dissent and constitutes an offence in society. Crime can take a number of forms which have been conceptualized by a number of sociologists. The purpose of this essay is to analyze the function of crime regarding its contribution towards social stability. The French Sociologist, Emile Durkheim, was the first to comprehensively establish a relation between social functionalism, crime and deviance.

Read More
1877 Words | 8 Pages

As far as crime is concerned, it is defined by the law. Deviance is unexpected behaviour, but not exactly considered criminal. Many consider crime as a social problem – a problem as defined by society, such as homelessness, drug abuse, etc. Others would say crime is a sociological problem – something defined as a problem by sociologists and should be dealt with accordingly by sociologists. This essay attempts to discover the boundaries between these two and ultimately come to an appropriate conclusion.

Read More

More about Constructionist Perspectives On The Socially Constructed Nature Of Crime

Related Topics

Open Document