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Rational Choice Theory, Routine Activities Theory And Deterrence Theory

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When discussing the different theories of criminality, there are two distinct schools of thought to highlight. The Classical School focuses on the premise that crime is the result of free will (Siegel & Worrall, 2016). This school of thought was foreran by Cesare Beccaria and Jeremy Bentham. According to the Classical School of thought, people make their decisions based on the balance of pleasure seeking and pain avoidance; this is the concept of hedonism. If an individual believes the benefits of a crime outweigh the possible consequences, then they will commit the crime. This school focuses on the Rational Choice Theory, Routine Activities Theory, and Deterrence Theory. Beccaria believed that punishment should fit the crime, we should all …show more content…

To describe this, Lombroso coined the term atavism in 1876. Atavism “...asserts that criminals are born— as opposed to made…” (Hunter & Dantzker, 2002, p. 35). Atavistic individuals were believed to have underdeveloped brains, which caused them to, by nature, lack the capability to distinguish between good and evil (Hunter & Dantzker, 2002). According to Lombroso, “...he is still too indifferent to and careless of the lives of others; and he betrays that lack of the sentiment of pity, commonly observed among savage races, which causes them to regard homicide as a mere incident, and as glorious in case it is the outcome of revenge” (Lombroso, 1897, p. 647-648). Lombroso believed that he could identify an atavistic individual from their physical characteristics. Along with atavistic individuals, Lombroso also believed there were criminaloids. Criminaloids are individuals who have criminal traits, but are not born criminals (Siegel & Worrall, 2016). Within the Positivism school of thought lie trait and biological theories. Trait and biological theories claim that crime is caused by inherited and uncontrollable biological and psychological traits (Siegel & Worrall, …show more content…

Mary Sandin serves as an exemplary character of individuals not being inherently evil. Although she is doing so to protect her family, Mary verbally states her discomfort with what she and her husband are doing when tying up the homeless man. She states, “This is so wrong,” showing that she does not want harm to come unto this man, even though it may save her family (The Purge, 2013). However, this is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Mary Sandin’s compassion. After being saved by the homeless man, Mary is given the choice to kill or allow her neighbors to live. Despite the fact that the neighbors were seconds away from murdering Mary and her children, Mrs. Sandin allowed them to live and said she wanted to ride out the rest of the purge in peace (The Purge, 2013). Then, even after Grace attempted to kill her one last time, Mary let her live with only a broken nose to deal with. Another major example of an individual not being inherently criminal would be Homeless Guy, the man Charlie allowed refuge inside their home to. Homeless Guy was hunted, stabbed, and left tied to a chair while the house was attacked by the Fine Gang, by the Sandins. Despite all of the pain and suffering he endured due to the Sandin family, he still saved Mary and her children from being killed by their neighbors and allows her

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Doing what is right vs. wrong often causes struggles within other people. Marie little soldier was David's biggest crush until she was found dead in her bedroom. Marie was an Indian women who lived on the reservation before David met her. She was asked to be housekeeper for David's home and also babysit David.

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Mrs. Strangeworth made unethical decisions that lead to hurt feelings among the people in her town. Mrs. Strangeworth's intentions are to protect the townspeople from evil. Mrs Strangeworth corrupts the relationships of the other people in town toward one another and towards her. Truly, Miss Strangeworth thought that the town people were corrupt and evil, but it was really Miss Strangeworth. Mrs. Strangeworth made unethical decisions that lead to hurt feelings among the people in her town.

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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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Albert Einstein once said “The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it.” Miss Strangeworth makes unethical decisions that supplemented to hurt feelings amongst the people in her town. Miss Strangeworth’s intentions are to shield the town’s people from evil while her external actions create her own form of evil. Miss Strangeworth corrupts the relationships of the other people in town toward one another and towards her. Truly, Miss Strangeworth assumed that the town people were corrupt and evil, but in reality Miss Strangeworth.

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Truly, Miss Strangeworth thought that the town’s people were corrupt and evil, but throughout the story the evil was really Miss Strangeworth. Miss Strangeworth made unethical decisions that led to hurt feelings among the people in her town. Miss Strangeworth’s intentions were to protect the town’s people from evil while her external actions create her own type of evil. Miss Strangeworth corrupted the relationships of the other people in the town toward one another and towards her. Miss Strangeworth’s character was flat and unchanged throughout the story while it was the other people in town who grow and change.

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One can see that she is morally blind when she is being nosey. She tries to get dirt on the people in the town. She calls them evil even though she is the one who is getting in their business. The letters that she writes are the little bits and pieces of verbal violence that is shown. This type of violence is different than the other stories because it’s handwritten gossip letters instead of murdering people.

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Likewise, exposure to justification of the criminal behavior such as the belief of "End justifies the means" can also provide impetus for rule breaking (Vito et al.,

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The theory of Gottredson and Hirschi (1990) is the most popular theory in explaining crime. It originated from pure classical theory that people seek to enhance their own pleasure in committing criminal acts without special predisposition. As a whole, the theory is then called today as control theories which emphasize the prevention of crime through consequences painful to the individual in respect to their location and sanctions systems. The theory of Gottfredson and Hirschi became popular because they based it to the criminality of the individual in pursuit of self-interest in relation to self-control. The clear idea of self-control is that, people also differ in the level to which they are susceptible to temptation on the existence of social

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The classical theory of crime says that people make rational choices when they commit crimes. “Individuals have the will and rationality to act according to their own will and desires. Individuals will calculate the rationality of the crime based on the benefits of the crime versus the consequences of the crime” (Robinson, 2014). This theory discuses that how people think about the negative and positive outcomes before they commit crime. Even though they realize it is not right, they still continue to commit illegal offence because they believe that what they are doing is for the greater

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O’Connor simply wanted to be who she was unapologetically, but not with a careless disregard for others. This also shows that she truly valued everyone—not just the people she made Mrs. Turpin discriminate against, but also the people who are like Mrs. Turpin. Truly, O’Connor is the righteous woman in this story, not Mrs.

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It is the means of understanding the human behaviour towards criminal activities and the ways through which it can be controlled. Moreover, the theory considers two factors that are situational factor and personal factor, which are the major reason behind formulation of the theory. Beccaria developed the theory to make it convenient for the people to understand the personal as well as situational factors through which crime rate is increasing. This is because it helps in minimising the rising impact of criminal

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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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He believed that criminals had certain facial features like large jaws and sharp canines. Evaluation- Even though Lombroso established using statistics and data collection in criminology, his belief was not supported by research gathered much later on. He was criticized for the atavistic form theory. The data gathered to incriminate people basing the claims on appearance was re-analysed by Gould (1981) who eventually concluded that it was weak and lacked evidence.

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Fifth, the specific direction of motives and drives is learned from definitions of the legal codes as favorable or unfavorable. Sixth, a person becomes delinquent because of an excess of definitions favorable to violation of law over definitions unfavorable to violation of the law. Seventh, Differential associations may vary in frequency, duration, priority, and intensity. Eighth, the process of learning criminal behavior by association with criminal and anti-criminal patterns involves all of the mechanisms that are involved in any other learning. Lastly, while criminal behavior is an expression of general needs and values, it is not explained by those needs and values, since non-criminal behavior is an expression of the same needs and values.

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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.

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