Social Identity Is Important To Understand When Defining Criminal Lifestyle

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To make sense of their physical and social surroundings human beings classify everything they encounter. (Copes at al., 2008, 255) This is important to understand when defining criminal lifestyle. Social identity has a strong pull and the criminal lifestyle offers components of that. To participate within the lifestyle, you can encounter things such as gangs, notoriety, drugs, alcohol, possessions, and authority. Knowing that engaging in criminal behavior shows a direct disregard for social norms and socially acceptable roles for an individual. However, they are gaining these items in their own defined terms within their made “society” of what they cannot gain in legitimate means. They are attracted by those same aspects of power, wealth,

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