From a sociological perspective, explanations for Essay Example For Students

From a sociological perspective, explanations for Essay criminal- ity are found in two levels which are the subculture and the structural explanations. The sociological explanations emphasize aspects of societal arrangements that are external to the actor and compelling. A sociological explanation is concerned with how the structure of a society or its institutional practices or its persisting cultural themes affect the conduct of its members. Individual differences are denied or ignored, and the explanation of the overall collective behavoir is sought in the patterning of social arrangements that is considered to be both outside the actor and prior to him (Sampson, 1985). That is, the social patterns of power or of institutions which are held to be determinative of human action are also seen as having been in existence before any particular actor came on the scene. In lay language, sociological explanations of crime place the blame on something social that is prior to, external to, and compelling of any particular person. Sociological explanations do not deny the importance of human motivation. However, they locate the source of motives outside the individual and in the cultural climate in which he lives. Political philosophers, sociologists, and athropologists have long observed that a condition of social life is that not all things are allowed. Standards of behavior are both a pro- duct of our living together and a requirement if social life is to be orderly. The concept of a culture refers to the perceived standards of behavior, observable in both words and deeds, that are learned, transmitted from generation to generation and somewhat durable. To call such behavior cultural does not necessar- ily mean that it is refined, but rather means that it is cultured aquired, cultivated, and persistent. Social scientists have invented the notion of a subculture to describe variations, within a society, upon its cultural themes. In such circumstances, it is assumed that some cultural prescrip- tions are common to all members of society, but that modifica- tions and variations are discernible within the society. Again, it is part of the definition of a subculture, as of a culture, that is relatively enduring. Its norms are termed a style, rather than a fashion, on the grounds that the former has some endurance while the latter is evanescent. The quarrel comes, of course, when we try to estimate how real a cultural pattern is and how persistent. The standards by which behavior is to be guided vary among men and over time. Its is in this change and variety that crime is defined. An application of this principle to crimin- ology would find that the roots of the crime in the fact that groups have developed different standards of appropriate behavior and that, in complex cultures, each individual is subject to competing prescriptions for action. Another subcultural explanation of crime grows readily out of the fact that, as we have seen, social classes experience different rates of arrest and conviction for serious offenses. When strata within a society are marked off by categories of income, education, and occupational prestige, differences are discovered among them in the amount and style of crime. Further, differences are usually found between these social classes in their tastes, interests, and morals. Its is easy to describe these class-linked patterns as cultures. This version of the subcultural explanation of crime holds that the very fact of learning the lessons of the subculture means that one aquires interests and preferences that place him in greater or lesser risk of breaking the law. Others argue that being reared in the lower class means learning a different culture from that which creates the criminal laws. The lower- class subculture is said to have its own values, many of which run counter to the majority interests that support the laws against the serious predatory crimes. One needs to note that the indicators of class are not descriptions of class. Proponents of subcultural explanations of crime do not define a class culture by any assortment of the objective indicators or rank, such as annual income or years of schooling. Rise of the Superpowers (USA and USSR) EssayFrom this theoretical stance, the savagery of the urban gangster for example represents merely thenatural outcome of a failure in child upbringing. Similarily, on a simple level of explanation, manysociolo- gists and anthropologists believe that hostile behavior can be learned as easily as passivebehavior. Once learned, the codes of violence and impatient tendencies of the mind are their ownpositive values. Fighting and hating then become both duties and pleasures. For advocates of thissociopsychological point of view, it is not necessary to regard the barbarian whose words anddeeds laugh at goodness as having the same motives as more lawful per- sons. It needs noradical vision to agree that the school systems of Western societies presently provide pooraprenticeship in adult- hood for many adolescents. A poor apprenticeship for being grown up iscriminogenic. In this sense, the structure of modern countries encourages delinquency, for that structure lacks institutional procedures for moving people smoothly form protected childhood toautomonmous adulthood. During adolescence, many youths in affluent societies are neither wellguided by their parents nor happily engaged by their teachers. They are adult in body, but childrenin responsi- bility and in their contribution to others. Now placed in between irresponsibledependence and accountable independance, they are compelled to attend schools that do notthoroughly stimulate the interests of all of them and that, in too many cases, provide theuninterested child with the experience of failure and the mirror of denigration (Herrnstein). Educators are conceiving remedies. This engages a dilemmaa dilemma of the democraticeducators. They want equality and individuality, objectives that thus far in history have eludedsocietal engineers. Meanwhile, the metro- politan schools of industrialized nations make aprobable, but measurable, contribution to delinquency. Some crimes are rational. In such cases, thecriminal way appears to be the more effecient way of satisfying ones wants. When crime isregarded as rational, it can be given either a structural or a sociopsychological explanation. Theexplanation is structural when it emphasizes the conditions that make crime rational. It becomes asociopsychological explanation when it emphasizes the interpretations of the conditions that makecrime rational, or when it stresses the training that legitimizes il- legal activities. No one emphasisneed be more correctmore use- fulthan another. Conduct, lawful and criminal, always occurswithin some structure of possibilities and is, among n ormal people, justified by an interpretation ofthat structure. Both the interpretation of and the adaptation to a structure of possibilities are largelylearned. It is only for convenience that we will discuss the idea that crime may be rational as one ofthe structural, rather than one of the sociopsychological, explantions. The most obvious way inwhich a social structure produces crime is by providing chances to make money illegally(Herrnstein). Whether or not a structure elevates desires, it generates crime by bringing needs intothe view of opportunities. This kind of explanation does not say that people behave criminallybecause they have been denied legitimate opportunities, but rather it says that people break the law,particulary those laws concerning the definition of property, because this is a rational thing to do. the idea of rational crime is in accord with the common-sense assumption that most people willtake money if they can do so without penalty. Obviously there are differences in personality thatraise or lower resistance to temptation. These differences are the concern of thosesociopsychological explantions that emphasize the controlling functions of character. However,without attending to these personal variables, it is notable that the common human proclivity toimprove and maintain status will produce offenses against property when these tendencies meet theappropriate situa- tion (Ferrington). These situations have been studied by crimin- ologists in fourmajor contexts. There are, first, the many situations in civil life in which supplies, services andmoney are available for theft. Theft is widespread in such situations. It ranges from taking whatisnt nailed down in public settings to stealing factory tools and store inventories to cheating onexpense accounts to embezzlement. Second, t here are circumstances in which legitimate workmakes it economical to break the criminal law. Third, there are able criminals, individuals whohave chosen theft as an occupation and who have make a success of it. These expert thieves aresometimes affiliated with musclemen or organizers in a fourth context of rational crimes, thecontext in which crime becomes an economic enterprise fulfilling the demands of a market(Ferrington). Now specifically on these contexts, crime has been seen as a preferred livelihood. The conception of some kinds of crime as rational responses to structures indicates that in thestruggle to stay alive and in the desire to improve ones material condi- tion lie the seeds of manycrimes. some robbery, but more burglary; some snitching, but more boosting; some automobiletheft by juveniles, but more automobile transfers by adults represent a consciously adopted wayof making a living. All organized crime represents such a preference. The organization of largescale theft adopts new technologies and new modes of opera- tion to keep pace with increases inthe wealth of Western nations and changes in security measures. Such businesslike crime has beenchanging form craft crimes to project crimes involving big- ger risks, bigger takes, and morecriminal intelligence. Conversations with successful criminals, those who use intel- legence to planlucrative acts, indicate considerable satisfaction with their work. There is pride in ones craft andpride in ones nerve. There is enjoyment of leisure between jobs. There is ex- pressed delight inbeing ones own boss, free of any compelling routine. the carefree life, the irresponsible life, isappreciat- ed and contrasted with the drab existence of more lawful citizens. Given the low risk ofpenalty and the high probability of reward, given the absence of pangs of guilt and the presence ofhedonistic preferences, crime is a rational occupational choice for such individuals (Sampson). Ona level of lesser skill, many inhabitants of metropolitan slums are in situations that make criminalactivity a rational enterprise. Young men in particular who show little interest in school, but greatdistaste for the authority of a boss and the imprisonment of a predictable job, are likely candidatesfor the rackets. Compared to work, the rackets combine more freedom, money and higher status ata relatively low cost. In some organ- ized crimes, like running the numbers, risk of arrest is low. therationality of the choice of these rackets is therefore that much higher for youths with the requisitetastes. In summary, the structuralist emphasis on the criminogenic features of a stratified society isboth popular and persuasive. The employment of this type of explanation becomes political. If theanomie that generates crime lies in the gap between desires and their gratification, criminologistscan urge that desires be modified, that gratifications be increased, or that some compro- mise bereached between what people expect and what they are likely to get (Christiansen). The variouspolitical positions prescribe different remedies for our social difficulties. Radical thinkers use theschema of anomie to strengthen their argument for a classless or, at least, a less stratified society. Conservative thinkers use this schema to demonstrate the dangers of an egalitarian philosophy. Atone political pole, the recommendation is to change the structure of power so as to reduce thepressure toward criminality. At the other pole, the prescription is to change the publics perceptionof life. Criminologists are themselves caught up in this debate. The major tradition in socialpsychology, as it has been developed from sociologists, emphasizes the ways in which perceptionsand beliefs cause behavoirs. Between how things are (the structure) and how one responds to thisworld, the social psychologist places attitude, belief, and definition of the situation. The crucialquestion becomes one of assessing how much of any action is simply a response to a structure ofthe social world, and how much of any action is moved by differing interpretations of that reality(Sampson). Social psychologists of the symbolic-inter- actionist persuasion attempt to build abridge between the struc- tures of social relations and our interpretations of them and, in thismatter, to describe how crime is produced. BibliographyBIBLIOGRAPHY 1. Blumstein, Alfred. 1979. An Analysis. Crime and Delinquency 29(October): 546-60. 2. Christiansen, K.O. 1977. A Review of Studies of Crimin- ality. In Basesof Criminal Behavoir, ed. S.A. Mednick and K.O. Christiansen, p. 641, 654-669 New York:Gardner. 3. Ferrington, David P. 1991. Explaining the Beginning and Progress. In Advances inCriminological Theory, ed. Joan McCord, vol. 3, p. 191-199,New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction. 4. Freeman, Richard B. 1983. The Relationship Between Criminality and the Disadvantaged. Ch. 6In Crime and Public Policy, ed. James Q. Wilson, p. 917-991. San Francisco: ICS Press. 5. Herrnstein, Richard J. 1985. Crime and Human Nature. P. 359-374, New York: Simon andSchuster. 6. Hirschi, Travis. 1969. Causes of Delinquency. P. 30-31, 89-102, Berkeley: Universityof California Press. 7. Sampson, R.J. 1985. Neighborhood Family Structure and the Risk ofVictimization. In The Social Ecology of Crime, ed. J. Byrne and R. Sampson, 25-46. New York:Springer-Verlag.