Theories of Criminology
Criminology entails the study of crime, its causes and law enforcement response, and, notably, prevention methods. It further involves the study of human behavior. This interdisciplinary focuses on response to crime encompassing scholars and other professionals who are quest to understand the multifaceted issue revolving around crime. With the constant rise in criminal activities and violations of human rights, to further the understanding, a lot of research is conducted to conceptualize these behaviors .criminology is an inherent discipline in understanding the evolutionary perspective and provide a viable approach to solving crimes that are the key national security threats globally (Burke, 2017).This paper expounds on the different criminology theories including the evolutionary aspects of criminology.
Theories and perspectives have emanated to describe crime and criminal behaviors additionally. There are four common perspectives of crime, biological, classical theory, strain theory and critical theory. These theories have continued to be explored collectively or individually by scholars to formulate solutions to flatten the levels of crime rate (Lanier, 2017). Each of these theories attempts to expound on crime while highlighting factors leading to the behaviors of individuals involved. Herein are some of the theories and their respective insights on criminology.
Classical Theories of Criminology
Classical theorist believe that in the event of a crime, it is a violation of social contract consequentially forfeit a section of their individual rights in order to receive state protection. Moreover, classical theories further describe that crimes impacted citizens communally and felt the effects of the crime in equal measure, necessitating the state to be prompt to reestablish order. Additionally, Jeremy Bentham, one of the philosophers actively involved in the shaping up of the classical theory describes that the human behavior is directly influenced by the pleasure-pain aspect whereby individual acts in ways whereby they increase the pleasure while subsidizing the pain (White, 2017). Thus, the punishments in classical theories were meant to rehabilitate rather than avenge within the intention of serving as an example to other citizens to refrain from committing the offences. Over time, classical criminology theory has been largely influenced by the varying international systems with critiques arguing that the punishment was not fairly distributed among citizens based on their social economic status.
Rationale Choice Theory
This theory, explains that individuals make decisions by acting in their elf interest after weighting the risk. This includes the risk of getting apprehended and incarcerated. This further explains arranged criminal activities such as heists or voluntary manslaughter. In these crimes, the offenders took time to have a well laid out plain regarding the execution of crime (Burke, 2017). In some cases they get away with in but most cases the criminal justices catches up with them, and they end up paying for the malicious deeds.
Strain Theories
Over the years, criminologists have developed an interest in various societal crimes. This theory is the first sociological theory focusing to highlight on crime as a social phenomenon emanating from social processes. It is further believed that the crime was a violation of social norms that had been defined ad agreed upon by the society. According to Hagan (2018), the philosophers further believed that crimes were resulting from social strains for instance poverty. Furthermore, it explains that many people have common aspirations, however, the modes of achieving it differ. In the event of delayed gratifications, individuals attempt to fulfill expectations by involving crimes.
Critical Theory
This theory focuses on the structures of power in a society and how it influences certain groups’ privileges. For instance, female criminologist focuses their research on how criminal justice handle women while exposing the underlying paradigm delineating how different groups of citizens are treated based on their power dynamics (Hagan, 2018). These perspectives and theories have revolutionized and advanced the criminology fields, influencing more criminologists to venture into finding more viable solutions to combating crimes.
Biological Aspect of Criminology
The prevalence of complex crimes has stimulated the study of criminology. It not only focus on the study of crime but rather the impacts of these criminal behaviors in the contemporary world. According to Hagan (2018), the evolutionary aspect seeks to deem the right versus wrong revolving around crime and la. By acknowledging the role human morality plays in conceptualizing crime and law, criminologists appreciate moral impulses and intuitions edging the individual behavior and its consequences. The evolutionary logic of criminology advocates for humans to govern their codes of conduct within their groups. The evolutionary principle further defines crimes to be influenced by the age, sex and environmental influence. The principles are further described parental investment asymmetry characterizing the inherent dissimilarities portrayed by females and males and parents plays an essential role in investing on their offspring (Hagan, 2018). This portrays the need for accountability for every action.
Conclusion
Crime is a multifaceted phenomenon varying from one jurisdiction to the next. With the constant cultural changes, activities that were initially considered illegal have become criminalized. There is no straightforward explanation to it, hence the essence of understanding criminology. By further understanding the theories that seeks to highlight on the nature and circumstances of crimes, criminologists have broadened their spectrum in formulating viable solutions to solve crimes.
References
Burke, R. H. (2017). An introduction to criminological theory. Routledge.
Hagan, F. E., & Daigle, L. E. (2018). Introduction to criminology: Theories, methods, and criminal behavior. Sage Publications.
Lanier, M. M. (2018). Essential criminology. Routledge.
White, R., Haines, F., & Asquith, N. L. (2017). Crime & criminology.
