Criminology Theories
Different criminals across the globe have been involved in different crimes that are effectively connected to their biological and historical experiences that can be explained and analyzed using different criminology theories. A criminal background is a great determinant of their lives, actions, and types of crime they get involved in. In evaluating the biography and background of the different criminal details are evaluates and analyzed from the time of their birth, life and criminal events, and the end of their crime life. The specific details to capture in this case include the birthplace and data, type and form of the family they were brought up in, significant events in their lives such as education, religion, social, economic status, type of neighborhood, life influences in their child and adulthood, exposure to substances such as drugs and the status of their relationships (single or married). Consequently, the criminal background is directly connected to the types of crimes they engage in as they are compelled or inclined to consistently engage in similar crimes all their lives. For instance, they can consistently engage in crimes such as terrorism, violent crimes, public order crimes, high tech crimes, organized crimes, white-collar crimes, or public order crimes. The different crimes arising from the historical and background experiences that incline them to engage in crime to satisfy their different needs. Moreover, different criminology theories reveal the connection between the criminals and the crime they are involved in. In this case, the theories evaluate, analyze, and explain the reasons people or criminals engage in crime or behave the way they do. There several theories that can explain criminal behaviors and crimes, and they are divided into four categories that include sociological theories, psychological theories, biological theories, or classical theories. Al Capone was one of the notorious criminals that existed in American History. Capone operated a violent empire in Chicago that was involved in gambling, prostitution, and bootlegging. Al Capone’s criminal tendencies and crimes can be evaluated from his historical and background experiences and explained using the different criminology theories.
Part 1: Al Capone personal history and biographical information
Al Capone was a famous American criminal and gangster that existed and operated during the prohibition era in the period 1925 to 1931. Al Capone was born in Brooklyn, New York U.S. on January 17, 1899, was given name Alphonse Capone at birth but was later referred to as Scarface or Al Capone. Capone parents moved fr4om Naples to the United States in 1893 (Lorizzo, 7). He was brought up in a family of four children where they grew up in Brooklyn, New York.
Capone attended the school to the sixth grade, where he dropped out upon a confrontation with a teacher at the age of 14. During the confrontation with the teacher, Capone hit a teacher, and this marked the end of his school life (Capone, 11). Consequently, Capone joined employment and was engaged in odd jobs such as being a candy store clerk, laborer in an ammunition firm, an alley pin boy, and a cutter in a book bindery. In the period he was engaged in odd jobs, he joined different kids’ gang such as the Forty Thieves Juniors and South Brooklyn Rippers that were composed of delinquent children involved in petty crimes and vandalisms in New York.
In the course of working, he became a member of the James Street Boys gang that was run and founded by Johnny Torrio. Johnny Torrio greatly influenced the life of Capone as he would become his role model and mentor for life. Johnny Torrio was also associated with other gangs such as the Five Points gang, thus giving a base to Capone’s criminal life (Capone, 11). When Capone attained the age of 16, he joined the Five Points gang in the positions of an aspiring mobster as a bartender at a brothel at Yale. The Five Points gang was run and founded by a close associate of Johnny Torrio, referred to as Francesco Ioele. The interaction with Francesco inclined Capone to engage in crime. The interaction of Capone with different gangs and persons engaged in social crimes initiated him to engage in different crimes. By the time he was getting to the age of 21, he was engaged in violent incidents with different parties in the course of working. Capone was involved in shooting and killing incidences such as robbery but was not prosecuted for lack of witnesses. In another incident, he assaulted a member of the White Hand gang to the point of leaving him dead. The incidences made Capone move his wife and a young child to Chicago for fear of retribution from the rival gang members.
The movement of Capone from New York to Chicago marked the peak of his criminal carrier and criminal operations. In Chicago, he teamed up with Torrio, who had since moved to Chicago. Capone was engaged in murders and assassinations of rivals in his criminal operations (Capone, 17). Over time, Torrio was imprisoned, and upon his release, he retired to Italy, thus making Capone to solely take over and expand his territories in executing different crimes of bootlegging, prostitution and gambling. Capone consistently engaged in crime with at times being prisoned, and in other cases, he went unpunished. The death of James Colosimo and Torrio, leaving the USA for Italy, made Capone became the leader of the gang at the age of 26. Capone consistently expanded the empire by creating violence. The violence from rival groups made Capone increase his security and engage in political alliances such as funding campaigns with the interest of protecting his illegal activities and other crimes.
Capone was arrested for different crimes by the FBI agents contravention of federal prohibition laws in 1929. Since then, he underwent a series of arrests and trials for different crimes such as vagrancy, perjury, contempt of court, tax evasion (Corsino, 138). In the course of serving jail terms, Capone was diagnosed with neurosyphilis. Despite the treatment, his condition could not be reversed, and the disease slowly progressed. In 1947 Capone suffered a stroke and later bronchopneumonia. Later in the same years, Capone suffered a cardiac arrest and died.
Part 2: Criminal Activities
Capone had been consistently in different crime from an early age to point he was a leader of a gang operating in Chicago. In this regard, Capone in his different capacities as a member of different gangs and as a leader of a gang, he was involved in different involved in committing murders, bootlegging, and enhancing prostitution. (Corsino, 201). First, Capone was involved in murder from a tender age, and by his death, thirty-three people had died to his actions. It is vital to note that Capone was involved in different illegal and criminal operations; thus, there were instances of conflicts, for instance, with rivals; thus, he consistently killed any person that was a barrier to his business operations. In the first case of murder, Capone killed the winner of the neighborhood craps game to death as he was taking his winnings. Capone was not sentenced to the lack of witnesses. The different victims were killed though issues such as hijacking operations, conflict in businesses (liquor business), suspected treachery cases, gang supremacy wars, being hired to kill, political conflicts, planned massacre, assassinations, killing police informants or persons intending to testify against him in courts of law. For instance, the operations and killing in the Saint Valentine Some of the Capone victims Joe Howard, Dean O’Banion, Thomas Duffy, James Doherty, William McSwiggin, Antonio Torchio, Frank Hitch, CockHarry, Ben Newark, John Scalise, and Joe Aiello among others. The different victims of Capone were mostly due to business rivalry or persons barring his business operations. Therefore, murder was a crime that Capone capitalized on to eliminate barriers and other factors preventing his progress.
Capone was involved in bootlegging crimes to grow his fortune and enhance the sustainability of his criminal operation and gang. The bootlegging operations were held in Chicago, and Capone inherited them from his mentor Torrio. He ran the bootlegging operations with a lot of violence, thus earning him a nickname “Surface.” The operations were implemented with mutual benefits with the then-mayor (Hendley, 101). In this regard, he undertook the operations of illegal breweries and transport systems all the way to Canada with law-enforcement and political support on his side. He forces establishment to buy liquor from his companies by force for failure to buy from him would result in the destruction of the establishments through bombing. The operations earned him a lot of wealth to expand his territories and cause violence in the course of his operations, thus making it easy for him to control the operations. He killed his rivals, thus ensuring that he would continue expanding his operations territories. The bootlegging operations ensure that it is in a position to the illegal manufacture, distribute and sell goods, thus making abnormal profits. In this case, there is no government control or payment of taxes, thus making the illegal business to thrive. Therefore, bootlegging operations are illegal, and they consistently make one party extremely wealthy at the expense of the government and members of the public.
Capone engaged in prostitution operations through the running of illegal brothels. When Capone entered arrived from New York, he was employed as a bouncer/ supervisor in Torrio’s brothels in Chicago (Knepper, 2011). While working in the brothels, he contracted syphilis that later worsened his health. The retirement of Torrio to Italy saw him take the prostitution operations. Prostitution is operated in brothels where the money is exchanged for sex. In this case, the owner of a brothel gains financially from the operations in the brothels. The operations in the brothels are illegal, but Capone engaged in them for financial benefits.
Part 3: Criminology Theories
Capone’s historical operations, backgrounds, and criminal activities can be analyzed, evaluated, and explained using different criminology theories. The criminology theories enable one to understand the criminal behaviors held by the criminals (Siegel, 37). There different criminology theories explaining criminal tendencies by different individuals such as criminal justice theories, biological theories of crime, rational choice theory, psychological crime theories, social construction theory, social control theory, and strain theories. The biological theories of crime explain contrary to societal behaviors by the evaluation of the person’s character. The behaviors that violate the laws are determined by factors that are beyond a person’s control. The biological theories argue that criminal tendencies are controlled by outward physical traits, genetics, and hereditary characteristics or structural, chemical, and functional differences. In this case, Capone’s criminal tendencies can be explained from the hereditary or genetic characteristics since his behaviors could be spotted from an early age when he hit a teacher and by joining criminal gangs at a very tender age.
The rational choice theory can be adopted in explaining the criminal conduct of Capone. The theory argues that criminal behavior and noncriminal behaviors are the same in that persons undertaking them make a decision and intentionally implements them. However, the criminal chooses to settle for committing of crime is that are highly rewarding while less costly as compared to noncriminal behavior (Hagan and Daigle, 27). In the case of Capone, engaging in crime was more rewarding as it increased his revenue levels, enhanced the sustainability of the gang, and it expanded his business territory. On the other hand, the cost of committing the crime was less, for he had law enforcement and politicians on his side.
Social control theory can be used in explaining the reasons Capone was consistently engaged in different crimes without the signs of never becoming a law-abiding citizen. The theory argues that the cost of crime is the primary disapproval of preventing people from engaging in crime (Hagan and Daigle, 41). People can see and implement crimes at free will, but the cost controls their tendency; they will have to pay when they are found guilty. In this case, Capone consistently engaged in crime for the cost he had to pay less deterrent. For instance, Capone was involved in the killing of at least thirty-three people but was not prisoned or punished as per his crime. This fact indicated that he has a way of getting away with crime, thus inclining him to consistently engage in crime.
Lastly, Capone’s criminal activities can be evaluated and explained from the strain theory. The theory explains that one is engaged in crime in an attempt to fulfill goals that they cannot fulfill following the right or the legal means (White, Fiona and Nicole, 2017). People face strains in achieving normal goals; thus, they engage in crime as a last result. In the case of Capone, he has goals of increasing his revenues, growing his gang and expanding his territories, and these goals would not be achieved without engaging in crime. For instance, Capone engaged in bootlegging to increase his revenues, thus making it possible to sustain his gang and expand his territory.
Conclusion
Criminology theories are effective in evaluating and explaining the criminal behaviors held by different criminals. Different criminal theories make it possible to compare and fit the criminals’ different theories based on their characteristics, background, and experiences. The theories evaluate the source or the root cause of different criminal activities by understanding them and establishing factors that incline people to engage in criminal activities. In this regard, Al Capone was a criminal, and his criminal tendencies can be explained using different theories and linking them with History, background, and life experiences that incline him to engage in crime. Al Capone’s criminal behaviors can thus be explained from different criminology theories such as biological theories, rational choice theory, social construction theory, social control theory, and strain theories.
Work cited
Capone, Deirdre Marie. Uncle Al Capone: The Untold Story from Inside His Family. Recaplodge LLC, 2010.
Corsino, Lou. “Al Capone: His Life, Legacy, and Legend.” (2017): 224-227.
Hendley, Nate. Al Capone: Chicago’s King of Crime. Five Rivers Chapmanry, 2010.
Iorizzo, Luciano J. Al Capone: a biography. Greenwood Publishing Group, 2003.
Knepper, Paul. “The International Underworld.” International Crime in the 20th Century. Palgrave Macmillan, London, 2011. 33-56.
Siegel, L. (2012). Criminology: Theories, patterns, and typologies. Nelson Education.
White, Rob, Fiona Haines, and Nicole L. Asquith. “Crime & criminology.” (2017).
