Perhaps a new viewpoint is needed that includes both the individual and community responsibility to help fight and prevent criminal behavior. Each human being is blessed to have both types of skills that help map and order our world and daydream and create new solutions. These two sides of the human psyche must be addressed together in order to fully understand and ultimately fix the problems of crime and punishment.
Routine Activity Theory is a helpful model of understanding the criminal mind. This theory does not discount the mysterious nature of the human mind but incorporates it with the strange and often coincidental nature of the universe.
Three premises underlie this theory. The first mandates that there is a criminal with the intent to commit a crime, next a suitable target must be present, and the third component consists of an opportune moment that crime will be committed. When these three occurrence do take place, a crime will be committed. This triangular argument is much more representative of how crimes may be committed. The theory lacks however a rational understanding of morals and why a criminal would want to commit a crime in the first place. This model is useful in reconstruction but not prediction.
This theory is useful in bringing all noticable qualities of criminal behavior together in a coherent form. An intervention program that uses this theory that could create a method of breaking down each principle of this theory would be able to analyze the effectiveness of this theory. A combination of both qualitative and quantitative research that could segment...
When each piece of this theory can be successfully identifited as a contributing element towards understanding a crime than it can be deduced that a successful study has been created.
Two other criminal theories, Labeling Theory and Deterrence theory represent different ends of the polar spectrum in dealing with criminology. Labeling theory suggests the need to label crime as important function of
society. In this understanding
labeling is unavoidable, as some behavior must reside out the social norms, and this behavior must be labeled. Deterrence theory accepts this criminal behavior as natural and attempts to discourage this behavior as a socially acceptable method of containing crime.
These two
theories view punishment as two different means to the same end. While both look to lessen crime, Labeling theory suggests that the crime problem is more of a collective issue where deterrence theory places the blame on the individual. It appears that most disagreements within
criminology all walk the line between individual responsibility and collective responsibility and all misunderstanding of these topics originates from this imbalance.
A study that incorporates both Labeling and Deterrence theory would require some interviews with criminals. This study would have to find the motivating factors that contributed to the criminal's actions. Using this information, correspondences and relationships can be mathematically constructed to give us several ways of examining the trends that would arise from such an
interview. Since both labeling and deterring factors are very subjective in nature, it is important that strict and limiting questions must be adhered to in this investigative pursuit. As this information is understood, punishment may be entertained has a contributing influence to either theory. Punishment can be determined as a motivating factor that can help researchers reach clearer conclusions about how these theories work in this regard.
