Criminology M5D1: Comparing Relationships Among

Criminology

M5D1: Comparing Relationships among race, class and culture

Anderson's position

Race, class and cultures play a vital role in understanding why there are criminal behaviors in the community. According to Anderson race, class and culture have a deep relationship that affect the level of crime in society. People of certain races commit more crime than other races. The best explanation to this is that there are incidences of racial segregation in societies around the world. Some races discriminate other races because they feel superior to these minority races (Cernkovich 2000). This makes the minority race not to have the same opportunities that the majority race enjoys. This leads to strain whereby people from the minority races do not have the same opportunities to achieve societal goals. Through the strain theory, we see that people will resort to crime to achieve these goals.

Social learning theory

High-class people control most of the sources of income in society. People that belong to the high class employ people from the middle and low class. This makes them act as their employers. This gives the high-class people the opportunity to exploit people from the middle and low class. High-class people control and determine the amount of salaries that they give to their employees. High-class people put up conditions that benefit them. This makes them richer while their employees remain in the same financial position or get poorer. This causes strain in society because middle and low class people do not have the opportunity to become rich as their counterparts in the high class. This makes them resort to un-ethical and unaccepted behaviors such as crime.

Social learning theory tells us that people learn of behaviors from the people that they associate. When a neighborhood has a culture of crime, then most people will develop the motivation to commit a crime from their peers. They learn skills to commit criminal behaviors from the people who have become professionals in the field (Cernkovich 2000). This makes people engage in criminal behaviors because of the neighborhood culture that is present in the community.

In the poor black neighborhoods, many people do not have the opportunities to make themselves rich through the approved means. Many people from black neighborhoods do not have gainful employment as compared to the people from the affluent white neighborhoods. This will make these black people resort to crime as a way to enrich them. Black communities have many people who are criminals as compared to the white communities (Cernkovich 2000). There is a culture in the black communities where people perceive crime as the best way to enrich them. This is in contrast to affluent white neighborhoods where people believe that people have to work hard to become rich. This shows the influence of social learning theory.

Similarities and differences

The two theories both agree that the structure of the society influences the level of crime. When people do not have the fundamental means of achieving success, they will look for other ways to do so. The two theories, however contrast with what causes increase in the level of crime. The anomie theory states that crime will increase when people have strain. This means that they have no opportunities or the institutional means of achieving societal goals. Social learning theory states that people are prone to commit crime when they associate with criminals. The social learning theory is best suited to describe the nature of black communities as opposed to affluent white communities. There is a higher level of criminal groups in black communities as opposed to white communities. When law-abiding citizens associate with criminals, there is a higher possibility that they will join the criminal gangs to commit the act. This shows that there will always be an increase in criminals in black communities as opposed to affluent white communities.

M5D2: Comparing social and self-control theories

U.K. Prime Minister, David Cameron blamed the crimes, in part, on defective parenting when several cities in London, England experienced widespread rioting, looting, and arson. Social control theory states that a person will commit criminal behaviors if he does not have an intellect of right or wrong (Pratt 2004). A person will deviate from social norms if his sense of right and wrong decreases. Bad parenting can bring about a person's decrease of social control. Parents need to explain to their children the right and wrong behaviors. They need to instill discipline, which will make their children not to commit wrong behaviors.