Crime Theory the Thirty Years

Crime Theory

The thirty years that made up the historic era known as the 1950s through the 1970s produced many changes in the way we view the world. Two significant events, the Weather Underground's rise to popularity and the massacre at My Lai both contribute to radical behavior. that contributed to this time in history's quality. These two events share something more important however, and that is the ability of history to reverse outdated roles and expose actions and people for their real humanity instead of fabricated and cliche roles.

The United States of America was constructed in violent and unjust manner. Native Americans were eliminated in a genocidal frenzy that has lasted well over two centuries. The Vietnam War represented for America a turning point in its history. The constant defeats that were experienced by American forces by a guerilla and impoverished force certainly defied predictions about military dominance for this particular conflict.

Both the Weather Underground and the Massacre at My Lai are offshoots of this terrible war. At My Lai we witness the inhumane murdering of civilians by American military forces. Chaos took hold of these men as they burned and shot hundreds of innocent people for reasons many are not sure of. This act of mysterious savagery highlights the inanity and sheer recklessness of warfare. It is most likely that American history needed this event to happen in order for a complete understanding of the events to be understood.

The Weather Underground is another inside-out occurrence where terrorism arose out of war. The Weather Underground resistance movement was based on protesting the Vietnam War. Ironically these group used terror and violence, much in the same ways as their enemies were doing at the same time.

Any history class that wishes to look at these events must take note of the changing attitudes towards subjectivity and the point-of-view of the historian. These two events discussed above suggest that history is relative. One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. Good and bad are plastic and history is not a reliable science to derive morals. Facts and figures appear that they can be bent and molded to one's own preferences as these stories would attest to. History classes that focus on this time period need to be reminded of the unique circumstances each event is subject to. A fair and honest representation of these studies, including this class, must be able to put patriotism and nationalistic alliances aside to determine the most honest and truthful representations of these events.

Differential association theory and Gottfredson and Hirschi's general theory about crime are both criminal theories that attempt to explain the mysterious causes of crime and violence. Differential association theory suggests the crime is a learned skill that is picked up from others in the environment. The General Theory of Crime is the polar opposite. This theory suggests that crime results from a lack of self-control.

These two theories clash at the most basic and primitive level. Each one identifies a specific cause to crime, one being individual the other being collective. Both appear to have solid arguments and data to support their findings. They are however at complete odds with each other and disagree completely with the source of criminality.

A research program to distinguish between these two theories must be crafted very carefully. In order to accomplish this task, subjects, through some investigative method, must be able to communicate their motivation for their crime. A qualitative questionnaire may be best suited for this task. Criteria for committing crime must be then quantified and turned into some form of raw data to analyze. This is a difficult task because at some level because every crime, or action for that matter is driven by both self-interest and environmental factors.

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 each principle to identify its contribution to crime would be able to test the effectiveness of this program. 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.