Theories of crime

¶ … Crime

Labelling theory

Bob was labeled as a criminal from a simple act of taking money from the bag of one of the teachers. This act of the school authorities and the parents calling him a criminal and eventually subjecting him to the legal system traumatized him and being among other criminals who might have engaged in bigger crimes than a simple act of delinquency made Bob to think of himself as a criminal. According to the labeling theory, if Bob could be taken away from the criminal system where is bundled together with harder criminals, and he be handled informally, it will make him think of himself as a lesser criminal or even a delinquent and reform. This kind of handling is the best for delinquents since according to the labeling theory, which is a social interaction theory, the personality and the character of an individual is shaped by the interaction between the individual and the society, and everyone has the potential to be a criminal, meaning everyone has the potential to stop criminal behaviors too (Becker H.s., n.d). If the delinquents are placed in an environment that is devoid of crimes and labelling, then they are bound to be free from misdemeanors.

Social labelling is not flawless, indeed like all the other social theories explaining crime and delinquency, it fails to capture some aspects of crime like the reason behind some crimes that are innate or are not learned from another person. For instance, this theory cannot help explain why a person could be a serial killer yet no one taught him to kill nor has he seen someone kill another. Another such crimes that seem innate is rape, the theory cannot explain why rapists may get into the trend even without being taught how to rape or even having before seen someone rape.

The white collar crimes are often considered to be lesser crimes that the street-level crimes. This is because the white collar crimes are considered victimless crimes that do not cause harm to individuals or damage to property. This is the labeling theory look at crime hence many consider the white collar thieves as some smart people. This has seen the law enforcement to invest less in curbing the white collar crimes, there are differences in laws governing such crimes and there are lesser technologies put in place to curb such crimes as compared to the street-level crimes. The 21st century criminals are not the hardcore type law breakers but very intelligent individuals who are well informed and highly educated, they use very sophisticated systems to execute several crimes in different parts of the world as more people are embracing the use of technology in their day-to-day life (Interpol, 2012).