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Concepts Definition of Theory Rational Choice

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22 views4 pages

Concepts Definition of Theory Rational Choice

Uploaded by

Micaela
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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THE CONCEPTS, DEFINITION AND BASIC UNDERSTANDING OF A THEORY

What is a Theory?
 It is any system of ideas arranged in rational order that produce general
principles which increase our understanding and explanations.
 In simple terms, theory is an explanation of something.
 According to Freda Adler (1983), a theory is a statement that explains the
relationship between abstract concepts in a meaningful way.

What are the basic theories in the explanation of the cause of crime?
1. Theories of Criminal and Deviant Behavior.
 Theories in this category attempt to explain why individual commits criminal or
delinquent acts.

2. Theories of Law and Criminal Justice.


 Theories in this category attempt to explain how laws are made, and how the
criminal justice system operates as a whole.

What are the levels of explanations of the cause of crime?


• Macro
 Macro theories of criminal behavior explain the “big picture” of crime — crime
across the world or across a society.
 They attempt to answer why there are variations of group rates of crime.
 Other authors have used the terms “epidemiology” or social structural theories.

• Micro.
 Micro theories of criminal behavior focus on a small group of offenders or on an
individual crime.
 They attempt to answer why some individuals are more likely than others to
commit crime.
 Other authors have used the terms “individual conduct” or process theories.

What is the Importance of a Theory?


 The most important task of theory is explanation which is also called prediction.
 An explanation is a sensible way of relating the facts about some particular
phenomena to the intellectual atmosphere of a people at a particular time or
place.
 Theory provides concepts to name what we observe and to explain
relationships between concepts.
 Theory helps us understand what we don’t know and, therefore, is the only
guide to research.

THE DETERRENCE AND RATIONAL CHOICE THEORIES

Classical Criminology
 Classicism refers to a number of late eighteenth and early nineteenth century
thinkers who offered common reflections on crime, law and punishment and
whose ideas were subsequently appropriated by criminology.
 A school of thought based upon utilitarian notions of free will and the greatest
good for the greatest number.
 At its core, classical criminology refers to a belief that a crime is committed
after an individual weighs the pros and cons.
 The decision to commit a crime is a rational decision, and is best countered
through a deterrence-based system.
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 Classical criminology provides the origin of the concept of deterrence.
 It represents the first effort to explain crime as a product of natural rather than
supernatural forces.

Who are the Proponents of the Classical Criminology?


1. Cesare Beccaria.
 He is an Italian nobleman, prominent in the eighteenth century, wrote On
Crimes and Punishment.
 He believed that people want to achieve pleasure and avoid pain.
 He concluded that crime must provide some pleasure to the criminal.
 To stop crime, he believed that one must apply pain in an appropriate way to
counterbalance the pleasure obtained from doing the crime.

What are the Theoretical Elements of Beccaria’s classical explanations of


the Cause of Crime?
 In every society, people have freewill to choose criminal or lawful solutions to
meet their needs or settle their problems.
 Criminal solution maybe more attractive than lawful ones because they usually
require less work for greater payoff.
 A person’s choice of criminal solution may be controlled by his fear of
punishment.
 The more severe, certain and swift the punishment, the better it is to control
criminal behavior.

2. Jeremy Bentham
 Jurist and philosopher, prominent in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries,
advocated abolishing the death penalty.
 His main principle was utilitarian hedonism with the following theoretical
elements:
•People have free will to choose how to act.
•Deterrence is based upon the utilitarian notion of the human being. A hedonist
who seeks pleasure and avoids pain and a rational calculator weighing up the
costs and benefits of the consequences of each action.
•Punishment can deter people from crime.
•The more swift and certain the punishment, the more effective it is in deterring
criminal behavior.

Deterrence Theory
 A core principle of classical school and rational choice theories.
 This theory states that crime can be controlled through the use of punishments
that combine the proper degrees of certainty, severity and celerity
 As deterrence theory has matured, it proposed that punishment may deter
some, while creating a backlash effect for others.
 In short, deterrence theory no longer presumes that punishment always yields
only positive results, but that is sometimes makes matters worse.

What is the concept behind the theory of deterrence?


 The conceptual roots of deterrence lay in the work of Cesare Beccaria and
Jeremy Bentham.
 The theoretical propositions of the utilitarian thinkers see crime as a negative
function of the certainty, severity and speed of punishment.
 In other words, as punitive responses to crime increase in these three contexts,
it is expected that the frequency of crime will decline.
 Moreover, the concept was proposed as a general theory of crime; that is, an
explanation that applies to all people and all types of crime

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What are the different Styles of Deterrence?
1. General Deterrence
 Is the doctrine that a community or a society of people can be deterred from
committing a criminal act after having witnessed the punishment of an
individual or individuals for have committed that act.
2. Specific Deterrence
 The belief is that if an individual is punished for a criminal act, then the
individual will be less likely to violate the law in the future.
3. Perceptual Deterrence
 This concept applies to an individual offender, and refers to what he or she
believes the likelihood of arrest to be, and how severe he or she believes the
punishment for a crime will be if caught.

What is the explanation under the Neo-Classical School of Criminology on


the theory of crime?
 The criticism against the classical school based on the foundation of the Neo-
Classical School is that there are situations or circumstances that made it
impossible to exercise free-will are reasons to exempt the accused from
conviction.
 The classical maintained that human are totally responsible for their actions. The
neo-classicist said “not always”. They argue that free will can be mitigated by
pathology, incompetence, mental disorder. The neo-classical school does not
represent any break with the classical view of human nature. It merely challenges
the classical position of absolute free will. Because of this, it led also to the
proposition that while the classical doctrine is correct in general, it should be
modified in certain details:
 That children and lunatics should not be regarded as criminals and free from
punishment.
 It must take into account certain mitigating circumstances.

Rational Choice Theory


 This is the 1980s formulation of classical criminology.
 The emphasis is placed on the expected reward for committing a crime, and
other associated costs and benefits surrounding criminal activity.
 Criminal behavior is a rational choice made by a motivated offender who
perceives that the chances of gain outweigh any possible punishment or loss.

Perspectives of the Rational Choice Theory


 It is far more complex than the other concept of deterrence.
 Expands conventional deterrence research by incorporating many more
variables in the reasoning process and by considering choices, not only of
potential offenders, but of victims as well.
 It paved the way for a number of additional practical crime prevention foci.

Routine Activities Theory


 It is sometimes referred to as a lifestyle approach.
 Choices in lifestyle on the part of potential victims may create or curtail crime
opportunities for the motivated offender
 Many criminologists argue that routine activities are really not a theory of crime
at all, but a theory of victimization.
 This theory states that for crime to be committed, three elements must be
present:
• motivated offender,
• a suitable target, and
• the absence of capable guardian.

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Broken Windows theory
Theorist: Wilson and Kelling
Proposition:
 Poor physical appearance of a neighborhood can indicate a breakdown in
community cohesion and provides an open invitation to criminals of all types.

Crime Prevention through Environmental Design (CPTED)


 This refers to a set of practices designed to make potential criminal targets less
attractive. The belief that crime is a rational act is used to make a potential
target less attractive to a criminal, and thus not a “rational target”

Crime Pattern Theory


Theorist: Paul & Patricia Brantingham
Proposition:
 Individuals have a range of routine daily activities. Usually these occur in
different nodes of activity such as home, work, school, shopping, and
entertainment or time with friends, and along normal pathways between these
nodes.
 People who commit crimes have normal spatio-temporal movement patterns
like everyone else.
 The likely location for a crime is near this normal activity and awareness space.
 Potential targets and victims have passive or active locations or activity spaces
that intersect the activity spaces of potential offenders.

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