Theory of Crime and Punishment

Theory of Crime and Punishment

Introduction

Crime, torture and the issues that relate, often arouse compelling debate and curiosity. Crimes and the motives that spawn them, often capture equal measures of fascination, fear and distaste. In the history, criminals are both condemned and granted a heroic status. This paper is designed to stimulate critical thought and debate about issues that generate situations plausible for crimes, thus consuming social resources and maligning them. It is also intended to demonstrate the development, veracity and duality of attitudes and arguments related to crime, criminals and the following punishments.

The brutality of criminals is often equated with that of the punishment. From the death penalties to lifelong imprisonment, it causes a fervent debate to justify the punishment, as opposed to the mercies asked for.

The Criminal Mind

Psychologists argue that criminals think differently than other non-criminal people. This thinking is commonly known as 'criminal thinking'. There is a vast body of research that suggests people who are future criminals, often behave different than their siblings or peers very early age. They are exceptionally active, rather not able to soothe themselves effectively by any games or activities, prone to temper outbursts, and are very likely to bully small kids or abuse, torture animals. There was an incident of "cat dragged" that showed evidence of such abuse. The article (Lerner, 2006) shows the evidence and describes some characteristics of people who hurt or kill animals to drive pleasure.

Psychologists often characterize these people as highly stubborn and strong-willed. They are insistent upon making their ways, getting what they want regardless of human or monetary cost, are tremendously self-centered and appear to be always trying to live “on the edge” craving for adventure.

Self-Image of Criminals:

Corporate criminals often see themselves as respectable people rather than common criminals. They maintain their self-image though rationalizing their acts. In the books of violators of price-fixing laws, for example, there is no crime such as “price fixing”. They insist that they are helping the nation's economy by “stabilizing prices”. Criminals also maintain their noncriminal image by seeing themselves as victims, not offenders. Once a convicted tax offender said (Benson, 1985),

“Everybody cheats on their income tax, 95 percent of the people. Even if it is for $10 it is the same principle.”

These crimes are generally known as “white collar” crimes. Economic and nonviolent crimes can still be devastating, even though they do not directly inflict violence against another person. These crimes sometimes victimize other people through usually trusted channels.

Electronic Crimes

Tom Krazit discussed this in an entry on a computer hacking scandal, “Security breach that may have exposed forty million credit cards” (Krazit, 2006).

Electronic crimes such as, accessing other's credit cards, steal passwords and cloak someone else on social media, has risen with the increase in technology usage. Most financial institutions and credit card processing companies have adopted high-tech encryption software systems, to quell the customer fears and to ensure the highest level of security. But with the advancement of security systems, hackers too become more determined to crack into ...