Theoretical Foundation-Identifying Why Crime Occurs

[Name of the Instructor]

Theoretical Foundation-Identifying Why Crime Occurs

Introduction

The breach of laws or rules for which a governing authority can ultimately prescribe any conviction is commonly known as crime. Crimes may also result in rehabilitation, cautions or unenforced. In criminal justice the policy making is based on criminological theory. In reality most of the criminal justice is due to partial implementation, misinterpretation or ignorance of criminological theory (Beirne, 1987). The policy makers should first go through the criminological theory before making any policy, it will definitely help in saving money and time.

Every criminological theory is based on set of assumptions related to social structure, human nature etc. a description of phenomena that needs to be explained and an explanation of the phenomenon. Poverty can be one of the most important factors that cause crime to happen. When people are unable to satisfy their needs they are forced to get their needs satisfied by all mean though it may be legal or illegal. Other important factor is illiteracy or lack of education, one who does not have proper education would not be able to find the difference between what is right or wrong, ethical or un-ethical or good or bad for him or her. Crime can be only controlled through the criminological theories.

Discussion

There are many criminological theories related to the causation of criminal activities. The criminological theories its causes and the policy that is associated with it is depicted in the following table.

The three theories which I am going to discuss in detail are Social Bonding theory, Social Control theory and labeling theory.

Social Bonding theory

Social control theory tries to explain that why people do not become criminal? This theory was introduced by Travis Hirschi and was based on four main characteristics: “commitment to achievement”, “belief in moral ...