Psychology Essay Sample: The Causes For Criminal Behavior

📌Category: Behavior, Crime, Psychology
📌Words: 1271
📌Pages: 5
📌Published: 13 June 2022

Crime and deviance is all around. How we look at crime and criminals themselves can deeply impact us. The social problem that I picked was crime, and more specifically what causes someone to act on crime. Before the semester and chapter about crime, I had an opinion of “Do not do the crime, if you can not do the time.” My mindset was that if a person knew the action was illegal then they should not risk doing it. I did not even feel as if there was a good enough reason or “excuse” to commit a crime. After really diving into crime and what builds up to it, my opinion grew to the fact that  there are a lot of good reasons why people resort to crime and deviance. This essay will utilize functionalism to sociologically examine crime and what causes people to commit it. 

“If criminal and delinquent behavior is easy, fun, and rewarding, why do individuals refrain from giving in to its temptations?” (Trevino 2019:265). To myself it seemed simple, if you commit a crime you face a severe punishment, jail or fines,  so that is why I felt more people choose not to commit crime. As we dug deeper into how society in a functionalist perspective functions, I saw there was more to it. Society has created a world that is no longer black and white, there are a lot of gray tones and fuzzy areas. 

In a functionalist perspective there are a few theories that explain why some people are more drawn to crime than others and how that happens. Strain theory is “a theory of crime that posits individuals commit crimes because of the strains caused by the imbalance between socially acceptable goals and the individuals’ inadequate means to achieve those goals.” (Trevino 2019). I chose to dive deeper into the functionalist theory because I find that my previous opinion of it is a simple choice to not commit crime, but I found a change when we learned about strain theory and how it affects individuals. In America we have an assumed goal of having financial stability, but we have created a society structured that not everyone has a fair chance of reaching that stability. There are five different ways the strain theory can affect a person. The first is conformity, “in which individuals accept both the means and goals of society.” (Trevino 2019). The second is innovation, “in which individuals embrace the goal of economic success but reject the idea that this success must be attained through legal means.”(Trevino 2019).  Next is a ritualist who “rejects the ends but accepts the means of society.”(Trevino 2019). Fourth is retreatists. They  “reject society's goals and means and remove themselves from conventional society altogether.” (Trevino 2019). Finally the fifth one is  rebels who  “reject conventional goals and replace them with new ones, advocating for a new system and the destruction of the current one.”(Trevino 2019). The problem we see is what is right and wrong to each individual.  An innovative idea may mean that they are not reaching those economic standards that Americans have, and for many reasons that is when they start to turn to crime. My own opinion started to shift once I learned about this. We can think of maybe a single parent who needs to take care of the kids,  pay bills, and the long list of other tasks to be done. If they are not making enough money there may be that incentive to survive and just do what needs to be done. I can see how one may feel that they have no other option. It seems as if society has set them up to commit a crime to meet those goals and means of America. I also find that there can be some issues with those that come from the neighborhoods and backgrounds of a family or person who meets that standard of being American. The problem I see with that is not everyone is money driven, but that living  in a capitalist society is weird and not having a job or not paying taxes can get you into trouble. This is like the idea of a retreatist. They do not want to confie to the norms of living, but for some of them that can mean living off the grid and probably not paying taxes. Both of these groups want to live their lives, but the strain comes from trying to meet that slim box that America and society has made for us. These people did not just wake up one day and decide crime was their life, it was built as they were let down or punished by the society where themselves  and everyone else is supposed to be living the American dream. 

With functionalism we know that if one part of the society is broken or altered in some way it will shift how others in the society function. If the society is broken around a person they start to fall into the cracks. This is best explained by social disorganization theory. Social disorganization theory is “a theory that links crime rates to neighborhood ecological characteristics: poverty, residential mobility, and racial heterogeneity.” (Trevino 2019). So now we are asking low income families in underfunded communities to try and meet that societal norm of financial stability all while being in a community where they have nowhere to grow and succeed. This was also why I started thinking that those who get involved in crime sometimes did not even stand a chance to be better. They were unable to be socialized to people or given a chance to be in a community. This would give them values that we see restrain criminal and delinquent behavior. 

A lot of crime occurs where you see a lack of social integration. Social integration is “the unity of cohesiveness of society.” (Trevino 2019). When there is a lack of social integration, there are no ties to the community, and that means there is nothing morally stopping crime from being committed. A society cannot function without the society working together. Everyone has a part to play and if one person starts to feel disconnected then that will begin to affect others and slowly we see a community filled with crime and deviance. 

There is a lot we can do to hopefully turn this around. If we need integration and society to have support for the people living in it, then we need jobs that fulfill that. A job I feel would help others and restore those disorganized societies is a Member Engagement coordinator. (Module Four Slide #15). These are the people creating events for the community and trying to get involvement and listening to the voices of those who live there to make the community better. When a community becomes disorganized there is no one there trying to make it better, or instead of helping the members they blame them. This person could make that society integrate and give them ties which would reduce the thought and action of crime. It would not be easy, as you would have to make those committing crimes stop or give them reason to be interested in the new ideas. “ If we get creative and are able to see the world through different viewpoints, we can come to many more solutions that are more likely to have an impact and be more true to who they are intended to serve.’”. (Module Four Slide #22). 

In conclusion my opinion overall has changed. There are reasons and scenarios as to why some lean more to criminal behaviors. The biggest takeaway is this is a huge social problem. People  blame those that make mistakes and commit crimes, yet we have given them no support to be any better. I hope going forward I can remember that for a society to function in a functionalist perspective, society has to have integration and cohesiveness. People have to have ties to communities. I am glad my opinion has changed. I believe that I can be a better contributing member of society and help restore that disorganization and make some who feel they do not belong, belong.

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