Criminology - Crime and Its Causes
It is quite important to understand the mindset of a criminal.
What thought goes through their mind, what leads them to committing crime and many such questions and their answers can only be obtained by learning about crime and its causes.
The study of the causes, nature and extent of crimes as well as behavior of the criminals, intended for understanding crimes in a better manner; and for implementing various new policies in the criminal justice system is called Criminology.
This study is principally related to etiology which is the study of causes or reasons for crime.
People who do research in the field of criminology are called criminologists.
Criminology provides many theories on why crimes are committed by criminals on the basis of assumption about human nature.
There are many theories that exist in criminology.
Now let us move forward and take a look at the conventional theories.
Mainstream Criminology: • Strain - This theory is based on the dreams and aspirations that people possess.
Sometimes people keep really high expectations or dreams and when those dreams don't get fulfilled, they experience strain.
At that moment, people either choose to reduce their aspirations or increase the opportunities.
When people choose the later, the chances are that they might take the path of crime.
• Learning - This theory explains the changes that take place in a criminals mind due to the experiences from the surrounding environment.
Science has proven that the experiences in life are stored in an organized form in the mind.
If the person lives or has spent a long time in an improper neighborhood or environment, it develops negative effect on the mind.
• Control - The theory of control is entirely about a person's bonding with the society.
It specially focuses on an individual's relation with their parents, coaches, teachers or any other person to whom they look up to for learning how to socialize.
Control theory studies that how the bonding of a person with the society is directly correlated to their relationship with their socializing figures.
The above mentioned theories are just the mainstream or commonly used theories in trying to figure the causes of crime.
There are many other factors that can be responsible for a person performing any crime.
It can also be a psychological disorder, biological factors, economical factors etc.
No one is born a bad guy.
It's just the circumstances or the events that makes one choose the wrong path.
Crime exists in any society and is nearly inevitable.
But it is necessary to learn more about crime and its causes to reduce the rate of crime.