Skip to main content. Online Bachelor's in Forensic Psychology. Get Program Details. This will only take a moment. When are you looking to enroll? Please select an option Within months Within 6 months - 1 year In more than 1 year Unsure. Within months. Within 6 months - 1 year. In more than 1 year. Next Step We value your privacy.
Who is this guide for? We value your privacy. Understanding Why People Commit Crimes. Forensic Psychology B. To learn more, check out the infographic below. Crime Statistics Although 70 percent of Americans believe the overall U. Crime Rates There were 7. Violent Crime There were 1. Freud believed that if these could not be acquired legally, people would instinctively try to do so illegally.
Freud also believed that people have the ability to learn in early childhood what is right and what is wrong and though we may have an instinctive nature to acquire what we desire, such nature can be controlled by what is learned in our early years. He believed that people primarily get moral principles as a young child from their parents and that if these were missing because of poor parenting, that child would grow up into being less able to control natural urges to acquire whatever is needed.
August Aichorn is probably the best known neo-Freudian in criminology. On the flip side, behaviours that received no support or negative reactions are not learned and therefore will not recur. Yochelson and Samenow put forward the theory of free will to explain criminal behaviour. This has five points to it:. In August , some major cities in England experienced riots and looting. However, while many of those prosecuted were young, they were not exclusively young.
Also they were not always from broken homes or from a background of deprivation or unemployment. Before I attempt to answer why people commit crimes, we have to decipher what type of crimes people commit. There are many different types of crime, and each has different reasoning behind it. Anti-utilitarian crime is perhaps the most seen in our everyday lives, such as graffiti and theft for no material gain. There are also 'Career Criminals' who commit crime on an everyday basis as means to get what they otherwise could not afford and to support themselves in society.
There are also many sociological perspectives that approach this question in various ways. The functionalists see crime as a 'Safety valve'. For example, they suggest that if there is no crime, how do you know that there is a problem? Crime then from a functionalist view, is useful as it shows that there is a problem and it needs to be addressed.
According to Merton, the American dream causes people to experience pressure to deviate from social norms in order to achieve success in terms of material wealth, even if this means turning to crime.
Merton refers to this theory as a 'Strain to Anomie' or Strain Theory.
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