There are innumerable contradictory explanations for the causation of crime.

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Crime

        There are innumerable contradictory explanations for the causation of crime.  Some blame it on a lack of self control, some a lack of decent jobs, some super predators, some moral poverty, some poverty itself and still others explain that is laws themselves that create crime.  All are partially correct.  The problem with an issue such as crime’s causation is that it requires the generalization of a very varied group of people.  By generalizing humans or even the more specific group of “offenders” there are bound to be a great deal of contradictory results.  Each person has a different situation and a different force that drives them to crime.  Because of this there is really no one right answer to the question of crimes causation in any society.  Yet it is possible to boil it down to a few basics.  Crime is often the result of a scarcity of good jobs, poor parenting and a lack of self control.

In today’s fast paced, consumer based, and instant gratification centered world it is almost impossible not to have a certain lack of self control.  However, what makes one a criminal is the degree to which all this affects one’s actions.  “This perspective assumes that most people have a natural tendency to take what they want when they want it but are restrained from doing so because of ties to the conventional social order.  Most people feel that they have too much to lose by breaking the law.  If our ties to conventional order or our social bonds are weakened, we are free to commit delinquent or criminal acts.”  Yet this is often overriden by people’s eagerness to get what they want.  “Criminal acts provide easy or simple gratification of desires.  They provide money without work, sex without courtship, revenge without court delays.”

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Low self-control also explains why most criminals do not specialize.  Hirischi and Gottfredson explain that, “offenders commit a wide variety of criminal acts, with no strong inclination to pursue a specific criminal act or a pattern of criminal acts to the exclusion of others…Thus, for example, the ‘rapeist’ will tend also to use drugs, [and] commit robberies and burglaries.”  Knowing that self-control is to blame it easy to see how one person would commit such varied illegal acts. A lack of self-control can account for almost any type of crime. Both petty theft and white collar crime can be the result ...

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