Criminal Wrong Doings Jennifer Hyler CRJ 201 Ginger Jarvis July 24, 2011 Criminal Wrong Doings The criminal laws control criminal acts and channel human behaviors. Criminal laws also orchestrate punishments and sentences to the ones who commit wrong doings crimes towards someone’s person or personal property. A criminal law assumes that wrong doings not only damage the surrounding people, but society as well. All violators that commit a crime such as murder or rape must be punished. Criminal laws also have two written laws that are split up into two different categories.
It is not the law that people should fear, it is the trouble that comes to everyone when the laws are broken. This is where criminal laws come into play. Criminal law is “the body of rules and regulations that defines and specifies punishments for offenses of a public nature or for wrongs committed against the state or society.” (Schmalleger, F., 2010, p. 5) Criminal laws
It is their duties to ensure public safety and maintain order. Secondly, are the Courts, which sentences criminals based on evidence gathered by the Police and Lawyers. Thirdly, are Correctional Institutions, which detains or rehabilitates criminals. The graphic illustration below outlines the Criminal Justice System and its key components: Police The first component is the police, which serve as the gate keepers for the Criminal Justice System. The term police originated from the “Latin word politia” which means civil administrations’’.
Assess the usefulness of functionalist approaches in explaining crime The functionalist approach to analysing deviance and the causes of crime looks at society as a whole. It explains crime that the source of criminal behaviour lies in the nature of society itself rather than in psychology or biology. Functionalists such as Durkheim see deviance as an inevitable and necessary part of society and too little is unhealthy. Some also consider crime to have positive aspects for society. In this essay we will assess the usefulness of these functionalist theories, and look at how it helps us explain crime.
Crime can only be a social problem if it breaks rules in the social system. The human societies often have different minds to what a social problem consists of. There are many known definitions of social problems throughout different societies and worldwide. Criminology in the narrow sense is concerned with the study of the phenomenon of crime, and of the factors or circumstances which may have influence on or be associated with the criminal behaviour and the state of crime in general. The understanding of criminology is to see social problems and cause of the crimes and how they have affect on people in society.
Armed robbery falls under the title Larceny and is a crime of theft. It is categorized as it is due to the perpetrators use of threat of force and force. This is why often when a suspect is charged with ‘larceny and theft’ along with ‘robbery,’ here robbery would be the crime that would garner the harsher punishment. Laws differ when it comes to sentencing in each state when a verdict of guilty of the crime of armed robbery is
Describing crime and deviance is varied across different cultures; history; social situations and place. It will look at the bodies that measure crime and look at the reasons why they are not accurate. There are several differences between crime and deviance, deviance is a violation of the social norms whereas crime is a violation of the laws of the land. Society has no power for deviance but the government can punish with crime. Much behaviour that was seen as deviant in the past has today become a criminal offence, as with crime behaviour seen as criminal is now seen as deviant.
There are many theories relating to deviance and crime with each theory illustrating a different aspect of the procedure by which people break rules and are classed as deviants or criminals. (New texts pg 138) which highlights the problems in defining crime or deviance. DIFFERENCES BETWEEN CRIME AND DEVIANCE Many believe crime and deviance has developed on separate tracks over the years as criminologist serve only for legality, crime and crime-related phenomena. The study of deviance however serves for a wider range of behaviours that are not necessarily illegal for example suicide, alcoholism, homosexuality, mentally disordered behaviours. (Bader et al) The main difference between crime and deviance is deviant behaviour is when a social norm has been broken whereas a crime is where a formal and social norm is broken.
Official statistics is the name given to the numbers of crimes reported to or unveiled by the police themselves, which lead to a conviction, caution or are dealt with in some formal way by the law. Only offences which are dealt with by one of the above are actually recorded in official statistics. These offences can vary from minor incidents such as a window being broken to, an offence of a more serious nature such as rape or murder. These are social problems that are constructed by society, something that goes against the 'normal' runnings of society. The statistics can give us an understanding as to the levels of these crimes and as to why or where they are most likely to occur.
Yet it brings about so many different meanings. .The system of rules which a particular country or community recognizes as regulating the actions of its members and which it may enforce by the imposition of penalties. What is criminality? Criminality is basically said to be the state as that of a criminal, there are many curiosities of a criminal which is why there are many studies of a criminals behaviour, and what drives an individual to make choices that lead up to the meaningless evidential life of a criminal. Law and criminality is the study of ones behaviour and justifying that by the certain laws of the specific countries