From this emerged the consensus position on crime which states that crimes are acts that produce intense moral outrage amongst society (Muncie & McLaughlin, 2003). Not all socially unacceptable acts are ‘crimes’. Some acts can be seen just as wrong or immoral but do not have laws against them, these are deviant acts. Deviance is defined in the dictionary as “deviating from what is acceptable behaviour” (Collins 2006, 215). Both crime and deviance are violations of social norms (scn.org).
LITERARY REVIEW: THE PREVENTION OF HATE CRIMES Introduction: It is an unfortunate reality that prejudice and aggression are some of the oldest and most long standing features of human society. Many have struggled to understand and address these problematic issues including social scientists, law enforcement, and other theorists. Society’s general adaption of values such as equality and tolerance coupled with the persistence of group tensions arising from a long history of ethnic, racial and status differences has given rise to a different brand of criminal activity; the hate crime. Increases or shifts in diversity have also contributed to the emergence of the hate crime (Boeckmann, R. J., 2002). Recognition of the dangerous harm of these acts is responded to in the form of hate crime laws.
Organized Crime Prevention and Control As one author put it, “organized crime has been defined in the relative absence of Knowledge” about its true dimensions (Castle, 2008, p. 139). Albanese (1996) explains crime and possible organized crime in terms of the typologies of positivism, classicism, structural, and ethical explanations. The positive approach explains organized crime as caused by social and economic factors that include: poor neighborhoods and role models, lack of opportunity to achieve the “American Dream,” dysfunctional families, and even genetics. The positivist sees change in the conditions as a means to prevent criminal behavior. Walter Miller’s classic article “Ideology and Criminal Justice Policy” concluded with the observation, “when assertions are made about what measures best serve the purposes of securing order, justice, and the public welfare, one should ask, ‘How do we know this?’” (1973, p. 150).
In this short essay I will define institutional racism, its history in American and who it mostly affects. Institutional racism also known as institutional oppression refers to racism perpetrated by government entities, major cooperation’s, schools, the courts or the military (Moore 2008). Unlike the racism perpetrated by individuals, institutional racism has the power to negatively affect the bulk of people belonging to a minority group. This form of racism still persists in America because dominant groups are unwilling to share or give up the benefits inherited from past generations. Through numerous examples, Institutional Racism demonstrates how inequality and racial exclusion are embedded within the fabric of American society.
Beverly West September, 14, 2010 History 320 Critical Analysis One Genocide, mass murder, elimination, and annihilation of selected groups across the globe is an investigation in which Daniel Jonah Goldhagen explores in his book Worse Than War, Genocide, Eliminationism, and the ongoing assault on Humanity. Goldhagen challenges three positions of why genocide, elimination and expulsion occur. These three perspectives of why mass murder occurs, is State centered perspective, another is Society center perspective, and the Individual centered perspective. He first challenges the state centered view and demonstrates that it is correct in the state being the prime mover, but the perspective does not explain why certain groups are targeted, and why others are not. The society centered perspective demonstrates correctly than an animus can motivate a group to kill, but it does not explain once again why some groups are targeted, when they do not affect the social conflict or are not included in cultural prejudices or why the events occur at the designated time.
Hate crime is a crime when a harm done to a person because that persons belongs to a particular group. Sometimes like in the case of hate crime legislation there is a dispute about whether the hate crime legislation are to be justified in liberal societies. In her article “Why liberals should hate ’hate crime legislation’” Heidi M. Hurd define hate crimes from a different point of view. She claims that the hate crime is based on a character which is unacceptable in liberal societies, she discusses the difference between the hate and bias crimes and other crimes as from the perspective of punishment and the moral and political impact that this base has. Hate crimes penalties are greater than other crimes because of two main reasons first is that they are target to communities and second the individual who commit hate crime need to have greater culpability then those who commit a regular crime, based on those two reasons legislating a hate crime on character the liberal society might lose of its features.
- Literature Review (3,720) ‘To what extent was Hannah Arendt correct in saying that human beings are conditioned to be evil by authority?’ Exploring the dispute between dispositional evil and conditioned/situational evil Eichmann and the Banality of Evil Stephen Whitfield addresses Hannah Arendt’s thesis on evil. Whitfield argues that perpetrators of evil during the Holocaust did so through three factors; thoughtlessness, distance and the nature of bureaucracy. Whitfield notes that an aspect of bureaucracy causes the wrongdoers to become engrossed with the logistical side of genocide, presenting a barrier between action and consequence. Alluding to Arendt’s illustration of Eichmann, Whitfield reinforces the idea of Eichmann lacking the staple traits of evil such as hatred, aggressiveness and virulent anti-Semitism apparent in the higher echelons of Nazism. In other words, both authors emphasize Eichmann’s normality, epitomising a diligent, acquiescent worker who perhaps absolved his heinous crimes through a duty to the state, the conditioning factor here being compliance to those giving orders and fulfilling one’s task to the utmost of one’s ability.
Capital Punishment and the Deterrence Theory Capital Punishment Deters Crime 11/9/2012 Dr. Ji Seun Sohn Brooke Lee Capital Punishment and the Deterrence Theory: Capital Punishment Deters Crime Jerry Kilgore said in an editorial written for USA Today, “As a former prosecutor, former secretary of public safety and now attorney general, I believe that some crimes are so evil, some criminals so dangerous and some victims so tortured that executing the criminal is appropriate” (Kilgore, 2002). Capital punishment, or commonly referred to as the death penalty, is the most controversial of all of the disciplinary practices. Since it involves taking another human being’s life, this is not at all surprising. Since it is the most severe of all sentences, there have been countless efforts to abolish the death penalty, and in most of the industrialized nations, with the exception of Japan and the United States of America, these efforts have proved effective. In this paper, I will discuss the effect that capital punishment has on deterring criminal activity.
I have concluded that substance abuse is a huge contributor to crimes being committed. The lack or decrease in moral intuition and character can cause a person to make bad decisions. This would cause people not to understand the benefits of to abiding to common social values. A person demographics can also play a role in determining whether or not an individual will turn to a life of crime. Government officials, politicians, and courts employees have concluded that individuals commit crimes for private alternatives and they should be punished and held responsible for their actions and conduct.
Racism within Heart of Darkness What is racism? How can someone be classified as a racist? According to Merriam Webster’s Dictionary, racism is classified as the poor treatment of or violence against people because of their race, or the belief that some races of people are better than others. Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness has been considered a major turning point for authors and other works because his style of writing was different than most other pieces of literature in his time. Conrad’s use of ambiguity fascinated critics and readers as he used obscurity to dramatize Marlow’s perceptions of the horrors he encounters.