Social cognition refers to the way our thoughts are influenced by the people we mix with, but also look at an individual's cognitions. In the context of criminality, the social context is the criminal act, therefore it is helpful to try and find out what a criminal is thinking when they commit a crime so that these cognitions can be altered. What the criminal is thinking may differ depending on whether the crime is committed individually (intrapersonal) or within a group (interpersonal). Gudjonsson and Bownes looked at the relationship between the type of offence an individual committed and the attributions offenders made about their criminal acts. Results were also cross-validated on an English sample.
This represents around 473,000 adults being victims of sexual offences (around 404,000 females and 72,000 males) on average per year. These experiences span the full spectrum of sexual offences, ranging from the most serious offences of rape and sexual assault to other sexual offences like indecent exposure and unwanted touching. "(Crime Survey for England and Wales, 2009/2010/2011/2012) Sexual assault is a personal and destructive crime. The effects on individual can be psychological, emotional, or physical. They can be brief in duration or last a long time.
Domestic Violence is not random but follows particular social patterns and these patterns have social causes. For example, the most striking pattern was found by Coleman et al (2007), who said that Domestic Violence mainly occurs through men being violent to women, she found that women were more likely than men to have experienced ‘intimate Violence’ across all four types of abuse, - partner abuse, family abuse, sexual assault and stalking. Statistics by Mirrlees – Black show that 99% of Domestic Violence cases against women were committed by men. She also found out that 1 in 4 women have been assaulted by a partner at some time in her life, and 1 in 8 women, repeatedly so. This is also
In this essay we will assess the usefulness of these functionalist theories, and look at how it helps us explain crime. One functionalist who tried to explain crime is Merton and his strain theory, the strain theory argues that people engage in the deviant behaviour when they are unable to achieve socially approved goals by legitimate means. Merton explanation combines 2 elements; structural factors- society’s unequal opportunity structure, cultural factors- strong emphasis to achieve goals and weak emphasis on using legit means. Merton uses the strain theory to explain some patterns of crime in society, he argues a person’s positioning in society affects the way they adapt or respond to the strain to anomie. Merton gives 5 different types of adaption; Conformity- the individual accepts socially acceptable goal and achieves it through legitimate means, Innovation- Individual accepts the role of success and wealth but uses illegitimate means to achieve them, Ritualism- Individual give up on legitimate goals but still follow strictly to the rules, Retreatism- Individuals reject legitimate goals and means of achieving them e.g drug addicts, the final type is Rebellion- Individuals reject existing goals and means but replace them with new one in desire to bring about revolutionary change.
Instead, there are several fundamental assumptions of psychological theories of criminality (and human behavior in general) that I will follow here (Mischel, 1968). These are: 1. The individual is the primary unit of analysis in psychological theories. 2. Personality is the major motivational element that drives behavior within individuals.
Many people ask, why does crime occur, who commits the crimes and why. We also ask the question of whether or not economic class, race, ect, has anything to do with why crime occurs. Theories have been conjured upon these acts to try to give meaning on why, what happens takes place. In this essay I would like to take the time to explain these theories to help others understand and maybe change their own viewpoints. Crime can affect the way individuals perceive others generally creating bias and prejudice within a person’s frame of thought; hopefully we can make someone think a little differently.
Crime as defined by Winterdyk, “is a socially constructed concept used to categorize certain behaviours as requiring formal control and warranting some form of social intervention” (Winterdyk, 2006, p. 491). Individuals that commit these criminal acts are believed to have made a specific choice in the matter. The benefits and consequences have been weighed therefore the criminal has made the choice, but what other circumstances can have a role in this decision? It is understood that social structures, social processes and human biology can all have an affect on the outcome of our individual acts. However the biological flaws of persons are not as significant as one may think.
In typical cases, the most frequently used form of aggression is physical aggression, such as hitting or any kind of physical harm. Homosexual domestic violence does not happen as frequently as it would in a heterosexual case. In the article “Invisible Victims: Same Sex Intimate Partner Violence in the National Violence Against Women Survey”, Messinger (2011) developed an experiment, consisting of 14,182 participants, both heterosexual and homosexual, that were either abused by their partner, or were the abuser themselves. In this survey the participants were asked to fill out a survey that consisted of questions relating to four specific types of intimate violence; verbal, sexual, physical, and controlling. The results of the survey showed that the overwhelming majority of abusers and victims who were involved in verbal and controlling form of domestic violence were homosexual partners.
My objective for this paper is to make use of criminologist theories to explain why these three individuals made the decisions to pursue a criminal career and what factors influenced them in following this path. Social Disorganization Theory Criminologists, look at many things when trying to negate what causes people to deviate from social and group norms with regards to their criminal behavior. It follows that sociologists have
First I would like to start by giving a brief definition of what or better said – how, criminology differs from victimology. Criminology is more concerned with the origin of crime along the extent and nature of crime. Criminology places an emphasis on studying the offender, the crimes, and the motives behind the crime. It is also the study of how the public and criminal justice system responds to the offender. Victimology plays a very important role in criminology and is used to determine what the victim’s behavior has to do with their risk of being victimized.