Criminal Acts and Choice Theories Response The basis of the “choice theory” is to show why and/or what causes a criminal to make the choice to commit a crime. Every person has to make their own choices and decisions and criminals make irrational decisions when, where, and how to commit a crime. All the while giving no thought to the punishments for their actions because the personal gain is of greater value to them. Criminals do not believe the laws apply to them. The criminal commit crimes for personal gain, money, power, and status.
Often times these surveys make the assumption that crimes are always discrete incidents rather than a repetitive social processes. Specific measurement problems can be limited distribution of incident knowledge, forgetting or inaccurate recall of events, and lax participation in surveys. Three procedural issues which affect estimates of victimization rates are problems of panel bias and attrition, differences between telephone and personal interviews, and interviewer effects(Karmen 65-68). The UCR and NIBRS collectively only include figures based solely on crimes known to local police and sheriff’s department and focus mainly on the crime itself and not so much the victim. The accuracy of both reports is routinely in question because of the percentage of victims who do not self-report and often multiple crimes are listed as one- the most serious-while the rest are not accounted for in the reports(UCR).
The contingency theory is based on the approach to achieve specific goals, such as crime control. This theory would suggest the creation of specialized “task forces” to handle certain crimes committed in the jurisdiction. The downfall with this theory is that a department can become too specialized and broken into different departments that it cannot adapt to changes. The final theory, resource dependency, is as the name suggests. Agencies following this theory would believe that in order to survive they need to adjust their policing efforts to a style that will yield the most money coming in.
The patron-client offers the advantages of continuity when the leader is incapacitated, as a patron will assume the position. The patron-client model is less centralized and has lass control over subordinates than the bureaucratic model (Adabinsky, 2003: p 41). With the patron-client model, the patron has the power to generate income by networking with other clients involved in criminal activities like, drug trafficking, fraudulent activities and money laundering. A patron has informants and connections within the police and other officials and with those who are in special criminal operatives. A patron will also have areas or industries to dominate (Abadinsky, 2007).
When a crime has been reported into the system it is very difficult to try and take the data out; as a result, sometimes crimes do not get reported. Clearance rates are calculated by separating the number of crimes cleared by the number of crimes reported. These calculations are used by law enforcement groups as a measure of crime activity solved by the police. Crime rate is the percentage of crime in an area to the population of the area. Clearance rates are numbers of cases cleared or closed, crimes are also considered cleared or closed.
The rational theory offenders discover that committing a crime was not worth it. Rational theory considered that offenders who commit a crime do so after taking chances, and punishment for the crime as well as gift for
I firmly believe that police brutality is too often overlooked. And I also believe that I will one day expose the chinks in the armor of the New York Police Department. Police brutality is the act of a law officer abusing a citizen either through physical contact, verbal assaults, or threats. Police brutality is often referred to as an over excessive use of force. Some would believe that this abusive force may sometimes be necessary for criminals that seriously need to be apprehended and are not complying with orders, but that force should only extend to a certain degree, which is just enough to subdue that criminal.
In my own words, I would describe organized crimes as people who gather together to form a group of personalized opinions which are all the same in beliefs, wants and needs. They are all focused on acquiring and maintaining money, power, and loyalty by any means necessary. As I looked up other definitions of organized crimes, our studies define organized crimes as a group of people who forms and organization and commit crimes in an organized way. By forming a chameleon-like organization disguised as a business of some sort, this makes it difficult to identify who they really are. Although today they are more organized, they are still very violent and will do in some cases whatever it takes to maintain their freedom and get the job done (Lyman, M. D., & Potter, G. W., 2007).
However, they are not stable nor bureaucratically organized enterprises. Instead, organized criminal organizations consist of networks of small and flexible groups of criminals or cells, much like terrorist organizations. This free form of illegal business is functional in the competitive and changeable world of misconduct, making its practitioners less visible to the law enforcement agencies. One feature terrorist organizations have in common with organized crime is that they do not always have stable and well organized units. These organizations are far more likely to consist of a collection of independent units.
The key difference between these two models is that the crime control model is much more harsh and unrelenting; it emphasizes controlling crime via punishing suspects while the due process model emphasizes careful examination to ensure less innocent people are unjustly convicted. The crime control model places an emphasis on "placing as few restrictions as possible on the ability of law enforcement officers to make discretionary decisions in apprehending criminals"(Gaines). Under this model, courts would be more willing to convict offenders, even with an absence of compelling evidence. For example, a court would be more willing to accept a police officer's account of a homicide without careful cross-examination under the crime control model in order to repress crime. In contrast, the due process model emphasizes "protecting the rights of the accused through formal, legal restraints on the police, courts, and corrections" (Gaines).