Rational Choice Theory

556 Words3 Pages
If you ask anyone to describe crime in one word the first word out of anyone’s mouth would probably be “bad”. However, after watching “The Negotiator” people might change their view on the word. What Danny Roman did was in fact a crime, but because of rational choice theory we know there is more to the story than just the choice Danny made to hold hostages. Rational choice theory is a criminological approach that understands that people commit crimes (most of the time) under free will however; circumstances may affect the exercise of personal choice. Rational choice theory was reborn in the 1970s as a response to the failure of rehabilitation. The strengths of rational choice theory is that it put into consideration that no two crimes are exactly alike, however its weaknesses is it oversimplifies the complexity of human interaction with the social environment. The movie “The negotiator” is a perfect example of rational choice theory. It is in this movie where a clean-cut police officer becomes the kind of man he was sworn in to arrest, he goes from the negotiator to the hostage taker. What could make a man do all of this? What could make a dedicated police officer that has worked on the force for over 20 years turn so quickly into the kind of person he has spent all of that time hunting? The answer is Situations. This is what rational choice theory is all about. What where the situations of the crime, what were the rational thoughts of the offender, do they matter? In this case yes, because they show that Danny Roman did not take hostages for personal gain such as money, he did it for justice. The choices Danny Roman made clearly show where his rationality lies while committing the crime. For example, when Danny sent his wife out to the car so he can go talk to Niebaum, he did not go to internal affairs looking to take hostages, it wasn’t
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