Columbine high school massacre. The Columbine High School massacre (often known simply as Columbine) was a school shooting which occurred on April 20, 1999, at Columbine High School in Columbine, an unincorporated area of Jefferson County, Colorado, United States. Two senior students, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, embarked on a shooting spree in which a total of 12 students and 1 teacher were murdered. They also injured 21 other students directly, with three further people being injured while attempting to escape the school. The pair then committed suicide.
An example of this theory would be if a child sees his parents or an authority figure he or she looks up to committing crimes or indulging in violence. That child most likely would view that type of behavior as acceptable. The social control theory states that people commit crimes when the processes which keep them in society are broken or weakened. Also within this theory, it is believed, the more socialized a person is as a child, and greater bonds they maintain with others, the less likely they will be to commit crimes (Siegel, 2000). Lastly, the social labeling theory view is when people are being labeled as criminals, they begin to take on that identity, and end up as criminals (Siegel, 2000).
General Strain Theory was formulated by Robert Agnew, and first published in 1992. According to General Strain Theory individuals engage in crime because of strains or stressors which produce anger and anxiety (Agnew, 1992). Crimes become the outlet that the individual uses to cope with or remedy the strains or stressors. Agnew states that there are three different types of deviance producing strains. They are failure to achieve positively valued goals, removal of positively valued stimuli, and confrontation with negative stimuli (Agnew, 1992).
These kinds of events were not supposed to happen at a simple high school in Colorado. They especially were not supposed to happen at Columbine. The events just described occurred on April 20th, 1999 at Columbine High School. Two high school students possessing illegally obtained guns barged into the high school and opened fire, killing fifteen people including themselves and injuring twenty-four others (Carter, Gun Control: Overview). Up to that point, this was the most significant school shooting massacre in American history.
Violence, crime, suicide, racism, stereotyping, discrimination, abomination, where does it all stem from? More importantly, how can it be treated? Does one really believe violent behavior is a genetic trait? Can one conclude that the two guys who committed the Columbine High School shooting, were troubled and violent the day they were born? It would be irrational to believe so.
Anti-social behaviour, gangs and knife violence are the main reasons for the social nightmare we live in. so who carry these instruments of death? Teenagers aged from 13 – 18 are statistically the more frequent wielders of weapons and are the current problem the police forces are trying to target and conclude to the predicament we face, knife crime. So how can we stop the dilemma we face in our modern day of age? Are the police doing the job they should be?
This websites goal is not only to go against guns, but also strike at the heart. As I scrolled down there was an important update which announced another shooting that killed young children along with the fact that it was the largest killing of children by a single shooter since the Sandy Hook massacre. On the Brady Campaign website it seems like they are trying to reach out to
It depicts unflinchingly the battle between freedom and constraint plus society’s use of drastic means to set the deviant straight in the place of a rehabilitative program in conjunction with punishment. Humans are oranges more so than clocks, our automaticity is located in our body but who we are is the fruit that is the life-force within us. Much of the incarcerated population is guided by internal impulsivity and sensation-seeking behaviors. The goals of the corrections system are to punish and rehabilitate offenders and protect the population but with overcrowding and a lack of resources effective rehabilitation for offenders is minimized. The corrections system addresses offenders as clocks while it is the orange or human aspect that drove them to be in the criminal justice system in the first place.
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.
Agnew’s General Strain Theory According to Chagrin Valley Times (2012), on Monday, February 27, seventeen year old T.J. Lane walked into the cafeteria of Chardon High School and shot ten people with a .22 caliber handgun. Three of those people were killed, another had minor injuries, and the last student remains in critical condition. Sixteen year old Russell King Jr. and Demetrius Hewlin, and sixteen year old Daniel Parmerto, were the unfortunate students who died that day. Lane was chased by a teacher as he fled the scene. Later, Lane surrendered to the police.