Gaining further education, of course, is another option, but classes can be expensive and time consuming. While education can provide the chance to get a better job, it does not always overcome the effects of abuse, poverty, or other limiting factors. A person's peer group strongly influences a decision to commit crime.
For example, young boys and girls who do not fit into expected standards of academic achievement or participate in sports or social programs can sometimes become Crack cocaine pipe displayed by police. Drugs and alcohol impair judgment and reduce inhibitions, giving a person greater courage to commit a crime.
Children of families who cannot afford adequate clothing or school supplies can also fall into the same trap. Researchers believe these youth may abandon schoolmates in favor of criminal gangs, since membership in a gang earns respect and status in a different manner.
In gangs, antisocial behavior and criminal activity earns respect and street credibility. Like society in general, criminal gangs are usually focused on material gain. Gangs, however, resort to extortion, fraud, and theft as a means of achieving it. The fear of young people, mostly boys, joining gangs influenced many government projects in the last half of the twentieth century including President Lyndon Johnson's —; served —69 "War on Crime" programs.
Some social factors pose an especially strong influence over a person's ability to make choices. Drug and alcohol abuse is one such factor. The urge to commit crime to support a drug habit definitely influences the decision process. Both drugs and alcohol impair judgment and reduce inhibitions socially defined rules of behavior , giving a person greater courage to commit a crime. Deterrents such as long prison sentences have little meaning when a person is high or drunk.
Substance abuse, commonly involving alcohol, triggers "stranger violence," a crime in which the victim has no relationship whatsoever with his or her attacker. Such an occurrence could involve a confrontation in a bar or some other public place where the attacker and victim happen to be at the same time. Criminologists estimate that alcohol or drug use by the attacker is behind 30 to 50 percent of violent crime, such as murder, sexual assault, and robbery.
In addition drugs or alcohol may make the victim a more vulnerable target for a criminal by being less attentive to activities around and perhaps visiting a poorly lighted or secluded area not normally frequented perhaps to purchase drugs.
The idea that drug and alcohol abuse can be a major factor in a person's life is why there are numerous treatment programs for young people addicted to these substances.
Treatment focuses on positive support to influence a person's future decision making and to reduce the tendency for antisocial and criminal behavior. Another factor many criminologists consider key to making a life of crime easier is the availability of handguns in U. Many firearms used in crimes are stolen or purchased illegally bought on what is called the "black market".
Firearms provide a simple means of committing a crime while allowing offenders some distance or detachment from their victims. Of the , violent crimes involving firearms in , over , involved handguns. By the beginning of the twenty-first century firearm use was the eighth leading cause of death in the United States. Similarly, the increased availability of free information on the Internet also makes it easy to commit certain kinds of At the beginning of the twenty-first century, firearm use was the eighth leading cause of death in the United States.
Web sites provide instructions on how to make bombs and buy poisons; all this information is easily available from the comfort of a person's home. Easy access, however, will not be the primary factor in a person's decision to commit a crime. Other factors—biological, psychological, or social—will also come into play.
Bowlby, John. New York: Basic Books, Curran, Daniel J. Theories of Crime. Fleisher, Mark S. Karr-Morse, Robin, and Meredith S. Ghosts from the Nursery: Tracing the Roots of Violence. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, Renzetti, Claire M. Women, Crime, and Criminal Justice.
Los Angeles: Roxbury, Whereas younger people, especially young men, are less likely to fear crime and are the most likely to experience it. Because Americans are often fearful of street crime, for various reasons, resources are devoted to prevention and protecting the public. In fact, the BJS does not have a link that directs people to the next two types of crime discussed when on their main page of crime type. When most people think of crime, they think of acts of interpersonal violence or property crime.
The goal is to make money for the business and run a profitable business, and the representatives of the business. Corporate crime may also include environmental crime if a corporation damages the environment to earn a profit. Another example is health care fraud. In addition to financial loss, corporate crime can be violent. In , the FBI estimated the number of murders in the nation to be 17, Americans are rarely made aware of them, and they rarely make their way through the criminal justice system.
The last major homicide prosecution brought against a major American corporation was in The prosecutor alleged that Ford knew that it was marketing a defective product, with a gas tank that crushed when rear-ended, spilling fuel, where the girls incinerated to death. Ford hired a criminal defense lawyer who in turn hired the best friend of the judge as local counsel, and who, as a result, secured a not guilty verdict after persuading the judge to keep key evidence out of the jury room.
Sometimes the terms corporate and white-collar crime are used interchangeably, but there are important distinctions between the two terms. In contrast to corporate crime, white-collar crime usually involves employees harming the individual corporation. Sometimes corporate and white-collar crime goes hand in hand, but not always.
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