Criminal Justice Theories - Research Paper Example

? Criminal Justice Theories Lecturer Criminologists have, for a long time, put their emphasis strictly on the roles of the criminal. However, researchers have, over some years, discovered that the role played by the victim is actually very vital just as the role of the criminal. This is because the role of the victim can shape, influence fate and motivate a criminal. A number of theories today explain the causes of victimization and victimization itself. This paper seeks to explain three of those theories: Victim Precipitation Theory, Differential Association Theory and Labeling Theory. Victim Precipitation Theory This theory suggests that most people initiate or cause a specific confrontation that may result eventually to that person being victimized by death or injury. Such kind of precipitation on the victim can be termed as either passive or active. Active precipitation on the part of the victim exists where the victim intentionally acts in a manner that is provocative, uses threats or fighting words, or simply initiates an attack first. For example, in cases of crimes such as rape, courts have presented verdicts such as not-guilty based upon whether the victim acted in away or not acted at all in away suggesting consent to the act of sexual relation like the dress code of the woman in question. On the other hand, passive precipitation occurs where the victim exhibits particular features and characteristics that unintentionally threatens or motivates the attacker. Such kind of crimes do happen may be due to conflicts at personal level like where two individuals compete for a job promotion, love interest, or any other rare or desirable commodity. For example, a woman may be promoted and end up being a victim of violence due to the jealousy of someone she may or may not know well from the work station or away. Passive precipitation may also be experienced in cases where the victim is part of a specific group that threatens or offends the economic well being of someone, reputation or even status. According to research, this kind of precipitation exists in situations where there is a relation to power. Hence, economic power minimizes the victimization risk (Samuel, 2007). Differential Association Theory This theory explains deviance and criminal acts in terms of the social relationships of an individual. The Differential Association Theory attributes the causes of crime to a person’s social context. The theory rejects the intense individualism of psychiatry and biological determinism and economic explanations as causes of criminal activities. Differential Association Theory poses no particular or obvious threat to the treatment of humane of the victims or the criminals who have been identified. This theory suggests that an individual turns to delinquent lifestyle due to excessive definitions that favor violations of the law over those definitions that are unfavorable to violation of the law. That is to say, deviance results in a situation where an individual is exposed to many social messages that favor conduct than those favoring pro-social acts. Sutherland suggests that the concept of differential social organization and differential association may be applied to aggregation level and an individual level respectively. Whereas differential association theory gives explanations why an individual may gravitate towards criminal and delinquent behavior, differential social organization gives reasons as to why the rates of crime among different social entities appear to differ from each other. The differential association theory has 9 basic postulates: Criminal and delinquent behavior is learned; the theory asserts that delinquent behavior is not particularly inherited and an individual not with no training in crime do not invent any delinquent or criminal behavior; Criminal and delinquent lifestyle is learned from interaction with other people during communication including gestures, verbal or written communication; Learning criminal behavior and delinquent lifestyle occurs in an intimate personal associations or groups; impersonal communication like newspapers and movies play insignificant part relatively in learning criminal behavior; Learning criminal behavior includes; specific direction of attitudes, motives, rationalization, and drives; and techniques of carrying out a criminal act, of which in most cases are very simple; The direction of drives and motives of committing crime are learned from the descriptions of legal codes as either unfavorable or favorable; An individual learns delinquent lifestyle and criminal behavior due to much description that favor law violations over those that do not favor the violation of the law; Differentiation association theory varies in duration, frequency, intensity, and priority. Priority is principally significant due to its selective effect while intensity refers to prestige derived from criminal sources and emotional acts that are closely related to the association; The learning process of delinquent and criminal behavior through association with anti criminal and criminal patterns entails of all the measures and mechanisms that are contained in any other type of learning. For example, a seduced individual learns a delinquent behavior through association and this may not be seen as imitation ordinarily. Hence learning of delinquent and criminal behavior is not only restricted to an imitation process. Although criminal behavior and delinquent lifestyle may be expressed as general values and needs, they are not particularly explained by those values and needs because non-criminal act is an expression of similar values and needs. Summarily, according to the differential association theory, associations of individuals are determined in the context of social organization generally. Labeling theory According to labeling theory, the youths turn to a delinquent lifestyle and commit crimes when a good part of the members of society give them a label or associate them with such crimes and lifestyle, hence they accept such labels as their own personal identity. As youth interact with others in the society throughout their lives, they are usually given various symbolic labels. These symbolic labels often imply different attitudes and behaviors, thus the labels do not only give a description of an individual trait, but also describe the whole person. A negative label often results into a permanent harm of the targeted persons, especially when a significant other confers such a devalued status on the person. Being perceived as a deviant in the society and/ or being associated with a delinquent lifestyle often impact on the treatment youths receive at work, at home, at school, and any other places of social interactions. Those labeled usually find themselves turning to other people who are equally stigmatized by a similar or related label for purposes of championship and support. Law is, in most cases, applied differently and benefits people who hold social and economic power, while the powerless are often penalized. Labeling theory therefore is not only concerned with why the persons engage originally in the acts that make them labeled, but also deeply concerned with the reasons for a criminal career is formation. The origin of acts of crimes is not specifically discussed by this theory (Samuel, 2007). An individual becomes a deviant majorly due to the social distance that exists between the labeled and the labeler. Labeling theory is associated with various effects on the people who are labeled; these are the reasons why youth find themselves turning into a delinquent lifestyle and commit most crimes. They do this with a belief that even if they remain within the law, the society still associates them with such deviances and delinquent lifestyle. Therefore the major reason why youth turn into a delinquent lifestyle and commit criminal acts is basically due to the tag that the society has awarded them. If this can be reversed such that the youths are labeled with good and positive labels describing responsible members of the society, then such deviance may not be witnessed easily in the society (Miller, 1995). In summary, Due to the mentioned effects and deviance from the usual society norms, there have been concerns to prevent the youths from this implicated social deviance. The law enforcers as well as the community in general have made attempts to come up with programs that can assist in deterring youths from turning into a delinquent lifestyle and committing crime. Such a program can be Communities That Care (CTC) program, a product the Center for Substance Abuse Prevention (CSAP). Communities That Care program is based in the office, in the Government of the United States, of Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). This program is a community based program of preventing and deterring delinquencies among youths at the community level. The Communities That Care program uses a public health approach in preventing and deterring youth problems and behaviors like delinquency, violence, school dropout, and substance abuse. The community, decision makers and stakeholders apply and understand the information about protective and risk factors, and programs that have been proven to produce difference in promoting acceptable healthy youth development, so as to effectively address the specified problems and issues that face the youth in their community (Lyal, 2009). Community That Care as a program guides the efforts of a community to prevent and deter youths from turning to delinquent lifestyle and other criminal acts, through specified phases. The phases of this process include: Getting started: where the readiness of a community, is assessed, to take part in efforts of collaborative prevention; Get organized: the community leader get to commit them into the Communities That Care program and forms a representative and diverse coalition of prevention; Develop a profile: this where the data from epidemiology is used to assess the needs of prevention; Create a plan: in this phase, a selection of already tested and effective prevention programs, practices, and policies that are based on the data already assessed; and implement and evaluate: the new strategies are implemented with fidelity in a way that is congruent with the theory of the program, its methods of delivery, its content and nature, and evaluating the progress of the program over a given period of time. (William, 2001). Some of the impacts resulting from this theory include the following: Stigma creation: whenever an individual have a public record of acts of deviance, the denounced individual separates himself or herself virtually from a place of group by a successful degradation ceremonies in a legitimate order; an impact on self image: the offenders who have been stigmatized may probably start reevaluating their own personal identities within the label; primary deviance: these are some crimes with very little effect or influence on the actor, such are easily and quickly forgotten; secondary deviance: a deviant recognizes his or her personality or own behavior within the effects of the acts of deviance whenever they come across the social control agencies or significant others who apply those negative labels on them. This deviance entails a re-socialization of an individual with a negative label into a deviant role. The person who is labeled is changed into a person who adopts his or her role or behavior based on the label itself as a defense mechanism, an adjustment or attack. An amplification effect is hence produced, a self fulfilling prophecy (Lawrence, 2000). Therefore the major reason why youth turn into a delinquent lifestyle and commit criminal acts is basically due to the tag that the society has awarded them. If this can be reversed such that the youths are labeled with good and positive labels describing responsible members of the society, then such deviance may not be witnessed easily in the society. References Lawrence, M. (2000). Crime and Punishment in American History. New York: Basic Books. Lyal, S. (2009). The Emerging System of International Criminal Law: Developments in Codification and Implementation. The Hague: Kluwer Law International. Miller, M. (1995). Covert participant observation: Reconsidering the least used method. Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice, 11(2), 97-105. Samuel, W. (2007). Popular Justice: A History of American Criminal Justice. New York: Oxford University Press William, J. (2001). Power, Politics, and Crime. London: West view Press Read More