Crime By Social Norms - Essay Example

Psychological defect refers to undesirable elements like anger, greed, lust, envy or jealousy, pride, sloth or laziness, gluttony or over-indulgence and over-consumption of food, drink, or intoxicants, to the point of waste. Each of these undesirable elements are like people fighting each other to gain control of the ego or sense of individual existence; which is why some people become greedy, lustful, paranoid because jealousy, and dependent on others because of laziness. These defects can be compared to the hidden faces of the moon, that is, when this hidden part is lighted, the defect manifests.

This is why some become greedy, lustful and envious. Despite this, it is important for these defects to manifest in order that a person can learn how to control or suppress them. These psychological defects are usually hidden in the consciousness. They are the source of pain and suffering, like jealousy that divides home and family, lust that generates adultery, rape, sexual harassment (especially against women), betrayal and polygamy, greed which can lead to exploitation of employees, and lastly, anger and impatience which leads to harm of either to self or to others.

These defects can be suppressed or reduced if self-control or discipline is increased. These major sociological theories of crimes explain that crimes are based on the social environment, e.g. family, peer group, school, workplace, community and the society itself. These theories are strain, social learning, and control theory. Other social theories of crime include labelling, social disorganization, and critical theory. Each of these theories differs from each other because they focus on specific or individual factors which results to a criminal act.

The strain theory of crime posits that crimes are committed in order to decrease or escape from the strains a person experiences like financial problems, as defense from physical and psychological stressors, like sexual abusers. There are two general categories of strain that contribute to crime. First is, when another person prevents you from achieving your goals, and secondly, when another person takes valuable things from you with a negative or noxious stimuli. An example of this theory is, a man who is broke who robs a woman in order to reduce his financial problems.

Another example would be a woman who kills her husband in order to end his abuse to her. In this situation, psychological defect becomes a source of the crime. In the situation of a woman killing his husband, her hatred, and a psychological defect pushed her to kill his husband to end his abusive acts to her. Social learning theory of crime says that crimes are committed by a person who learned criminal acts by associating with other people engaged in criminal activities. According to this theory, people associated with certain group of people engaged in criminal activities are prone to commit a crime and have positive beliefs in committing crimes.

They view crimes as something desirable or at least justifiable in certain situations. These people commit crimes in order to get attention, for money, pleasure derived from drugs, and approval from friends or peer groups. An example of th