Why do People Commit Crimes - Essay Example

Why Do People Commit Crime? Human being is a complex combination of different elements that make up his whole personality. His whole personality is a result of his background, family, subconscious desires, education, his social status, physical health and the opportunities he gets from the society and ultimately, what he makes of all these aspects of life. Different people have different behavior patterns and have different ways pf dealing with people around them. People who behave and act in such a way that it causes some harm, either physical or mental, to other people are considered anti-social. They don’t hesitate to go against the laws set by the society and commit anti-social acts. Even the fear of the punishments set by the law are not enough to stop them from committing anti-social activities. What makes these people commit crime? What factors play a role in making a criminal ? Scientists and researchers have studied a lot to understand the mental and the physical aspects that play a role in making an aggressive person commit crime. It was found that it is not just a behavior that is responsible for criminal act but even the genetic makeup and the family background plays a great role in development of an anti-social behavior pattern. However, when we look at all the aspects, we find that the major role is that of the upbringing. Man is a social animal. He lives in a society which has set some rules for itself and expect every citizen to follow those rules. Wild and rowdy behavior has no place in a civilized society. There are punishments for these sort of behavior. However, we are also aware of the fact that the crimes are committed everyday showing that there are people who just can’t stop themselves from being violent even after knowing the consequences. There are different aspects that play role I making people aggressive and anti-social. We will look at those aspects one by one. Genes : Researchers have carried out studies to understand the role of genes in making people overaggressive and hence making them rowdy and anti-social. It was found that genes play an important role in anti-social behavior ( Newburn P.135). In the year 1995, Bohman carried out a study on children who were adopted, to find out how much do the genes play role in developing the criminal behavior in children. He found that in the cases where both, the biological and the adoptive parents had criminal records, there was a 40% chance of a child committing a crime. While in the cases where only the biological parents had a criminal record and adoptive parent had none, there was only 12% chance of a child getting involved in criminal activity ( Newburn P.137). This somehow is a good news as it shows that even though the genes ‘do’ play a role in development of behavior and personality patterns, the upbringing also plays a major role in shaping the behavior. The scientists are yet to find out a separate gene that cause a criminal behavior. There are other biological aspects that lead to an anti-social behavior pattern. Level Of Testosterone and diet : According to Hollin, the level of testosterone plays a great role in the personality traits. After puberty, the change in the behavior is due to the change in the testosterone (Newburn p.141). The changes in the testosterone makes men aggressive and hyperactive. Along with the biological changes, the addiction of alcohol and drugs make men to lose their ability to understand the consequences of the actions they take. Addictions makes the matter worse as with their physical urge to be aggressive, men also lose control over their mind and are not able to judge the situation with maturity ( Newburn p.142). According to some studies, it was found that what you eat decides how you will behave. The lack of vitamins and minerals in the diet can make a person irritable and can make him to indulge in criminal and anti-social actions( Newburn p.143). Healthy diet is an important aspect for people from those residential areas where crime manifests. If we look at the biological aspects that lead to anti-social behavior, we might feel that there is nothing we can do as it is the genes and the testosterone that make people commit crime. We cannot change the DNA structure, can we? However, the picture is not as gloomy as it looks. Numerous studies have shown that even though the genes and the other biological aspects are responsible for the criminal behavior in human being, what is more responsible is the upbringing, the family background and the social structure. Childhood : The first five years of a child are most important years as far as the building of his character is concerned. The most important aspect of the childhood is his relationship with his mother. A child senses the world through his mother. For a healthy and happy life, it is very important for him to have a mother who shows warmth and love towards him. This makes him feel safe and secure. However, study conducted by Raine in 1997, has found that if the child faces rejection and ignorant behavior from his mother in first 5 years of his life, it may lead him to committ violent crimes at the age of 18 (Newburn p.140). Psychoanalysis have thrown a light on how important it is for a child to have a healthy relationship with his mother or primary caregiver. To develop a meaningful and healthy relationships in the future, it is very important for a child to get affection and care from his mother. If he does not get the affection and love from his mother, he gets stuck in this stage of development and is unable to form friendly, productive, caring and positive relationships in the future. This can lead to delinquent behavior. Studies of criminals have found that they had suffered disturbance or abandonment in a their maternal attachments before the age of 5. The unhealthy nurturing by their mother before the age of 5 can lead people to commit crime (Putwain & Sammons p. 46). Charles Murray, in his essay “The Emerging British Underclass” has very strongly emphasized the importance of mother’s role in building a character of a man. He has specifically discussed the role of both, the father and the mother in development of a healthy human being. He has studied all the aspects of the society and has stated that every element of a society like work, family background, marriage, financial status and social structure are all related to each other and play a great role in building a responsible citizen, and so, a lack of it is responsible for developing a criminal. Charles Murray has specifically focused on single mother. By single mother he meant a mother who has never married. He has explained that a child who grows up with the upbringing under a single mother does not learn to be a responsible citizen. A child is a product of both, man and a woman. Nature has endowed them both with different qualities and hence responsibilities. Man is responsible for working and earning the livelihood for the family and provide financial support while woman is responsible for taking care of home and children and provide emotional support. Child imitates what his parents do. He watches is father and learns the responsibility of society and by watching his mother he learns to be caring and loving. Father is the one who is a role model for a child for becoming a responsible citizen by getting educated, following rules, taking responsibility of a family by working and creating a social status. However, with the phenomenon of single motherhood, the child is completely missing out on having a role model who will teach him how to be a man of family, how to take responsibilities of people around him, how to become financially independent and how to have a respectable position in the society. Society does not look at a single mother with respect. No matter how modern the society calls itself, it still does not accept single motherhood as a part of a healthy social structure. Single mothers, mostly, live in a neighborhood that is not conducive for development of a healthy and respectable human being. For a mother to be loving and caring towards her child, she has to experience love, care, respect, financial freedom and healthy social acceptance. However, as single mothers become busy earning a livelihood for themselves and become cold towards their children because of the hardships they suffer in life, the children end up being neglected and lack the love from their mother. And not just that, the absence of father makes the matter worse and they are left to look after themselves. Children of single mother and mostly from the poor neighborhood take up to street and start becoming wild. They lack the value system as they don’t have parents who can inculcate it in them. Their life become meaningless. They get involved with the gangs on the street and start building their values imitation the anti-social members of the gangs. Instead of modeling respectable and working people, they start modeling people who commit crimes, indulge in drugs, act rowdy and lead a life which does not have morals. These children, because of lack of adequate parentage, start committing crimes. People living in poor communities are more violent than the people living in wealthy communities. There are many reasons for it. Children of single mother are considered illegitimate. They do not get attention from their mother in their early childhood. There is no one to tell them the importance of education and work. Lack of a father figure results in not learning the importance of having a status in the society and hence gaining respect from others. Because of lack of healthy relationship with their mother, they are unable to form a healthy relationship with others people and hence are not able to take the responsibility of their life. This frustration lead to sexual indulgence without thinking of marriage, drug addiction to forget the miseries and anti-social behavior to take out the frustration of meaningless life. The lack of meaningful purpose in life leads people to indulge in criminal activities. The whole scenario discussed above is a picture of a vicious circle that a human being can get in. The drug addiction is the most dangerous element. Children from poor communities do not work. They do not have money to buy drugs and alcohol. The only way that they can have money is by stealing, threatening or bullying. Their family is not financially stable and hence cannot give them adequate resources and environment for schooling and education. The energies of these children are directed in violent behavior and activities. They become immune to what others are saying and this leads them to commit crime. Charles Murray has clearly stated that the lack of work culture leads people to commit crimes. Consider a man having aggression and hyperactive nature. This energy need to be channeled in creative way. Education can provide him an environment where he feels challenged and can get pleasure by scoring high in exams. He can graduate, get a good job and start using his aggressive mental pattern in setting goals for his professional life and achieving success. This is the creative way of channeling the hyperactive energy. However, if this energy is not channeled in creative way, it becomes destructive and makes man to become hostile, intolerable, jealous, frustrated and anti-social. Frustration and inferior complex can lead non-working people into rowdy behavior and ultimately make them to indulge in criminal activities. Work culture not only help people in having a stable financial lifestyle but also leads them to a stable personal and marital life. People having job are confident and reliable for an institution like marriage. Girls find working men reliable and responsible human beings and hence don’t have any problem in getting into a marital relationship with them. However, non-working men do not get the same trust and faith from their sex partners. They are not able to get into the marriage and hence the energy that can be used in setting a married life, having children. nurturing them and becoming a part of a healthy society, gets converted into frustration. This frustration again leads to irresponsible and wild behavior. Marriage has a great potential of changing a human being into a good man. But because of the lack of marriage and trusting relationship, the non-working men remain uncultured and immoral and don’t have any problem in committing crime. All this vicious cycle start from the birth where a child does not have healthy parents to look up to. Lack of education, work, culture and moral values lead the non-working men unable to gain respect from their sex partners. They feel insulted and take a route of addiction and crime. They start getting pleasure in those things and hence remain uncivilized. Studies have shown that men are more likely to indulge in criminal activities than women (Carraabine, Lee, Igansky, Plummer & South p.88). This is due to the aggressive masculine energies that gets pleasure in overpowering others. The thinking of society has played a great role in making men to believe that their manliness is in physical strength, their energy, their aggression and their ambition. Men avoid expressing their true emotions, talking about their feelings and crying, with the fear of losing their manliness if they do so. They suppress their feelings right from the childhood as they are taught that boys don’t cry. This suppression is extremely dangerous as it starts pushing from inside and rather than getting a healthy outlet, it comes out in form of indulgence in violent sports, getting pleasure in watching violent programs, participating in football hooliganism, road rage, rapes and violence. This kind of desire to show their manliness leads them to commit crimes and go against the law. (Carraabine , Lee, Igansky, Plummer & South p.89). From all the studies conducted by the researchers, we can easily make out that even though biological factors like genes and testosterone play an important role in developing criminal tendencies in human being, what plays more important role is the nurturing and the upbringing of the human being. If a child carrying the genetic structure of anti-social behavior is raised by parents who are educated, working, financially stable and have respectable position in society, then the child instead of indulging in crime and anti-social behavior, learns how to drive his energies toward creativity and achieving a high status in the society. Children who are born to single, emotionally and financially maladjusted mothers have little or no chance of diverting their energies in creative way. They become victim of the surrounding rowdy and aggressive people and start imitating them. Poverty does not allow them the luxury of moving to a respectable neighborhood and also keep them away from having healthy nutritious food. These children do not know how to spend their time and what to make of their life. The frustration and the urge to do something makes them commit crimes. According to Charles Murray if we are to have a society which is crimeless and safe, we need to divert the energies of young people towards creativity. The culture of working will help them not only to earn respect in society and make them to be financially independent, but will also help them to make friends, have a healthy routine, inculcate discipline and eventually get into a legally acceptable relationships. No one is born with a desire to steal, rape or to kill. Life creates misery for children who are born to mothers from poor family or parents who are unhealthy mentally. These children are not exposed to good morals, healthy social practices and a strong value system. They lack the direction in life and fail to understand the importance of education. As they grow up, they realize that money and respect are important to survive in this world. Lack of education and work takes them into depression and anger. They become frustrated, feel helpless and miserable. The unsatisfied desires and unfulfilled dreams along with the hopelessness of the situation make these children violent. Somehow, they hold people around them responsible for the messy situation they are in and they start getting satisfaction in harming them. And all these negativities are to be taken out somewhere and that is the reason people commit crime. As Charles Murray has said, there is no other solution for crime than giving child a loving. caring and healthy nurturing by his parents. Healthy parents is the only hope against crime. References Carraabine, Eamonn., Lee, Maggy., Igansky, Paul., Plummer Ken. & South Nigel. Criminology : A Sociological Introduction. Routledge. 2004 Charles Murray. The Emerging British Underclass ( pp 17-53). Retrieved on April 23, 2009 from http://www.civitas.org.uk/pdf/cw33.pdf Hollin Clive . Psychology And Crime: an introduction to criminological psychology. Routledge 1989 Newburn Tim. Criminology, William Publishing UK. 2007 Putwain David & Sammons Aidan, Psychology and Crime, Routledge 2002 Read More