Theories of Crime - Research Paper Example

From the discussion it is clear that one of the more popular theories of crime is the General Theory of Crime which was proposed by Travis Hirschi and Michael Gottfredson in 1990. Their theory revolves around self-control and suggests that it is self-control which keeps a person from committing or refraining from criminal acts. They proposed that a person who has poor self control is more likely to indulge in inadequate behavior while people with good self control are able to resist. The concluded that higher the self control, lower will be the chances of indulging in criminal activities while people with poor self control are more at risk of engaging in criminal activities.

As the paper highlights one popular theory of crime was developed in the 1900’s by sociologists at the University of Chicago, which is now known as the Social Disorganization Theory. The theory creates a link between crime rate and the disorganization in society, i.e. absence or lack of functioning of community institutions including church, schools, government, etc, and lack of communal relationships that serve as the building blocks of personality and community life (Taylor, 2001). They theory suggests that when these healthy aspects of community life are missing or disorganized, the crime rate increases in that community.

Edwin Sutherland also claimed in his book, Principles of Criminology, that social disorganization leads to systematic criminal behavior which is different from other random events as it is more persistent, organized, and intended. (Sutherland, 1939).