Crime is the result of individuals making choices to commit crime; it Essay

Crime is the result of individuals making choices to commit crime; it is not the result of their social circumstances. Discuss this statement - Essay Example Due to these involvements with other criminals, the individuals view crime as desirable – something that can be used appropriately in social situations (Akers, 1998). Other people make them think that crime is something that can be condoned, and so they do it on their own, as they see it fit into their own lives. When it comes to teenagers, they learn how to engage in crime in the same way that they would learn how to conform to the needs of society (Matza & Sykes, 1961), despite that crime is not socially condoned. There are three mechanisms by which a person learns crime from others: differential reinforcement, beliefs, and modeling. The differential reinforcements are the rewards or punishments that a person gets from committing a criminal act. If a criminal is not caught, they are unable to be punished – they have only seen the reward to what they do. If they are caught and are punished, they can be conditioned to see that crime is a negative thing and is not condoned by society. A criminal might use their own mindset of beliefs on criminology to help others to see that what they are doing is not wrong. They try to get others to see things from their point of view. When modeling criminal activity, an individual does what might have been done to them: they influence others. The control theory focuses on the conformity that an individual goes through that may cause them to engage in criminal acts. Many sociologists wish to find out why people involve themselves in crime, while others want to know why people conform to begin with. Once again, we are back to the powers of influence and modeling. The control theory has to do with how much restraint a person is willing to put on him or herself to avoid partaking in criminal acts. Once a person gives in to conformity, they are no longer following their own unique rules about how to go about life and keeping to their morals. The labeling theory states that once a person is labeled a criminal, and