Criminology

Criminology happens to be a body of knowledge that is in most cases considers crime and criminal activities as a social phenomenon. It is due to this reason that we can say that criminality is a process of breaking laws, making laws, and also reacting to those who break the laws that were created. It is therefore a broad study and it is understood in the field of education by the use of some theories and concepts. It is in this sense that we can say that there exists some two broad theories in this field which are classified under social process theories and sociological theories.

These theories are known to states that criminality happens not to be an influence by the individual but rather, acts as a product of the society or social forces. In other words, it means that criminal activities that a person is involved in are more an influence of the forces in the society rather than the individual himself. Some of these influences are the obligations in the society, customs, morality, law and religious beliefs. This is a general idea of the sociological theories which can be classified under some different individual theories. Looking at one of the theories by the name of social disorganization theory, it states that the law happens to be a symbol of solidarity. The theory further states that a deviate is known to commit a crime because of the inability to acquire some of the guiding norms in his life.

On the other hand, is the strain theory and it is known to depict delinquency as one of the forms of adapting or coping with the difficult social environment. Proponents of this theory say that social acceptance happens to be the main cause of criminality. They say that individuals are known to engage in criminal activities because they feel that they are not properly accepted in their society. They want to engage in some form of criminal activities so that they can vent their anger and bitterness to the subjects that they are directing their criminal activities to. They say that if these people were feeling that they were better accepted into their society, there are chances that they would not have engaged into criminal activities that they engage into.

There are a number of crime trends discussed in the book that can be associated with these theories. One of them is the criminal activity or rather the story of Tonda Ansey who is believed to have murdered a college professor who was teaching in the University of Miami in Ohio. The main reason why she might have committed this crime may be bitterness. She was frustrated and felt bitter that she was not achieving what she wanted. She therefore directed this anger to the professor because she thought that the professor was the one who was preventing her from achieve her goals. This can be termed as the same idea that the proponents of the strain theory says. They believe that the main reason for committing crime is the pressure that is from the society. Tonda murdered the professor because she felt under pressure from the society perhaps to perform better in her academics.

It can therefore be argued that because the pressure in the society will increase with the increase in the number of people, crime rate is also known to increase with the increase in population and the activities that are taking place in the city. For instance, in Houston Texas, there are reported increased cases of criminal activities which are now associated with increased drug use and poverty. The main reason for this is the fact that some people feel that they are failures and therefore they have to look for some activities which they would use to hide their true identity and deny the pressure that they are receiving from the societies. These are the same issues that are discussed by the sociological theories. In 2008 alone, the city had a total 1,106 cases of violent crime, 13.1 cases of murder and a good number of other criminal activities. This is a clear indication of the existence of high crime rates in this fourth largest city in the United States.

In conclusion, it is clear that that crime causation should be looked into closely as some of the main reasons which make people to commit crime vary from person to person. Using the sociological theories and the social process theories, it is possible to help reduce or prevent those criminal activities.