Causes of Criminal Behavior

Paper Summary:

Today, deviance and crime plague American society. There are vast degrees of deviance, including a simple shoplifter, a car theft, or the killing machine with no conscience, otherwise known as the serial killer. But how is this killing machine created? Where and how does this type of criminal behavior begin? The paper explains that answers to these questions must be addressed in order to stop the formation of this deviance. The essay investigates the life of one of the most infamous serial killers, Henry Lee Lucas, to answer these questions. In a search for the answer, the question of nature vs. nurture is inevitably brought up. Scientists and psychologists have debated whether a child's upbringing forms behavior or whether an individual is born with a personality. Most scientists believe that biological dysfunctions and physical illnesses are the factors that bring on this type of deviance. Most psychologists will argue family, society, environment, and the media cause criminal behavior. While many factors contribute to this frightening deviance, the root of criminal behavior lies in the home and the family structure of children. The ability to understand and repair such deviance prevents people from becoming either victim or victimizer.

From the Paper:

"Exposure to extreme violence in childhood can also lead to violent behavior in the child. In the Lucas household, violence was, for the most part, the only type of behavior exhibited. Lucas grew up believing that this was normal, so his tolerance level for violence remained abnormal. Marshall B. Clinard and Robert F. Meier, authors of Sociology of Deviant Behavior, describe, "a person becomes deviant because of an excess of definitions favorable to violation of norms over definitions unfavorable to violations of norms the predominance of deviant definitions leads to deviant behavior" (86). In other words, everything that went on in the Lucas household defied all the norms of society, but to Lucas, even though these weren't the norms of the larger society, they became the norms for his behavior because he grew up with them and did not know any differently."

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