Crime in America: Theoretical Explanations

Paper Summary:

This paper presents several sociological and criminological theories, including Labeling, Differential Association, Control, Strain and Differential Opportunity theories to explain crime in the United States. The paper argues that citizen involvement must increase in order to decrease crime. Those who are labeled fall into a niche of secondary deviance and will continue to commit crimes. The paper shows the difference between white and blue collar crime. Anomie and Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED) are also looked at in detail.

From the Paper:

"Now labeled and ostracized by the public, the person begins to view this label as central to their identity and the label soon becomes the person's master status. So what can this person possibly do? Society has shunned them, they no longer feel connected with the regular community and they are most likely to be completely enveloped by this little label. An option that often comes up is for the person to join a deviant subculture and be around others with similar labels."

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