CRJ 270 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Social Emotions, Critical Criminology
Document Summary
Foreground of crime: the immediate situation and the thought processes of the individual criminal at the time of committing the crime. Background of crime: everything that person is (age, race, gender, impulsive, drug abuser) or has experienced (abuse, poverty, broken home, drugs) that may have led him or her to commit a crime. Rational choice theory: a neoclassical theory asserting that offenders are free actors responsible for their own actions. Rational choice theorists view criminal acts as specific examples of the general principle that all human behavior reflects the rational pursuit of benefits and advantages. People are conscious social actors free to choose crime, and they will do so if they perceive that its utility exceeds the pains they might conceivably except if discovered. Human agency: a concept that maintains humans have the capacity to make choices and the responsibility to make moral ones regardless of the internal or external constraints on one"s ability to do so.
