SOC 2230 Lecture 17: Criminal Experience

• School: University of Virginia
• Department: Sociology
• Course: SOC 2230
• Professor: Mc Connell Bob

Document Summary

Background factors are causes of criminal acts. There is foreground that is not considered in conventional criminology. Foreground: entices and attracts the offender, a person may not be pushed into crime by background as much as he is drawn into crime by foreground factors. Drawn into crime because it is enticing- pulled forward into the criminal act. Katz tries to describe and understand that experience. Try to understand what it feels like to commit such an offense. Seductive because crime is a sensual experience. Not so much that the offender wants to get something or wants to achieve something. A person wants to commit a crime because he wants to experience something. In many ways, the offender creates this experience for himself: sees and does things that put him in a different kind of world. Three emotions and experiences involved with righteous slaughter: humiliation: a holistic experience. The person who has been humiliated feels nothing but humiliated.