Among the many social issues, crime tops the list due to its impact on society, which calls for understanding its motives. That means that crime against people, communities, and institutions at the societal level also affects society. These effects are mainly financial and outcome from spending on forestalling crime, impacts of crime, and responding to them. In particular, communities and governments are forced to spend public money on police forces, prisons, courts, and treatment systems that entail the salaries of social workers, public defenders, and therapists (Gottfredson, 2021). The time spent by the victims, delinquents, their families, and the judges when dealing with the court procedures also inhibit the society members from engaging in productive activities.
Based on the current estimates, the amount of money that US taxpayers spend on crime is alarming. By the start of the 21st century, it was approximated that crime cost the USA a whopping $1.7 trillion annually (Anderson, 2021). In addition, the current cost of crime in the USA is approximately $ 4.7 to $5.8 trillion annually (Anderson, 2021). To unearth this amount, there are at least 30,000 active police officers serving to ensure the jurisdiction’s safety in New York City (Anderson, 2021). Besides the financial cost, crime impacts society’s perceptions of safety, and fears like these restrict social operations and community cohesion (Braga et al., 2019). Therefore, crime is a social issue that affects various parts of society, including communal and economic aspects, and due to that, it is best understood using strain and labeling theories.
Introduction of the Theoretical Concepts
Strain theory entails a sociological and criminology model established in 1938 by Robert Merton. This approach affirms that society pressures people to attain specific socially required goals, even though they lack the means to achieve them. Therefore, this forces people to have a strain that might make them engage in unacceptable conduct to attain the socially required standards (Agnew, 1992). These strains could be structural or individual. More specifically, structural strain entails the societal procedures that sieve down and impact how people understand their necessities (Thaxton & Agnew, 2017).
In other words, if a particular societal pattern is integrally insufficient or there is less regulation, this might modify the person’s understanding. Individual strain entails the fractions and agonies people endure as they search for means to attain their needs. Attaining these goals might become more vital than the means implemented (Thaxton & Agnew, 2017). That said, this is one of the theories that better explain crime.
Labeling theory asserts that self-identity, as well as the conduct of people, might be regulated or impacted by the terminologies utilized to classify them. Moreover, this theory is connected with self-fulfilling, stereotyping, and prophecy (Walton, 2019). The labeling model holds that certain conducts are not natural; nonetheless, as people exist in society, they interact with others who either brand either negatively or positively. It is from these brandings that individuals develop certain behaviors within society (Walton, 2019). Thus, this theory is also a practical approach to depicting a crime.
How Each Theory Explains Crime
Merton Strain’s theory has a fundamental task in elaborating on crime as it deals with a tendency to crime and the situational aspects that make certain people engage in crime. Merton argued that all individuals in the USA are heartened to work towards cultural goals and attain monetary success (Agnew, 1992).
Lower-class people are usually deterred from attaining these goals in legitimate ways. Their caregivers might need to give them the required aptitudes and attitudes mandatory for school success. These people might also reside in communities that are considered inferior and lack enough resources. Their parents might also lack the financial capabilities to pay for their college education or set up businesses. In other words, social inequality scenarios create tension among certain people (Thaxton & Agnew, 2017). As a result, lower-class people always are more likely to experience tension or strain, with this pressure being a role of the dysfunction among their goals and the genuine way of attaining them.
Merton affirms that there are various means that these individuals cope with their strains, some of that entail crime. These underprivileged individuals try to attain societal success via illegal means, for instance, selling drugs and prostitution. They might also strike their anger by causing harm to others or engaging in illicit substances (Agnew, 1992). In addition, these people might reject the ambition of financial success and concentrate on the attainment of other goals, particulars that entail crime. Therefore, the theory links crime with the societal strains placed on people with insufficient means of success (Agnew, 1992). These people, such as racially or financially disadvantaged individuals, therefore, see that the only way to attain the success stated by society is by using illegal means, which breeds crime.
The labeling model of crime is linked with the concept of interactionism. The main concepts are that wrongdoing is socially constructed. Therefore, agents of social control place the powerless as the deviant and criminal founded on stereotypical ideas, which establishes such, as self-fulfilling prediction, criminal job, and deviancy intensification. In other words, this theory states that people do not turn into criminals due to their social settings. Nonetheless, crime originates due to labeling by authorities or powerful figures (Abrah, 2019). They view crime as the result of the micro-level connections among particular people and the police, instead of the outcomes of external social factors, for instance, socialization or jammed opportunity arrangements.
Crime definitions are controlled by those in powerful positions via the creation of policies and clarifying such policies by the police and the courts. By using these labels on individuals as well as creating types of categories, these official figures strengthen society’s control pattern (Abrah, 2019). From the above notion, it is shown that labeling theory connects crime to a socially constructed aspect. Based on this theory, society creates crime when certain influential figures identify others with criminal conduct. Thus, those labeled tend to turn into criminals as they were labeled.
Conclusion
Crime is a social issue as it affects society from all around, such as socially and economically. Due to crime, the government and society use lots of resources to secure their settings. Communities also lose the sense of safety, hindering social activities within society. Crime is a common challenge seen by law enforcement acting to secure various jurisdictions. Time is also wasted when people engage in criminal activities, in situations such as courts and ailing victims unable to be productive.
These motives make crime a subject that should be efficiently comprehended. Using strain and label theory, crime is understood. For instance, strain theory states that society pressures the disadvantaged, making them attain such necessities via any means, crime being one of them. Label theory affirms that crime is socially constructed, whereby naming others are criminals influence their behavior to involve in crime.
References
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Agnew, R. (1992). Foundation for a general strain theory of crime and delinquency. Criminology, 30(1), 47–88. Web.
Anderson, D. A. (2021). The aggregate cost of crime in the United States. The Journal of Law and Economics, 64(4), 857–885. Web.
Braga, A. A., Weisburd, D., & Turchan, B. (2019). Focused deterrence strategies effects on crime: A systematic review. Campbell Systematic Reviews, 15(3). Web.
Gottfredson, M. R. (2021). The essential role of cross-national research in assessing theories of crime: Illustrations from modern control theory. International Criminology, 1(1), 28-37. Web.
Thaxton, S., & Agnew, R. (2017). When criminal coping is likely: An examination of conditioning effects in general strain theory. Journal of Quantitative Criminology, 34(4), 887–920. Web.
Walton, J. S. (2019). The evolutionary basis of belonging: Its relevance to denial of offending and labeling those who offend. Journal of Forensic Practice, 21(4), 202–211. Web.