When crimes happen, members of a society point their fingers at the criminals and the “deviant” ones blame their society for failing them. Although any individuals should take full responsibility for their actions, the power of the social system should never be underestimated in its ability to dominate the thoughts, beliefs and even the actions of a person. Early sociologists were keen to advocate ideas about the relations between the social system and crimes. In most crimes, the society should always be able to find a reason to care. Not only do crimes in the community cause panic about personal security, but the issue of the criminal and victim in reality should be seen as a society’s issue. There are crimes in every society, therefore;
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Most people get a university degree to run away from their lower class ranking only to find themselves later in a situation where they are similarly oppressed. The two claims above are idealistic thoughts but in reality become unrealistic. First, the claim that education reduces crimes such as robbery or fraud is irrelevant and not true. Those crimes just get translated into a different type of crime in a different class setting. When an individual is living below the poverty line, they become theft and steal to sustain a basic living. However, when they become educated, they start to notice the class inequality and oppression from their employers within the corporate world and they commit white collar crimes. Therefore, it should be seen that education is not necessarily the key to reduce crime but a way of creating new crimes in the process. Thus, the inequality would always cause crime despite the education levels of individuals. Secondly, the argument about values and rules taught in school as a way to prevent criminal behaviour is far from true. The education system in the North American system teaches children to be individualistic members and their self-esteem is based on how they evaluate themselves. Therefore, members of such a society would choose actions that benefit themselves first before others. Such an individualistic culture would most likely breed selfishness and greed. For that reason, a consensus on one type of norm or value could never be achieved since individualistic members are keener on listening to what they believe for personal benefits. However, a collectivistic culture on the other hand would encourage a group mentality where people would be more engaged in safekeeping the welfare of others, thus, help in the reduction of
Most people get a university degree to run away from their lower class ranking only to find themselves later in a situation where they are similarly oppressed. The two claims above are idealistic thoughts but in reality become unrealistic. First, the claim that education reduces crimes such as robbery or fraud is irrelevant and not true. Those crimes just get translated into a different type of crime in a different class setting. When an individual is living below the poverty line, they become theft and steal to sustain a basic living. However, when they become educated, they start to notice the class inequality and oppression from their employers within the corporate world and they commit white collar crimes. Therefore, it should be seen that education is not necessarily the key to reduce crime but a way of creating new crimes in the process. Thus, the inequality would always cause crime despite the education levels of individuals. Secondly, the argument about values and rules taught in school as a way to prevent criminal behaviour is far from true. The education system in the North American system teaches children to be individualistic members and their self-esteem is based on how they evaluate themselves. Therefore, members of such a society would choose actions that benefit themselves first before others. Such an individualistic culture would most likely breed selfishness and greed. For that reason, a consensus on one type of norm or value could never be achieved since individualistic members are keener on listening to what they believe for personal benefits. However, a collectivistic culture on the other hand would encourage a group mentality where people would be more engaged in safekeeping the welfare of others, thus, help in the reduction of