Rational Choice Theory: Why Do People Commit A Crime?

The rational choice theory expresses why people make the choice to commit a crime. It is not only a response from how someone was raised or from society pressures to an individual, but how the offender decided to commit a certain crime because it serves a purpose for them. This system of ideas emphases on how a person can measure the benefits of marketing certain decisions or basically what causes a person to come up with a decision to act a certain way. In the first chapters of the book we can see how Sam’s behavior towards Beth changes. It is certainly his choice to treat her the way he does because he doesn't mistreat her all the time. He certainly knows when he has mistreated her because most of the time he tries to cover it up by being nice again.
The target of the deterrence theory is to administer an adequate punishment for a certain crime to discourage offenders and society to commit act crime again. Male dominant culture back then I believe was what protected Sam for his abusive behavior towards Beth. Before women had no grounds to stand up for them self in domestic …show more content…
Therefore, domestic violence was a low priority call and police were indifferent to this cases. Police rarely acted on domestic violence calls and most of the time didn’t arrest the abuser. Beth didn’t have much of an option on what to do with her abusive husband. If she would report him there were no laws to protect her from her abusive husband and divorce was not really tolerated by society. Beth’s lack of money and power where the primary reasons why she didn’t leave Sam. American law in the 1970’s didn’t see martial rape as a crime either.
The limitations for the rational choice theory and the deterrence theory are that they don’t indicate why a person commits a crime or why they take certain decisions. These theories are not proactive and may not protect the