Social Reification Of Crime Research Paper

“Crime rates and individuals’ risks of victimization vary widely by social context. This social context is a micro-environment that has physical and social dimensions” (Mithe & Meier, 1994.) Which can be related to Emile Durkheim’s social fact and Karl Marx’s social reification. Social facts are anything that originates in a culture or social institution, external to, and coercive of, individual behavior. Social reification is the “thingification” of social relations where they are rendered active, or coercive, and subjects rendered passive. When these two things are combined, they can be seen as a chart that makes up reality and what people think. There are four quadrants where individuals view situations accurately or inaccurately with regards to a situation that may or …show more content…
People can: one, react to a situation, two, develop learned helplessness and give up, three, let opportunities go and not try, and four, understand that work pays off and keep working towards a better self. These four situations, may not happen in chronological order due to how different people react with different emotions. Many individuals that have committed crimes at one point in their lives, can be prime examples of how people deal with different context throughout life. This paper will primarily be focused on those people who have already committed crimes, whether they are civil or criminal crimes. They may be faced with different situations that can either empower them to learn or deal with failure that may bring them down.
There are five stages that an incarcerated person goes through. They may not be in the exact order that they are listed in