Sociological theories about crime attempt to explain how a person’s background affects their judgement. America became a large contributor to this study of crime with the Chicago School of sociology in the early 20th century. The Chicago School saw the social lives of criminals to be a determiner of their behavior. At University of Chicago in the early 1920’s, many professors began to see a pattern of higher crime in the center of a city. Elements of inner city life, such as poverty, illiteracy, and unemployment, led to social disorganization and created a higher amount of crime. Robert Merton created Anomie Theory in 1938, which stated there was a normalcy in certain American goals that are not available to everyone, so criminals go to crime
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Edwin Sutherland elaborated on this idea and stated children who grew up in crime-filled environments would be unaware of conformist values, and therefore would be more likely to commit crime themselves, calling the theory differential association theory. According to Ashley Crossman, a sociology expert “This theory focuses on how people become criminals, not why they become criminals,”, which makes this thoery different than many others in the sociological school. However, others believed the development of a person played a strong role in possible criminal activity. Both the life course perspective and social development theory placed a high importance on antisocial behavior in the teenage years. The final theories of criminal behavior are drawn from the belief that conflict is inevitable because of basic differences in life such as values and interests. Radical criminology states that deviant behavior is caused because of the lack of equally distributed wealth and power. Inequalities in wealth and power lead to poverty and discrimination, which is very frustrating for many and can drive them to commit a crime. Radical criminology is often found to be flawed because it focuses on a capitalist society, and therefore cannot be applied to all
Edwin Sutherland elaborated on this idea and stated children who grew up in crime-filled environments would be unaware of conformist values, and therefore would be more likely to commit crime themselves, calling the theory differential association theory. According to Ashley Crossman, a sociology expert “This theory focuses on how people become criminals, not why they become criminals,”, which makes this thoery different than many others in the sociological school. However, others believed the development of a person played a strong role in possible criminal activity. Both the life course perspective and social development theory placed a high importance on antisocial behavior in the teenage years. The final theories of criminal behavior are drawn from the belief that conflict is inevitable because of basic differences in life such as values and interests. Radical criminology states that deviant behavior is caused because of the lack of equally distributed wealth and power. Inequalities in wealth and power lead to poverty and discrimination, which is very frustrating for many and can drive them to commit a crime. Radical criminology is often found to be flawed because it focuses on a capitalist society, and therefore cannot be applied to all