Institutional Anomie Theory Of Crime

People’s bonds existed since the moment humans decided to coexist with each other. People tend to look back to the past to find an answer for the future. People try to find people similar to them in order to share their thoughts and feelings. People see themselves in others, and that’s why people’s relationship with others are so complex. Before the creation of criminology studies, finding a criminal by his or her relationship with the victim was unthinkable. Nowadays, victimization studies are the second key, after the crime scene, to find an offender. Sometimes, the similarities between the criminal and the victim can make the crime seem as if the criminal was attacking his double. However, for some crimes, there is a third person who can …show more content…
What existed first the victim or the offender? It is not necessary the existence of an offender in order to find a victim. People can become a victim of destiny itself. The Anomie Theories talks about how people who can achieve the adopted social goals find alternatives to achieve them (Garcia, 2016). This theory explains crimes in all social levels. For example, while in a low social class stealing can be physical survival (food and/or housing), in high classes stealing can be the social status (keeping the same standard of life). A sub-theory (Macro-Level Theory: Institutional Anomie Theory) explains why crime rates are high: the American Dream (Garcia, 2016). People live in constant stress of achieving a high-middle class life in order to be considered a successful person, which leads people to relieve this stress on others. Also, other factors also influence people’s view of what are appropriate behaviors. According to Hindelang, “structural constraints, such as rates of employment and familial arrangements, […] direct individuals’ choices about appropriate behaviors” (qtd. in Shaffer, 2004) The theory shows that victimization can be a result of unfortunate circumstances in life that doesn’t involve an offender to harmfully change a person’s daily …show more content…
According to Slater et, al. bystanders who share the same social affiliation with a victim tend to act when the victim asks or not for help. Also, this bystander used to experience more anger and frustration when he doesn’t act for any reason. On the other hand, bystanders who don 't share any similarity with the victim avoid to intervene in the conflict, and they used to feel pity instead (2013).
Similarities are what makes people feel safe, but also afraid because they know what others are able to do. However, an experiment showed that either with verbal or physical intervention a bystander will try to intervene for a victim (Patterson,