Midterm Exam When looking at the various principles of choice related theories, the textbook written by Larry Siegel and Brandon Welsh, the Rational Choice Theory is defined as a utilitarian belief that man is a reasoning actor who weighs means and ends, costs and benefits, and makes a rational choice. Theories under this concept are, personal problems, financial needs or rewards, parental controls and supervision, revenge, deterrence, and vengeance, and lastly creating scripts. When trying to control delinquency, general deterrence is what theorists believe to help, perception and deterrence, actual deterrence and delinquency, shame and humiliation. To determine how delinquency occurs in juveniles, we focus on personal problems of children.
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The first being general deterrence, which is defined as crime control policies that depend on the fear of criminal penalties, such as long prison sentences for violent crimes the aim is to convince law violators that the pain outweighs the benefit of criminal activity (81). The idea of perception and deterrence is that when given the possible punishment for their crimes, one would think they’d avoid committing those crimes just because of the repercussions. Something that could relate in deterring crime are things like the Scared Straight Program which places delinquents in prison with prisoners who have realized the error of their ways to help them get their act together and not end up in prison like them. When looking at actual deterrence and delinquency, offenders realize that soon they will not be a minor and will be charged with harsher punishments. Police have been sent undercover in order to help prevent drug trafficking and gang related activities from young adolescents. An important idea from police involved with deterrence is the idea of parens patriae where children are treated instead of being punished (82), but also there are some situations to where kids are tried in adult courts, when that happens, children are more less to commit crimes in fear of being punished more. Lastly what can deter adolescents from committing crime are the fact that they are constantly being judged by their family and peers and when that happens they are more reluctant to commit those activities. The idea of being ostracized from a group or being left out because of their actions is more private within that circle of people, since that occurs without the delinquent’s knowledge it’s a more severe hit to their personal life and it works well as a
The first being general deterrence, which is defined as crime control policies that depend on the fear of criminal penalties, such as long prison sentences for violent crimes the aim is to convince law violators that the pain outweighs the benefit of criminal activity (81). The idea of perception and deterrence is that when given the possible punishment for their crimes, one would think they’d avoid committing those crimes just because of the repercussions. Something that could relate in deterring crime are things like the Scared Straight Program which places delinquents in prison with prisoners who have realized the error of their ways to help them get their act together and not end up in prison like them. When looking at actual deterrence and delinquency, offenders realize that soon they will not be a minor and will be charged with harsher punishments. Police have been sent undercover in order to help prevent drug trafficking and gang related activities from young adolescents. An important idea from police involved with deterrence is the idea of parens patriae where children are treated instead of being punished (82), but also there are some situations to where kids are tried in adult courts, when that happens, children are more less to commit crimes in fear of being punished more. Lastly what can deter adolescents from committing crime are the fact that they are constantly being judged by their family and peers and when that happens they are more reluctant to commit those activities. The idea of being ostracized from a group or being left out because of their actions is more private within that circle of people, since that occurs without the delinquent’s knowledge it’s a more severe hit to their personal life and it works well as a