Personal Theories Of Crime

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Pages: 3

This paper is going to explain actual theories of crime that i have selected because they relate to my personal theory of crime in some way. I have picked two theories, Rational Choice Theory and Cognitive Information-processing theory. I picked these two theories because in my paper i said mental illness, the way they were nurtured or put into an environment, and choices they made on their own were leading factors to committing crime. I think there can't be just a few theories to describe why crime is committed. The list goes on and on and crime will never stop. My first leading factor of my personal theory paper was mental illness. I think cognitive information-processing theory goes with it in a few different aspects. The book definition of cognitive information -processing theory is a psychological perspective that involves the study of human perceptions, information processing, and decision making. Information processing theories focus on how people; 1. attend to environment events, 2. encode information to be learned and relate it to …show more content…
To go with those leading factors, I choose rational choice theory. Rational choice theory is defined as a perspective that holds that criminology is the result of conscious choice and that predicts that individuals choose to commit crime when the benefits outweigh the costs of disobeying the law. Rational choice theory originated during the late 18th century with the work of Cesare Beccaria. Since the 18th century the theory has much expanded. It is now put into different perspectives such as deterrence, situational, crime prevention, and routine activity theory. In essays written by Piquero and Tibbetts 2002, it is described how rational choice theory can be applied to a number of criminal behaviors. Organized crime, corporate crime, and violent behavior are among