Anatomy of a Crime
A blog on the article, “Explaining Crime, Physical Abnormalities, Psychological Disorders, Social And Economic Factors, Broken Windows, Income And Education.”
On the surface, crimes are black-and-white: if a person fails to follow the law, their actions are punishable by it. However, with the clear consequences presented by the laws and the government, questions like: why do people still commit crimes regardless of the punishment? An attempt to answer this question opens a different perspective: grey. This is highlighted in the article “Explaining Crime, Physical Abnormalities, Psychological Disorders, Social And Economic Factors, Broken Windows, Income And Education.”
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There is more to explaining crime and criminals than just bad behavior. It’s a choice made by people. It could be that their justification is that it is easy money, thrilling, and an abuse of power. However, other factors, such as crimes of passion and social environments, greatly affect its existence. This creates the understanding of crime as a complex web of reasons and explanations that is not easily scrutinized without an in-depth analysis.
Crimes of passion are often impulsive; they occur after a strong wave of emotions that temporarily impedes the rational thought of an individual. Driven by anger and jealousy, a person is more likely to commit a crime to seek revenge. Although this is not a justifiable enough reason, this is what makes a human.
However, it’s not solely the individual’s responsibility to keep themselves from committing a crime. The social environment is a powerful influence on the existence of a crime. This perspective is more complicated, as society is a little bit more unpredictable. In countries like the Philippines, crimes exist primarily because of inequality, poverty, and lack of opportunity. It’s often the case that small-scale criminals are found in the same societal category: marginalized. Most of these criminals are driven by their strong desire and need to survive and provide for their families. For them, committing a crime is easier than competing in an unfair opportunity market where the system has again failed to serve.
Another effect of the social environment in creating criminals is peer influence. Groups of small- to large-scale criminals are often pulled into crime because they know each other, and for them, committing crimes is normalized because it is what they are used to. No one taught them how to hustle the right way, and if they were a little bit more morally and legally correct, the idea would be immediately shut down by another peer because crime is easier and offers faster results. This socialization fosters criminality.
It is important to recognize that, yes, there are those criminals who commit crimes willingly. However, more than that, there are those pushed to their limits and left with no other choice. The state’s laws and punishments mitigate crime, but they don’t completely prevent criminals who strongly believe the government has turned its back on them. The only way to reduce, or ideally eradicate, crime is for the government and society to recognize and act on the true, sustainable needs of those in need, so that committing crimes no longer becomes a necessity to survive another day.
