Individuals tend to commit acts that will benefit them in the long run, believing that there are no consequences. Those who choose to kill do so to obtain a personal benefit. According to the Uniform Crime Reports, criminal homicide is “the willful (nonnegligent) killing of one human being by another” (Cole, Smith, & DeJong, 2014, p. 78). One example is the case of twenty-year-old Alan Hruby. In October 2014, he shot and killed his seventeen-year-old sister, his mother and his father in their home in Oklahoma (McLaughlin, 2015). McLaughlin describes the events surrounding Hruby’s decision to murder his parents which ultimately can be attributed to the rational choice theory of crime. Alan Hruby had an uncontrollable shopping addiction…show more content… He believed that, in order to get his parents life insurance policy, he would need for them to die (Associated Press, 2016). He chose his victims to be his family because they were reasonable targets (Walsh, 2014, p. 41). They had something that he wanted and he was angry that his father had cut him off. His parents were no longer providing for his uncontrollable shopping addiction and now Hruby was left with no money and no way to finance his addiction. To Hruby, his family was not as important to him as was his compulsion to spend. He already had charges against him for credit card fraud and is currently serving a three-year sentence (McLaughlin, 2015). In this case, the benefit to killing his parents and sister was all of their money and their life insurance policies. According to Hruby, going to jail was not a deterrent. He still committed the act with the knowledge that he could possibly go to jail. Alan Hruby took a gun from his home. It did not belong to him and he should not have had access to it. It was his father’s gun and he used it to take their lives. The gun was a component of opportunity (Short, 1997, p. 64). The gun was made available to him in his own home. After he committed the horrific act, he fled the scene with the murder weapon and the video evidence. He discarded the two hoping that there would be no trace back to him and therefore he…show more content… To him, killing his family was the best way for him to make money and get revenge on his parents for cutting him off. His decision is best explained through rational choice theory, he made the choice based on the risks and benefits. In order to combat these types of crimes in the future, policies should be implemented regarding the use of guns in homes with mentally unstable individuals and children. Also, these types of offenders should be individually rehabilitated and counseled through the sentence in order to be reformed. A combination of these two things can provide a decrease in crime and an all around safer
