criminal justice Essay

Submitted By maddybrand
Words: 2435
Pages: 10
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Work within a criminal Justice environment
Major research assignment

Maddison Brand
5/7/2014

1. Provide a working definition of crime. What are the main causes of crime in society? In the answer include psychological and socio economic causes of crime.
Crime is defined as an offence against society; conduct is an act or omission considered to be a harmful offence, injurious or unacceptable to the community. Crime can be classified into two different avenues. Summary which is less serious offences and indictable with all serious offences. There are two main causes in our society. The first problem our society faces when it comes to crime is the social economic factor. This is a problem in today’s society as people who are not educated or are unemployed will be more likely to commit crimes such as theft as they feel that the only way to live a stable life is by obtaining it illegally. As the cost of living is very high in this century, committing crimes seems like the only logical option to be able to afford to live. If a person gets away with committing offences to obtain more they may become addicted to this lifestyle. Even turning to selling drugs as a way to live, and in turn trying drugs and having to continuing stealing to feed a habit and continue to survive. (Only in some cases). a study, conducted by the Centre for Research and Studies at Abu Dhabi police, established a clear link between illiteracy and criminal behaviour, saying that the rate of such crimes are nearly double among the illiterate population.

The second problem we have in today’s society is the psychological problem. Mental disorders can develop in many ways in today’s society but can mainly be attributed to either genetics, drug/alcohol abuse or growing up in a broken or dysfunctional family. Crimes committed by these people are usually a lot more serious then summary offences and can include murder, rape, assault etc. as their mental well- being is jeopardised, leaving them with a distorted perception of reality and unable to comprehend society’s ‘norms’. Children who have been abused or neglected can be subject to psychological problems as they can feel alone/angry and not have the proper techniques in dealing with problems, as they haven’t had a proper upbringing. Another factor to psychological problems is emotions. A person may have never committed any crimes but if one event happens that changes their emotions (angry, sad, etc) they could lash out and commit crimes that they didn’t even know they were capable of. A case study that relates to the Psychological problem is that of Gary Gilmore, who murdered two young men in cold blood and then refused to appeal his death sentence. Gary's younger brother did an extensive search of his family's history to try to determine where things went wrong—particularly since of four brothers, Gary was the only outwardly violent one. Mikal traces family secrets, extreme emotional neglect, religious rigidity, and bouts of physical abuse that his brothers endured back to his grandparents - both sets of which rejected the two children who grew up to become Gilmore's parents. Gary grew up with the death of 3 of his brothers and his dad Frank Gilmore Sr., was a con man, a gypsy, an alcoholic, a brutal autocrat, and an abusive husband and father. Here you can see the severe dysfunction that caused Gary to lash out and commit the crimes that he did.

2. Develop a criminal profile for each of the following crimes:
Homicide: The killing of one human being by another human being. In Australia Over the past 18 years (1 July 1989 to 30 June 2007), the rate of homicide incidents decreased from 1.9 in 1990-91 and 1992-93 to the second-lowest recorded rate, of 1.3, in 2006-07. *rate per 100,000 population. In 2006-07, there were 230 murder charges, 28 manslaughter charges, one infanticide charge, and one unknown. The type of charge against an offender may change once the incident proceeds through the
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