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Essay Instructions: Criminal Behavior

Consider the following scenario:

In January, 2011, six people were killed during the assassination attempt of US representative Gabrielle Gifford during a public gathering. The accused apparently was not able to control his anger and frustration against the government on number of issues. Answer the following questions with regard to this scenario:

?What does the scholarly literature indicate about when a particular behavior becomes a crime?

?Which school of criminology best explains the above scenario? Do you think there are factors outside the control of an individual that explain crime? If so, what are they and how do they contribute toward a person taking to crime?

The media is very influential when it comes to shaping someone's opinion of crime. What does the statement indicate about the media, both positively and negatively? How do the media influence someone's opinion on crime? Please answer keeping the following TV programs in mind.

?The national TV evening news programs (like CBS, NBC)

?24 hour news programs like FOX and CNN

?Hollywood movies

?TV shows like COPS

CSI is an American TV series which features people performing various crimes. Keeping this in mind answer the following:

?What does the research indicate about the media's influence on a person's criminal behavior?

?What might be done to ensure that the media does not influence people to take up criminal behavior?

Jeremy Bentham, a classical criminologist, has contributed a lot to criminology. One of his most important contributions is his idea of Hedonistic Calculus, which is also referred to as utilitarianism. This means that the value of a criminal behavior and the likelihood that someone will engage in that behavior are based on the amount of pleasure someone gets from engaging in the behavior versus the amount of pain associated with it.

Though we can't control how much pleasure someone gets from something, we can control the amount of pain associated with it.

?Is this statement acceptable? Why? Justify your answer with examples and scholarly support.

Suppose a criminal has been caught after committing his or her first crime. According to you:

?What punishment or degree of pain should be meted out so that the criminal is deterred from committing a crime again?

?Is it likely that your suggested pain or punishment would be implemented in the US justice system for the type of crime committed? Why?

Essay Instructions: Criminal Behavior Theories

Robert Sampson, a current criminologist who expresses some ideas that seem to stem from the Chicago School of thought, writes a lot about social capital and collective efficacy as it relates to crime. He defines social capital as the resource potential for personal and organizational networks. In looking at your own upbringing:

?What kind of social capital was available to you? Why?

?Did you have a lot of social capital relative to others? Had your social capital been influential in your life in terms of crime control? Why? Provide a real-life example of a person you think took to crime because of less social capital availability.

In the near future a major city will break ground on a new housing development project called the Metropolis. This complex will be located in one of the most impoverished neighborhoods. Some of the condominiums will be reserved for low-income families. They will be sold for around $160,000, and the rest will be sold for around $300,000?$350,000.

Imagine that you are a criminologist, and the city planner and developer have asked you to give your impression on how they should convince a commercial real estate developer to invest in a $500 million development project in an impoverished area. Using South University Online Library or the Internet, research for theories and based on your research, explain the theories that you can use as evidence to support whether this would be a good or bad idea.

Adams (1931) stated that "The American Dream is that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement."

However, according to Merton (1968), a fit society maintains a balance between goals and the means one uses to achieve those goals.

?Which statement is acceptable? Why? Provide well-corroborated, scholarly reasons to justify your answer.

?Can society be classified as "fit" based on Merton's definition? Why or why not? Justify your answer with real-life examples and scholarly reasoning.

References:

Adams, J. T. (1931). The epic of America. New York, NY: Blue Ribbon Books.

Merton, R. K. (1968). Social theory and social structure. New York, NY: The
Free Press.

Essay Instructions: The psychology of criminal behavior devotes a lot of research and study to develop profiles of persons engaging in different types of criminal behavior- i.e, the background and personality of the pedophile, the psychopath, the burglar, the batterer etc. Such profiles review social/familial/biological factors that are often helpful in understanding the causes of criminal behavior but some research has also brought into question the reliability of such profiles. To complicate matters further, the definition of criminal behavior changes over time. Some activities, which were formerly considered criminal have legally, at least, been normalized. Alcohol consumption marijuana possession and use, homosexual acts and other behaviors, once punishable by law, are now considered part of the normal repertoire. Still other clearly illegal behaviors conducted by government agents, such as torture and targeted assassinations are not included in studies of criminal behavior nor have the perpetrators been profiled.

Present your view on the issues described above, i.e., problems inherent in criminal profiling, changing definitions of criminal behaviors, criminal activities carried out by government agents and agencies. How do these issues impact on the tasks of the forensic psychologist?

In writing the paper, you might find it helpful to check out the following sources:

1. Snook, Cullen, Bennett, Taylor, Gendreau: The Criminal Profiling Illusion: What's Behind the Smoke and Mirrors. Criminal Justice ad Behavior, (Oct 2008) Vol 35. No.20-,pp. 11256-1276

2. Brandon Smith: The Database: Why Criminal Governments Spy on Citizen. http://www.infowars.com/the-database-why-criminal-governments-spy-on-citizens/

3. After Creating 352 New Crimes in a 7 Year Period, Congress Looks at Laws that Criminalize non-Criminal Behavior,
http://theoldspeakjoournal.wordpress.com/20120101/05

This is an opinion paper, not a research paper, and its purpose is to ponder the questions raised and offer a considered point of view.

Essay Instructions: Assign this paper to an American writer only. This paper should be based on the readings I sent. When writing, make sure you think about what the authors are saying (do not rely solely on someone’s findings or what they say someone else found). If you use a direct quote from a reading, you must provide me with the name of the author and the page number where the quote was taken from. If you borrow or use materials that are not sent for this paper, you need to provide me with full citations (author, date, location of article, etc.) for these works. Please make the paper respond to the question being asked and you MUST use the readings sent. Do not just summarize each of the sent readings. Integrate the readings while developing your answers. You do not need to use materials that are not provided. Your answer must be in your own words. DO NOT use lengthy quotes from the materials sent. I would expect that the paper be in propper APA format. All work should be saved in RTF format. Opinions are okay. But ONLY IF YOU SUPPORT YOUR OPINIONS with materials sent or elsewhere. This does not mean you may forget about the readings. You should first use the readings and then you may want to add your opinions/experiences to say whether you agree or do not agree with the readings. Paragraphs should be a minimum of 3 sentences and no more than 8. In the first paragraph of any paper you should state what the paper is about, briefly, and then use the following paragraphs to make your points. You should end you papers with a concluding paragraph in which you review what you stated in the previous paragraphs and why it is relevant. Flow is important. You must always use citations to develop and defend your arguments in the empirical findings of the assigned readings. You should base your arguments on the evidence you find in as many of the empirical readings as you can. Please remember, failure to use appropriate citation constitutes plagiarism. Work from an outline. If you use an outline (no matter how basic), your thoughts will be better
organized and your arguments will be more coherent. Also, make sure to include all of the readings in the paper that I send. Use subheadings in your papers where appropriate ??" it will keep you organized.

Here are a few examples of what your citations should look like:

Citing 1 author - (Smith, 2002).
Citing 2 authors - (Smith & Smith, 2002).
Citing 3 or more authors - (Smith et al., 2002).

Please use APA style in your papers. A great resource if you’re not familiar with this citation style is:(http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/01)

With all that said, here is the question you must answer in the paper:

1) How stable is criminal behavior over time? Why is this important?
2) Are genetic factors associated with criminal propensity? How do we know?
Make sure to answer all of the above questions.
There are faxes for this order.