M5 A2 LASA Assignment

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Final Draft

Sherry L. Crowe

Dr. Robert Meyer

Psychology of Criminal Behavior

FP6015

June 14, 2017

Criminal behavior

Homicide

Homicides are crimes that comprise of murder and manslaughter, and they violate the criminal laws (Hodell, 2014). In other cases, there can be crimes involving self-defense and are categorized as not criminal. Legal killings include manslaughter and murder in multiple degrees depending on the gravity of the offence. Homicide is the act of killing of human beings by another person depending on different intentions. According to FBI, homicide falls under a broad category of the violent crimes. Research shows that in the US the crime rose by 5.3 % in 2016. The data provided detailed information as to the cause of the offence and the degree of the criminality of the cases. It also indicated the type of crimes done and the people involved. In the year 2015, the crime rate perpetrated by the male was 89% and the female 11%. This enabled the authorities to come up with various ways and means of mitigating crime committed by the male people in the society.

Murder

In homicide, the first-degree murder is the most serious crime. Murder can be both intentional and premeditated. Intentional murder or deliberate involves short or long-term plan to kill a victim. In case someone intends to kill a certain individual and in the long run by mistake kills another person (Chakravorty, 2015). The crime is still categorized under the first-degree murder because of the intention of the accused. In cases where there is the lack of premeditated murder, but the victim killed a person it is described as “in the heat of passion”, it can be categorized and second-degree murder. The categorization depends on the intensity of the crime and at some point, can fall under manslaughter charges as cited by the state and its rules and regulation as enshrined in the constitution.

Manslaughter

Manslaughter is the widespread killing of a fellow human being. The lowest category of crime is involuntary manslaughter. Involuntary manslaughter occurs when the perpetrator had no intention of killing but killed the victim through the criminal behavior of negligence or recklessness. A good example is a drunk driver driving recklessly and accidentally knocks and kills someone on the road. The driver did not intend intent o kill, but in the long run, someone has died. Voluntary manslaughter entails the offender did not have prior intent to kill in the case the homicide it can occur “in the heat of passion” and with no forethought. The state criminalizes and categorizes under a variant of murder charges, instead of manslaughter (Stubbs, 2016).

There are similarities in the civil and criminal legal systems regarding the burden of persuasion, and penalties imposed on the key players or perpetrators. Criminal justice imposes penalties the minute a suspect is found and pronounced guilty (Stephen, 2014). The categories involved in a crime is probation, imprisonment and restitution and other punishments involved as deemed fit by the different constitutions of different states. In civil cases, the system is entitled to pay monetary damages in case of being accused guilty. Proving beyond a reasonable doubt is a standard that is applied during the prosecution of a criminal and determination of the offence; it is a necessity and a critical one in order not to convict the wrong persons. Civil cases mostly rely on the preponderance of evidence which is a standard application in civil matters where the ruling is on the weight of the evidence provided (Cicchin, 2016).

Etiology theories

There are different theories involved in trying to explain the factors that influence criminal behaviors that make offenders to commit the homicide. There are environmental ideas involved with physical methods of killing (Akers, 2013). These theories include socialization, social and control structural theories.

Socialization

According to socialization theory, the men’s aggression and go-getter tendencies make them achieve their objectives (Taylor, 2013). The male seems more aggressive than the female counterparts. The gender difference is a variation factor to differentiate between male and female is used to justify the reason why the homicide offender is increasing in women than men. Socialization is widely embraced in academic and professional circles relying on the concept of defending homicide patterns that could lead to erratic conclusions. Drug abuse is the most influential factor in the causes of murder. Extreme socialization leads to lack of physiologic tolerance to drug and substance abuse. According to the journal by Oxford University, the data collected on the homicide cases suggest that the ex-convicts are eight times probably to commit a crime in 2 weeks after their release. Similarly, the extreme cases were noted to occur with the ex-convicts who were under drug abuse. Drugs used by the convicts are just a way of survival tactics and mitigating boredom cases, these adaptation leads to drug addiction and thus influences their reasoning capability in a negative manner. Prisoners are highly capable of committing homicide because of the adverse environment that they are exposed to during their serving of the sentence (Wortley, 2016). The conditions they live in affects them psychologically and thus shape their character and can influence their actions even when out of prison. Many ex-convicts suffer from long-life trauma and thus are taken into a rehabilitation center, and most of them never recover completely.

Social structure

The social structure theory tries to explain the reasons as to why a person would want to murder another person. There are perspectives like the social problems including education and poverty which are the root causes of the homicide in the society. (Eck, 2015) Denoted that there is uncertainty whether social structures influence a person to commit suicide and they get involved in criminal activities and more so murder. Lack of education can be contributing factor which lures teenagers into committing illegal activities. School dropouts are the most affected victims by the fact that they are lured into joining criminal gangs who engage themselves in the criminal activities in the society. The lifestyle also influences the social and the criminality. Most teenagers like the classy and expensive lifestyle and thus as they want to achieve their self-actualization. They get involved with expensive lifestyle and thus in the spirit of satisfying their needs they should get involved with gangs for the benefit of gaining income to sustain their lifestyle (Donovan, 2016). Search for livelihood and money has led to involvement in criminal activities that are experienced in the society today. In an example of San Diego County, a “total of 5,409 Part 1 violent crimes were recorded including homicide, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault.

Relevant prevention, intervention, and treatment to homicide

Many stages can achieve prevention and Solve of criminal cases. Criminals may be people who are ex-convicts or new criminals. Transparency and fairness in closing the cases must be engaged in the process of determining the criminals. The courts must be fair and transparent regarding truth and imposition of the penalty to the convicts and should entail “prove beyond reasonable doubt” and should be enhanced in order not to convict the innocent people in any criminal case (Robinson, 2013). Any party is found guilty of any wrongdoing to another individual is entitled to pay monetary damages in the case found guilty. The criminal system rectifies the offender while the civil system seeks to compensate the aggrieved party. Both scenarios deliberate their judgment through the evidence provided in the courts of law in every state. In also elaborates the provision of professional practitioners like the judges who must be involved in the determination of the cases. Since Homicide occurs in our societies, it needs to be addressed by the general public. Awareness regarding campaigns by communities and different groups must be enhanced. The security arms of the government must collaborate with the public in determining cases involving homicide. The public must be ready and swift to report such incidents to the police and the police in their turn must be quick to act and prevent the crime taking place, and in this case, the crime rate will be reduced. The introduction of rehabilitation centers for the ex-convicts who are involved in the homicide is an important feature that must be considered by the governing state. Rehabilitation centers will make the convicts be incorporated back into the society while making them productive and in that way, they gain confidence and work productively with the community they come from (Magrude, 2016). Programs that create jobs for the unemployed youths must be designed to enhance employment for the energetic young people in building the nation and raising their life standards and thus help them to avoid crime.

Reference

Hodell, E. C., Wasarhaley, N. E., Lynch, K. R., & Golding, J. M. (2014). Mock juror gender biases and perceptions of self-defense claims in intimate partner homicide. Journal of Family Violence, 29(5), 495-506.

Chakravorty, S., Daripa, S., Saha, U., Bose, S., Goswami, S., & Mitra, S. (2015). Data mining techniques for analyzing murder related structured and unstructured data. American Journal of Advanced Computing, 2(2).

Stubbs, J. (2016). Murder, manslaughter and domestic violence.

Stephen, J. F. (2014). Selected Writings of James Fitzjames Stephen: A General View of the Criminal Law. Oxford University Press, USA.

Cicchini, M. D., & White, L. T. (2016). Testing the Impact of Criminal Jury Instructions on Verdicts: A Conceptual Replication.

Akers, R. L. (2013). Criminological theories: Introduction and evaluation. Routledge.

Wortley, R. K., & Townsley, M. (Eds.). (2016). Environmental criminology and crime analysis (Vol. 18). Taylor & Francis.

Taylor, I., Walton, P., & Young, J. (2013). The new criminology: For a social theory of deviance. Routledge.

Donovan, J. E. (2016). Child and adolescent socialization into substance use. In the Oxford Handbook of Adolescent Substance Abuse.

Robinson, J., Cox, G., Malone, A., Williamson, M., Baldwin, G., Fletcher, K., & O’Brien, M. (2013). A systematic review of school-based interventions aimed at preventing, treating, and responding to suicide-related behavior in young people. Crisis.

Magruder, K. M., Kassam-Adams, N., Thoresen, S., & Olff, M. (2016). Prevention and public health approaches to trauma and traumatic stress: a rationale and a call to action. European journal of psychotraumatology, 7.