Throughout this semester in Homicide Gateway Program Seminar I have been enlightened by the United States Criminal Justice System, specifically the causes and correlations of American homicide. This is due to the material our professors have administered to us for the past few months; an example that has undoubtedly benefited our learning could be the student engagement activities. I have personally found these raw learning opportunities to be of value because the sole purpose of them is to help us by providing words of wisdom to improve our future careers. In this paper I am going to concentrate on and develop two causes of homicide both based off of chapter four, “Why We Do It, Theories of Homicide” in American Homicide by Richard M. Hough and Kimberly D. McCorkle, and section two “Theorizing About Homicide” in The Nature of Homicide: Trends and Changes by Pamela K. Lattitmore and Cynthia A. Nahabedian; as well as include some smaller references here and there of other scholarly articles. I am specifically going to focus on the Naturalistic perspective particularly Classical and Positivistic explanations along with briefly explaining Spiritistic reasoning.
For the most part, the book American Homicide is based on the United States homicide rates and reasoning; chapter four is the most prevalent on the reasoning side because it explains how and why people kill by the authors discussing certain theories that could be indicators to why murder exists. Expressly, the examinations of the different types of homicide such as the most often kinds of deaths that occur in the U.S. as well as the more suspicious deaths that have become more popular in the United States are explained. I personally enjoyed this book due to the fact that it provided a plethora of real life examples; the “Why Would They Do It?” boxes were especially helpful because the authors provided the audience with distinct homicide cases as well as the specific motivations behind the murders correlating it back to the previous texts. The chapters are also just long enough to inform us, the students, of the subject matter, but not too long to discourage us with all the material given. The authors speak on great authority on the subject matter in which has resulted in a very well written and thought out book.
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As for the article The Nature of Homicide: Trends and Changes, I found profoundly interesting. This article was established from the proceeding of the 1996 annual meeting of the Homicide Research Working Group in which consisted of nine sections. The particular section that caught my eye was by Christine E. Rasche, the second section, integrating theories of lethal violence. This caught my attention because it is based on the theories of crime that have been exercised throughout the world. Rasche did a fantastic job organizing her thoughts as well as giving brief narrative explanations to what the theories consisted of. Overall this article was very easy to follow and provided me with a lot of information to reflect on and compare to American Homicide book.
To begin, both The Nature of Homicide: Trends and Changes section two and American Homicide chapter four solely concentrate on theories that have effected the way we think of crime occurrences and give explanations to why homicide happens. Even though in todays world, some of the theories talked about in The Nature of Homicide: Trends and Changes are not as relevant today so they remain unspoken about does not mean they do not exists. For example, The Nature of Homicide: Trends and Changes mentioned the criminological theory of Spiritistic explanations; this is a theory that is based off of supernatural forces -such as gods, demons, cosmic forces, etc.- and how those who believe in it state that these forces interfere with their rational thinking. I find this very interesting because it is not often that you hear of people blaming their behavior on a supernatural influence, manipulating them into doing something unlawful.
The most common form of criminological theory in which is explained in both reading, The Nature of Homicide: Trends and Changes and American Homicide, is the Naturalistic explanations of Classical and Positivistic “schools of thought” (Lattimore 27). I agree with both these forms of Naturalistic explanation way more than the Spiritistic explanation because it “assumes that things happen in the world because of interactions and interrelationships between natural objects, events, and ideas” (Lattimore 27).
Let’s start off with Classical causes of crimes; I would like to explain that this phenomena is argued through Cesare Beccaria, the most notable inventor of the Classical theories. He stated that people by nature are inherently rational, intelligent, and capable of free will (Houghton and McCorkle 47). This in which backs up the Rational Choice Theory and Deterrence Theory, both explained in a brief article titled Rational Choice, Deterrence, and Social Learning in Criminology: The Path Not Taken* by Ronald L. Akers; this article states that “both theories assume that human actions are based on 'rational' decisions-that is, they are informed by the probable consequences of that action” (Akers 1). I completely agree with this because usually when someone commits a crime beforehand they weight out the possible repercussions that could come from their chosen unlawful act and decide whether it is worth it or not. This theory of Classical approaches became very popular over time due to the fact the most people believed it was the individuals responsibility to own up to the crime and not blame it on supernatural influences; although, by the time the 19th century rolled around many began to dismiss the notion of free will and favor another explanation (Lattimore 28).
The newly favorited explanation to Naturalistic approaches would be the Positivistic School of Thought discussed in the book American Homicide and The Nature of Homicide: Trends and Changes and American Homicide. This explains that human behavior is influenced by factors largely outside to control of the individual. Two specific yet different sub-schools live within this the Positivistic approach. The first sub-school is called Individual Determinism; this “assumes that the factors which influence human behavior are largely located inside the individual, either in her physical/biological nature or in his mental/psychological processes” (Lattimore 29). Individual Determinism has four major theoretical subsets within in it: Physical Type Theories - people are positively more involved than criminals-, Heredity and Defectiveness Theory - criminals are either inherited genetically or produced by biological defects-, Mental Deficiency Theories -criminality is due to low intelligence-, and lastly Metal Illness Theories -differ widely but all talk about how the mind functions or misfunctions- (Lattimore 29). All four of these types of theories assume that something about the person himself/herself causes them to behave badly. The second sub-school is Social-Cultural Determinism. This concludes that crime is not due to damaged people more so a damaged society (Houghton and McCorkle 48). Social Structural Theories -there are social structures that cause people to participate in crime- and the Social Process Theories -the cultures and processes within certain structures motivate crime- both have very sound arguments and theories within them yet are still widely criticized; this is due to the primary attention being focused on the lower classes and how certain behavior classify people as criminals (Lattimore 30). I personally agree with both theories because I believe crime depends on the environment it's occurring in and the values upheld in that neighborhood.
From what we have learned in class, specifically from the Colorado Department of Corrections Division of Adult Parole Panel, I feel both Classical and Positivistic explanations play into crime. Yes I believe human beings are capable of free will and make decisions based on possible consequences as explained in Rational Choice Theory and Deterrence Theory but I also think certain people are susceptible of crime like explained in Social Structural Theories and Social Process Theories. In the Adult Parole Panel, one man explained how he didn’t grow up in the best environment resulting in him turning to things such as gangs, alcohol, and drugs; this represents the Social Structural Theories and Social Process Theories because since he grew up in an area were people were susceptible to joining gangs, whether it be for protection or just to get money, it shows that the social structure, like the unsafe neighborhood, caused him to participate in crime because he had no other choice; as well as how the gangs cultures and processes within that neighborhood motivated the crimes he aided in. According to Differential Association, which is very prevalent within Social Process Theories, describes that criminal behavior is learned from interactions with others and the values that are received during the interaction. “Individuals learn values from a wide range of associates and institutions, such as family, friends, and coworkers and those values either support or oppose criminal behavior” (Hesse). This theory offers possible reasons was to why juveniles, like the adult parolee, join and commit crimes while in a gangs. As for the Rational Choice and Deterrence Theory, the adult parolee explained he understood exactly what he was doing at the time but didn’t realized the repercussions that could come from it.
With that, I feel these theories have enlightened us to have a better understanding of how and why crime occurs, allowing us to be more open minded about certain criminal occurrences resulting in taking a ‘pause’ before we give ourselves permission to be Judge and Jury without knowing the whole story.
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