Criminal Justice Theories Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Criminal Justice Theories - Research Paper Example Victim Precipitation Theory This theory suggests that most people initiate or cause a specific confrontation that may result eventually to that person being victimized by death or injury. Such kind of precipitation on the victim can be termed as either passive or active. Active precipitation on the part of the victim exists where the victim intentionally acts in a manner that is provocative, uses threats or fighting words, or simply initiates an attack first. For example, in cases of crimes such as rape, courts have presented verdicts such as not-guilty based upon whether the victim acted in away or not acted at all in away suggesting consent to the act of sexual relation like the dress code of the woman in question. On the other hand, passive precipitation occurs where the victim exhibits particular features and characteristics that unintentionally threatens or motivates the attacker. Such kind of crimes do happen may be due to conflicts at personal level like where two individuals compete for a job promotion, love interest, or any other rare or desirable commodity. For example, a woman may be promoted and end up being a victim of violence due to the jealousy of someone she may or may not know well from the work station or away. Passive precipitation may also be experienced in cases where the victim is part of a specific group that threatens or offends the economic well being of someone, reputation or even status. According to research, this kind of precipitation exists in situations where there is a relation to power. Hence, economic power minimizes the victimization risk (Samuel, 2007). Differential Association Theory This theory explains deviance and criminal acts in terms of the social relationships of an individual. The Differential Association Theory attributes the causes of crime to a person’s social context. The theory rejects the intense individualism of psychiatry and biological determinism and economic explanations as causes of criminal activ ities. Differential Association Theory poses no particular or obvious threat to the treatment of humane of the victims or the criminals who have been identified. This theory suggests that an individual turns to delinquent lifestyle due to excessive definitions that favor violations of the law over those definitions that are unfavorable to violation of the law. That is to say, deviance results in a situation where an individual is exposed to many social messages that favor conduct than those favoring pro-social acts. Sutherland suggests that the concept of differential social organization and differential association may be applied to aggregation level and an individual level respectively. Whereas differential association theory gives explanations why an individual may gravitate towards criminal and delinquent behavior, differential social organization gives reasons as to why the rates of crime among different social entities appear to differ from each other. The differential associa tion theory has 9 basic postulates: Criminal and delinquent behavior is learned; the theory asserts that delinquent behavior is not particularly inherited and an individual not with no training in crime do not invent any delinquent or criminal behavior; Criminal and delinquent lifestyle is learned from interaction with other people during communication including gestures, verbal or written communication; Learning criminal behavior and delinquent li