Theories and practice in the field of criminal justice are difficult to tie together because of the lack of theory used to understand crime that will teach lessons for future criminal acts. Instead,...

Crime
Criminal Justice Theories
Crime
Introduction
Theories play a very important role in helping ensure that there is a clear and in depth
understanding of the action of crime. The recent developments in technology and communication
have facilitated the development of an extremely organized and speedy investigation processes.
A clear understanding of crime theories and sociological theories would help ensure that crime is
controlled in a better manner. It would become easier to segregate cases and investigate them in
a better manner.
Sociological theories of crime – strengths and weaknesses
a. Social control theory
The social control theory advocates the fact that social control and building of an
understanding of social behavior reduces anti social behavior and propagates further socially
acceptable behavior. It states that social control can lead to prevention of crime. It relates to
society having an important role in shaping the behavior and deciding what is acceptable and
what is not.
“Independent self and social self are two important aspects of an individual’s personality.
It is essential to understand that both happen to be two sides of the same coin” (Hirschi, T.
2002). It is essential that they are understood to be the same person. “The independent self is the
personal continuance, which remains constant” (Hirschi, T. 2002). “The traits do not change. But
the social self is based on past experience and memory. This makes it ever changing and
influenced by events. This is so because of cognition or learning” (Cohen, A., 1977).
There are several strengths of this theory. This theory is based on a very simple concept
of acceptability and rejection. Acceptance in human nature and so social control and social
Crime
evaluation does result in avoidance of anti – social behavior. This indicates that the social
context of a criminal can provide several insights that can help in the investigation processes.
The main weakness of this theory is that it is too simple to be applied in several real or
practical cases and it is not possible to accurately analyze the social elements that lead to a crime
in several cases. All of this results in several problems in being able to apply the social theory.
Though anti social behavior is unacceptable to the society, the only impact that it leads to is the
hiding of the crime and not in stopping it (Agnew, R, 1992).
b....